Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 13: Freedom

Thanks to a vision, Ichabod and co are now all aware that Henry is back and is now War. en

Using woo-woo and technology they realise Malcolm is ready to make his move – by having the 4 Horseman attack Camp David and take the President prisoner. The guards and soldiers can do absolutely nothing against the horsemen – they walk right in, cut down all the soldiers and, inevitably, Malcolm kidnaps the president

It’s all very… simple and anti-climactic.

From there he makes a public address of, basically, “I’ve got your POTUS come and get me!” Team Witness realise what he’s doing – the US military will hit the 4 horseman and then be slaughtered proving Malcolm’s might

Y’know what… nah. I mean if they’d made an effort to show that, for example, Death could kill people en masse or War could sap their strength or Famine could make legions fall hungrily or Pestilence could unleash plague – or something other than these horsemen being more than indestructible medieval knights. I don’t care if they’re indestructible, the US has enough soldiers under arms to simply pin each horsemen under mountains of bodies. Or bury them in tanks, plans, bombs. Or just be so many people that the horsemen simply cannot stab everyone to death at sufficient rates. They really failed to establish the fearsome power of these horsemen –immortality is not enough

Also, can I ask again where all the supernatural knowledge went? Washington knew all about the supernatural. Absolutely ever famous figure in American history knew about it. Magic itself doesn’t appear to be that rare. This isn’t like other supernatural worlds where we have shadowy mystical organisations fighting to keep the mystical secret. There’s no cover up here. Everyone just forgot? Nah

Anyway Team Witness needs some mystical horsemen slaying weapons so time to conveniently find a hidden book with some clues to a hidden stash of special weapons

Oh hey let’s throw in a whole segment about the founding of the archive where Banneker tells Washington he’s not happy with him for the way he used Ichabod (but totally silent about slavery) and Washington wants to make up to Banneker about that (but not about slavery) and how Banneker is wary of government officials running the archive because Ichabod (not slavery)

Yeah Sleepy Hollow don’t introduce Banneker as a belated attempt to address racism in all your preciously pedestalled founding fathers and then have his main beef with the founding fathers be how he sacrificed one white man during a way. Throwing in Banneker so he can advocate for justice for ICHABOD is nauseating.

In the present the gang now has the special rusty weapons and a big speech from Ichabod because they had some seconds to fill.

But they have to destroy the horsemen and since they’re linked to Malcolm that means they have to de-immortal him. Who knows how to do that?

That would be Jobe. In the future Lara knows that Jobe was totally screwed over and isolated by Malcolm who basically turned him into her babysitter. So all they have to do is summon him and ask his help.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 12: Tomorrow

Last week we learned that Lara was Molly who came back in time to save her mother from becoming War

This week we open by seeing that. And part of me thinks this is unnecessary since we know this – but it’s also kind of awesome to see it. To see Jenny leading the resistance against Malcolm’s forces – being called a terrorist for it. And seeing Malcolm use the 4 horseman and his police force. Including war – who kills Jenny in front of Lara/Molly

Except not before Jenny manages to raise a whole lot of doubt in Molly’s mind about the history that Malcolm has filled her head with – including that Molly said that Diana was dead. Before Molly died she manages to cut a hole in War’s helmet with a magic knife – and show that War is Diana.

Molly questions future Malcolm about this and lo his lies unravel, leading Molly to find Ichabod, get a pep talk and some time travel mojo

Which picks us up where we left off – with a newly Warred Ichabod who is ordered to kill Molly and Diana. They escape thanks to a woo-woo knife and make it back to the Archive

Along the way they sum up some basics of Molly’s life (how Malcolm let her wander alone and desperate for a while before swooping in and playing caring father figure) and everyone decides to call Molly Lara since that’s what she was called for so many years and it saves everyone from having to say Young Molly and Old Molly. By saving Diana, Lara has pretty much completely changed the future (at least the details) so her memories are now very uncertain and, effectively, she and Molly are different people or will be because their experiences will be so different. At least Lara still has her skills.

Everyone is recapped and knows where they stand and everything gets more complicated. Firstly blood from the woo-woo dagger happens to mix with some black goo and apparently War blood + Ichabod blood + Black goo of spider demon memories = Henry Parish!

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 11: The Way of the Gun

Once we dredge through some more tiresome ra-ra colonial wankery which is getting beyond boring at this point, we’re reminded of the current stakes: there’s a race on to find a totem to create the horsemen of war. To confirm this, Alex has also successfully managed to hack into Malcolm’s secret location to spy on him also looking for the totem

It’s also floated that the Apocalypse brought on by the four horseman isn’t all about the end of the world but is actually about recreating the world.

Well duh. I mean, really, you had to do research to discover this? You didn’t think maybe that Malcolm doesn’t have a complete death wish, maybe?

This research leads to lots of convenient memories from Jake and Ichabod about how there was a split off branch of the Masons called the Amata Mutata or something who wanted to use the four horsemen to change the world. Eidetic memory Ichabod has just remembered this point which should have been super obvious

It turns out that the super powerful totem of war was actually in Revolutionary America (I am shocked, SHOCKED by this revelation. Clearly it was kept next to Excalibur – complete with rock, under a stack of the weapons of Durga but just before the Arc of the Covenant all of which will no doubt also have been part of George Washington’s conversational dinner pieces). And once Ichabod and Banneker were transporting it. We also get another bit of nauseating rhetoric of Ichabod convincing a very suspicious Banneker to trust to the new America where all men will be equal because he has a total vision of how equal and democratic America will be if he’s just patient enough.

