Sleepy Hollow: This is War

September 22, 2014 10:50 PM - Season 2, Episode 1

She's a small-town police lieutenant with a troubled childhood. He's a Revolutionary War era soldier transported to the modern day. Together, they fight crime the Apocalypse!
posted by Jacqueline (71 comments total)

If you stumbled in here looking for the discussion of the *movie* Sleepy Hollow, it's two posts down.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:52 PM on September 22, 2014

OK so I have no idea why they keep giving Ichabod Crane / Tim Mison top billing because Abbie Mills / Nicole Beharie is CLEARLY the central person on the show.

Almost every other major character is connected to HER, not Ichabod. The only characters more connected to Ichabod are Katrina (NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU, KATRINA!) and Henry Parrish (I love John Noble but I doubt he's going to be on the show long-term?).

Without Ichabod, Abbie would soldier on fighting the good fight. Without Abbie, Ichabod would electrocute himself while trying to make toast.

Abbie Mills 4EVAR!
posted by Jacqueline at 11:00 PM on September 22, 2014 [11 favorites]

ugh apparently my cheap basic-channels cable subscription is not good enough for the fox website and I should really go to bed instead of waiting for a torrent to download

things I want to know this season:

--is this the version of the four horsemen with Conquest or with Pestilence please have it be Pestilence that would be rad
--Jenny's alive plz
---I will accept Jenny being dead if we have an Orphean mission to bust her out of the afterlife. (Jenny would be the one planning the whole thing.)
--is Katrina going to be less of a drip now that she's not stuck in purgatory occasionally delivering exposition?
---I secretly hope that she's super-driven and awesome now and that Ichabod continues to be the least essential person on the show (but everyone forgives him for it because he's adorable.)
--are we ever going to get more Andy, or are we pretending to be optimistic about Selfie taking off?
---I heard Selfie is terrible, but on the other hand John Cho and Karen Gillan, so should I watch it anyway?
posted by kagredon at 1:15 AM on September 23, 2014

Selfie is so bad it goes right the way out to being awesome, IMO. It doesn't pretend to be serious, they're both ridiculous figures and there are little moments that work. Be warned that there is Magical Sassy Black Woman in the first episode, but OTOH her son is so cute. It has potential to be Pushing Daisy-weird awesome.

Andy's total crush on Abbie cracks me up everytime he's on screen because it's so odd - I sold my soul to a demon for the apocalypse because I am totally in love with you, when Abbie barely has the time of day for him. I'm worried that they will play him getting redeemed through her lurve or something dumb when he is an asshole who should possibly feel bad for helping murder people, not that Abbie won't date him.

Mind you, that's where poor Katrina is, stuck with her supernatural stalker.
posted by viggorlijah at 1:43 AM on September 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

When I wasn't sure if they'd jumped ahead in time, I briefly though Oh NO, JENNY! then realised, no Katrina either and felt so much better.
posted by viggorlijah at 1:44 AM on September 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

I watch this with my husband, the history teacher. You'd think he'd absolutely despise this show, but every time Ichabod is inserted into history, a la "I was an apprentice to Benjamin Franklin under George Washington's orders" we just say in unison, "of COURSE you were!" But then details like the red, white and blue frosting on the birthday cupcake happen, and we choose to forget the history.

Can someone explain to me why the 2 witnesses are Ichabod and Abbie and not Abbie and Jenny or even Ichabod and Jenny? He saw it first, but they saw it together.

The show was delightful as always. Ichabod and Abbie's partnership is a joy to behold. I hope next episode they find a Plot Reversal Device (like Franklin's Key) in order to get Captain Irving out of jail.
posted by kimberussell at 3:27 AM on September 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

we choose to forget the history

Also, how gunpowder works.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:34 AM on September 23, 2014 [5 favorites]

Can someone explain to me why the 2 witnesses are Ichabod and Abbie and not Abbie and Jenny or even Ichabod and Jenny? He saw it first, but they saw it together.

Have we gotten confirmation from an in-universe infallible source that Ichabod is indeed the other witness or is he just assuming so? (I don't remember the details of last season very well...)

Maybe Abby and Jenny actually *are* the two witnesses and Ichabod is there for some other reason or just because random wacky wifey witchcraft instead of destiny. That could be an interesting twist down the road.
posted by Jacqueline at 5:04 AM on September 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

I love this show and last night's episode was great. I went right along with it having jumped ahead a year. I mean if that's what the show producers wanted, I figured, fine. And then bam. So good. Agreed on how there are elements of this show that should be bad, but the cast and the details and the acting just all make it work. I really wanted to be watching MNF, but once it started, no way I was turning it off. Can't wait until next week.
posted by cashman at 6:06 AM on September 23, 2014

A technical question. It appears I can only watch SH on Hulu if I have a plus account, and the Fox website wants a password (or for me to wait 8 days). So basically I can only watch legally if I wait now?
posted by Partario at 6:48 AM on September 23, 2014

So glad we're discussing this show. This is a favorite in our house.

