sleepy hollow 2x01: this is war
So I'm recapping Sleepy Hollow this season for a geek blog, and since I'm writing up all these reviews anyway, I may as well post 'em here, too. WACKY FUN, guys! (I would just link, but I don't want to connect my real name with my fannish identity, so.)
HERE WE GO.
So, you’ve decided to watch “Sleepy Hollow”! Let me explain -- no, wait, there is too much. Let me sum up: Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), Revolutionary War soldier and spy, got his ass handed to him by the Horseman of Death (after beheading him) and woke up two hundred and fifty years later because his wife Katrina (Katia Winters) worked some witchy mojo on him. She shortly thereafter got stuck in Purgatory and not the metaphorical kind. Here in the future, Crane teamed up with police lieutenant Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie), who had already experienced more than her fair share of supernatural hijinks, and together they fight crime biblical evils with the help of Washington’s bible and Crane’s incredibly convenient eidetic memory. Look, this is a show in which the phrase “zombie George Washington” is uttered with a straight face, you learn to just roll with it. Anyway, long story short, last season ended with Katrina finally sprung from Purgatory only to be promptly abducted as some kind of creepy war bride for the Headless Horseman, Abbie trapped in Purgatory in exchange with the devil Moloch hunting her, Abbie’s exceptionally badass sister Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) in what looked to be a fatal car crash, her boss Frank Irving (Orlando Jones) hauled off to prison for confessing to crimes he didn’t actually commit, and, oh yeah, Ichabod just got buried alive by his own damn son, Henry (John Noble), who, btw, is actually the Horseman of War.
It’s complicated.
The episode opens with what seems like a flashforward to one year later, which I am not buying for one second. You pulled this shit with us last season, show. I am on to your Purgatory-induced hallucinations. This one includes Abbie presenting Ichabod with a cupcake that is made of freedom and bald eagles, because this is his two-hundred-and-fifty-first birthday. Happy birthday, Ichabod! Surprise, all of your friends are dead! (Also, don’t try to do the math. It does not even sort of check out. Trust me.) The moment of joy is soon snuffed by Ichabod’s grim references to vengeance, because apparently Jenny and Katrina are dead. Since I know both actresses are signed on for this season (and Greenwood has been bumped to series regular status), I continue to be extremely skeptical that any of this is real. The pair are called away to check out...something dodgy involving a professor, I don’t know, I was too busy waiting for this to be revealed as fake to pay much attention to the exposition. Anyway, headless corpses, Revolutionary War documents, yadda yadda yadda, and Ichabod has some truly delightful flashbacks of Benjamin Franklin flying a kite and being snarky. (Yes, West Wing fans, that is indeed Timothy Busfield in the altogether.) Apparently old Ben discovered electricity totally by accident while trying to destroy a mystical key that can let anybody into or out of Purgatory. Like, y’know, Moloch, which would be a world of fun for everyone. To find out how the key might be located, Abbie and Ichabod pay an awkward visit to Ichabod’s evil son, Henry, a.k.a. the Horseman of War, whom they’ve somehow got imprisoned underground. John Noble chews the scenery for a bit, which is always entertaining, and makes cryptic statements about how “anything can be tricked into believing a lie.” Yes, Henry, we all know that this is some bizarro hallucination, thanks for the heavy-handed foreshadowing. He goes all black-eyed over the documents, but claims there’s no sin in them, despite them having been the property of the Hellfire Club. That isn’t particularly important to the plot, I just mention it because I want an Emma Frost cameo at some point. Anyway, Abbie remembers that Jenny once investigated this very key (how convenient!), and then Ichabod starts hyperventilating because he can’t remember anything that happened over the past year, Henry breaks out of his prison because it wasn’t real and thanks them both for giving him valuable intel for Moloch, and -- SURPRISE! It was all a Purgatory dream!
I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
Ichabod promises to come back for Abbie and then wakes back up in his coffin. Like you do. On the plus side, Jenny isn’t actually dead -- she’s been captured by Henry and his minion. When did Henry get minions, you may well ask? I don’t know, stop applying your silly Earth logic to this magnificent clusterfuck. Also I think they’re communicating in German. Because of reasons. Anyway, thanks to Abbie’s chat with Ichabod in the fake world, Henry knows that Jenny has valuable intel on the key, so he sin-eats it out of her mind. I really don’t understand how his powers work, but I’m not gonna let myself stress out about them.
