Sleepy Hollow: The Kindred

We’re into the second episode of the second season and things haven’t slowed down for one second. After busting Abbie out of Purgatory, Ichabod now focuses his attention on Katrina, currently being held hostage by the Headless Horseman.

But although this episode may have seemed like it centred on Ichabod and Abbie’s rescue attempt, it was actually all about neutralizing the situation and establishing the status quo of the season. Thus, Katrina is staying put for now. Moloch is planning a new escape route out of Purgatory which will no doubt take him exactly eleven episodes to concoct and prepare for. Henry is being provided with tools to cause trouble. Ichabod and Abbie have a new Sheriff to contend with.

The premise of this episode probably came about after several drinks and a game of double-dare in the writer's room (“Can we actually get away with this?” “Sure – I dare you!”), as it involves George Washington teaming up with the coven of the Radiant Heart to create a warrior called the Kindred, the only thing that could possibly prove a match for the Horseman of Death, which is assembled out of dead body parts stitched together by Benjamin Franklin.

I mean, wow. Standing ovation.

Screencap has not been tampered with in any way.

But Franklin never got it to work as it was missing a vital ingredient: a piece of the Horseman himself. But guess who has his head stashed away in a bank vault?

Abbie and Jenny are not at all keen on the idea of resurrecting Franklinstein (okay, I’m betting that the writers came up with this creature JUST so they could make that joke), which leads to an interesting bit of debate. Is it ever okay to use something evil in the service of good? Is it even possible to harness the powers of evil and utilize it for a noble purpose?

Okay, the show doesn’t really care, as it’s all designed to lead to a frankly awesome three-way fight between Headless (axe), the Kindred (pike), and Henry’s suit of armour (flaming sword). I’m just sorry it didn’t last longer.

It's awesome.

But the scene illustrations the very delicate line between goofy fun and realistic stakes that this show constantly treads.

For instance, I appreciate the logic that went into Ichabod and Abbie narrowing down the Horseman’s whereabouts. They took into account the speed he galloped off in, the fact that sunlight would stop him in his tracks, and all the land that was once owned by Abraham’s family. They even psycho-analysis him by taking into account his history with Ichabod and his status as a jilted lover. Nice stuff.

However, I’m not totally sold on the complications that arise from Sheriff Reyes being introduced to the show. Obviously, it’s only natural that a new sheriff would be appointed in the wake of Irving’s confession and arrest, but she’s a roadblock standing in the way of Ichabod and Abbie that is – well, rather mundane and not particularly interesting.

YET. I’m reserving judgment on the character considering that she clearly knows something about Abbie and Jenny’s past – specifically their mother – that may prove extremely interesting. In Abbie’s words, Mrs Mills was “a little bit totally crazy.” Hmm, I’m guessing either she was only considered crazy, or there’s something else going on. Ichabod has two associates who turned out to be Horsemen, I think it’s Abbie’s turn for a similar revelation.

(See what I did there? Revelation?)

As ever, the show is strongest when it concentrates on the central characters, and there was some nice character beats here between Ichabod and Abbie. As ever, Abbie is focused on the bigger picture. Heck, she’s focused on the biggest picture – saving the world. And she’s rightly concerned, given Ichabod’s actions in the season finale, that he loses focus when Katrina gets involved.

Nothing gives me more joy than my favourite characters peeking out from behind trees.

And though it’s natural that Ichabod tried to defend his behaviour by pointing out the pragmatic reasons behind a rescue attempt (“Katrina is a witch of extraordinary ability that could tip the scale of this war on either side” - *gigglesnort*) I really don’t think it’s necessary.

The fact remains that she’s his wife. His desire to rescue her isn’t just rooted in personal desire but in his responsibility to her. Whether or not you like the character of Katrina, whether or not you buy into her relationship with Ichabod, what this comes down to is Ichabod doing his duty as a husband. He has a moral obligation to help her.

Put it this way – he could hate Katrina’s guts, and yet rescuing her would still be the right thing to do. I appreciate that the show is trying to portray Katrina as his weakness, as the person who causes him to make bad decisions, but in doing so it’s rather wrongheadedly trying to paint this as a flaw. Marriage comes with its own set of responsibilities, and he’s not wrong to try and honour that.

It bizarrely reminds me of Shrek 2, in which Fiona is tricked into thinking that Prince Charming is Shrek. On seeing them together, Shrek decides to “let her go”, apparently forgetting that he’s her husband and that marriage changes the rules.