That said, I felt like this episode was a little off. The music was TOO MUCH and pretty distracting. And the action was TOO MUCH and a little silly. There wasn't much building up to anything - it was just constant GO. I wanted to spend time with the characters I've been missing.
posted by MsVader at 7:15 AM on September 23, 2014

Ahh, so glad this topic came up. I was going to try and post it but haven't done one before, and the show wasn't on the list and I dithered a bit and then figured somebody who knew what they were doing would post it.

The show is so amazingly ridiculous, and I remember seeing the ads for the first season and scoffing, but it makes no sense and I love it. Mr. Killian made a scoffing statement about the amount of kaboom Ichabod managed to get out of his coffin dirt (I don't even know) and I told him that in a show with all the delightful absurdity that SH offers, you can't turn up your nose at a scientifically dodgy explosion because there's always going to be something crazier coming along in the next second or so.

However, I am willing to believe 100% that Ben Franklin was Just Like That.

Sars recapped it for Previously.tv and I admit I felt the same way when treated to Headless Horseman pecs - a combination of admiration, confusion, and delight that we now live in a world where I can ogle a supernaturally animated headless dude who is way buff.
posted by PussKillian at 7:27 AM on September 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

OK so I have no idea why they keep giving Ichabod Crane / Tim Mison top billing because Abbie Mills / Nicole Beharie is CLEARLY the central person on the show.

There was a gross awful interaction w/a reviewer about this, maybe a NYT writer? I saw it on tumblr the other day and had to scroll past for my blood pressure but basically they were calling her the "sidekick".
posted by poffin boffin at 8:30 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

yeah, it was in the same "Shonda Rhimes is an angry black woman" article that caused kerfuffle for being all-around terrible and race-baity.
posted by kagredon at 11:45 AM on September 23, 2014

If was Alessandra Stanley, I am going to officially lose my shit.

On preview: Are you fucking kidding me?
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:46 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hah, interestingly I just went over to that article and at the bottom is this:

Correction: September 22, 2014

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the actress Nicole Beharie of the TV show “Sleepy Hollow.” Ms. Beharie, who plays the policewoman Abbie Mills on the show, is a star of “Sleepy Hollow” — not a sidekick.
posted by PussKillian at 2:13 PM on September 23, 2014 [5 favorites]

HA HA HA u got told lady
posted by poffin boffin at 2:48 PM on September 23, 2014

Nerdist has the SleepyCast for this episode, with showrunner Mark Goffman, author Alex Irvine, and John Noble.

I loved the episode overall, minus the gunpowder thing, which seemed unnecessary. My one hope for this season is that they find a way to bring Clancy Brown in for some flashbacks. Beside the fact that he makes everything he's in better, there is a ton of fertile ground there, backstory-wise.
posted by gimli at 4:35 PM on September 23, 2014

Get used to it, people. OF COURSE in the Sleepy Hollowverse you can blow yourself out of a grave with homemade gunpowder without killing yourself in the process. I bet it also works in the Hannibalverse! If I wanted reality I wouldn't be watching TV on a Monday night.

I honestly cut the showrunner a bit of slack here because they left themselves an awful pickle and already had to introduce a new maguffin with the key to rescue Abbie.

I just wonder what they're going to do about all the people who spent last year shipping Ichabod+Abbie now that Katrina is potentially back. I think that might not bode well for her character arc.
posted by localroger at 4:48 PM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I love this show and last night's episode was great. I went right along with it having jumped ahead a year. I mean if that's what the show producers wanted, I figured, fine. And then bam. So good.

In a television era where even sitcoms are doing time jumps, this particular brand of audience manipulation got a real life slow clap from me. I totally was on board as well but also thinking about how lots of fans would be losing their shit on the way that fans do (twitter looked at in hindsight from those 15 minutes proved me correct), and then it was Purgatory because of course. Probably my favorite part of an episode I really enjoyed.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:50 PM on September 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

P.S. I kind of lump Ichabod's trick with the gunpowder into the same category as all the times any Star Trek episode script "teched the tech" and just assumed that someone converseant with the laws of the series universe would apply the right jargon to explain the $PHENOMENON.

Oh, and having tuned in at the last minute being out of town and learning like 5 minutes before it aired that Sleepy Hollow was back on, I spent that whole backflip wondering if I'd missed the real premiere episode somehow.
posted by localroger at 4:52 PM on September 23, 2014

basically they were calling her the "sidekick".