Meanwhile, Ichabod remembers he has a cell phone -- yay technology! -- and discovers that there is no cell reception six feet under. Yay, technology. Flash over to the Headless Horseman, who’s, like, trying to play happy families with Katrina or something. She makes a desperate bid to become an interesting character, which is about as successful as her attempt at freedom. Still, I’ll give her points for stabbing Death in the hand. You tried, sweetie.
Over in Purgatory, Abbie runs into our favorite backstabbing-undead-detective-working-on-his-redemption-arc, Andy Brooks (John Cho), who seems to be genuinely trying to give her good advice for once. Props to Cho for being strangely endearing even when all corpsified and gross, and although Andy’s crush on Abbie got super creepy last season, here he seems to actually be trying to be a good person instead of a Nice Guy. For now.
Back in the coffin, Ichabod records a heartfelt message to Abbie, but lacks the memory space to save it. Watching Ichabod fail at the future will always be the best part of this show. At any rate, he somehow manages to make gunpowder out of, like, grave dirt and unicorn tears, I don’t even know, it’s pretty hilarious and he somehow doesn’t blow himself up in the process. He also emerges from his grave with only a few artistic smudges of dirt of his face, because he’s just that pretty. At least he has cell reception now, and his call to Jenny is timed conveniently enough that she’s able to use the split-second distraction to completely own the shit out of her guard, break out of her bindings, and acquire like ten weapons. She shoots Ichabod a quick text with her location and that she’ll be rescuing herself, thanks. Like there was ever any doubt.
Undead Andy teaches Abbie the magic mirror incantation that allows her to communicate with people who aren’t in Purgatory, then fucks off before Moloch can find him. Since Cho’s landed himself a leading sitcom role on a rival network, I imagine that’s the last we’ll see of him for a while, or at least until “Selfie” gets canceled.
Back in the real world, Ichabod finds the warehouse Jenny’s been imprisoned in. Jenny’s still working on her exit strategy. So Ichabod somehow, like, hotwires a fucking ambulance and busts on in. He looks about as baffled by his own success as I am. He wisely allows Jenny to do the driving from then on. They go back to home base and dig up the notes about the key, which Ben Franklin wrote in super secret spy code, and of course Ichabod has the decoder ring. Of course. So they get into...a car (whose car? I don’t know. It’s not the ambulance, Jenny totaled her vehicle like six hours ago, did Abbie give her her car keys or something? These are the plot holes that keep me up at night) and head off in search of the Purgatory key. Meanwhile, Abbie works her newfound mystical mojo on the side mirror of the car, and yoinks Ichabod’s astral projection into Purgatory for a quick chat. And some really intense, lingering hugging and hand-holding. I’m just saying. So Abbie warns him that Moloch is raising a massive army out of all the millions of souls in Purgatory, which is supposed to be ominous or something, but really, how is this any different from his shenanigans last season? Anyway, she’s really insistent that Ichabod not use the key to let her out, because Moloch’s armies will be able to escape with her. Ichabod expresses exactly how many fucks he gives about that possibility (hint: not very many). He promises again to come back for her, then gets snapped back into reality. He and Jenny arrive at the statue of Ben Franklin, where the key is presumably hidden or buried or something, to find that Henry’s minions have gotten there first. But wait! Convenient flashback! Wacky old Ben said something really cryptic to Ichabod that one time that means obviously the key is hidden under the clocktower across the street instead!
I’m not even trying to follow the plot at this point, honestly.
Meanwhile, Katrina is still trapped in the Horseman’s creepy house, and he gratuitously removes his shirt in a completely hilarious attempt to seduce her with his taut abs and severed neck. I legit had to pause the episode for like five solid minutes here because I was laughing so hard.
I guess he’s still got one functioning head. Anyway, he puts his shirt back on and gives Katrina a magical glowy pendant that lets her see his face. He’s the guy she rejected in favor of Ichabod back in the day. (Can’t imagine why.) She insists that she could never love him. He attempts to emotionally manipulate her. Such a stand-up guy, that Horseman of Death.
