This was probably the most important episode since the premiere: a genuinely twisty plot, a Monster of the Week that felt consequential, an important turning-point for Abbie’s acceptance of herself as a witness, more background on what’s up with Katrina, and providing Ichabod with a permanent residence.
Perhaps the casting of a little girl of colour as “the evil girl” was a coincidence (as this show is committed to diversity) but I can’t help but feel that she was meant to reflect Abbie in some way, especially given her brief interaction with Thomas. I’m sure a lot of people felt that this was some sort of dream-sequence or flashback to a young Ichabod – or at least that’s what I initially assumed.
Even given that that wasn’t the case, it still strikes an interesting parallel between them: that this pretty little girl lures Thomas out into the contemporary world, whilst Abbie is helping Ichabod negotiate the new time period that he’s in. That Thomas was meant to be a reflection of Ichabod was clear, considering their ability to communicate with each other and Ichabod’s obvious longing for Roanoke, so I’m left wondering if this little girl will turn up again in relation to Abbie. Who was she anyway? Just an illusion? Or some sort of extension of the Horseman of Pestilence?
And though this was the most original episode of the series so far, dealing more with the idea of time travelling (or at least with a village suspended out of time) and utilizing another horseman to contend with, I’m not entirely sure the plot itself holds together.
If I have things straight, this lost colony of Roanoke was infected by Pestilence and were held on a hidden island outside of time. Though they all had this plague, the healing waters in the village kept it at bay until Pestilence was ready to lure one of their number out into the world and infect more people with an illness that their immune systems couldn’t possibly fight.
Okay, that all makes sense. But then what was all that about the spirit of Virginia Dare leading the community away from Roanoke? Was it really her, or was it Pestilence putting them into this “holding cell”. Was she the same entity as the little girl that Thomas saw or a genuine benevolent spirit?
Then it turns out that they were dead all along. But… how then could a dead child infect others? Okay, they threw in that line that he was returned to flesh and blood once he was lured into the contemporary world, but how can dead people carry an illness? And if they were dead then why did they need the water? Were the townsfolk aware that they were ghosts? That they had been existing in stasis for four hundred years? By what power were they being kept there, Virginia’s or the Horseman’s?
And it wasn’t until my second watch that I realized the significance of the little girl that tries to give Abbie the flower – it was the same one that Ichabod pointed out in the forest, the one that closed for days after coming into contact with human touch.
The fact that the flower the girl was holding hadn’t closed was meant to be a clue that she was dead. But then, how could Ichabod track Thomas’s path by the flowers if he (similarly dead) could not have had an effect on them? I guess because by that point he had been transformed (somehow!) back to a living human…? Oy, all this was both too complicated and too subtle.
I know this all feels like nit-picking, but I’m a stickler when it comes to plot consistencies. Rules need to be established and obeyed, and this just felt messy. And that the solution to reversing the disease was simply to take Thomas back to the village was way too easy. How would that help the people already infected? Surely a better idea would have been to take the water back to the hospital.
Still, it was nice to see Katrina again, though the actress looked so different from her past appearances that I didn’t recognise her at first. She’s still the exposition fairy, and Ichabod still doesn’t seem hugely enthusiastic about seeing her again (the kiss seemed more perfunctory than passionate) but at least the scene answered some questions and opened up a few more as to her role in all this. She’s being kept there by Moloch for a specific reason, though we don’t yet know.
Miscellaneous Observations:
I’m not entirely sure why the Horseman of Pestilence has a distinctly samurai look to him (if that’s the right term), though I suppose it was the Rule of Cool in effect, along with the need to make him look distinctive. Still, I wish they’d at least given him a scythe.
“You know you can admit when you don’t know what a word means.” That was a lovely line from Abbie, beautifully illustrating Ichabod’s pride. I know I mentioned in a past review that I found him a bit too good-to-be-true, but the fact that his easy confidence in the 21st century is partly an act in order to maintain his pride makes a lot of sense.