To Jenny? I would watch a show starring Jenny with Abbie as her sidekick. (More Jenny please. Lots more Jenny. Also where were Irving and his daughter?)

I cannot begin to explain what about this show works because it is so crazy on just about every level but I love it so much and enjoy every second of it that Katrina isn't in. (I would have been willing to give her a fresh start this season, but she got no better.)

a new maguffin with the key to rescue Abbie.

Which luckily dissolved so we don't have to worry about it coming back up as a plot point.
posted by jeather at 5:35 PM on September 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Reactions to the episode:

1) YESSSSSSSSSS.

2) Timothy Busfield outta fucking nowhere. Without pants on.

3) Yessssssss.

4) Did everything I think I wanted out of this show picking up again. I did feel sorry for anyone trying to make any sense of anything if they hadn't seen the show before ... But who starts a show cold on S2E1 in modernity? Especially one with a reputation like this show's?

The show was as batty as ever, but it held the same sort of pseudo-logic (or at least emotional logic) that the first season had once it got its legs under it. I don't find the phelbotinum on this show any sillier than many, many other shows so that's never bothered me, and all the ~hidden conspiracies~ in history is a particular weak spot of mine.

All this to say, the episode felt like the show I remembered from S1 at its best... So:

5) This.
posted by sparkletone at 6:32 PM on September 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

Really? This is worth watching? really? I paid no attention as absurd premises go this seemed just way beyond even for someone that found Fringe pretty matter of fact, Hmm, guess I'll have to. really?
posted by sammyo at 6:58 PM on September 23, 2014

Really? This is worth watching? really? I paid no attention as absurd premises go this seemed just way beyond even for someone that found Fringe pretty matter of fact, Hmm, guess I'll have to. really?

I spent a large part of the first season saying to myself during/after every episode, "This is way better than it has any right to be given ridiculous things X, Y and Z."

I eventually had to give up the pretense and accept that I enjoy the shit out of this show. And not ironically. It is a deeply silly premise, and that is not played for camp much. But it's also not dire or overly serious in the least, and the two leads have great chemistry. It's not Art™, but it is a shitload of fun, in my opinion.

But don't start with this episode, go watch from the beginning. It doesn't take that long to really get going and the first season is pretty short to boot (13 episodes, though they're doing 18 this time out).
posted by sparkletone at 7:14 PM on September 23, 2014 [5 favorites]

Really? This is worth watching? really? I paid no attention as absurd premises go this seemed just way beyond even for someone that found Fringe pretty matter of fact, Hmm, guess I'll have to. really?

It's either the best worst show or the worst best show -- even after watching every episode with avid interest I'm still undecided.

Either way it's very very watchable, especially while drunk.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:16 PM on September 23, 2014

It's also one of the only shows on TV where almost every major character and recurring guest star is a person of color without being a show specifically about race or aimed at a non-white target audience. So IMO it's worth watching just for the sheer refreshing novelty.

I'm not even a PoC and even I'm thoroughly sick of shows that are all white people all the time.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:22 PM on September 23, 2014 [13 favorites]

Really? This is worth watching? really?

To the complete shock of every single person who heard about the show before it aired, yes, it is. (Watch from the start.)
posted by jeather at 8:04 PM on September 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

Really? This is worth watching? really?

This show is so unrepentantly, gleefully absurd, and goes along at this constant breakneck pace* like it has so much stuff it wants to show you that it can barely squeeze it all into just the one hour, never letting you have a moment to think about the insanity of it all....it's like if you've ever had that friend who always comes up with craziest, most batshit this-cannot-possibly-go-well plans but is so goddamned infectiously joyfully enthusiastic about the plan that you can't help yourself but to get swept up in it all, even if some faint rational voice in the back of your mind is saying "This makes no sense! You know that, right? This makes no sense!" And then afterwards, when the crazy friend's plan (as usual) does not work out the way it was supposed to and you're getting frisked by the cops or something and breathlessly going "oh my god why did I ever agree to be involved in this" your crazy friend grins at you and says "Dude! That was SO. MUCH. FUN. Worth it!" and you realize that yes, even if it was a terrible idea it was indeed far, far more fun than anything else you would've been doing on a Monday night.

Sleepy Hollow is that friend, but condensed down to an hour-long episode of TV once a week. This is why it's hard to explain why it's good - much like the terrible plans of your hypothetical crazy friend, if you just wrote the plan down on paper there would be nothing on the page but the obvious terribleness of the terrible plan. Similarly, any plot synopsis of this show is blatantly, obviously batshit crazy. But it is absolutely more fun that whatever else you'd be doing on a Monday night.