Key in hand, Ichabod breaks back into Purgatory to save Abbie. I would like to point out, here, that Ichabod spent the past year faffing about and angsting before he even tried going after Katrina, his wife and the supposed love of his life, but Abbie’s gone for like six hours and he’s like FUCK THAT NOISE, I’M BUSTING YOU OUT. Anyway, he finds her and they hug again. Then he offers her water, and the audience collectively goes HELL NO because we’ve just had the Rules Of Purgatory hammered into us, and you do not eat or drink anything offered to you by anyone if you ever want to leave. Fortunately, real!Ichabod turns up just in time, and then Tom Mison fight himself for a while with the cunning technological trickery of really blurry camera work. One of the Ichabods emerges victorious, but he makes the crucial error of calling Abbie “Lieutenant” instead of “Leftenant”, so she beheads him. Like a boss. The actual-for-real-this-time Ichabod and Abbie do a fistbump of verified identity. It’s like their own secret handshake, except for the part where it’s not much of a secret. Then they start booking it towards the gates of Purgatory, key in hand, and Moloch does a really good impression of Sauron in that moment just as the One Ring fell into lava. You know what I mean. He and his Nazgul minions all start chasing after Ichabod and Abbie, but the gate slams shut right in Moloch’s ugly face. Because this is only the season premiere, and obviously Moloch can’t escape until the show can get a good cliffhanger out of it. Duh.
Abbie says something about how they’re “not gonna be fooled again”. Oh, honey, it’s cute that you think that. Although she has gotten pretty genre savvy over the past year, so maybe there’s some hope. Anyway, lots of hugs all around, Jenny actually smiles for the first time ever, and I’m suddenly wondering where the hell Captain Irving has been all episode. Seriously, he’s still in jail or something, right? Shouldn’t somebody do something about that?
The episode ends with Henry having a good long chat with the still-imprisoned Moloch via cracked mirror, as per, and then some dude in armor steps out and Henry gives him a flaming sword. Which, okay, but I thought Henry was the Horseman of War. So who the hell is this guy?
And then I remember Zombie George Washington, and stop asking pointless questions. Until next week.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.
HERE WE GO.
So, you’ve decided to watch “Sleepy Hollow”! Let me explain -- no, wait, there is too much. Let me sum up: Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), Revolutionary War soldier and spy, got his ass handed to him by the Horseman of Death (after beheading him) and woke up two hundred and fifty years later because his wife Katrina (Katia Winters) worked some witchy mojo on him. She shortly thereafter got stuck in Purgatory and not the metaphorical kind. Here in the future, Crane teamed up with police lieutenant Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie), who had already experienced more than her fair share of supernatural hijinks, and together they fight crime biblical evils with the help of Washington’s bible and Crane’s incredibly convenient eidetic memory. Look, this is a show in which the phrase “zombie George Washington” is uttered with a straight face, you learn to just roll with it. Anyway, long story short, last season ended with Katrina finally sprung from Purgatory only to be promptly abducted as some kind of creepy war bride for the Headless Horseman, Abbie trapped in Purgatory in exchange with the devil Moloch hunting her, Abbie’s exceptionally badass sister Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) in what looked to be a fatal car crash, her boss Frank Irving (Orlando Jones) hauled off to prison for confessing to crimes he didn’t actually commit, and, oh yeah, Ichabod just got buried alive by his own damn son, Henry (John Noble), who, btw, is actually the Horseman of War.
It’s complicated.
