Sleepy Hollow S3 finale
Well, after not-posting in forever, I seem to have a few thoughts about last night's Sleepy Hollow season 3 finale. Spoilers, of course.
I very nearly left the show after the travesty that was S2, but the finale of S2 convinced me to at least give S3 a chance, and while it never reached the giddy heights of S1, I still enjoyed it, and by the second to last episode they had managed to bring together a full team that I would have been perfectly happen to watch for years to come.
Naturally they blew that straight to hell in the season finale. Well, they started in the second to last episode, in which they killed off Joe Corbin, who had been settled into a wonderful relationship with Jenny Mills. So naturally they had to get rid of THAT. No happy couples here. (Also, thanks for going the full-tragedy route by having him die as the creature he hated. Good job, show.)
Then in this episode... *sigh*. I won't even attempt to explain the plot because it makes no sense. To condense:
1. Unreasonable Big Bad about to destroy the world;
2. Seemingly reasonable lesser Big Bad Pandora allies with team to stop Big Bad;
3. In order to destroy UBB, Abbie's ... soul? Life force? ... is sucked out to help power Pandora's Box so that she can stop UBB, which works because I guess Abbie's soul/life force has extra mojo as a Witness?
4. Pandora betrays everyone and tells them she's going to take over the world herself as their new goddess, but hey! She'll at least be more reasonable than UBB; she'll let people live as long as they obey her. Great deal, right?
5. Ichabod goes into full-on save Abbie mode once again.
However, this time, it's made clear that Abbie isn't stuck in another dimension or whatever, but is actually legitimately dead this time. This leads to the only scene I liked in the episode, which is Abbie and Sheriff Corbin having a nice heart-to-heart, followed by the Sheriff briefly reuniting with recently-dead son Joe. I mean, if they have to kill Abbie off, at least they brought back Clancy Brown for a cameo, right?
Now, Nicole Beharie did apparently request to be written out of the show, but:
a. They could've figured out a way to do it that didn't involve killing her off;
b. Would Nicole have requested that if they'd done better by her character? I have doubts.
Things get worse (yeah, I know, but they do!), when it's revealed to Ichabod and the audience that Witnesses ... "old souls" I think is the phrase used? ... whatever, actual Witnesses may die, but their souls move on to an appropriate relation. Not like reincarnation, it sounds like, but more like the soul moving into a new home that's already been around awhile? I guess? I'm thinking that partially because of how they put it and partially because I doubt they'd want to age Ichabod up 20 years or so for the next season to account for waiting for the new baby to be born and grow up.
And then they did some weird things at the end that I can't even really describe except to say that it really seems like they changed their minds about how they wanted to end the episode several times... or had their minds changed about it.
At the end of the episode, Jenny takes Joe's ashes up to his dad's cabin to spread them in the lake. She tells Ichabod that he can't get rid of her and that she'll be back, but I have doubts. Also, somewhere toward the beginning of the episode, FBI Agents Danny and Sophie are left to keep an eye on possible world-ending and are never seen again the rest of the episode so far as I recall.
So to recap:
1. Abbie dead
2. Joe dead
3. Jenny at the cabin, theoretically to return
4. Danny and Sophie... off doing FBI things? I guess?
5. Ichabod - oh, right. One of the things I had trouble following at the end was that apparently there's a group of folks who've been embedded in government positions and who may or may not be good guys but at least aren't doing things the right way, and they show up at the end and arrest Ichabod and take him away. ???!!!
6. If there is a next season, Ichabod will have a new female partner. Because of course it can't be Jenny for some reason.
So basically, they blew up the show as it was. At this point, I have no plans to watch it further if it is renewed. I like Tom Mison a lot, but I liked Nicole Beharie a lot more. I watched the show for Abbie and Ichabod together, along with the team that they'd managed to gather around them at the beginning of the second to last episode. (I am not an Abbie/Ichabod shipper per se, but I would've been fine with it if it had happened. I just wanted them together, whether as besties or as lovers.) Now that's all gone. Thanks bunches, show.