*I am predisposed to like Katrina because I think Katia Winter is outrageously gorgeous, but man, the problem this show has with her (and continued to have in this episode) is that every scene she's in, the pacing of the show drops from LUDICROUS SPEED to like, Jane-Austen-novel-speed, and I think that's a major factor in why nobody likes her. This show can't ever slow down, it's like the bus from Speed, if it slows down too much it'll explode.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:21 PM on September 23, 2014 [15 favorites]

Everyone else has covered why this show is great pretty well, but I'd also add, because it is my very favorite thing when genre media does this, is that even though the plot is totally bonkers, the characters usually act in ways that at least vaguely resemble normal sane human behavior.

One of the recurring characters is Abbie's boss, the police chief (Irving), and I really thought the show was going to do the typical thing of We Must Sneak Around And Keep Everything Secret For No Particular Reason, and then around episode 4 of weird happenings that they've barely been able to explain, Irving just asks them straight out "okay what the fuck are you two up to", and they explain the whole time-travel/witchcraft/avert the apocalypse thing, and his response is basically "siiiigh, you guys are going to make my life so difficult" and he winds up covering for them in small white-lie ways at first and then being an integral part of the climactic action by the end of the season.
posted by kagredon at 11:51 PM on September 23, 2014 [5 favorites]

Ichabod's nickname in my head is now "Cupcake" until the end of days.

I loved his expressive "I don't know how to reverse, I CAN'T DRIVE" face.

I'm so glad Jenny is alive!
posted by nicebookrack at 4:57 AM on September 24, 2014

This is why it's hard to explain why it's good - much like the terrible plans of your hypothetical crazy friend, if you just wrote the plan down on paper there would be nothing on the page but the obvious terribleness of the terrible plan. Similarly, any plot synopsis of this show is blatantly, obviously batshit crazy.

From the Genevieve Valentine/io9 recap (hers are the best):

Welcome back to season two of Sleepy Hollow, the show that makes any attempt at describing it to a non-watcher sound like you're the drunk guy who went to a historical-conspiracy website one time and Cannot Stop Thinking About It!
[...]
[E]very grocery list a Founding Father ever penned will be proven, onscreen, to contain a priceless safeguard against the arcane forces of evil that apparently saw a distinct uptick right around the time of the Revolutionary War.

See, just the one sentence about this show makes you think it's terrible. And by all rights it should be terrible. But it isn't (read any of the premiere reviews, which say essentially "somehow this is not only not terrible but actually good"). As kagredon points out, the characters act like recognizable humans (who can dial up or down their IQ as needed for the plot, but who make sense emotionally). And the casting is mostly great. (I am not sure if Katia Winter can't act or has been given absolutely nothing to do with her character or both.)

I mean, sure, you'll get your silver-covered skulls out of nowhere, but the relationships between the characters matter and are plot relevant.
posted by jeather at 5:25 AM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

My husband spotted some clue that the flash forward was a fake early on and called it to me, and was very pleased with himself when he was proven right on that point.

Nthing that this show is utterly ridiculous, and my inner historian ought to hate it, but I just grin when naked Ben Franklin shows up to invent an alphabet and have a secret occult key. OF COURSE.
posted by immlass at 7:03 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Really? This is worth watching? really?

Yes. Absolutely.

Don't worry - we ALL scoffed at the premise. I was prepared for the dumbest show ever, but was pleasantly shocked at how much I loved it from the very beginning. I get so much joy from watching this show, and it's just so FUN.
posted by MsVader at 7:50 AM on September 24, 2014

The feather quill pen used to sign the Declaration will be revealed to be an angel's feather. I put my 5$ down now.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:47 AM on September 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

I think I was awaiting this show's return the most of all the returning shows from last season. One of the reasons it succeeds so endearingly is because it plays the craziness with an absolute straight face, no matter how over the top it can reach. It was probably best summarized in the first season (pilot, even?) when the Headless Horseman trades in his axe for a shotgun, because, why not? It's a better weapon (for non-decapitating deaths)! So we have a headless horseman strutting around with crossed bandoliers of shotgun shells trying to get our good guys, it's freakin' fun!

As someone with two degrees in history, I don't even bother trying to worry about how it's misrepresenting this fact or that, because the level of absurdness is fantastic. It's great to imagine the Founding Fathers not just fighting a war for independence, but war against occult forces! Whee!

Right, onto this week's episode!

