Sleepy Hollow S02E11 – “The Akeda”

February 8, 2015ByTars Tarkas

Frank Irving needs a glowing sword in every episode!

Sleepy Hollow “The Akeda”
Written by Mark Goffman
Directed by Dwight Little

90% of this show is people hiding behind trees

At times Sleepy Hollow defies expectations. So when the seven year long prophecy that has become the founding mythology of the show gets tossed on its ear, the fun is only about to begin. “The Akeda” will have consequences that flow into the rest of the series. The episode’s fundamental changes to the series are lessened by one twist being telegraphed too far in advance, and another being far less of a twist than advertised. Still, things get tore up, and our intrepid band of heroes face a daunting trial as the End of Days begins. And yet, they still spend an awful long time dawdling while supposedly on a time crunch. With this mid-season finale coming in at episode 11, it appears either the arc got squished a bit or dragged out some. Regardless, this episode was full of fun (and sorrow), becoming a kicking rad endpoint that is only the end of the beginning.

It’s Apocalypse Now! Molloch has risen, while Abbie and Ichabod rush with Methuselah’s Sword to strike Molloch down. But lightning takes out their car, and the phone that would call a cab. Darn that lightning! Luckily, motorcycles are now immune to lightning, but unluckily where they think Molloch is being risen, he ain’t. They do find and rescue Katrina, and at the same time capturing the Headless Horseman thanks to Methuselah’s Sword. The only problem is, the Headless Horseman reveals that if they use the sword to kill, the bearer of the sword will also die.

Thus begins one of several delays as they spend time making sure the sword will really do that, coming up with a plan to deal with that fact. The solution comes in the form of former Captain Frank Irving, who has already lost his soul and thus can’t sacrifice his soul and life via the sword. They also delay getting more weapons from Nick Hawley, and Ichabod and Katrina have some more wedding bickering as their relationship is still in rough seas. Katrina giving praises to the captive Headless Horseman Abraham van Brunt is also not well received.

Okay, okay, this is the last 50 Shades of Grey joke, I swear!

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S02E10 – “Magnum Opus”

January 27, 2015ByTars Tarkas

Time for some new slash fanfic!

Sleepy Hollow “Magnum Opus”
Written by Donald Todd
Directed by Doug Aarniokoski

Hey, it’s glowing, that means orcs are nearby!

Abbie and Ichabod are playing an iPhone party game of Who Am I? because FBI profilers do it when stuck on cases. They’ve been relentlessly going over her ancestor’s journal for clues about what will kill Molloch, but are still stuck.

“George Washington? He was our liar in chief!” – Ichabod rants when he finds out the Washington tale of never telling a lie.

Katrina calls the pair by mirror to say she didn’t kill Molloch and he’ll be big enough to take over the planet in like two days, so they need to hurry. Then she has to go. She provides enough of a distraction to Ichabod he can now figure out the obscure clues to determine the goal is Enoch’s Sword, which Henry overhears as he’s spying via the same mirror Katrina used. Sleepy Hollow not only is a nexus for every Revolutionary War and Apocalyptic artifact, but it also has a river that is the exact same shape as the “Join or Die” snake from Franklin’s famous cartoon, a river that hasn’t changed shape in 250 years, and reveals the cartoon is a treasure map to the sword, with the sword being located at the mouth.

Yes, things have gotten that convoluted and wacky, which is why Sleepy Hollow packs in the fun. This episode packs in two extra things that help out a lot: A crazy monster, and the Headless Horseman becoming threatening once again.

Oh, it all makes perfect sense….HUH??????

It’s true this season the Headless Horseman has become the Chump Horseman, spending half his time being tossed around and dismissed by Henry, the rest being played by Katrina. Giving him a head outside of special events was a disappointment, Abraham Van Brunt is too whiny outside of action scenes compared to his Headless Horseman alter ego. When the Headless Horseman was the Headless Horseman, he was a silent threatening figure that you know wanted to kill you. Abraham’s head appearing should only be happening in episodes like this one, where he gets a head due to magic in a cave, allowing him and Ichabod to spar with words as well as sword/axes.

