Woman of the Month: Abbie Mills

Abbie Mills from Sleepy Hollow

It had to be Abbie Mills. I just didn’t have a choice!

It’s rare enough to get a WOC lead in a television show like this, but the Sleepy Hollow writers go one step further and ensure that she’s got a complex backstory, plenty of agency, an important destiny and a ton of great lines. There are so many facets of her character to explore, from her tense relationship with her sister, to her role as a guide/mentor/partner to Ichabod, to her own personal misgivings and growing faith surrounding her role as a Witness.

Plenty of comparison have already been made between herself and Dana Scully (especially in her relationship to Ichabod/Mulder, complete with the same brand of intense chemistry), but what’s especially appealing about Abbie is that she gets to be the humorous, playful one. There are so many female characters out there who are characterized as joyless shrews, but Abbie gets to crack jokes and poke fun in the face of Ichabod’s more stick-in-the-mud persona.

But I think my favourite aspect to this character would have to be in comparison to her sister. Any other series probably would have chosen Jenny as the female lead: the tough Sarah Conner figure who told the truth about her childhood experience and was duly locked up for it. But instead the story follows the sister who covered up the truth, the one that lied because she was afraid of what it might mean if no one believed what had happened to her. She’s lived with that lie hanging over her head for years, the knowledge that she betrayed her sister. And now that Ichabod has entered her life, along with all the rest of the supernatural drama, she’s the one that has to ask for forgiveness – which is a very different type of story from those that chose to give it.

Now in season two, she remains the focal point of the show (despite some ridiculous media claims that she’s merely a “sidekick”), balancing out faith with common sense, strength with compassion, fear with bravery and a droll sense of humour throughout it all.