I initially wasn't very pleased with the false flash forward, because I thought it just glossed over way too many important things and when you end last season on such high cliff hangers, you just have to resolve them and you can't do it in flashbacks while going on with the story. That's just wrong. It dawned on me, however, that the flash forward must have been created entirely for the purpose to help establish the relationship between Abby and Ichabod, help set the stakes and context, the fact that War is his son, and not to mention, Ichabod's man out of time character (birthday traditions, etc). It offered a new viewer a good short idea of what the show was about and how it was about it in a way that a simple montage at the beginning of the show could not (which there still was, but it's a big chunk of info for a new viewer to imbibe at once).

And thankfully, the flash forward ended and in a rather spectacular fashion, we watched Ichabod be bound again into the coffin beneath the earth. His escape, while insane, was totally inline with the show. Loved it. I also appreciated John Cho's brief appearance and in non-demonic form at that.

The purgatory key was an interesting device. The writers drop Abby in Purgatory with clearly established rules on who gets to go in and who gets to go out. But, they apparently decided that no one was suitable to replace Abby, and thus, create this magical key cure all for the problem. It may have also been created to introduce Benjamin Franklin (played by Timothy Busfield!). I'm looking forward to more of the party's are fun type of Franklin, as Busfield's Franklin came across as rather stern, at least with his killjoy of an apprentice. The key, which served its purpose, then conveniently evaporates into thin air - therefore no longer staying on the gaming board.

Katrina and Headless, together again! The whole storyline confused me with their engagement, as Katrina is represented at one point as being Roma (right?), which by that point in history meant she was part of a class of people who were rather looked down upon in the 1700s. Why a rich English guy would be marrying her or how she became into that position was rather confounding. None the less, it's hard to see a Sleepy Hollow with Ichabod in domestic bliss. It's kind of like how we could never have Buffy and Angel together, they don't get to be happy and content. My guess is that Katrina will end up dead or trapped again somewhere before the end of this season (unless it ends with her rescue and then see Season 3 for the entrapment/death).

Jenny continues to be awesome. Her and her sister make an incredible screen presence and it's one of the things I love about the show. Ichabod's partial rescue with the ambulance, as someone mentioned above, was great when he was overcome with time traveler helplessness. (speaking of him and tech, I wonder if there's an entire video out there of his farewell letter to Abby or if they just filmed him ending it?)

I look forward to see the war on War, the continued presence of Franklin, and what happens next. We get more episodes this year and hopefully, no dilution of quality. We were left completely up in the air on Captain Irving, so I assume we will learn more next week.

As an aside, it's interesting that the normal "patriarchal figures" to reference A.O. Scott, the older white men, are in this show either as bad guys or, as figures out of time. Our lead characters in the present are people of color and/or women. Is this something that makes it stand out more from the rest of television? To another degree, the tv show, now canceled, Almost Human, had very much a similar angle with people of color being in prominent or supervisory roles. The only white guy, while not a time traveler, definitely was portrayed as someone who had an attitude reflective of the past more so than the present.
posted by Atreides at 9:18 AM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

I paid no attention as absurd premises go this seemed just way beyond even for someone that found Fringe pretty matter of fact, Hmm, guess I'll have to. really?

I mean, yeah, give it a try but don't feel bad if you hate it, obviously. I've tried watching things where my initial reaction was "this looks like crap" but was talked into watching anyway by people who insisted it was AMAAAAZING and pretty much every time my first impression was correct. I feel like Sleepy Hollow is the kind of show where may people who love it loved it from the moment they even heard about it.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:33 AM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I feel like Sleepy Hollow is the kind of show where may people who love it loved it from the moment they even heard about it.

That's absolutely not the case with me. As I said above, I scoffed at the premise and thought it was going to be the dumbest thing ever. But I kept an open mind, because I had the same reaction to Hannibal, which I ended up loving. Luckily, for me, I took the chance and found another great show that I had initially completely dismissed. So, take that for what it's worth.
posted by MsVader at 11:59 AM on September 24, 2014

I scoffed at the premise and thought it was going to be the dumbest thing ever.

Yeah, me too -- it sounded stupid and I had no intention of paying attention. (Like Hannibal.) But then people whose reviews I generally agree with started saying it was awesome (like Hannibal) so I decided to watch it and was totally hooked (like Hannibal and, come to think of it, OITNB). Then I passed along this "hey, it sounds stupid but it's great" review to other people who came to love it.

But if you don't like episode one, don't keep going.
posted by jeather at 12:08 PM on September 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

If Katrina is meant to be Roma, I missed it entirely. I don't know if her exact status is known, because she is/was a nurse, a witch, and also important enough to get invited to cocktail parties in fancy dresses and get courted by wealthy upper-class men, so it's all kind of confusing.