Banneker, you better work on that patience because it’s going to be sorely tried. This is beyond annoying because Banneker was actually an excellent opportunity to offer a counter narrative to Ichabod’s endless flag waving and the whole general impression Sleepy Hollow has that the Founding Fathers were giants of nobility and power and were battling harpies and colossus and lamasu and who knows what else in righteous fury all in the name of freedom. His narrative helped to peel back a lot of the glossing over that comes with this ra-ra-Ichabod speech. But to have his every concern be hand waved by Ichabod’s “be patient” speech – especially without even modern Ichabod saying “well looks like I was just talking bullshit, sorry Banneker” is an issue

Diana also snarks that Ichabod seems to have been everywhere during the Revolutionary war. Show you don’t get points for lamp shading how utterly ridiculous your own concept is.

So they now have a rough idea where said item is.

But they’ve also got competition – a mysterious woman steals one of their books; when Jenny chases her down and they fight – and Jenny loses. As Jenny puts it, she seems to know her moves before she used them: they make it clear that Jenny has some major skills.

For now Diana and Ichabod go to fetch where they think the totem of war was hidden – and it’s now a very trendy restaurant and Ichabod and Diana are most put out that the owner doesn’t just let them search and ransack the place for funsies

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 10: Insatiable

This week’s monster of the week is a demon that Jude, Malcolm’s pet demon, releases that causes famine.

It stares at people and makes them eat everything in sight in desperate hunger (kind of like dog owners who need to get their dinner down before succumbing to those pleading eyes) and then they die of starvation which is unpleasant. The demon is running around the vents of the Eisenhower Building. This is a whole lot of people to snack on for said demon.

The gang gathers around this and follows up the clues. This supernatural creature is Chinese and sort of identified through Jenny’s contacts (but not really since it conveniently attacks). They link it to Ichabod’s past – of course, because every supernatural creature in the history of mythology from every culture in the world has to magically appear in America’s revolutionary history and Ichabod’s personal history at some point. They link it to a historical event, because that’s what Sleepy Hollow does (all your historical figured were werewolves, Americans, it is known)

Pulling together everyone’s talents: Jenny’s contacts, Ichabod’s memories, Jake’s research and Alex’s ingenuity to put together a gold based containment and weapon to bring down the demon

Y’know not only did every supernatural creature ever show up in the distant past to be confronted by America’s historical heroes, but America’s historical heroes were actually pretty bad at dealing with them. How many beasties have been imprisoned for several centuries despite the people facing them having occult knowledge and the resources of an army/nation to deal with it whole Ichabod & co can kill these monsters relatively easily with their own rag-tag resources (they have to scrape scrap gold out of cars! Between them they couldn’t scrape up enough to get a cheap ring from a pawn shop?)

The beastie is killed and duly vanquished. But Malcolm was behind this and this was all part of his plan to charge up the scales of Lady Justice with hunger power. That duly stolen he presents it to his new comatose/mojo’d assistant: Helen. She will now be his horseman of Famine. Logan, the social media plague guy is the Horseman of Pestilence. They also dig up the headless horseman and plan to heal him since he was hurt over the whole Philosopher’s Stone thing. That gives them 3 of the 4 horseman.

At last Ichabod and the gang catch on to what they’re doing.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 9: Child's Play

This episode has a surprisingly excellent unified theme – people coming to terms with what fighting monsters means, especially Molly.

Molly is having trouble in school, she’s angry, she’s upset and a little stroppy. Diana is rightly concerned and tries to jolly Molly out of it: but Molly is looking at a world that has monsters in it, a world where her dad is just a monster in disguise where she’s plagued by depressing and terrifying visions of the future and everything is scary and awful. She’s not jollyable.

Diana decides to take her to the Vault where she can see the cool toys and legacy there – by exposing Molly to the good/cool/interesting part of the job at least she can show an upside. It’s a nice idea which ends up with Ichabod and Molly being locked in by the security system being tripped. Oops

Meanwhile Diana has other things to worry about – a monster attacked Molly’s teacher and is now attacking her. The monster is Molly’s childhood imaginary friend given life by Molly’s will – something we have seen before with Ichabod’s son Henry creating a golam. Yes it normally takes more than this but we’ll get to that

The creature is attacking Diana because Molly is mad with her – which causes all the parental angst. But the star of this goes to Jenny – who has obviously had the difficult childhood of knowing monsters exist, having the confront that, be scarred by that etc. Molly can’t talk to her mother about her angst? Well she’s hardly the first child to do so. And here Diana should take the opportunity of knowing what Molly’s feeling rather than having to guess

Jenny is awesome and has a really interesting role this season as one-who-went-before. The flip side to that is that that’s crystalised all of her roles. She’s more of a mentor to Alex and Jake coupled with therapy/advice for Diana while removing any of her own actual storylines, wants, needs or grief. This would have been vastly improved if she had someone with which to address her own personal issues with – like Abbie.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 8: Sick Burn

Let’s cover the predictions first – Malcolm has dreams of a terribad future in which democracy is suspended and he is the supreme tyrant of the US while Ichabod is his prisoner. Equally Molly using her witness abilities (she sees Jenny who does a ritual of finding your path – and Molly is a prophet which is a convenient role for a child since it’s nicely behind the scenes and out of combat).

I’m really trying not to make Trump comments here. Really trying. Especially with Ichabod extorting how wonderful it would be if a leader used social media to spread empowering messages

The monster of the week involves people catching a disease and then bursting into flame. The first victim is a guy called Logan, a social media celebrity who Molly is a big fan of – and it completely ruins the fun and really cute outing Ichabod, Diana and Molly are having (trying to give Molly some sense of morality after the revelation and actions of the last few episodes)

Alex and Jake also see this with Alex’s tinder date catching the same ominous burning disease – but at least the date was terrible and over anyway (Jake was there for a bad date-rescue which wasn’t needed).