He shouldn’t have worn his smoking jacket! Ha! I kill me! **Special guest caption by ALF**

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S02E09 – “Mama”

December 11, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Fake! This is faker than that “Moon landing” footage the government released!

Sleepy Hollow “Mama”
Written by Damian Kindler
Directed by Wendey Stanzler

Just wait until we find out our dad is also a ghost!

Sleepy Hollow raises the bar this season with a disturbingly great episode that features some frank depictions of mental illness and suicide, in addition to having demons and ghosts running around. Somehow the balancing act works just fine, and the added heart-string tugs of Abbie and Jenny’s mom being one of the ghosts leads to some great bonding and background information about the Mills sisters.

What we do know of Abbie and Jenny’s mom before this episode wasn’t much. We know she has issues and was eventually committed to an asylum (the responding officer has become the new Sheriff), and Abbie and Jenny were then dumped into the foster system, leading to their rift. We know she had died, I can’t remember if it was specifically stated that she killed herself, but I think so. And because of all the strange and spooky stuff that has happened on the series, it is understood if not specifically stated that she might have been less crazy than it seemed. That turns out to be true, and we get to see a whole lot more of Lori Mills, including interactions with her daughters as they grew up as well as the spectral version running around the asylum.

My favorite part of this episode is them instantly recognizing what this random jumble means!

Patient bodies are piling up at Tarrytown, the psychiatric hospital that Frank Irving is currently staying at and Jenny Mills and Lori Mills are former patients of. Three bodies in three days, all of which are suicides. Abbie is specifically assigned by Sheriff Reyes because of her knowledge of dealing with weird events, as demonstrated by the doomsday cult she helped bring in. Her family connection to the place is also a plus, and it means Jenny will be along to help, as she’s familiar with the location.

Ichabod is MIA because he has a cold, which leads to some cute character moments and him mentioning that he fought at Saratoga while having dysentery. But he’s no match for being sneakily drugged by Nick Hawley, who tags along. A view of the video of the latest suicide shows the room wasn’t empty when he died, there was someone in the corner. Thanks to the magic of the cameras having a night view mode (Enhance! ENHANCE!) we see the ghost of Lori Mills chanting in the corner!

Why did mom want us to watch this video of a cat playing a keyboard???

InBad, Movie Reviews

Superman: Unbound (Review)

December 8, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Superman: Unbound

2013
Screenplay by Bob Goodman
Based on Superman: Brainiac by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank
Directed by James Tucker

“You can’t control a living thing without destroying what’s alive about it” — Zor-El

That quote is key for Superman Unbound, as Superman deals with a new threat to Earth, a threat from Krypton’s past that threatens the galaxy at large in addition to his adoptive home. Brainiac travels the universe capturing cities in bottles and then destroying their planet of origin, in an attempt to absorb all the knowledge in the universe. In order to prevent new knowledge from existing, Brainiac keeps the cities in the same state they were when they were captured. No one ages, everything stays the same, they are trapped in purgatory. As you can imagine, Superman is not okay with this fate befalling Earth, nor is he fine with leaving the lost Kryptonian capital of Krandor as a bottle decoration in Brainiac’s ship.

Superman: Unbound is based on Superman: Brainiac by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Brainiac presented here is a cold, calculating monster that is an unstoppable force in the galaxy. He’s been at it for decades, adding city after city to his collection and leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake. Brainiac brings up echo of the Borg, as he arrives in a lone ship (though his is shaped like a black skull), his robot troops adapt to the local defenses and absorb the knowledge of his victims. They both carve out cities from the ground, and Brainiac is more machine parts than organic at this point. But he’s also just one guy, as opposed to a collective consciousness. The motivations are similar but also different.

We begin with seemingly normal situations on Earth, massive violence in Metropolis (committed, they say, because Superman will obviously be busy with an earthquake in South America that happened a bit ago!) The heavily armed thugs manage the best the surprisingly militarized Metropolis police, but what they don’t bank on is Supergirl showing up to ruin their fun. Lois Lane (who volunteered to be their hostage) provides the snark as Supergirl rips through their defenses, joined by Superman, who faster than a speeding bulleted his way back to the US in time to take out the last of the bad dudes.