They need to clarify how she does her magic, because if she doesn't need a dozen ingredients to put into a boiling kettle in order to cast a spell, I want to know why she didn't use magic to free her hands and get out of Dodge before Headless McPecs came back home.
posted by PussKillian at 12:09 PM on September 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Headless McPecs

LOVE IT.
posted by MsVader at 1:21 PM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

If Katrina is meant to be Roma, I missed it entirely.

I did some digging, it may be that I just made some kind of weird wire crossing. Apparently in episode 2 or so of the first season, there is a witch from Katrina's coven who IS Roma, and maybe I conflated all the withes to be Roma.

The Sleepy Hollow wiki states that Katrina is actually Quaker. Historical note, Nathanael Greene, a general in the Continental Army was also a Quaker. While I doubt he will come up, there ya go.
posted by Atreides at 1:55 PM on September 24, 2014

Headless McPecs

I'm using this forever.
posted by kimberussell at 10:42 AM on September 25, 2014 [2 favorites]

I feel like Sleepy Hollow is the kind of show where may people who love it loved it from the moment they even heard about it.

Not for me, I heard the premise and thought it was ridiculous, but I watched it with no real expectations of liking it and fell in love with the show.

I also was tricked by the time jump and a bit confused since I knew Jenny was suppose to be a series regular this season and it made me sad that she therefore would only appear in flashbacks. I was unbothered by the death of Katrina (well, it helps with the UST to have something blocking Ichabod and Abbie from jumping each other, but that is all her character rates in my book)

When we were shown it was all fake (with Henry hinting at it while watering his plants) I was glad that we got a living version of Jenny and her amazing eyebrows.

Someone upthread mentioned that perhaps the main problem with Katrina is the pacing of her scenes and that is an idea I never thought about, but it is a possibility. That paired with the amazing chemistry between Tom and Nicole really makes it hard to care about Katrina.

I was also wondering why Katrina didn't just magic her way out of her danger, or even just you know, pull hard on the leather straps, or try and break the chair - do something to save herself.
posted by Julnyes at 11:40 AM on September 25, 2014 [2 favorites]

Because Katrina is the worst.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:51 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Katrina IS the worst. And I'm so glad I'm not the only one that thinks so. She hasn't quite approached [Grimm's] Juliet-levels of awfulness yet, but it won't be long.

It is refreshing to have a non-romantic partnership portrayed on TV for once, though. And as much as I might ship Crane and Mills in some back corner of my brain, I think I'd prefer it if they could just be a really awesome platonic evil-fighting duo.
posted by MsVader at 12:15 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

The thing is, she doesn't have to be the worst. But she's the third wheel in a show devoted to the charisma between two other people, so she was stuck in a weird position. She can't be too sassy because she's a refined lady from the past and anyway, the sass is kinda split between Abby and Jenny, with Ichabod providing the more eye-rolling exasperated snarky variety. But she's also supposed to be a demon-fighting witch. And on top of everything, she has to be an exposition fairy, which in this show has to be delivered with a light touch because there's a lot of it and it's all ridiculous. I'm not sure what they're going to do with her character, but perhaps amping up some of the witch and reducing the Harlequin Romance would help a lot to at least give her something to do.
posted by PussKillian at 12:26 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

non-romantic partnership portrayed on TV for once

This idea confuses me because there are plenty of non-romantic pairings on TV and I often see it trotted out when one of the pairings is a black woman. People say they want to see a strong independent female character as if that precludes a love interest. Can't she be strong, intelligent and independent AND have a love life? I feel like black actresses spend way more time as the sassy best friend on TV and rarely get to be the romantic lead on television.


(I am not accusing you specifically of this, I just see this argument applied to black female characters a lot and it bugs me)
posted by Julnyes at 12:32 PM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

personally, I just want to see every iteration of Ichabod and Abbie's relationship

best friends
soulmates
fuckbuddies
can't stand each other after years of fighting evil together but still hatebang in the cabin now and then
etc.

all of it. Every possibility.

(I don't much mind people personally preferring them as just friends, but I do side-eye the occasional tumblr post that claims the poster "just doesn't see it", because IMO the shipping is being teased pretty hard in the text of the show.)
posted by kagredon at 12:44 PM on September 25, 2014 [2 favorites]

Do they explain in any way why the key dissolves? I laughed so hard when that happened.

Katrina is a third wheel, while Jenny makes it into an awesome trio.
posted by Julnyes at 12:56 PM on September 25, 2014

People say they want to see a strong independent female character as if that precludes a love interest. Can't she be strong, intelligent and independent AND have a love life?