The episode opens with what seems like a flashforward to one year later, which I am not buying for one second. You pulled this shit with us last season, show. I am on to your Purgatory-induced hallucinations. This one includes Abbie presenting Ichabod with a cupcake that is made of freedom and bald eagles, because this is his two-hundred-and-fifty-first birthday. Happy birthday, Ichabod! Surprise, all of your friends are dead! (Also, don’t try to do the math. It does not even sort of check out. Trust me.) The moment of joy is soon snuffed by Ichabod’s grim references to vengeance, because apparently Jenny and Katrina are dead. Since I know both actresses are signed on for this season (and Greenwood has been bumped to series regular status), I continue to be extremely skeptical that any of this is real. The pair are called away to check out...something dodgy involving a professor, I don’t know, I was too busy waiting for this to be revealed as fake to pay much attention to the exposition. Anyway, headless corpses, Revolutionary War documents, yadda yadda yadda, and Ichabod has some truly delightful flashbacks of Benjamin Franklin flying a kite and being snarky. (Yes, West Wing fans, that is indeed Timothy Busfield in the altogether.) Apparently old Ben discovered electricity totally by accident while trying to destroy a mystical key that can let anybody into or out of Purgatory. Like, y’know, Moloch, which would be a world of fun for everyone. To find out how the key might be located, Abbie and Ichabod pay an awkward visit to Ichabod’s evil son, Henry, a.k.a. the Horseman of War, whom they’ve somehow got imprisoned underground. John Noble chews the scenery for a bit, which is always entertaining, and makes cryptic statements about how “anything can be tricked into believing a lie.” Yes, Henry, we all know that this is some bizarro hallucination, thanks for the heavy-handed foreshadowing. He goes all black-eyed over the documents, but claims there’s no sin in them, despite them having been the property of the Hellfire Club. That isn’t particularly important to the plot, I just mention it because I want an Emma Frost cameo at some point. Anyway, Abbie remembers that Jenny once investigated this very key (how convenient!), and then Ichabod starts hyperventilating because he can’t remember anything that happened over the past year, Henry breaks out of his prison because it wasn’t real and thanks them both for giving him valuable intel for Moloch, and -- SURPRISE! It was all a Purgatory dream!
I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
Ichabod promises to come back for Abbie and then wakes back up in his coffin. Like you do. On the plus side, Jenny isn’t actually dead -- she’s been captured by Henry and his minion. When did Henry get minions, you may well ask? I don’t know, stop applying your silly Earth logic to this magnificent clusterfuck. Also I think they’re communicating in German. Because of reasons. Anyway, thanks to Abbie’s chat with Ichabod in the fake world, Henry knows that Jenny has valuable intel on the key, so he sin-eats it out of her mind. I really don’t understand how his powers work, but I’m not gonna let myself stress out about them.
Meanwhile, Ichabod remembers he has a cell phone -- yay technology! -- and discovers that there is no cell reception six feet under. Yay, technology. Flash over to the Headless Horseman, who’s, like, trying to play happy families with Katrina or something. She makes a desperate bid to become an interesting character, which is about as successful as her attempt at freedom. Still, I’ll give her points for stabbing Death in the hand. You tried, sweetie.
Over in Purgatory, Abbie runs into our favorite backstabbing-undead-detective-working-on-his-redemption-arc, Andy Brooks (John Cho), who seems to be genuinely trying to give her good advice for once. Props to Cho for being strangely endearing even when all corpsified and gross, and although Andy’s crush on Abbie got super creepy last season, here he seems to actually be trying to be a good person instead of a Nice Guy. For now.
Back in the coffin, Ichabod records a heartfelt message to Abbie, but lacks the memory space to save it. Watching Ichabod fail at the future will always be the best part of this show. At any rate, he somehow manages to make gunpowder out of, like, grave dirt and unicorn tears, I don’t even know, it’s pretty hilarious and he somehow doesn’t blow himself up in the process. He also emerges from his grave with only a few artistic smudges of dirt of his face, because he’s just that pretty. At least he has cell reception now, and his call to Jenny is timed conveniently enough that she’s able to use the split-second distraction to completely own the shit out of her guard, break out of her bindings, and acquire like ten weapons. She shoots Ichabod a quick text with her location and that she’ll be rescuing herself, thanks. Like there was ever any doubt.
Undead Andy teaches Abbie the magic mirror incantation that allows her to communicate with people who aren’t in Purgatory, then fucks off before Moloch can find him. Since Cho’s landed himself a leading sitcom role on a rival network, I imagine that’s the last we’ll see of him for a while, or at least until “Selfie” gets canceled.
