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 S02E02 – “The Kindred”

October 2, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Headless Horseman, He-Man, I’ll defeat them all!

Sleepy Hollow “The Kindred”
Written by Mark Goffman and Albert Kim
Directed by Paul Edwards

When horses get LASIK!

Sleepy Hollow both returns to bringing us monsters while continuing the Apocalypse storyline and tying up some of the loose ends that still dangled after the season premiere. We get introductions to new characters and begin the plot lines that will take us through the rest of the year.

The most important thing that happens in this episode is the monster, which seems not to be the case, but it is. The monster, called The Kindred, is created from parts of dead soldiers from the Revolutionary War. It was originally build by Ben Franklin (Timothy Busfield reprises the role, though with clothes this time!) but never finished. Abbie and Ichabod manage to finish the monster using the head of the Headless Horseman. The Kindred is said to be the match of the Horsemen of Death, and is seen fighting the Headless Horseman to a standstill. But as there are two Horsemen of the Apocalypse running around, the Kindred is outmatched, though Abbie helps a bit during the fight. What is interesting is the Kindred also helps Abbie, and seems to know the plan of the heroes, and most importantly, does not die at the end of the episode. In fact, the Kindred escapes into the unknown, so there is a random unknown monster running around.

This show put 2/3rds of its black characters in jail in this episode!

The Kindred is important for several reasons. His origin as the result of a Frankenstein creation of dead body parts parallels Sleepy Hollow being the creation of a bunch of goofy science fiction and fantasy tropes that somehow work together into making an awesome monster of crazy. The Kindred grins and hisses at his friends, and knows their plans, helping them achieving it will providing an equal to the might of the supernatural Horsemen. Thus, I’m predicting random Kindred appearances throughout the series when the plot dictates that the main characters have to overcome something that should kill them. It’s also important that this is the first monster who isn’t killed or defeated in some manner. He escapes on his own terms after accomplishing his goals. Perhaps the writers realized that killing off all their monsters of the week was bad, because you can’t use them again. It shows how the monsters have grown to be a bigger part of Sleepy Hollow and are becoming entrenched in the mythology of the series.

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S02E01 – “This Is War”

September 25, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Hey, bring that sword a bit closer, I got some s’mores to make!

Sleepy Hollow “This Is War”
Written by Mark Goffman
Directed by Ken Olin

I’m hunting vampires now?

Sleepy Hollow is back! Huzzah and all that Ren Faire stuff! When last we left Ichabod, Abbie, Captain Irving, Katrina, Jenny, and the rest of the crew, we had a whole bajillion cliffhangers and bad endings for everyone involved. In fact, there are so many lingering plot threads that the season premiere doesn’t even resolve them all! But it resolves some, and does so with both guns blasting away, ramping up the crazy yet again.

Sleepy Hollow was by far my favorite new show of last year, and I’m going to continue the weekly recap/reviews, because I like them and I like the show. That’s pretty much why we do anything here at TarsTarkas.NET. I’m just going to assume you know who all the major characters are by now, as this is season 2, and there is a whole season of things to refresh your mind on if you need a recharge. As so much stuff happened, this will be more recappy than I hope to do for the season. But be aware that things start off crazy and then get nuts, so it’s all awesome and Sleepy Hollow is still going strong!

Last time, Ichabod and Katrina’s unknown son Jeremy Crane was revealed to be still alive and really occasional helper character, Sin-Eater Henry Parrish. Also, Parrish is evil and is the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse, War. And he trapped Ichabod in a coffin and buried him underground. Abbie is trapped in Purgatory, which you can’t leave unless someone takes your place. She stayed because they saved Ichabod’s wife, Katrina, who is now given to the Headless Horseman as a prize. Jenny Mills was last seen unmoving and bloody under a car wreck, fate unknown. And Captain Irving had confessed to murder to protect his daughter (who was possessed at the time) because the dumbest police detectives in the world were going to build a case that a tiny girl in a wheelchair somehow snapped the neck of a full grown man based on her DNA being on the body. Basically, there is doom and gloom for everyone, especially since Henry Parrish opens the Second Seal and brings the End of Days that much closer to happening.