They follow this up and find the cause – a symbol people read and when they do they catch the death burny flu. And it’s being spread by social media which is terrifying

Ichabod has a cringeworthy moment which is ridiculous. Season 1, yes, he could have done something as ridiculous as ranting incoherently in the middle of a city. But now? Nah, he knows better than this

To the surprise of just about no-one, it turns out the bury plague thing is another monster from the revolutionary war – really, did any humans actually fight in this war? The monster is a djinn so we’re doing the typical Sleepy Hollow think of grabbing random monsters from foreign cultures, thrusting them inelegantly into the Revolutionary War and ignoring all culture or context behind them

Speaking of – we also have a new dream team from way back when set up by George Washington who were a special agency set up to fight whatever and apparently no-one felt the need to mention them in the last 4 seasons for reasons. I mean, we spent half a season on Betsy Ross, but these guys didn’t deserve a mention?

Sleepy Hollow: Season 4, Episode 7: Loco Parentis

Last episode Malcolm seemed to achieve immortality demon defeated and all sorts of things – so now it’s time of a monster of the week, but with some decent bonding along the way and some exploration of Diana and Molly

It’s Molly’s 11^th birthday coming up which comes with Ichabod learning about modern childhood toys and Diana becoming increasingly concerned about the whole witness things since Milly is still a child. She’d rather be Witness by proxy and preferably tell Molly as little as possible despite Ichabod saying it’s probably not going to work that way

Into this comes Mitch, Molly’s father, Diana’s ex. And this could get messy. This could end up with Ichabod being irrationally jealous or lots and lots of jokes about Ichabod and Diana being a couple or Diana looking at her ex and seeing he’s still interested but realising she’s interested in Ichabod more…. And thankfully none of that happened. Not once. I think the eternally clueless writers of Sleepy Hollow realised that this soon after Abbie absolutely no-one, not one damn person, was here to see Ichabod head down the quasi romantic path with someone else. No-one (and if anyone does? You’re a bad person who should feel bad.)

It was surprisingly mature in a genre which generally doesn’t handle relationships in anything resembling a sensible or reasonable manner (and by “genre” I mean “media in general. At all. Ever.”) it works well. Ichabod encourages Diana to pursue her relationship if she wants to, realising what she actually wants. She explores her issues with Mitch, why the split up and why the whole Witness thing makes it a much more difficult time to reintroduce a 2 year missing father into the mix may be

While Mitch turns out to be reasonable, kind, patient, definitely wanting to reconnect with both but respecting Diana and her boundaries.

And he’s a werewolf.

Or a Barghest – except Barghest is actually a northern English monster and doesn’t especially resemble this – it’s a werewolf.

Said werewolf has been killing people and, like so many monsters, it turns out to be from ye olde colonial days which Ichabod has just remembered. And like every monster from ye olde colonial days, the people then decided to lock it in some American Artefact (the Liberty bell is actually Dracula’s tomb. The Washington Monument has Anubis impaled in the bottom). Despite the fact this creature literally needs killing with sharp rock.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 6: Homecoming

Time for a road trip to Sleepy Hollow which means lots of complex memories about Abbie and all their memories.

Which would be time for lots of explorations of Abbie an what she meant and how important she was and how she could never be replaced and how this show is just a thin, desperate shadow of what it could be with her absence.

But instead it seems to be another episode focusing on solidifying the new team. And I get that that’s necessary to go forwards – but this is how this whole series has dealt with the desperate absence of Abbie. There has been little mourning for Abbie – it’s the general feel of reboot that consumes this season – this really unseemly feeling that the show is trying to draw a line under Abbie, trying to move as fast away from Abbie as it can. Yes, it needs to move forwards (if it must continue) but it can do that by treating its past and Abbie’s memory with respect, rather than as something briefly referenced only to emphasise this as a distant past.

In Sleepy Hollow they are determined to find the last shard of the Philosopher’s Stone before Dryfuss. We also drop the knowledge that the Philosopher’s stone one person immortal by killing a thousand or so others – just to make sure we don’t all just let Dryfuss get on with it. Dryfuss has also got his Demon Jobe back – I still don’t know why Jobe is supporting him in this? I mean, isn’t he literally letting Dryfuss find a big loop hole in his soul contract?

In Sleepy Hollow they show off Ichabod’s archives as well as some letters from Washington that conveniently contain info that Ichabod missed before. Basically it confirms that Banneker also knew that Ichabod was the Witness – and he was the one who planned to divide the stone. Ichabod tries to put a brave, good-soldier face on things but he’s clearly bothered by the fact that just about everyone in colonial times knew he was a witness but no-one told him. That’s definitely something he doesn’t want to happen with Molly

They go looking for the Stone using one of Jenny’s Artefacts after Alex does some technical tinkering to enhance it (see the roles all being drawn on again. It’s trite but it’s nice that everyone is being involved on some level) and run right into the guardian of the Philosopher’s stone. Well damn, shame the others didn’t have one of them. It’s apparently a sphinx but basically an archer.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 5: Blood from a Stone

There’s another magic item – a rock - to be collected by Dryfuss’s demon minion (it’s being used as a prop by charlatan faith healer who ends up properly dead which I am unreasonably happy about. Or reasonably given he was bilking people with fake cures)

Then everything goes a bit off – because another figure appears with superior woo-woo and promptly burns and murders the demon assistant (apparently called Job) and steals his magic rock.