This entry was originally posted at http://beck-liz.dreamwidth.org/1028256.html. You may comment there using OpenID, or you may comment here.
have commented there.
I very nearly left the show after the travesty that was S2, but the finale of S2 convinced me to at least give S3 a chance, and while it never reached the giddy heights of S1, I still enjoyed it, and by the second to last episode they had managed to bring together a full team that I would have been perfectly happen to watch for years to come.
Naturally they blew that straight to hell in the season finale. Well, they started in the second to last episode, in which they killed off Joe Corbin, who had been settled into a wonderful relationship with Jenny Mills. So naturally they had to get rid of THAT. No happy couples here. (Also, thanks for going the full-tragedy route by having him die as the creature he hated. Good job, show.)
Then in this episode... *sigh*. I won't even attempt to explain the plot because it makes no sense. To condense:
1. Unreasonable Big Bad about to destroy the world;
2. Seemingly reasonable lesser Big Bad Pandora allies with team to stop Big Bad;
3. In order to destroy UBB, Abbie's ... soul? Life force? ... is sucked out to help power Pandora's Box so that she can stop UBB, which works because I guess Abbie's soul/life force has extra mojo as a Witness?
4. Pandora betrays everyone and tells them she's going to take over the world herself as their new goddess, but hey! She'll at least be more reasonable than UBB; she'll let people live as long as they obey her. Great deal, right?
5. Ichabod goes into full-on save Abbie mode once again.
However, this time, it's made clear that Abbie isn't stuck in another dimension or whatever, but is actually legitimately dead this time. This leads to the only scene I liked in the episode, which is Abbie and Sheriff Corbin having a nice heart-to-heart, followed by the Sheriff briefly reuniting with recently-dead son Joe. I mean, if they have to kill Abbie off, at least they brought back Clancy Brown for a cameo, right?
Now, Nicole Beharie did apparently request to be written out of the show, but:
a. They could've figured out a way to do it that didn't involve killing her off;
b. Would Nicole have requested that if they'd done better by her character? I have doubts.
Things get worse (yeah, I know, but they do!), when it's revealed to Ichabod and the audience that Witnesses ... "old souls" I think is the phrase used? ... whatever, actual Witnesses may die, but their souls move on to an appropriate relation. Not like reincarnation, it sounds like, but more like the soul moving into a new home that's already been around awhile? I guess? I'm thinking that partially because of how they put it and partially because I doubt they'd want to age Ichabod up 20 years or so for the next season to account for waiting for the new baby to be born and grow up.
And then they did some weird things at the end that I can't even really describe except to say that it really seems like they changed their minds about how they wanted to end the episode several times... or had their minds changed about it.
At the end of the episode, Jenny takes Joe's ashes up to his dad's cabin to spread them in the lake. She tells Ichabod that he can't get rid of her and that she'll be back, but I have doubts. Also, somewhere toward the beginning of the episode, FBI Agents Danny and Sophie are left to keep an eye on possible world-ending and are never seen again the rest of the episode so far as I recall.
So to recap:
1. Abbie dead
2. Joe dead
3. Jenny at the cabin, theoretically to return
4. Danny and Sophie... off doing FBI things? I guess?
5. Ichabod - oh, right. One of the things I had trouble following at the end was that apparently there's a group of folks who've been embedded in government positions and who may or may not be good guys but at least aren't doing things the right way, and they show up at the end and arrest Ichabod and take him away. ???!!!
6. If there is a next season, Ichabod will have a new female partner. Because of course it can't be Jenny for some reason.
So basically, they blew up the show as it was. At this point, I have no plans to watch it further if it is renewed. I like Tom Mison a lot, but I liked Nicole Beharie a lot more. I watched the show for Abbie and Ichabod together, along with the team that they'd managed to gather around them at the beginning of the second to last episode. (I am not an Abbie/Ichabod shipper per se, but I would've been fine with it if it had happened. I just wanted them together, whether as besties or as lovers.) Now that's all gone. Thanks bunches, show.
This entry was originally posted at http://beck-liz.dreamwidth.org/1028256.html. You may comment there using OpenID, or you may comment here.
have commented there.