Now we know why he’s on the 100 dollar bill, wowza!

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S01E13 – “Bad Blood”

January 22, 2014ByTars Tarkas

You’re a shotgun bang! What’s up with that thang? I wanna know how does it hang?

Sleepy Hollow “Bad Blood”
Written by Alex Kurtzman and Mark Goffman
Directed by Ken Olin

We’ve been kicked out of better planes of the afterlife than this!

Hey, ho! This is IT! The epic last part of the Season 1 Finale of Sleepy Hollow, the show that became one of the best shows on television despite (or because!) of how ridiculous it is! It’s sharply written, with a fantastic cast that constantly brings their A game. It’s got a rich mythology while still has the freedom to disregard or retcon things that don’t quite work. It expands from it’s Biblical influences to become a broader narrative. It is incredibly diverse, with many well written black characters who aren’t just thrown in to add a bit of color to the cast. Sleepy Hollow brings together many great ingredients into an incredible stew of deliciousness. So make sure you grab yourself a bowl, because it’s going to be a long long wait until fall!

When last we left Sleepy Hollow (in what was the first part of a two-part episode combined together despite not originally being written that way), Ichabod and Abbie had just retrieved a map to Purgatory from the secret crypt of Zombie George Washington, and then burned the map to keep Moloch from getting it. Ichabod then drew the map again from memory, because he can do that. Captain Irving was arrested while protecting his daughter from crimes she committed while being demon-possessed, and Katrina didn’t appear except via flashbacks (as usual!)

I’m going to cut things off here, and there will be SPOILERS below the fold, because there always is anyway, but these are season ending spoilers of all the cool things that happen, so be warned if you haven’t bingewatched these episodes from your DVR!

Yep, we’re going to use another “I lost my head over Sleepy Hollow” joke!

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S01E11 – “The Vessel”

January 14, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Turn around, bright eyes!

Sleepy Hollow “The Vessel”
Story by Mark Goffman and David McMillan
Teleplay by Melissa Blake
Directed by Romeo Tirone

Jenny Mills could win the war of apocalypse and still have time for breakfast!

Sleepy Hollow returns (finally!) for the first episode of 2014, and the last lone hour episode before the two-hour season finale next week! We continue the story straight out of Fallen, with a demon jumping between bodies and threatening Captain Irving and his daughter, Macey (Amandla Stenberg). Then things get horror movie crazy, but not before some cute character moments and Jenny Mills, kicking butt.

The Vessel asks what would you do to protect the people you love, especially if there was a crazy demon chasing after them? It becomes a recurring theme through the episode, as Captain Irving goes to extraordinary lengths to protect his daughter Macey, who is specifically threatened by the body-jumping demon, Ancitif(an actual demon) There is new revelations about Jenny Mills, who was also a possession target for the demon (as hinted in her first appearance), as we discover that she often would commit crimes in order to be incarcerated so she wouldn’t hurt Abbie while possessed. It’s an extreme form of sisterly love, one Abbie wasn’t even aware of (as Jennifer correctly deduced that Abbie wouldn’t have believed her, anyway.) But once Ichabod tells her, the healing process between the sisters is swiffened.

Pleased to meet you, don’t you know my name?

One thing Sleepy Hollow has been doing a lot of is using familiar cinema scenes in order to set the tone for certain characters and events. This episode has a glaringly obvious example as parts copy Fallen and parts copy The Exorcist (and related knockoffs!) An argument could be made that producers Orci and Kurtzman have a history of stealing iconic scenes in films to use for their own, most glaringly when used in Star Trek Into Darkness. The difference between the STID use and things happening in Sleepy Hollow, is STID was a transparent attempt to use nostalgia to make up for lack of actual characterization/plot/everything that is essential in telling a story. In Sleepy Hollow, things like Jenny’s introduction being a copy of Sarah Conner in Terminator 2 is a shortcut to let the audience know she’s a complete badass. Jenny’s arc then goes in its own direction, with her character’s tone already established. In Vessel, when things switch over to The Exorcist, an effort is made to make the result play out differently, even subverting an iconic effect.