I honestly have no idea why I’m nit-picking this. Still, at least the Abbie/Ichabod tension is consistent in this regard.

On the Katrina front – this was an improvement? I guess? Katrina starts using guile to gain some traction in her situation; incredibly fake guile that makes Abraham look like a total idiot, but – hey, baby steps.

After a painful reminder of just how utterly powerless this so-called powerful witch apparently is (which ended up being Ichabod’s nightmare), we watch as Katrina continues to ignore her witch powers (seriously, have they given a reason for why she’s not using them yet?) and instead taps into her Quaker spy skills to lull Abraham into a false sense of security.

And there was an interesting glimpse of deeper characterization here, when Abraham channels fandom and points out that it took Ichabod months to break Katrina out of Purgatory, but only a few hours to do the same to Abbie. That got under her skin, and an interesting Held Gaze was shared between the two women after Katrina opts to stay with Abraham.

But most of all, I hope that the show continues to explore her relationship with Henry. She’s the one that he really hates, and I liked that her mother instincts kicked in when she addressed him as “Jeremy.” If the writers are wise, they’ll concentrate on Katrina trying to redeem Henry (however unsuccessfully) than any tedious love triangle.

And in this episode’s final subplot, Irving gets himself out of jail by playing the insanity card and getting himself transferred to the psychiatrist ward. Unfortunately, Ichabod and Abbie forgot to fill him in on the existence of Henry Parrish, who has done some evil mojo over a pen before presenting himself as Irving’s lawyer.

Tone it down, Henry.

Before you know it, Irving has gone and signed something in his own blood. Personally I call foul, as evil contracts cannot possibly be lawful unless the signee is fully aware of what they’re agreeing to, but whatever.

***

I know I run the risk of becoming immensely unpopular, but so far there’s something a bit off about this season. Perhaps it’s partly because I’ve been waiting so long for it to return that my expectations have been raised too high, but there are definitely some clunky bits.

It’s kind of like how I feel about Tangled and Frozen. I enjoy those movies, but at the same time it feels like they’re too self-consciously trying to fit the mould of a classic Disney film. And this season kind of feels like it’s trying too hard to be Sleepy Hollow instead of just being Sleepy Hollow. There’s a checklist for each episode that is dutifully fulfilled: a cameo from a founding father, Ichabod getting miffed with modernity, a bonding moment between the Witnesses, a crazy new monster... they’ve even brought back that camera trick of a 180 degree tilt as an establishing shot:  

Miscellaneous Observations:

New people in the opening credits! Hi Lyndie Greenwood and John Noble!

I hate having to relegate Jenny to the miscellaneous column, but there wasn’t really much for her to do in this episode but fetch some weapons and be immediately arrested for possession of them. She existed so that she could be shifted out of the way. Still, I liked her line to Abbie: “don’t take thirteen years to come get me this time.”

From the looks of it, Sheriff Reyes isn’t very popular in fandom, but I like that she apologized to Abbie for using the word “insanity.”

The bats in the underground tunnels threw me a little; I noticed them in Moloch’s cave and thought that sequence went on a little too long just to be for show; but apparently they served to trigger Abbie’s PTSD...? It provided a new reading on that scene in which Fake!Ichabod offered water to Abbie in Purgatory – that she was so desperate for it to be him that she accepted the water because she couldn’t bear it not to be him.

I finally felt something that resembled a connection between Ichabod and Katrina during their tearful farewell – but then it went away when I realized that however much information Katrina gathers, she has no way of getting it to the Witnesses. Will her witch powers finally come back?

I dread Abraham and Henry being turned into idiots by Katrina’s not-very-convincing guile. Sure, people will believe what they want to hear. But surely it would have made more sense for Katrina to play Abraham right from the start of her captivity – perhaps in such a way that it would have sowed doubt in the audience’s mind as to what she was really up to.

Ichabod saying of the Horseman: “he may know we’re here” made me laugh. Yeah Ichabod, probably because you performed your little ceremony so close to the carriage house that he could have watched you from an upstairs window.

Not a good hiding place.

Technically the Horseman was fighting his own head. That’s awesome. And consider the metaphysical implications of that. What sort of thought process does the Kindred have? How much of Abraham is still inside his own skull? Was Abraham aware when his head blinked in Abbie’s hands? Could it be that the viciousness of the Kindred’s attack on Abraham was at least partially spurred on by a sense of self-loathing? And where is the Kindred now?

It’s official – no one gives a shit about Luke Morales. No one on the show has mentioned him, and nobody on any of the message boards I visited seems to care.