everybody loves ichabod

Sleepy Hollow continues to be a winner in the new television series department. The plots are loopy but fun. The two leads, Ichabod Crane (played by Tom Mison) and Abbie Mills (played by Nicole Beharie), have great chemistry, and the supporting cast gets better and better. The most recent episode, “The Sin Eater,” showcased two notable additions — James Frain (The Tudors, Grimm) as a Freemason who knows all about Ichabod (and undoubtedly will have secrets to share) and a man called the Sin Eater (played by Fringe’s John Noble) — both who will hopefully stick around for a while and join police lieutenant Abbie and her unofficial partner Ichabod in their fight against the evil Headless Horseman and his brethren (good news: yes, they will).

Sleepy Hollow loves in-jokes. In a nod towards its recent World Series-caused hiatus, Abbie takes Ichabod to a baseball game.

The episode included some cool Revolutionary-era flashbacks, featuring Ichabod and his wife Katrina's (Katia Winter) meet-cute, as well as some modern-day supernatural sleuthing by sisters Abbie and Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood), who seem to be repairing their fractured relationship through monster-hunting. Jenny was also insightful about the contradictions inherent in Ichabod's dead witch wife now choosing to come to Abbie in a vision, and her tendency to give nay the vaguest of instructions on how to help Ichabod.

Katrina, "Ichabod must be sanctified. Find the Sin Eater before sundown, before the Horseman returns, or everything will be lost."

Jenny, "The next time you see that witch in a dream, tell her to be more specific."

Jenny also seems to have noticed that Abbie and Ichabod are more than just two folks who might be chosen to save the world. They like each other. The pair do have some great banter.

Ichabod, "My ears shall remain eternally open to your admonition."
Abbie, "I don't know what the hell that means. Just say yes."

James Frain and friends interrogate Ichabod.

The Sin Eater may be able to help Ichabod and Abbie fight the Headless Horseman

Ichabod was kidnapped by the Freemasons, who might be bad, but might not — and then he was informed that he would have to sacrifice himself to save the world — that was until Abbie could convince him otherwise. It was a highly emotional scene that had echoes of the Buffy/Angel days, and it really worked.

Sleepy Hollow doesn't seem afraid to delve straight into the romantic chemistry of its stars, even if one of them has a long-deceased but still-not-out-of-the-picture powerful witch for a spouse. The character's honesty about their feelings makes Sleepy Hollow quite human, which helps a show that in so many other ways is extremely fanciful. Abbie and Ichabod, in their dealings with each other, seem more sincere than say, Scully and Mulder. Will they truly become a team, and soon, or is Katrina going to break through the dreamscape and complicate matters? The latter is probably a given.

Each new episode of Sleepy Hollow takes the duo on an ever-stranger journey. I'm happy (along with, apparently, many others) to go along for the ride (without the Horseman, of course).

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