Ichabod and Diana have some bonding, dubious soccer history knowledge and introducing the new themes of the episode: i.e. Diana has accepted that her daughter Molly is a Witness but what does that actually mean for her. It’s a nice moment because “witness” is very very ill defined. It doesn’t come with super powers, nor does it make you a demon magnet. Nor does it remove her free will – all of which are things Diana has been worried about. This is the theme – what does being a witness mean to Diana and Molly and what should Diana be worried about.

The gang meets for a strategy meeting – brief time out. I’m actually surprised that Jenny is still hanging around; I felt sure she’d be shuffled off so they could concentrate on the main cast. But she seems to be hanging around and is still a major part of the plot. At this stage maybe even as prominent as Diana.

The gang has finally realised that Dryfuss is doing evil things of evil and this needs to be investigates. This involves Jake, Alex and Jenny doing Research. This is good because they all have their own awesome specialties and all work really well together. Except that Jake is still all over Jenny despite her repeatedly telling him that she’s not interested, despite Alex telling him she’s not interested, despite it being obvious to everyone else that she’s not interested

This is turned into a huge ongoing joke but it’s really not funny. Jake asking Alex to basically work on Jenny for his sake is creepy and wrong. She’s made her no very very clear at this point. The response to “no” should not be “try harder.” Persistence is not a virtue when it comes to romance despite vast chunks of paranormal romance, romance in general any every bit of fiction with a romance. Please stop this.

While Jenny heads up the research crew, Diana and Ichabod decide to go use the pretext of a missing security guard as an excuse to question Dryfuss. Because Diana, homeland security, can totally investigate missing persons cases and it not be weird or anything

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 4: The People v Ichabod Crane

Diana is still firmly on the side of “these supernatural people need to keep far far away from my daughter” and Jenny doesn’t do a great job of convincing her otherwise – especially since Ichabod was supposed to be there

Instead he has been captured by a spider demon, cocooned and forced to go on trial for various guilt things. Like the death of Abbie. And inflicting Cranewreck on us. And the terrible storyline of us deciding his son, the horseman of freaking war, needed handingly softly softly. And the treatment of Frank. And the introduction of Hawley

Oh wait, that’s my trial for the writers of Sleepy Hollow.

So this means the death of Abbie, the death of his son and the fact he spent a hot minute grieving for Abbie before moving on to a new team who will probably die as well. A

Ichabod argues eloquently in his defence (because Abbi made a choice! By Abbie we, of course, mean the shitty shitty writers who we will never ever forgive) before succumbing to the Sadness and preparing his own suicide – which is this demon’s whole mojo. It will then use its sadness powers to spill out everywhere.

So to the gang. They go investigating where Ichabod got to and Jenny heads off to the cave of sadness where he is being held (after some nifty research) – she goes alone because she doesn’t think Alex and Jake are up to it. They follow her because there’s a limit to what one woman can face alone

We also have a really nice biplay between Alex and Jake about their new lives: Jake was planning on quitting before this. He realised he was doing nothing and the archive was full of cool ideas but none of it was real or meaningful. He was ready to move on to do something – and now Ichabod came into their lives with all the supernaturalness and everything is cool and awesome and he loves it so much because it’s exciting and interesting and making a difference and real.

Alex, however, perhaps more reality based – asks if it’s a good thing that all this terrifying dangerous stuff is actually real

When Jenny is captured trying to sneak into a military base Jake and Alex do the sensible thing and… call Diana. Yes, no hotdogging, no silly rescue attempts, a very sensible decision

Sleepy Hollow, Season 4, Episode 4: Heads of State

We see Ichabod completely moving to DC now, moving into the new home with the help of Jenny and Jake, his new neighbour – selected because it is cheap and has anyone actually figured out where Ichabod gets his money from?

And yes, I was mildly amused when Jake called Ichabod a hipster (and Jenny totally agreed) but I can’t get past the fact this would be so much better if Abbie were here

This is the theme of this episode (hah, this season!) there’s a lot I’d like here which would be so much better if Abbie were here and/or Abbie’s death didn’t permeate everything like a terrible stench. Every little scene – like this house hunting – would just be that much better with Abbie’s input, her eye rolls, her asides with Jenny, her bouncing of Ichabod. The whole show feels like a rip off of what it was without her being present. That core is missing and it shows, I can feel the void.

Jake is also crushing on Jenny. Jenny is not interested. This would be better with Abbie and Jenny able to joke about this.

What gets me especially is they’re moving house, setting up a new team and… it’s rebooted. It’s the third episode and we’ve pretty much started out all over again now. The new team’s established, Ichabod’s new relationships are in place, his new home is set up, the basic conflicts and antagonists are being laid out. But this is episode 3. Three! That’s too soon – where’s the grief, the horror? Sure I can smell the stench of Abbie’s absence – but where’s the shadow of it? Jenny and Ichabod are right there – why aren’t they still grieving? Why isn’t Abbie a constant presence in their minds, speeches, every thought and action? Abbie was a major part of their lives, her presence should still be being felt and I think this episode was absent because it wasn’t.

This makes it feel less like a progression of the series and more like a reboot. Especially since the big bad of this show is The Headless Horseman. Not really Abraham and all the broken #Cranewreck story that came from it – but a quick montage flashed through as Ichabod fills the team in about what the horseman is. And why he’s in DC he’s after the president to cut off her head for reasons. Possibly because he can now pick up severed heads and transform into that person

And, yes, I did see a Black female president which would be great if she actually had a line.

The Horseman is stopped from his head chopping by bright light from the sewers. This is also how NotAbbie Diana draws Ichabod into the case – obvious supernatural creature attacks the president, then Diana, the homeland security agent who knows about magic (because despite EVERY founding father, every last one, being virtual grand warlocks, absolutely none of that knowledge continued down the ages, it seems. Do we need to talk about this? I mean, how does this even happen? The Founding fathers and all their special followers were all woo-woo masters fighting a revolution which was all about demons and magic – but 2 centuries or so later and no-one remembers? They didn’t think it was worth noting).