I actually like when the show references films, because it’s not relying on them to provide the entertainment. The entertainment comes from Ichabod struggling to fit in with modern society. It comes from Abbie coming to grips with her destiny and making amends with her sister. It comes from Captain Irving dealing with his family issues while also holding back the apocalypse in what he thought would be a stress-free assignment. It comes from crazy demon scares and monsters that have their own agendas despite being part of a greater war. It comes from Ichabod’s struggle to save his wife while dealing with everything he knew about her being a lie (and discovering he had a son he never knew!) Sleepy Hollow provides all this, and more. It’s consistently diverse, not filled with token minorities, but characters who are rich and developed. The makeup of the cast of Sleepy Hollow reflects modern America, and it does so without pomp and circumstance, it just IS. And it’s great. I’m still amazed Sleepy Hollow became my favorite new show of the season, and amazed at how it just blows Agents of Shield away.

Kissy-kissy!

Captain Irving’s paranoia from last week results in one of the possessed threateners being questioned at a lie detector, where he professes to have no idea what is going on. Another witness shows up, who is the current host of Ancitif. Thus, the demon is now jumping around the police station, and calls Irving on his phone to demand the George Washington Bible, or Macey’s gonna get it!

He’s seen Carrie Underwood’s The Sound of Music, and he’ll never be the same!

InTelevision Reviews

Sleepy Hollow S01E10 – “The Golem”

December 10, 2013ByTars Tarkas

This meeting of the Lydia From Beetlejuice Fan Club will come to order!

Sleepy Hollow “The Golem”
Story by Alex Kurtzman
Teleplay by Mark Goffman & Jose Molina
Directed by J. Miller Tobin

Golem smash irony!

Last time on Sleepy Hollow, we found out that Ichabod had a son he never knew about, the name and even the name of the child is a mystery. So now it’s time to go mystery hunting, as our heroes find out whatever happened to Baby Crane. Also there is a monster and some great character scenes. There is a special focus on parentage of many of the characters, particularly the male ones. This makes sense, as many are from fractured families, and they are on the way to forming their own little family that fights the forces of darkness. Beyond that, there is hints of grave danger, which is to be expected, with a two-hour season finale coming up shortly (only one regular episode left!)

We find out more about Ichabod’s unknown child, Jeremy Crane. But just so you know, the answers were be slowly sprinkled throughout the episode, both in order to help build on suspense, but also because there is a secret sort of twist. And possibly more going on that the characters conclude at the finale of the episode, but I’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.

Sin Eater Henry Parrish (John Noble) returns, and he loves puzzles. He does crosswords all the time, because they help center him. Because of his powers, he lives an isolated life, so spending his time doing hobbies like that aren’t surprising. The puzzlework will come in handy, because the entire show is one huge puzzle of crazy awesome. It’s like those huge jumbo puzzle magazines I would get from PennyPress when I was younger and needed stuff to do on plane rides and bus rides.

Crossword puzzles got so much easier when I just used nonsense Lord of the Rings words!

Parrish and Crane share some moments of their fathers, Parrish mentioning that he never got to thank his father for what he gave him (his father now resides in a home, suffering from Alzheimer’s), while Crane laments never getting to be a father to his boy like his dad was to him. If there is one thing Sleepy Hollow does exceptionally well, it is to have well crafted moments between its characters while they’re discussion family relations.

Fear not, there is more Ichabod vs. The Modern World shenanigans going on! Especially amazing is the wordplay of the “awful intercourse” conversation. Which makes since and is very dirty. This episode is more scattered, so some of the analysis will be cut and run with the recap section. Don’t be a gongoozler, it’s time to dive in with “The Golem”

The return of Evil Mongo!

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