Of course, this did inevitably lead to a weaker story, so I’ll get that out of the way first. This episode played out more like a conspiracy thriller (complete with the inevitable mention of the Knights Templar, who are behind every conspiracy ever) than the more personal and ghostly threats of Sarilda and the Sandman. Despite a cameo appearance of some CGI demons wallowing about in CGI glue, it was flesh-and-blood Hessians armed with a variety of guns that posed the main threat.
So in a sense, it felt a little “off”. A lot of emphasis was put on building them up as dangerous adversaries, what with the extended scene of the barman being tortured and his remains put on display, but ultimately they were dealt with in a rather perfunctory manner. I’m also not sure whether or not they’re connected to this “dark coven” that was mentioned in the first couple of episodes – I got the feeling that they were meant to be a completely different group working under the control of the demon, though it seems strange to make them separate organizations. Instead of witches, these guys were a group of sleeper cells strewn throughout Sleepy Hollow, all on standby to act at a moment’s notice.
So will there be more of them? And how does the dark coven fit into all this?
But at least we have a proper name for this horned demon: Moloch. I’m pretty sure he popped up in as a Monster of the Week in an early episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yet here it would seem that he’s the Big Bad calling the shots. Does this mean that his was the voice on the phone that told the Hessian to track down Jenny so that she might lead them to “item 37”? That would imply that he’s a) been watching a lot of people for a very long time, but that b) whatever his powers, he’s not omnipotent. He didn’t know where the chest was; he needed his allies to track it down via Jenny and the sextant.
This also leads to some more background on Sheriff Corbin, who was not only in touch with Jenny, but sent her all over the world to receive training and collect artefacts. It would appear that in very different ways he was grooming both the Mills sisters, which makes me wonder if that was because of their encounter with Moloch (what really happened in those missing hours?) or because he foresaw that the two of them would run into related danger later on in life. Clearly he was a lot more open with Jenny than he was with Abbie about what was happening in Sleepy Hollow and the impending End of Days.
The flashbacks were a nice touch; not only giving Ichabod the information he needed in order to deduct who the present-day antagonists were, but also linking them (via the tattoo) to the Headless Horseman and the stone chest that he was originally supposed to deliver into Washington’s hands (who presumably hid it in the church). And cute twist on the real reason behind the Boston Tea Party!
So if there was a theme to the episode, it was that of choosing sides and remaining committed to your cause. The Hessian’s words to the barman: “Lies require commitment. Are you quite certain you’re committed to your cause? I assure you, I am,” were echoed in Jenny’s own statement that: “if you don’t fight for the things you stand for, you don’t really stand for them.” It was mainly a jab at Abbie, but there was also the first inkling of the idea that maybe the two sides in this conflict are Not So Different. Hopefully this will be expanded on when the dark/light covens reappear, but for now there’s the real sense that a line has been drawn and that it’s time for people to pick a side.
Which makes the stalemate between Abbie (with the book) and the Hessian (with her sister) to be quite interesting. Despite her sister being held at gunpoint, Abbie doesn’t in fact give up the book. She makes a calculated risk and Takes A Third Option by throwing it into the pit with the demons. From a Doylist perspective it’s an easy way to keep Jenny alive while wrapping up the threat, but from a Watsonian point-of-view it’s interesting that Abbie isn’t going to completely safeguard her sister’s life when the entire world is in jeopardy. It’s always interesting to see what paths characters will take when they’re faced with these types of impossible choices, and Abbie leaned more towards a “bigger picture” mind-set than an “every individual is sacred” decision.
As such, it looks as though Abbie is gradually accepting her role as a witness, and I liked Jenny’s reaction to it – part envy (?) and part satisfaction that after all she did to deny their experience, Abbie has now been thrown smack-dab into the middle of it. That scene between them was great stuff, both from the writer and the actresses, and as I said earlier – I love that show put just as much emphasis on Abbie calling out the foster mother and trying to make amends with her sister as it did all the conspiracy/action/supernatural stuff.
Basically, this episode was all about filling in a few blanks on the mythology of the show, introducing a potential new threat, and giving us a name and identity for the horned demon – though what his interest is in Jenny and Abbie remains to be seen. I felt that maybe the discovery of the Key of Solomon and the attempt to open a gate to hell was perhaps a bit too “big” for the show to be grappling with this early – such a well-known artefact and such a massive threat feels more like season finale material, and so the episode was left with that odd sense of imbalance you get when a major threat is dealt with in relative ease.