And he’s still a man of his time in regards to chivalry: opening doors for Abbie and giving her a helping hand across the river. I kind of get the feeling that these are Tim Mison’s acting choices, and it’s causing me a lot of warm fuzzies.
I don’t know what’s funnier, Ichabod giving Luke the stink-eye at the crime scene, or Luke glowering at Ichabod in the background at the police station. But what was up with that phone call Luke made to the university? The woman on the phone confirmed Ichabod’s identity and his role as a consultant without stating the minor fact that he should be long dead. Has someone deliberately set up a cover-story for Ichabod should people start asking questions? And if so, who? Irving’s immediate appearance post-phone call would suggest that it’s him.
Some of Ichabod’s mannerisms are hilarious. He’s so prissy!
Before this episode, I had no idea that the lost colony of Roanoke was a real thing. Apparently it was indeed led by a man named John White whose grand-daughter Virginia Dare was the first colonist born on American soil. Apparently White returned to England and returned three years later, only to find that 90 men, 17 women, and 11 children had completely vanished, with no sign of a struggle or battle.
That was a beautiful scene of Abbie in the chapel demonstrating that she’s slowly opening herself up to faith and her role as a witness. I’ve recently watched Whitechapel in which a little old lady was an instigator of several rather nasty supernatural occurrences, and so it was a nice counterpoint to see that Abbie’s epiphany was brought on by another elderly woman whose face we never see.
Those were some nice visuals in Katrina’s purgatory, what with all the other shadowed souls wandering around behind her listlessly. And I’m pretty sure I glimpsed the silhouette of Moloch behind Ichabod just before he wakes up.
The Headless Horseman is back!
In Hindsight:
This was a pretty self-contained episode so there's not a lot of important continuity here. Two things stick out though, the first that Luke is oddly prominent in these early episodes given that his suspicion of Ichabod doesn't really go anywhere. And correct me if I'm wrong, but he's still unaccounted for after the season finale, right?
The other thing is that the mystery of why Katrina is in Purgatory is cleared up by the end of the season: that she was deliberately being held by Moloch as part of his Abraham/Jeremy scheme. You can understand why she wasn't too forthcoming when Ichabod demanded answers.
1. I am genuinely disappointed that the cast of Robin Hood (2006-2008) weren’t reunited for this episode. And when I say “genuinely” it’s to signify that I don’t think it was a pipedream. I think they honestly could have tried to get Jonas Armstrong, Lucy Griffiths, Keith Allen, Gordon Kennedy, Joe, Harry and Anjali for this episode. It would have been awesome.
(I am of course referring to the original incarnation of the outlaw gang, though I confess that revealing Kate and Tuck as evil robots would have made an awful lot of sense).
We did at least get one actor among the cast to represent the Robin Hood of half-a-decade ago: Joseph Kennedy, here playing Will Scarlet, who was the hugely popular (somewhat inexplicably popular save for the fact that he’s a cute white guy) guest star Carter.
2. Instead we get Tom Riley, who played Robin Hood a bit like Rik Mayall as Flashheart as Robin Hood on Blackadder, but has got to be the blandest handsome man I’ve ever seen. I mean, objectively I can tell that he’s good looking, but it’s in such a nondescript way that it always takes me a while to really notice him. See you back on Da Vinci’s Demons!
3. The Doctor finally takes Clara on what I call a “field trip episode”, which is when the Companion gets to fulfil their dream of going somewhere or meeting someone in history. Clara is probably second only to Martha as a Companion who has had virtually no fun on her adventures with the Doctor, and it’s a bit of a shock to realize that this is the first time the Doctor has extended the treat of a field trip to her.
4. There are also two kinds of historical sojourns on Doctor Who: the ones in which they take every effort to make the setting as accurate and realistic as possible (Human Nature and Family of Blood spring instantly to mind), or they simply go for farcical costume drama. Guess which one this was! Not that this was a bad thing – they realized the tone of the script and they went for it.