Sleepy Hollow, Season Four, Episode Two: In Plain Sight

It seems that Sleepy Hollow is in a rush to try to fall into a familiar pattern with their new characters and it all feels so disrespectful to Abbie's memory. #abbiemillsdeservesbetter It's bad enough that the writers thought they could simply replace one WOC with another without toying with our emotions the way that this episode did.

It begins with Ichabod in the D.C. Library, his replacement for the archives.  At any rate, it's night and there's a storm.  It quickly becomes clear that Ichabod isn't alone in the library.  He calls out, "lieutenant", and we watch as feet seem to rush by him. Finally the presence makes itself seen and it's Molly, Diana's daughter. It's enough to startle Ichabod right out of his sleep. It seems that Jenny had been using a Tibetan singing bowl to induce an image of the new witness.  Okay, how exactly did Jenny manage to get the bowl given that it's used to reveal who possess the Dalai Lama's spirit? I know that she's good but come on already. This just feels incredibly disrespectful but this is what happens when POC culture's get mined for woo woo. 

In the aftermath of the vision both of them are showing signs of being effected.  They head outside and Crane thanks Jenny for relocating to Washington for him. Damn right he owes her.  Crane reveals what he saw in the dream and then decides to head to the library to do some research.

Jake and Alex are at the library and Jake has gone all fanboy now that he knows that everything in the library has some important meaning.  Ichabod is forced to break in because he doesn't have the proper clearance to enter the building and Jake promises him a pass to use from here on in.  Alex still seems very reserved when it comes to Crane. 

While this is going on, Malcolm is hunting down yet another artifact to add to his collection.  He heads to a house which contains three witches and offers them a blood which kills the moment it draws blood, in exchange for a stone. The witches hesitate because they have been charged with guarding the witch stone. When Malcolm reveals that the stone actually has nothing to do with witchcraft, two of the three witches turn on their leader and kill her. Well I guess Malcolm has his deal. 

At home Diana has failed at making pancakes for daughter and claims that Molly cannot complain since she is still not speaking. Also, who the hell cannot make pancakes of all things?  I do love Diana's relationship with Molly; it's sweet and really humanises her. When her sister shows up, Diana grabs her things and leaves, stopping long enough to tell Molly that she loves her.

Having landed the case of the dead witch, Diana decides to call Crane in for a consult.  How and why she thinks he's relevant to the case except for the fact that this is how Crane and Abbie used to work together is beyond me. At any rate, Crane admits to know the dead woman from a long time ago. Can you guess what time it is? Why, it's historical flashback time to Washington and Benedict Arnold. Apparently, it was the witches who aided in shutting down Arnold's attempt to betray the revolution.

Crane heads to the library to do more research while the witches decide to hit the town.  It's been three hundred years since they've been outside and so I cannot blame them for wanting to get their drink on.  Two men approach the sisters but unfortunately for the men, they are both married. The sisters see the their attempt to break their marriage vows as dishonest and kill them on the spot.  

Sleepy Hollow, Season Four, Episode One: Columbia

Crane might as well be headless because the entire premise of the show - two witnesses fighting evil was blown up at the end of last season.  Now it seems that the writers think that a change of location, a new archive of sorts and swapping one WOC for another will save this bloody hot mess. Unfortunately, all it did was make the whole thing seems disconnected because Crane doesn't work without Abby to bounce off of. 

Ichabod is being held captive and questioned about everything that happened in Sleepy Hollow the last three years.  The man is confidant in his actions because with Abbie dead (yes that still hurts to say), no one will be looking for Crane.  It's not long before Crane manages to escape and when he does, he looks over his captors things and finds maps, as well as a drawing of the Lincoln Memorial. 

Crane hoofs it to the Lincoln Memorial to the sound of Superstition, which as it turns out is the best part of this episode. Naturally, upon arrival, hell has broken loose. Diana Thomas, a Homeland Security Agent is there with her partner Eric and they've been attacked by a demon, who apparently broke out of the head of the statue of Lincoln.  Now we know why Lincoln had to wear such a big damn hat. Crane manages to scare off the demon before it can kill Diana but he's too late to help Eric, who lies dead on the ground. Although Diana is thankful to be alive, she turns her weapon on Crane in the hope of getting some answers.  Crane's intent is to go after the demon which Diana finds bizarre even after being attacked by said demon.  Diana becomes distracted for a moment and Crane makes himself scarce. 

Outside, Diana tries to explain what she saw to her supervisor and he's quick to brush off her account because it's filled with a description of all the supernatural things that Diana saw.  He warns Diana that a report like this is a career ender and suggests that she just back off for now because the death of a partner can have a strange effect.

Diana magically manages to track Crane to the place where he was held captive. I say magically because even when the writers explain how it still comes across a pile of steaming shit.  Diana is determined to get answers for what happened and to bring the person who killed Eric to justice. We learn that she is a former marine and a single mother of a young girl.  Diana is still unconvinced about the supernatural stuff but points out a government agency in charge of keep track of strange things. Crane immediately recognizes the organisation as being started by none other than George Washington. 

Together they head off to the offices and Crane is suitably underwhelmed when he arrives. The first person Crane and Diana meet is Jake Wells, who is bursting at the seams excited about meeting Crane. Since it's his job to track supernatural phenomenon, he's been following Crane's trail and his exploits in Sleepy Hollow. Jake even tries to snap a selfie with Crane which he quickly balks at. Yeah, so they got me to laugh at this one but I still don't forgive them for Cranewrecking this show and chasing Behaire off. Where was I? Upon further investigation, Crane finds a set of books which contain the secret history of America. This is where he learns that Abraham Lincoln was killed by a demon who used John Wilkes Booth's body.  To kill time, we get a flash to Lincoln being murdered. The whole thing is just ridiculous.  They figure out that demon will appear at a parade the next day and decide to make some magical bullets to deal with this.  Alex, who works with Jake, isn't sure that she's down with this whole demon thing but making weapons is something she loves to do.