Miscellaneous Observations:
Ichabod/Katrina still ain’t working for me. I thought it was rather telling that the touching montage of Katrina was composed of scenes that we’ve already seen of her in flashbacks – there simply hasn’t been enough of her to yet grasp the dynamic between her and her husband. And this is the second episode in a row that she’s been absent. That scene between Ichabod and Yolanda was pure gold, but the fact that it was an extended joke once again saps away any poignancy we might be supposed to feel for Ichabod and Katrina’s separation.
I liked that this episode picked up right on the heels of the last, with Abbie coming out of the institution to tell Ichabod of Jenny’s escape.
Jenny wears sunglasses and a hoodie into the bar. That’s not conspicuous at all.
The actor playing the present-day Hessian had great presence and a quiet malevolence about him – it’s almost a shame that he got killed off so quickly.
I loved that Ichabod was Abbie’s buffer throughout this entire episode; firstly by getting between her and the corrupt foster parent, and later playing the parent to the sisters’ animosity.
Oddly, on mentioning the headless horseman to Jenny, she says: “as in the Horseman?” suggesting that the story by Washington Irving is actually a real thing in this universe.
When Ichabod started speaking in German, I recognised the term “schattenjager” as “shadow warrior” thanks to hours of playing Gabriel Knight back in the 90s.
Apparently the Lesser Key of Solomon is a legendary book of mystical powers. You can buy it on Amazon.com. (C’mon show, you could have at least said it was the original manuscript).
There was good continuity on the dead Sheriff and Reverend when Irving points out that the MO of the barman’s death is different – but everyone has completely forgotten the death of the farmer! He was the Horseman’s first victim!
Where’s Andy gone to? Has anyone noticed him driving around the town in a stolen police car? Or even mentioned that he’s gone missing from the morgue?
Finally, at times I thought the soundtrack was very reminiscent of Danny Elfman’s score from the filmic version of Sleepy Hollow.
In Hindsight:
This was a bit of a strange episode, for though it was an excellent introduction to Jenny, the demon threat ended up feeling a bit random. At the time of writing the above review, I was still waiting for more information on the witch covens; as a result the sudden introduction of Hessians felt like adding too much to what was already a fairly bloated mythology.
And do the Hessians return? I think so, but I can't remember in what capacity.
When Jenny is checking her artillery in the bathroom of the diner there's graffiti on the paper towel dispenser that reads: "keep telling yourself that." I recall there being some discussion in message boards over whether or not this meant anything - if there was, it has yet to be revealed.
And was it John Noble (that is, John Parrish) on the phone to the Hessians? The voice was distorted, but it certainly seemed to have his speech cadence. I'll have to listen in again.
Something about the picture that Ichabod showed Abbie pricked my memory, and a little digging revealed it to be a copy of William Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun. So not Moloch and not Paradise Lost - but it does depict a scene from Revelation:
So in a sense, it felt a little “off”. A lot of emphasis was put on building them up as dangerous adversaries, what with the extended scene of the barman being tortured and his remains put on display, but ultimately they were dealt with in a rather perfunctory manner. I’m also not sure whether or not they’re connected to this “dark coven” that was mentioned in the first couple of episodes – I got the feeling that they were meant to be a completely different group working under the control of the demon, though it seems strange to make them separate organizations. Instead of witches, these guys were a group of sleeper cells strewn throughout Sleepy Hollow, all on standby to act at a moment’s notice.So will there be more of them? And how does the dark coven fit into all this?
But at least we have a proper name for this horned demon: Moloch. I’m pretty sure he popped up in as a Monster of the Week in an early episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yet here it would seem that he’s the Big Bad calling the shots. Does this mean that his was the voice on the phone that told the Hessian to track down Jenny so that she might lead them to “item 37”? That would imply that he’s a) been watching a lot of people for a very long time, but that b) whatever his powers, he’s not omnipotent. He didn’t know where the chest was; he needed his allies to track it down via Jenny and the sextant.
This also leads to some more background on Sheriff Corbin, who was not only in touch with Jenny, but sent her all over the world to receive training and collect artefacts. It would appear that in very different ways he was grooming both the Mills sisters, which makes me wonder if that was because of their encounter with Moloch (what really happened in those missing hours?) or because he foresaw that the two of them would run into related danger later on in life. Clearly he was a lot more open with Jenny than he was with Abbie about what was happening in Sleepy Hollow and the impending End of Days.