5. Plotwise, this thing was a mess. Okay, nothing wrong with the reveal that the castle of Nottingham was a stranded spaceship that merged into its surroundings and had to raise taxes accumulate gold to re-hard wire its system (or something), but some components were just plain stupid. Defeating the robots with reflective plates? Firing a golden arrow at a spaceship that gives it the added “oomph” to reach space? So, so stupid.
And I’m not sure what to make of the fact that Robin Hood as he appeared in this incarnation (with the OTT laughter, the flashy personality, the perfect teeth etc) was actually a real person. Of course, the environment and the sheriff were all constructs, but the emphasis that was put on Robin and his men as probable illusions was so overt that it became a bit jarring when it turned out they were all for real.
Of course, if they’d met the really-real Robin Hood, they would have probably ended up meeting a filthy highwayman thug whose misdeeds got warped and twisted into heroism over time. Given that the main point of this episode was to eventually hold up Robin as a mirror to the Doctor, this could have been an interesting twist, one that was in keeping with the season’s theme of whether or not the Doctor is a good man.
But they went for hope and optimism. Why shouldn't a decent man give up his comfortable life in order to help the suffering, with or without a Tardis? At this stage the legend of the Doctor is probably more familiar to him than himself, and so recognizing that Robin Hood is/was a real person would have been a source of great comfort to him.
6. That said, the “poignant” discussion about Robin being remembered more as a legend than a man fell a bit flat, since the entire episode painted him as exactly like the legends describe him. He hasn’t been forgotten at all, neither as a flashy showman who’s good with a bow, or as a decent man who loved Marian and chose to do the right thing.
7. I have never in my life wanted to be more moved by a reunion between Robin and Marian, and have never been more disappointed (okay, that’s an exaggeration) when I just didn’t feel it. They are one of my favourite couples of all time, but the fact that we didn’t get a proper understanding of why the couple were separated, and that I didn’t grasp that the peasant-girl the Doctor was helping was Marian (which was stupid of me considering Once Upon a Time just pulled the exact same plot) meant that her reveal came more as a pleasant surprise than a longed-for reunion. Can you imagine how incredible this would have been if it were Jonas Armstrong and Lucy Griffiths back in these roles?
But do you know what did choke me up a little? When Robin and Clara are talking about Marian, and Clara softly says: “I have always known her.” *sob* Me too, Clara. Me too.
8. Speaking of Clara, she got another good episode – fan-girling over Robin, getting the boys back on track in the dungeon, outwitting the Sheriff through conversation, and eventually helping Robin fire the last arrow. Jenna Coleman seems so much happier now that she’s got material to work with, and she looked great in the Renne Faire dress with her hair all curled and styled (didn’t like the thing on her forehead though).
9. The Merry Men on the other hand, were totally wasted. Granted, there was a lot of plot and characters to get through, but surely they could have played a part in the siege of Nottingham Castle instead of just waiting outside.
And what was with the little person? Was he meant to be Little John? In that case, who was the big guy?
10. There were some nice nods to the Robin Hood legend strewn throughout the episode: the bridge fight, the archery tournament and the last arrow, all of which are necessary components of any self-respecting Robin Hood adaptation. Ah, and what would a Robin Hood retelling be without at least one terminally stupid guard?
Nerd alert: I like that they made it a golden arrow (most recent films/shows make it silver ever since Kip Carpenter changed it from gold to silver to reflect Robin of Sherwood’s occult themes), but was annoyed that the Doctor set the Tardis to travel back to 1190, during King Richard’s reign and the Third Crusade. Nope. If he was after the real Robin Hood, he should have known to head back to a period LONG before that.
And I suppose everyone has already told everyone else about Patrick Troughton’s mini-cameo on the computer screen of the ship in his role from The Adventures of Robin Hood.
11. Another clue from this underlying plot-thread of the Promised Land. Apparently the ship was trying to get there, and it’s an actual planet as opposed to a mystical heavenly dimension. I’m still not that intrigued, but whether it’s because I was burned by the River Song non-reveal or the general not-interesting nature of this plot remains to be seen.