Back in the real world, Ichabod finds the warehouse Jenny’s been imprisoned in. Jenny’s still working on her exit strategy. So Ichabod somehow, like, hotwires a fucking ambulance and busts on in. He looks about as baffled by his own success as I am. He wisely allows Jenny to do the driving from then on. They go back to home base and dig up the notes about the key, which Ben Franklin wrote in super secret spy code, and of course Ichabod has the decoder ring. Of course. So they get into...a car (whose car? I don’t know. It’s not the ambulance, Jenny totaled her vehicle like six hours ago, did Abbie give her her car keys or something? These are the plot holes that keep me up at night) and head off in search of the Purgatory key. Meanwhile, Abbie works her newfound mystical mojo on the side mirror of the car, and yoinks Ichabod’s astral projection into Purgatory for a quick chat. And some really intense, lingering hugging and hand-holding. I’m just saying. So Abbie warns him that Moloch is raising a massive army out of all the millions of souls in Purgatory, which is supposed to be ominous or something, but really, how is this any different from his shenanigans last season? Anyway, she’s really insistent that Ichabod not use the key to let her out, because Moloch’s armies will be able to escape with her. Ichabod expresses exactly how many fucks he gives about that possibility (hint: not very many). He promises again to come back for her, then gets snapped back into reality. He and Jenny arrive at the statue of Ben Franklin, where the key is presumably hidden or buried or something, to find that Henry’s minions have gotten there first. But wait! Convenient flashback! Wacky old Ben said something really cryptic to Ichabod that one time that means obviously the key is hidden under the clocktower across the street instead!
I’m not even trying to follow the plot at this point, honestly.
Meanwhile, Katrina is still trapped in the Horseman’s creepy house, and he gratuitously removes his shirt in a completely hilarious attempt to seduce her with his taut abs and severed neck. I legit had to pause the episode for like five solid minutes here because I was laughing so hard.
I guess he’s still got one functioning head. Anyway, he puts his shirt back on and gives Katrina a magical glowy pendant that lets her see his face. He’s the guy she rejected in favor of Ichabod back in the day. (Can’t imagine why.) She insists that she could never love him. He attempts to emotionally manipulate her. Such a stand-up guy, that Horseman of Death.
Key in hand, Ichabod breaks back into Purgatory to save Abbie. I would like to point out, here, that Ichabod spent the past year faffing about and angsting before he even tried going after Katrina, his wife and the supposed love of his life, but Abbie’s gone for like six hours and he’s like FUCK THAT NOISE, I’M BUSTING YOU OUT. Anyway, he finds her and they hug again. Then he offers her water, and the audience collectively goes HELL NO because we’ve just had the Rules Of Purgatory hammered into us, and you do not eat or drink anything offered to you by anyone if you ever want to leave. Fortunately, real!Ichabod turns up just in time, and then Tom Mison fight himself for a while with the cunning technological trickery of really blurry camera work. One of the Ichabods emerges victorious, but he makes the crucial error of calling Abbie “Lieutenant” instead of “Leftenant”, so she beheads him. Like a boss. The actual-for-real-this-time Ichabod and Abbie do a fistbump of verified identity. It’s like their own secret handshake, except for the part where it’s not much of a secret. Then they start booking it towards the gates of Purgatory, key in hand, and Moloch does a really good impression of Sauron in that moment just as the One Ring fell into lava. You know what I mean. He and his Nazgul minions all start chasing after Ichabod and Abbie, but the gate slams shut right in Moloch’s ugly face. Because this is only the season premiere, and obviously Moloch can’t escape until the show can get a good cliffhanger out of it. Duh.
Abbie says something about how they’re “not gonna be fooled again”. Oh, honey, it’s cute that you think that. Although she has gotten pretty genre savvy over the past year, so maybe there’s some hope. Anyway, lots of hugs all around, Jenny actually smiles for the first time ever, and I’m suddenly wondering where the hell Captain Irving has been all episode. Seriously, he’s still in jail or something, right? Shouldn’t somebody do something about that?
The episode ends with Henry having a good long chat with the still-imprisoned Moloch via cracked mirror, as per, and then some dude in armor steps out and Henry gives him a flaming sword. Which, okay, but I thought Henry was the Horseman of War. So who the hell is this guy?
And then I remember Zombie George Washington, and stop asking pointless questions. Until next week.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.