The flashbacks were a nice touch; not only giving Ichabod the information he needed in order to deduct who the present-day antagonists were, but also linking them (via the tattoo) to the Headless Horseman and the stone chest that he was originally supposed to deliver into Washington’s hands (who presumably hid it in the church). And cute twist on the real reason behind the Boston Tea Party!
So if there was a theme to the episode, it was that of choosing sides and remaining committed to your cause. The Hessian’s words to the barman: “Lies require commitment. Are you quite certain you’re committed to your cause? I assure you, I am,” were echoed in Jenny’s own statement that: “if you don’t fight for the things you stand for, you don’t really stand for them.” It was mainly a jab at Abbie, but there was also the first inkling of the idea that maybe the two sides in this conflict are Not So Different. Hopefully this will be expanded on when the dark/light covens reappear, but for now there’s the real sense that a line has been drawn and that it’s time for people to pick a side.
As such, it looks as though Abbie is gradually accepting her role as a witness, and I liked Jenny’s reaction to it – part envy (?) and part satisfaction that after all she did to deny their experience, Abbie has now been thrown smack-dab into the middle of it. That scene between them was great stuff, both from the writer and the actresses, and as I said earlier – I love that show put just as much emphasis on Abbie calling out the foster mother and trying to make amends with her sister as it did all the conspiracy/action/supernatural stuff.
Basically, this episode was all about filling in a few blanks on the mythology of the show, introducing a potential new threat, and giving us a name and identity for the horned demon – though what his interest is in Jenny and Abbie remains to be seen. I felt that maybe the discovery of the Key of Solomon and the attempt to open a gate to hell was perhaps a bit too “big” for the show to be grappling with this early – such a well-known artefact and such a massive threat feels more like season finale material, and so the episode was left with that odd sense of imbalance you get when a major threat is dealt with in relative ease.Miscellaneous Observations:
Ichabod/Katrina still ain’t working for me. I thought it was rather telling that the touching montage of Katrina was composed of scenes that we’ve already seen of her in flashbacks – there simply hasn’t been enough of her to yet grasp the dynamic between her and her husband. And this is the second episode in a row that she’s been absent. That scene between Ichabod and Yolanda was pure gold, but the fact that it was an extended joke once again saps away any poignancy we might be supposed to feel for Ichabod and Katrina’s separation.
I liked that this episode picked up right on the heels of the last, with Abbie coming out of the institution to tell Ichabod of Jenny’s escape.
Jenny wears sunglasses and a hoodie into the bar. That’s not conspicuous at all.
The actor playing the present-day Hessian had great presence and a quiet malevolence about him – it’s almost a shame that he got killed off so quickly.
I loved that Ichabod was Abbie’s buffer throughout this entire episode; firstly by getting between her and the corrupt foster parent, and later playing the parent to the sisters’ animosity.
Oddly, on mentioning the headless horseman to Jenny, she says: “as in the Horseman?” suggesting that the story by Washington Irving is actually a real thing in this universe.
When Ichabod started speaking in German, I recognised the term “schattenjager” as “shadow warrior” thanks to hours of playing Gabriel Knight back in the 90s.
Apparently the Lesser Key of Solomon is a legendary book of mystical powers. You can buy it on Amazon.com. (C’mon show, you could have at least said it was the original manuscript).
There was good continuity on the dead Sheriff and Reverend when Irving points out that the MO of the barman’s death is different – but everyone has completely forgotten the death of the farmer! He was the Horseman’s first victim!
Where’s Andy gone to? Has anyone noticed him driving around the town in a stolen police car? Or even mentioned that he’s gone missing from the morgue?
Finally, at times I thought the soundtrack was very reminiscent of Danny Elfman’s score from the filmic version of Sleepy Hollow.
In Hindsight:
This was a bit of a strange episode, for though it was an excellent introduction to Jenny, the demon threat ended up feeling a bit random. At the time of writing the above review, I was still waiting for more information on the witch covens; as a result the sudden introduction of Hessians felt like adding too much to what was already a fairly bloated mythology.
And do the Hessians return? I think so, but I can't remember in what capacity.
When Jenny is checking her artillery in the bathroom of the diner there's graffiti on the paper towel dispenser that reads: "keep telling yourself that." I recall there being some discussion in message boards over whether or not this meant anything - if there was, it has yet to be revealed.
And was it John Noble (that is, John Parrish) on the phone to the Hessians? The voice was distorted, but it certainly seemed to have his speech cadence. I'll have to listen in again.
Something about the picture that Ichabod showed Abbie pricked my memory, and a little digging revealed it to be a copy of William Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun. So not Moloch and not Paradise Lost - but it does depict a scene from Revelation:
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