12. So what have we learned? Robin Hood is real, even though he has impossible teeth. He and the Doctor didn’t get along at all, though this is because – as the conclusion demonstrated – they’re exactly the same. However, this is a point in the Doctor’s favour when it comes to scoring his “am I a good man?” card. Robin and Marian are soul-mates, and this episode was blissfully free of any leather clad stalker-murderers. The Doctor is still old, and Clara is still hanging on to her personality. Next week looks really scary. Onward.
Like last week, this episode was low on plot but high on character. Again the emphasis was on Abbie rather than Ichabod, but in terms of the story it veered more towards National Treasure than Supernatural. Taking both of these things into account, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that as much (if not more) time was spent on scenes in which Abbie is dealing with her past than on the actual unravelling mystery surrounding the Key of Solomon.
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:
A few weeks ago I got a collection of books out of the library, all YA fantasy. As it turned out, I had so much on my plate that I was getting overdue notices for them before I had the chance to crack even one of them open, but I’ve finally been able to catch up with my reading in the past week. And having read three books in the same genre, I was struck by some of the similarities. If ever anyone was to ask me whether YA fantasy has a formula, my response based on these three books would be a definite yes - at least in one distinct regard.
The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry is best described as a loose rendition of the Cinderella story. Lucinda Chapdelaine was orphaned at a young age and now does menial labour in her aunt and uncle’s jewellery shop; treated well enough by her ailing uncle, but cruelly by her greedy aunt (a stand-in for the usual wicked stepmother).
Over the course of a single day, three visitors separately enter the shop to change Lucinda’s life forever. The first is a woman who asks that a precious gemstone be given a proper fitting, and it’s not long before she’s identified as the mysterious Amaranth Witch. The second is a young man looking for an engagement present, one handsome enough to catch Lucinda’s eye until her uncle tells her that he’s the crown prince Gregor. And the third is a boy called Peter, who sneaks into Lucinda’s bedroom at night in order to hide from pursuit.
She accommodates him for the night, only to find that by the morning he’s taken off – and the gemstone with him. Not only that, but her uncle died in his sleep and her aunt wastes little time in throwing her out onto the street. Remember, this is all within a twelve-hour period.
Lucinda decides to throw herself on the mercy of the Amaranth Witch, who wrangles a deal with her: if Lucinda returns her magical gemstone, she’ll be rewarded with the house she lived in with her parents (currently occupied by the witch herself). To do this she must track down Peter, who in turn tells her that he’s already sold it to the prince...
As you can probably tell, this book has more coincidences than a Dickens novel. Everyone seems to be related or connected to every other character in some way, and the plot can get quite convoluted as it attempts to untangle itself. Lucinda’s immediate goals are constantly shifting, from returning stolen property to pickpocketing the prince to escaping prison to sneaking back into the palace – after a certain point it’s easy to forget what she’s doing and why.
There’s also the inexplicable presence of a goat which acts like a dog that serves no narrative purpose and is never explained, and increasing levels of weirdness when the Amaranth Witch explains her backstory and breeches the subject of alternate dimensions.
You know what this reminds me of? Brace yourself for a bizarre comparison. The 1994 animated version of The Swan Princess. There was a period during my late teens in which I was obsessed with that movie, totally entranced by its barefaced weirdness. Like that film, The Amaranth Enchantment is the sort of book that has moments of real poignancy and suspense, followed by musical numbers that merge beauty pageants with Disney-esque revisionism with 19th century ballet.
The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney is a dark urban fairytale in which Donna Underwood must grapple with malevolent wood elves in an attempt to rescue her best friend Navin Sharma. Raised by alchemists who strive to keep dangerous fey creatures contained in the Ironwood (with a little concocting of the Elixir of Life on the side) Donna no longer attends school after an “Incident” that ended with her destroying a locker with her bare hands.