Despite their numerous other faults, I think this is something that Bones and Castle have both done well.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:08 PM on September 25, 2014

I'm all for platonic friendship, but I sort of think that Ichabod and Abbie as a couple could be comedy gold. I'm thinking that it won't happen for a couple of seasons, though, because first they would have to dispense with Katrina and give everyone a little while to forget that she was supposed to be the love of Ichabod's life and all of that.

I feel like refined ladies from the past can totally be sassy. It's a failure of the writing that Katrina is such a drip. But she's awful, and they need to kill her soon. Maybe they could have her turn out to be evil and have a secret personality that she has been suppressing to seem non-evil.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:13 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Katrina is a third wheel, while Jenny makes it into an awesome trio.

Yup, but Jenny isn't being teased as having deep romantical feelings for Ichabod, so. And I may be misremembering, but wasn't there a little potential groundwork being laid for Jenny/Irving?

I feel like refined ladies from the past can totally be sassy.

Sure, they can be, but that's not what they've done with her, and in the meantime she has gotten to play straight woman while everybody else gets to sass.
posted by PussKillian at 1:16 PM on September 25, 2014

And I may be misremembering, but wasn't there a little potential groundwork being laid for Jenny/Irving?

Yes! Irving's daughter thought Jenny was his girlfriend, and there was some blushing/denial/smiling about that. I'm a mild Irving/Jenny shipper.
posted by kimberussell at 1:31 PM on September 25, 2014 [6 favorites]

Platonic friendships are definitely enjoyable (my favorite at the moment being Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation)

I can definitely get behind the Irving / Jenny ship. Their babies would have amazing eyebrows and basically be superheroes.
posted by Julnyes at 1:37 PM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]

Mmmm, I agree that having the Cranes just pick up where they left off would be boring and not do much for Katrina's desperately-needed character development, but I also am not real keen on writing off female characters by making them evil and/or dead (though anything would be better than continuing the "locked away by evil" thing, so hopefully she gets freed from Headless McPecs soon), and the reveals of Ichabod's personal connections to War and Death would make it seem a little ridiculous if Katrina also was evil*

So, some alternatives:
1. Sure, Ichabod remembers their marriage like it was yesterday, but Katrina had to actually live out those 300 years. Which actually felt closer to 600, because Purgatory Time, so she's not so much feeling the relationship anymore.
2. Katrina's not evil, but her courting of Ichabod was a mission from her coven, to secure one of the Witnesses
2a. She eventually did genuinely fall in love with him, but this reveal causes a rift anyway
3. She hits it off with Jennie (no, I mean, really hits it off. With kissing.)

*although, it would be kind of hilarious if they then took it up to eleven and just made everyone Ichabod was connected to in the past either a historical figure or part of the evil conspiracy or both. Famine is your disappointed dad, Ichabod! Moloch is some undergraduate you failed...AND THAT UNDERGRADUATE'S NAME WAS ALEXANDER HAMILTON
posted by kagredon at 1:42 PM on September 25, 2014 [9 favorites]

She hits it off with Jennie (no, I mean, really hits it off. With kissing.)

This is the best possible option and the only thing that could possibly justify Katrina's continued presence on the show.

I now ship it.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:53 PM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

kagredon needs to send that suggestion to the showrunners, stat.

I feel bad about how my dislike for shifting tight m/f bonds into romances feels like it's saying that woc can't get with white men on tv, because that's not the issue for me. I just have a strong feeling that not all close relationships have to fall into the same damn traps of how they pair off.

Maybe Sleepy Hollow will do better, but their handling of Katrina doesn't suggest so. The romantic triangle they're so clearly signaling in the show has no weight when Katrina is the weakest and least interesting presence of the main cast by a long shot--and she's the 300-year-old witch who bore War. How is she boring? But she is, and I cannot figure out for the life of me what Ichabod and Headless McPecs were fighting over.
posted by immlass at 2:22 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

She hits it off with Jennie

For a while I was very pro Abbie/Ichabod and Jenny/Katrina (it would helpfully solve the really boring triangle plot), but eventually decided that Jenny deserves far better as Katrina continued to be deathly dull.

The most interesting thing about Katrina is the tumblr wars between the Ichabibbie shippers and the Ichatrina shippers.
posted by jeather at 7:33 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

I finally got around to watching the season premiere last night (I don't have cable and things are kind of busy right now so I will never be timely with joining these convos) and I didn't realize how much I missed hearing "Left-tenant" until Ichabod said it.

I am so glad this show is back. I lurve it.
posted by Kitteh at 7:51 AM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

Right now, the show has really had a statement that it's a hard world to have a romantic partner. Crane's wife was separated from him, at first by what he thought was death and then by purgatory. The second he gets her back in his arms, she's stolen away. Then the other side of the Katrina broken love triangle is our Headless Horseman (what's his name), and his fascination/obsession with Katrina - which leads him to one, turn on Crane as a friend (DUEL IT UP) and then agrees to become an immortal evil warrior for the chance to have this lady back who didn't even love him.