Sleepy Hollow: The Intolerable Treatment of Abbie Milles

It has been nearly impossible this week to miss the outpouring of outrage on social media over the season finale of Sleepy Hollow. Yes, in a month where even the usual death rate among marginalised people has grown to even more vomit-inducing levels than we’ve become used to (and it’s always been nauseating), Sleepy Hollow decided to kill off their Black, female protagonist. The heart of the show and one of the main reasons so many people were following it - especially after the second season.

Which is, of course, the background to this appalling death - Sleepy Hollow, despite being, on the face of it, a racially diverse show has shown a shocking level of contempt to those Black characters and the fandom they gathered in season one that was so invested in the surprising diversity (it is, of course, an important but different issue that a show with a Black female protagonist is so rare as to be surprising and to gain such an investment from minority fandom). It seemed that someone in charge of this show simply had no clue at all as to why this show was so popular or why so many people were invested in it - and were so enraged by the hot mess that was Cranewreck, and the sidelining of Captain Irving before killing him off after pretty much ignoring his character for most of the season (plot box now comes in mental institution).

The writers of Sleepy Hollow has earned absolutely no benefit of the doubt from its furious fandom. It entered season 3 with a lot of their fans having turned their back on the Cranewreck and much of the rest watching with narrowed eyes and waiting for this show to dig itself out of that hole. Or bury itself.

And they killed Abbie.

That’s not so much burying yourself as making a spirited attempt to reach the centre of the Earth and digging until you drown in molten lava. Killing her not just showed that they didn’t understand their fandom (or didn’t care about their fandom), and that they had learned nothing after the backlash of the Cranewreck - but also that they didn’t seem to realise what Abbie was to their show or what the death of Abbie revealed about how they thought of Sleepy Hollow.

This was her show. This wasn’t even a story that was about a world setting or particular plot line. This was a show about the WITNESSES. This whole show wasn’t about fighting the Headless Horseman or Henry or the Hidden One (the mere fact the antagonists changes every season established that). This was a show about Abbie and Ichabod, the Witnesses, working together and pooling their expertise and wider circle of friends to defeat the evil and fulfill their destiny

This was Sleepy Hollow the story of the Witnesses. The story of these two excellent characters and how they bounced off each other. Every funny exchange, every touching moment, every time they truly knew each other, every joke they shared and, yes, even the constant possibility they would take the next step and turn their epic friendship into a romance.

In the eyes of us and a huge amount of the fandom, this was the Witnesses show, the show of Ichabod and Abbie, co-protagonists.

While, in the eyes of the writers, it was clearly Ichabod’s show - and his sidekick. All the Cranewreck outrage of season 2 clearly hasn’t changed that - in their eyes this was a show about Ichabod Cane, man out of time and his little band of followers. It showed in season two where we had to endure agonisingly dull episodes with Katrina while Abbie was banished to the plot box and, despite initial indications to the contrary, Abbie sacrificing herself for the sake of Ichabod et al has sealed the deal.

The writers just made this Ichabod’s story. The writers degraded Abbie into becoming a sidekick, a fridged woman to give Ichabod eternal emotional angst and Manpain, another figure in HIS story, rather than the awesome, excellent character who was an equal partner and co-protagonist in the Witnesses story.

Just in case you didn’t catch that insult, look at one of Abbie’s last lines to Ichabod:

“My job was to carry you forwards.”

Are we clear? Abbie existed to further Ichabod’s storyline. This was the sole point of her character, her existence. This Black, female, apparent co-protagonist existed entirely to further the story of the white male ACTUAL protagonist.

“My job was to carry you forwards.”

Seriously, how Nicole Beharie didn’t just stab the writer who gave her that line to speak I do not know. Ye gods, I am in AWE of her restraint.

“My job was to carry you forwards.”

How she managed to choke that out. I just can’t even imagine. And smile? Damn, that’s some incredible acting. Let’s repeat it again:

“My job was to carry you forwards.”

No, I don’t think this will ever sink in. How anyone thought that line was ok boggles the mind.

I am also making a demand now to know where Abbie’s plot armour is. Seriously, I have watched so many damn shows in this genre where a white protagonist will do the most epically self-destructive, ridiculous things borderline suicidal things and somehow survive. Look at Shadowhunters, the whole PLOT of that show is based on Clary making ridiculous decisions, having Jace follow and, for some unknown reason, neither of them ever being killed.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 3, Episode 18: Ragnorak

Well this was some bullshit

I’m not even going to try and go for a detailed recap of this episode because it doesn’t deserve my time or keystrokes and I’m sure Renee and I will sit down together and write a Friday Discussion about Sleepy Hollow’s latest trainwreck

After Betsy Ross is quickly shuffled out of the picture (her presence last episode was as pointless as… well as its always been) they rebuild Pandora’s box with which they intend to trap the Hidden One. Fine print – it needs a Witness Soul to rebuild it. Specifically Abbie’s (yes, of course Abbie’s).

They take their newly rebuilt box to have the most utterly anti-climactic fight ever with his Hiddenness who spends more time making dramatic speeches about how evil he is rather than actually do anything with all that epic power he apparently has. His power is drained but to finish him off, we need a sacrifice

Yes, as anyone with any social media presence knows, that sacrifice is Abbie Mills. She’s dead, she dies to kill the Hidden One.