Long story short, her father died saving her life from a monster when she was young, though her injuries required Donna to undergo a magical surgery that ended in silver and iron tattoos all over her arms – with the added bonus of super-strength. Now she wears a pair of elbow-length gloves to hide them, which caught the attention of high-school bullies, which in turn led to the aforementioned Incident.
But what was she doing out in the forest as a child that led to the fey attack? You’ll have to wait until the next book to find out.
At a party she meets Alexander Greyson (which amusingly enough, is the alias that Jonathan Rhys Meyer’s Dracula used in the recent television show of the same name) and strikes up a rapport. He decides to help her out when her best friend Navin goes missing, and confides to her that he has secrets of his own – two long scars on his shoulder blades where a pair of wings used to be.
Why did he have wings and who took them away? Wait until the next book.
The structure of the story is decidedly odd. Navin’s kidnapping and subsequent rescue attempt doesn’t occur until over halfway through the book, and most of the interesting world-building and backstory is conveyed through dialogue. Unsurprisingly, this makes fey mythology and ancient alchemical societies a lot less interesting than they should be. Donna spends most of the first half of the book pinging between Navin and Xan, and by the time she finally meets the Queen of the Wood Elves and is ordered to steal the Elixir of Life if she wants to save her friend, it feels like too little, too late.
What consequences lie in wait for Donna once it’s discovered that she stole the precious Elixir from her guardians to save her friend’s life? You guessed it. Next book.
Finally Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jenson, which I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about for a while now. Cecile de Troyes is a teenage girl with a beautiful singing voice who is riding home from town one day when she's waylaid by a past acquaintance. Instead of seeing her home safely, Luc ties her up and forces her into a tunnel network under the Forsaken Mountain, insisting that she's on her way to the buried city of Trollus where the trolls dwell.
Cecile is horrified to realize that he plans to sell her to the royal family, who believe that she is the subject of a prophecy that will break the curse that holds them all under the earth. But to fulfil her destiny, she first has to marry their crown prince Tristan. When their "bonding" ceremony (which results in a psychic connection that forces them to feel each other's emotions) fails to release the trolls from their prison, Cecile is kept on at the palace in the hopes her presence will eventually weaken the magic that holds the population within the city.
At first Cecile can think of nothing but escape. Her family is no doubt frantically worried, and her life held precariously in the hands of her new husband and father-in-law. But gradually she comes to learn more about the society she's now a part of - the prejudice against half-bloods, the backstory of the witch's curse, and the longing for many citizens to form a new and fairer form of government. Against her will, she finds herself becoming invested in Trollus - helped along by her growing attraction to Tristan.
The world-building of Stolen Songbird (I just love that title) is generally very good. I enjoyed the city of Trollus, with its massive waterfall, floating lights and gardens of glass, and Jensen excels at her depiction of political intrigue. Having established some fundamental facts about troll culture – that they have to keep their promises, that they are unable to lie, and that the exchange of "favours" is practically a currency, these aspects are woven into the plot to provide plenty of twists, turns and loophole abuse. To survive in this world, Cecile has to remain sharp and focused, and she's refreshingly proactive in learning what she can and wielding it to the best of her ability.
Something I particularly appreciated: even though Cecile is bewildered by the thought that she might be desirable and attractive, she has a beautiful singing voice, knows it, and uses it at least once to attain something she wants. Nice to see a protagonist recognise her own talents without false modesty or contrived obliviousness.
The biggest weakness would have to be the depiction of the trolls as a species. To start with, there was some beautifully imaginative descriptions of what trolls looked like, from Cecile’s first glimpse of one: “the two sides of his face, so flawless on their own, were like halves of a fractured sculpture put back together askew,” to the portrayal of the Queen as a Siamese twin with her much more verbose and intelligent doll-sized sister growing out of her back.
A species of grotesques? That’s just awesome, as well as an opportunity for an imagination to run wild. Unfortunately, it’s quickly explained that not all trolls are deformed – just the royal family as a result of in-breeding. Which means that we never get a proper understanding of what your average troll looks like. As far as I could tell, they’re just like humans with dark hair and silver eyes.