Abby, well, her lasting relationship ended when she thought she was going to the FBI and her boyfriend on the force was cut loose (was that his decision - or hers? I can't recall at the moment). (And that dude bites it)

Irving is divorced and struggling simply to even have a father/daughter relationship.

Jenny has been in and out of a mental institution and to our knowledge, unable to have time or bother any type of romantic relationship (her relationship with the former sheriff I saw as father/daughter).

So romantically speaking, not a lot of good luck on Sleepy Hollow. That's not going into the various familial relationships strung across the different characters.

I would be happy if Ichabod and Abby remain just best friends, and if it could remain just that and defy every opposite couple pairing on modern television which inevitably ends up with the two hooking up.
posted by Atreides at 8:18 AM on September 26, 2014

This show is such a fun, guilty pleasure for me. Like others have said, it's just so unabashedly winking at you like you're in on the joke. For instance, the depiction of Ben Franklin in the new season opener really nailed my own impression of Franklin to a T.

I only wish they have a bit more stanger-in-a-strange-land moments for Ichabod in 21st century America. I forget...Did he experience seeing airplanes last season?
posted by Thorzdad at 10:59 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Those stranger-in-a-strange-land moments are why we watch the show. They're the best part!
posted by MsVader at 12:00 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

My dream for upcoming seasons is for someone to sit Ichabod down and make him watch 1776.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:03 PM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

Y'all might enjoy the Ichabod Crane vs. the 21st Century tagged fanfics on AO3.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:33 PM on September 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

My favorite moment was when fake Crane said "Lieutenant" and I _KNEW_ Abbie was going to take care of business.
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:48 PM on September 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

my favorite gif in The Mary Sue recap - abbie abbie look i found something

As far as not wanting Abbie/Ichabod, to be canon, I don't think it's a racial thing for me. One of the things I loved about Warehouse 13 was that there was a non-UST-based partnership, and I was pretty disappointed that the show decided end the series by having Pete & Myka realize they'd actually fallen in love with each other. Ichabod & Abbie have this profound, mystical, we-share-a-higher-calling, comrade-in-arms element, and I wouldn't want that to get overshadowed by a more typical TV trope.

That said, if the series doesn't have an episode at some point where Abbie & Ichabod have to pretend to be a couple, they will have done the world a great disservice, because that will be comedy gold.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:26 AM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

People say they want to see a strong independent female character as if that precludes a love interest. Can't she be strong, intelligent and independent AND have a love life?

Sure, she can be all those things. The question when dealing with television and movies is will she?

I think most of us are just used to seeing female characters who are portrayed as strong and independent become anything but as soon as a love interest is introduced for them. Good TV can do both; bad TV demonstrably cannot. And sadly, there is still way more bad tv than good in the world.

I also adore the Crane & Mills show platonically - but could be convinced to read romance into it in fanfic!
posted by kythuen at 9:18 AM on September 27, 2014

Aw, man, it's apparently my spoiler day. What a bummer end to Warehouse 13. Not Quantum Leap levels but disappointing. Can't Abbie just frown on his choice of pantaloons? Can't Ichabod be too honorable to besmirch their relationship?
I'm in this for donut eating reactions, semi-logical responses to nutball cavalcades of wha? and slagging off founding fathers, in all seriousness. This show sounded like crap that stuck to the wall and I was watching it just for that "The Dark Tower" moment of soda and tooter fish sandwich. It stuck the landing, I kept watching, now we get Franklin bashing. I love it. Ooh, Franklin was so great, so laid back-- be disgusted with his egotistical whoring! And Washington had big loopy girly handwriting that sparkled and glowed! Lisa Frank much?

As for shows that had idiotic blurbs, if I had remembered Orphan Black was "that clone show," would have totally ruined it for me. There's lots of examples of blurbs ≠ shows.
posted by provoliminal at 11:18 AM on September 27, 2014

I'm shipping Katrina/John Cho, because they're both too pretty not to see any action, and I feel others should join me.
posted by bgal81 at 9:14 AM on September 28, 2014 [7 favorites]

The flash forward totally took me in, mostly because I couldn't remember much of last season from nine months ago. I really enjoyed how they did it and managed to get a fair bit of exposition for new watchers in while still being bat-crazy. I always like Ichabod's time confusion, in this episode, trying to figure out the birthday candle, "Well, what. Do we just stare at it?" I also like that their crossbow has a laser sight on it.
posted by Margalo Epps at 3:56 PM on October 8, 2014