This happens pretty close to the beginning of the episode and much of the rest of the episode deals with Abbie Mills saying goodbye and assuring Ichabod it’s totally ok to not resurrect her and the whole point of her existence was establishing his specialness anyway

No, really. We actually have that line. Ichabod was her purpose. That’s not rubbing salt into the wounds, that’s rubbing rotting faecal matter into them.

Seriously, I’m not going into detail of the emotion or goodbyes of this episode. I’m not going to even pretend this death was ok or well presented – I’m not going to act like any amount of emotional goodbyes would make her sacrifice anything other than a clumsy story twist forced in at the last minute for no reason

Sleepy Hollow, Season 3, Episode 17: Delaware

While there are many epic thing going on this episode, let’s pause a moment and appreciate the wonderfulness that is Abbie and Ichabod, enjoying their personal favourite foods and drinks and enjoying life a little. They are so excellent together.

Alas, said peacefulness can’t continue as they have a deadline – the Hidden One will become all powerful and scary that night and they need to bring him down, which means rebuilding Pandora’s Box and doing their best to delay the Hidden One before that happens. Which means Team Witnesses are going to the Catacombs while everyone else does their best to try ad delay the Hidden One

Everyone else is Sophie, Jenny (who are not fans of trusting Pandora), Pandora, Joe and, surprisingly, Danny Reynolds who won’t turn his back on the supernatural world now it has finally been revealed to him. He also has an ulterior motive – redemption. He knew someone higher up was asking him to spy on Jenny, but he never knew why and just followed orders. Now he’s seeing that they may have been team!magical!bad!guys and he could have been sabotaging the Witnesses and their fight- he wants to throws his efforts in on team good guy.

They do fight the Hidden One, Danny taking the lead (I’m in two minds about this – on the one hand he is a natural leader, has shown that and has a fine tactical brain. On the other he knows less than anyone there about the supernatural). Danny does seem to be more inclined than anyone to view Pandora as a the victim of an abusive husband. They do several things to delay the Hidden One, but in the process Joe is turned into a Wendigo and Jenny runs off after him… despite all their efforts, the Hidden One eventually charges his hourglass and becomes super powerful.

In the Catacombs Ichabod and Abbie follow in the footsteps of Betsy and Washington all these years ago, there’s a lot of emotion, they find preserved bodies and zombies and it’s all rather grim. They arrive at the scene of Abbie’s imprisonment and, with new knowledge, they open a hidden door and find… Betsy Ross

Who is not dead. And thinks she was only sealed up some months ago…

No! No Katrina #2, get ye back to your Catacombs! Away with you! In the name of the Cranewreck I cast ye out!

Sleepy Hollow, Season 3, Episode 16: Dawn's Early Light

Underpinning the story this week is Pandora officially being Done with the Hidden One. She’s sick of his bullshit especially since he’s taken to torturing her after last week’s revelations.

She’s done with this. She abandons him with a hard hitting speech about how they’re supposed to be lovers and partners like Ichabod and Abbie are (well, they’re partners) and he treats her as a slave, or (as he puts it) a pet – she’s now going to work against him

Ok, interval to parse this. The Hidden One and Pandora has always been deeply problematic on two levels: it was grossly misogynist with Pandora being this subservient, servile, cringing follower who called that cringing love and affection despite endless abuse. She constantly begged for any kind of affection or attention and never received any respect. On this level, Pandora telling him she’s Done is excellent

But it’s also deeply problematic on a racial angle – with the dark skinned Black men being this savage, anti-technology, domineering monster who has then enslaved (his and her own words) a white woman. (And that is something else to address – why this thousand year old woman from an ancient civilisation which apparently isn’t Greece had to be a White woman). We have a dark skinned Black man not only enslaving a White woman (which is cringeworthy to begin with) but also being the big scary menacing abuser of her. Pandora breaking free does not change the racial tropes that have dogged this toxic “relationship.”

Fleeing this hot mess, Pandora goes to the Witnesses, she wants to reforge her box which has the power to contain the Hidden One. But to do that they need to go back to the catacombs where Abbie was locked away for so long – which she isn’t exactly super thrilled about this.

So this requires tracking down how to get into the catacombs – this includes lots of history, lots of name dropped, Betsy Ross (who was EVERYWHERE), Masons, visiting historical sites and accidentally waking up a tar covered fire-throwing zombie soldier.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 3, Episode 15: Incommunicado

At the end of last episode the Hidden One decided he was officially done with everyone and he was going to take matters into his own hands – but killing the Witnesses himself.

So he attacks Ichabod – and Ichabod is completely helpless in the face of him. Y’know this would have been a much shorter season if the Hidden One had done this around episode 3.

However, it turns out the nifty little symbol Abbie has been loving is called the Emblem of Thura and it has the shiny ability to absorb evil god powers and create a prison to lock them up

That sounds good to be but there’s two down sides. 1) Crane is locked up with the Hidden One (where they then talk about Ichabod’s feelings, art, theology, Ichabod’s insecurities and the fact that being a Witness is hereditary. This is news to Ichabod. This is news to Ichabod despite him having found a Witness artefact in his family crypt. I mean, Witness paraphernalia being family heirlooms suggests a level of inheritance to me). And 2) The Hidden One is officially Not Pleased about being locked up and may nuke all the things to try and get free. Since no-one wants to be nuked this means we’re going to have an… unlikely alliance between Abbie and Pandora.