And as it happens, the consequences of in-breeding have skipped at least one member of the royal family. Not just skipped, but been inverted, for our crown prince (and love interest) Tristan is super gorgeous. Like most YA romantic leads, Tristan is as arrogant and unpleasant as he is handsome and wealthy, with a heavy social conscience and a noble heart that's just waiting to be melted by the right girl. Well of course.
Despite being the first in a new trilogy, it’s a surprisingly thick book, with enough here to make you feel as though you've enjoyed a complete story, regardless of the tantalizing hook in its final paragraph to pave the way into its sequel.
***
In one sense, these books couldn’t be more different despite belonging in the same YA category. Breaking them down further would put them into the subgenres of retold fairytale (The Amaranth Enchantment), urban fantasy (The Iron Witch), and epic fantasy (Stolen Songbird just squeezes in by dint of its world-building). The tone and atmosphere of each one differs wildly, as does the structure of each story and the long-term goals of each protagonist.
And yet it’s the similarities that caught my attention. Now, this is only a half-formed mini-essay and I’m certainly not ascribing to any hypothesis with any of this, but here are some basic facts:
Of these three books, two are told in first-person narration. Two are written with the intent of developing sequels. All have a teenage girl as the protagonist.
Of these protagonists, one is an orphan, one has a dead father (with her mother in a mental institute) and one has separated parents (she’s somewhat estranged from her mother who put career before family). Two have a significant moment based on being Dressed in Finery. All have their attractiveness commented on by another character; all three are surprised by this observation.
Two are given the choice between something they desperately want and the chance to do the right thing. All are given at least three opportunities to be proactive, cunning and/or kind in a way that benefits them later. Two (though this is more of a coincidence than a pattern) end up with silver tattoos on their hands.
But of course, all three of them have a love interest. And here is where the similarities get really interesting. I’m not even going to tell you which quote belongs in what book; all that’s important here is the way in which all three love interests are described:
1. Underneath his broad brimmed hat, his features were so noble and fine, he looked like he’d swallowed the sun for breakfast... he smelled of perfume and fur and mint, and looked even more carved from sunlight up close.
2. His eyes were the greenest she had ever seen. Viridian-bright, but with textures swirling within that looked like fresh moss on the bark of a tree. His toffee coloured hair was a shade or two lighter than hers, short at the back and longer on top so that it fell choppily into those otherworldly eyes. His skin was smooth and golden, as if he’d just returned from vacation.
3. He was tall and lean, and a fierce intellect gleamed in his silver eyes. Dressed impeccably, he wore a black frock coat with a single-breasted best and fine linen shirt beneath. He also had the most exquisite face of any boy I’d ever seen. Inky black hair, sculptured cheekbones and jaw, and a full but unsmiling mouth. He looked like Prince Charming from the fairytales, except for one thing: Prince Charming was human and the boy standing in front of me was decidedly not. His pale skin was too flawless, his motions too smooth and controlled.
Of these three characters, two are princes, two are bad boys, two have magical powers, and all have their hearts melted by what seems to be the mere presence of our heroine’s beauty, spirit and/or bravery.
And with this it struck me that in YA fantasy books full of fairies and trolls, enchantments and curses, elves and witches, the male love interest slides just as easily into the very same category of magical imaginary being. The youthful princes on display here bear no resemblance whatsoever to real life human males (and I don’t mean that one is in fact a troll, and another used to have wings).
No, these males are always supernaturally gorgeous, splendidly dressed, achingly self-aware, and desperately interested in every thought and feeling and expression of our protagonist. They are willing to sacrifice everything (including the kingdom, the cause, and himself), not to win her love but to keep her safe, because a world without her is just unthinkable.
The romantic connection between him and her, which could logically be used to create a very human connection that grounds the fantastical elements of the story, is often described with such over-the-top flair that it carries about the same plausibility as a magic spell. And a lot of the time romantic love is equated with magic in regards to the heroine’s description of her feelings for said love interest – not to mention the briskness with which pretty much all of these courtships take place (hey, it’s a YA book – there’s a page count).
