Sleepy Hollow quickly became an under-the-radar hit show in its first season. The dynamic duo of Tom Mison as Ichabod Crane and Nicole Beharie as Lt. Abbie Mills teamed up each week to fight the forces of evil which have been gathering around the town of Sleepy Hollow, led by the infamous Headless Horseman, from Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Mison and Beharie have great chemistry, and they have been ably abetted by a strong supporting cast, including Orlando Jones, Katia Winter, John Cho, Lyndie Greenwood, John Noble, and Clancy Brown.
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| Ichabod and Abbie are a dream team |
If you haven't kept up with the show, here's the premise in a nutshell. A resurrected Ichabod Crane finds himself in modern-day Sleepy Hollow. He is inextricably linked to the Headless Horseman, a Hessian soldier, and his adversary when Ichabod was on a secret mission for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. The Headless Horseman has also risen from the grave and is on the loose in Sleepy Hollow where he soon murders the local sheriff, August Corbin (Clancy Brown). Corbin's partner, Lt. Abbie Mills, narrowly misses being beheaded herself, and throws herself into investigating her mentor's murder. This eventually leads her to Crane. After doubting his veracity and sanity Abbie soon comes to realize that not only is Ichabod in Sleepy Hollow for a reason, but the two of them are intended to team up to stop the Headless Horseman and his quest for destruction.
What is most interesting about Sleepy Hollow is how quickly it has introduced its intricate mythology, which includes witches, demons, a Golem, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse and even a zombie George Washington — a deeper mythology than the first five or six seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel combined. More crazy things have happened in its first season than the entire runs of most shows, and somehow, strangely, it works. The season finale was a two-parter that lasted two hours: "The Indispensable Man" and "Bad Blood." The finale included the season's craziest episodes yet, and left viewers on the edge of their seats in anticipation of the series' return in the fall.
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| The prodigal son |
Pretty much every character we like was in trouble by the end of "Bad Blood." The big reveal of the night was that Sin Eater Henry Parrish (Noble), who so far in the series has seemed one of the good guys, was not only working against Ichabod and Abbie, but turned out to be their disgruntled son Jeremy and the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse, War. As if that wasn't bad or shocking enough, Jeremy/Henry imprisoned both of his parents — he handed Katrina (Winter) off to the Headless Horseman as some sort of prize, and buried his father Ichabod "alive." Meanwhile Abbie was trapped in Purgatory (trading places with witch Katrina, so that she may better battle evil on the other side, in Sleepy Hollow) with the demon Moloch. and her sister Jenny may or may not have died in a car crash caused by old Headless himself. Abbie's boss, Captain Irving (Jones), to protect his family, confessed to murders he hasn't committed, and was being trundled off to jail.
With all of the supernatural goings-on, Sleepy Hollow isn't exactly jump out of your seat scary, but it always manages to be creepy. Moloch and Purgatory are not places anyone I know would want to visit. John Cho's deceased cop Andy Brooks (and Moloch minion) manages to have ickier and ickier things happen to him every episode. As creepy as it may get, Sleepy Hollow also gets more and more entertaining.
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| "Get me outta here! (again)" |
Has evil won in Sleepy Hollow? It seems so, at least for now. Ichabod may love his witchy wife Katrina, but he and Abbie are the real team that matters. The fact that Jeremy/Henry has separated our two leads is not good, and must be one of the first things rectified in the second season — once Ichabod manages to get himself unburied — again. I can't wait to see how he and Abbie get out of this latest dilemma. Unfortunately, I have quite a while before I find out what happens next.
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