It’s tense to say the least, but the plan is to get Pandora to use magic from a dark monster of some kind and then direct it at the prison and open it up. The one snag is that when Sophie, Joe and Jenny go to capture a passing banshee, they end up having to kill it. Oopsie

Luckily they do have a second option – Joe has been having Wendigo issues. He’s very worried about becoming all monstery and hurting Jenny (not entirely unreasonable, though I think it’s equally likely he will go monstery and Jenny will have to kill him). This means he’s willing to volunteer to be the monster battery for Pandora – even if it means he may die. (Who here actually thought he might die? Nah, the plot armour is strong with this one).

Sleepy Hollow, Season Three, Episode Fourteen: Into the Wild

The episode begins with Abbie and Jenny rock climbing. It's clear that the year Abbie spent in the alternate dimension has left her in some great shape.  Abbie is also in no mood to suffer fools when some strange man tries to get her to play the role of helpless woman.  Gotta say, Abbie had me screaming booya.

When they get back, Abbie learns that Ichabod has made plans for them to travel to Rochester N.Y. to meet a professor to discover more about the symbol which Abbie seems to be addicted to.  Abbie has to take a rain check because Daniel has organized a survival training weekend for the FBI.  I was initially not pleased to see Abbie and Ichabod go their separate ways for this episode because Sleepy Hollow is always better when these two are playing off of each other. We've also had enough of Abbie and Crane being separated from each other recently.

At the training site, Abbie learns that they are going to be given the bare minimum to survive and this means no cell phones. As a die hard city girl, I would consider this particular assignment cruel and unusual punishment.  Unsurprisingly, Abbie gets paired up with Sophie and because their third partner is in the hospital, Daniel decides to join them.  Sophie is certain that this is going to be awkward and she's right.  As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't pleased to see Abbie and Crane separated but this little weekend retreat gives Abbie and Sophie a chance to bond which is important given that they are going to be working together.  We learn that Sophie sees the supernatural as something which could possibly give her answers regarding her missing parents while Abbie can only see all that she has lost because of the supernatural. While the women chat, Daniel and the tour guide find an old well.  The tour guide leans in long enough to take a picture and it quickly becomes clear that there's something supernatural in the well.

They don't get far from the well when the guide is attacked by some mummy looking reject. The guide gets bitten and Abbie and Sophie cover claiming that the guide was bitten by a coyote.  After giving the guide some basic first aid, they build a wooden stretcher planning to walk him out of the woods.  Sophie believes that Daniel should be told what is going on but Abbie is adamant that anyone she has ever brought into the supernatural has suffered extreme consequences.  Ummm so how is letting the man walk through the woods unaware of the real threat actually taking care of him?  Abbie feigns tiredness and stays behind as Daniel and Sophie start walking back to the cars.  The creature attacks and Abbie manages to cut off its hand, only to watch in horror as it regenerates. This time, it's Sophie to the rescue and she manages to save Abbie.  When they meet up with Daniel, Abbie suggests resting at a cabin for now.  Is anyone else wondering why they feel the need to rest? How far could they have gotten from the starting point given that at one point they were walking in circles?

They aren't at the cabin for long before Daniel decides that he can move faster by himself and should go and get help.  Abbie tries to talk him out of it but Daniel is in no mood to listen, claiming that everything is always about Abbie. A stunned Abbie questions why he asked her to come back and Daniel cryptically answers that maybe he didn't have a choice.  Daniel takes off and for the life of me the fact that Abbie still doesn't tell the man she so clearly cares about what is going on is astounding. Is Daniel suddenly going to go invisible in the woods so that creature cannot see him?  Abbie checks on the wounded guide and discovers that  he has maggots crawling around in the wound. Yeah, it's as gross as it sounds.  Sophie just happens to find a journal in the cabin and learns that when the reject mummy creature bites someone, they also turn into a reject mummy creature. I guess there's no need to explain to us how or why Sophie reads Dutch right?  Right on cue, the guide stands up snarling and Abbie knocks him unconscious with a huge piece of wood. The women figure out that the only way to save the guide is to kill the creature which infected him.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 3, Episode 13: Dark Mirror

We open with the kind of scene I really want to see a lot more of – the happy domestic breakfast with Jenny, Joe, Abbie and Ichabod having breakfast, Ichabod being all historical and outraged. It’s cute. Though this time Ichabod is outraged because he’s distracting himself from his immigration issues

Another shadow over this whole domestic scene is Abbie – she’s still very distracted by her obsession with her special symbol, which will come up later.

The monster of the week turns out to be the Jersey Devil which, in addition to being a cryptid Urban Legend, turns out to be an old rival of Franklin’s who turned to Alchemy and turned himself into a green skinned monster with claws and poison and a tail with more poison and horns and a whole lot of other things that the guy considers an advantage despite living in a time of firearms which rends most claws/poisons etc rather obsolete while clothes shopping becomes a pain in the scorpion-tailed arse. It does come with a side order of being immortal and bullet proof though, so ups and downs.

The beast also has his own little video of the Hidden One’s history – which is the main point of this episode.

Way back in time we had super duper gods hanging around humans, being worshipped and occasionally squishing people while getting lots of presents to keep the squishing to a minimum. Boss god happily lives in the sunlight with his super-powerful Hourglass of specialness. While the Hidden One is banished to the basement, hidden away for reasons unknown. Unfortunately, being gods doesn’t make you intelligent, because he’s also locked up with a Box full of evil (Pandora’s Box) which has the power of destroying shiny god’s Hourglass

Do I need to point out the racial problems that comes with good Boss god being made up, literally, or shining light while the dangerous, imprisoned, naughty bad god is a dark skinned Black man?

Pandora was given the job of providing please-don’t-squish-us offerings to the gods and she totally fell for the Hidden One, giving him presents and, at his not-so-subtle manipulations, using the box to kill shiny God by destroying the special Hourglass.