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S02E08 – “Heartless”

December 7, 2014ByTars Tarkas

The truth about Smuckers!

Sleepy Hollow “Heartless”
Written by Albert Kim
Directed by David Boyd

I just want to be like that scene from Temple of Doom!

Sleepy Hollow takes steps forward and steps backwards in an episode that seems like it is on a way to make things cool again, and then tosses it all away with some ridiculous stuff that puts the awful Ichabod and Katrina are having relationship issues thing back on track. Also there is an evil baby, but that’s not the focus this week, it’s a Succubus, who is running around chomping on people who have hidden desires, in order to feed souls to the evil baby. Souls are florescent pink, btw, which means they are probably strawberry flavored. Yummy!

We start with things all cool, with Ichabod and Katrina watching a Bachelor ripoff and arguing about love and who is the guy’s real favorite. They also mention rebuilding their trust. But Henry Parrish is up to no good again, this time using a heart in a jar to summon a nude lady! No, Fox hasn’t yet fulfilled the prophecy from The Simpsons and become a hardcore porn station, Henry just summoned a succubus. She goes out and quickly finds a nerdy victim at a club, easily seducing him to the back of his car for some soul-sucking. And I don’t mean sex.

So the Horseman of War’s defense was that kid’s Halloween game where you stick your hand in a jar of peeled grapes?

Damn, the Succubus is going to wipe out all the tech workers from Sleepy Hollow, preventing the city from cashing in on the Web 3.0 economy and reduce the annual tax revenue by 0.7%! Diabolical!

Oh, wait, she’s just killing dudes and sucking out their souls, which she later barfs into a jar. No problems here, kill away!

The Succubus is played by Caroline Ford, who does a good job considering she has to become a different person each time she seduces someone, to become their heart’s desire of the perfect woman. She also goes full heavy metal demon babe at a few points, complete with giant horns.

Oh, yeah, that hits the spot!

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S02E07 – “Deliverance”

November 30, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Babies bring such joy into the world…

Sleepy Hollow “Deliverance”
Written by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves
Directed by Nick Copus

Fist bump for being back on track!

Every science fiction series seems to do a demon baby episode, to the point where it’s more interesting when the pregnancies produce normal babies with no real problems. On that note, Sleepy Hollow‘s demon baby episode was surprisingly sound, because it was less about the demon baby and more about everything else. With the End of Days/Book of Revelation texts that Sleepy Hollow is cribbing off of already featuring birth sections, it’s only natural that one of the ways the demon Molloch would try to enter into the world would be out of a woman’s vagina. But Molloch must learn the way of the modern day society, which is a woman’s body is her business, and no demon who mysteriously has the same opinion as conservative Republicans has the right to intrude on anyone’s uterus.

Aside from the demon baby story, Deliverance follows the threads from prior episodes of Ichabod and Katrina having relationship issues because her entire life is one gigantic lie of things she hasn’t informed Ichabod of. There’s the dealing with the new Sheriff and her dislike for Abbie, and we find out exactly what the mysterious jincan poison is being used for. Though despite Ichabod’s declaration just last week that he’s not going to give up on his son (it’s even included in the recap!), he still needs further pushing by Katrina.

I can read that stone tablet, it’s got an additional 5 Commandments!

But enough of that plot stuff, it’s time for the fun! We start out with Ichabod delivering a hilarious rant about the abysmal voting rates, followed by Abbie owning him by pointing out that as a Black woman, it took two Constitutional Amendments for her to be able to vote. Ichabod also concedes that since she doesn’t own large tracts of land, she’d be turned away for that back in colonial times. And there’s a hilarious “Shush!”ing of Ichabod as he tries to give Abbie suggestions on what to vote for inside the polling place.

Katrina opens by dreaming of being in bed with Ichabod just before he left for war the last time. They speak of what their children will be like, sort of ironic because soon after she has Jeremy, who becomes Henry Parrish, Horseman of the Apocalypse. And she’ll get preggers in this episode, with demon baby Molloch, though not by any natural means. Her dream becomes a spider-spitting face-ripping-off nightmare before she awakens.

This week the vital clues were rendered in ink instead of pencil, what a twist!

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