So what does all this mean exactly? These days any author who isn’t brain dead (so, probably most of them) knows that any female lead needs more going on in her life than a dude. She needs a personality, she needs personal goals, she needs agency. That last one is particularly interesting, since ALL of the leads in the above three books are thrown into dire circumstances against their will and without their permission, struggling with the attempt to claw back some autonomy – even the tiniest bit – so they can use to help those with even less.
The impact this has on the average male romantic lead is that he has gone from the goal to an accessary. A necessary accessory, like a book or a purse or a frock, but an accessory nonetheless, and that’s only because you’d have to pry romantic subplots out of the cold dead hands of YA novels before they’d be willing to give them up.
What remains is this odd sort of limbo in which no one can conceive a YA novel without a super-gorgeous-hunk-of-a-teenage-boy to fall in love against his will with the female lead, but nobody really knows what else to do with them. The heroine usually has things well in hand and the author is often extremely self-conscious about not making her a damsel in distress. Any life-threatening dangers are usually designed in order to make the dude confront his true feelings for her.
And sure, some manage to integrate super-hunk into the plot better than others (Stolen Songbird doesn’t exist without Tristan; The Iron Witch would have worked just as well without Xan), but most of the time the romance feels obligatory.
That’s the word. Obligatory. Almost as if they’re well aware of this, each author goes to great lengths to wax lyrically about the stunning good looks of their lead male characters, and paint the ensuing courtship with as much flowery and/or heated descriptions as possible. It’s like a form of compensation: yeah, this is pointless in regards to the plot, but falling in love with a hot guy feels amazing! It’s at this point I should probably convey my utter astonishment that none of these three books have love triangles.
But the step past this is of course a novel in which there is no romantic subplot. The male lead is either absent or the romance is. I don’t think readers (or writers) are ready for that yet. YA is too synonymous with coming-of-age stories and coming-of-age stories are too intertwined with physical attraction to another human being. But based on these three books? It’s definitely time to consider letting romance go.
So this week’s Sleepy Hollow changed tracks a little, or at least it felt like it did. This time around the focus is on Abbie, giving us more insight into her background and relationship to her sister whilst Ichabod plays a supporting role (and Katrina is nowhere to be seen). Ironically, though it has a much stronger and memorable villain than last week, the story is also a bit clunky – at least the middle bit is.
Nightmare demons are nothing new, I’ve seen them in everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Torchwood, from Charmed to Justice League, but this was a nice spin on the old tale. The Sandman isn’t just going to spook people when they’re asleep, but also works as a sort of demonic judge and jury, forcing people to confront their guilty consciences and driving them to suicide because of it.
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The character design of the elongated fingers, hollow eye-sockets, sealed mouth and sand pouring from every orifice was beautifully done, though I can’t help but suspect that somewhere behind the scenes there’s a big fan of Pan’s Labyrinth (the Pale Man, anyone?)
Having the episode start with Abbie experiencing a prophetic dream made for a great hook, particularly when she started connecting the dots and realizing that it all came back to her experience when she was a child. Or more specially, how she handled that experience as a child and what it meant for her relationship with her sister. I liked how the episode framed both sides of her predicament: on the one hand, Ichabod points out that she was very young and afraid, and so it’s difficult not to sympathise with her decision to keep her mouth shut.
On the other hand, she knows deep down that she betrayed her sister and that Jenny is the one who told the truth, leading to the very real feelings of guilt that the demon preyed on.
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That’s what I like about this sisterly dynamic. In any other story, Jenny would be the protagonist; the “crazy woman” who was dismissed and locked away, the Sarah Connor who works out in prison while awaiting the end of days, the one who makes a dramatic escape in order to head out and save the world. Instead it’s Abbie, the girl who did the wrong thing, who is our main character and who now has to cope with the consequences of her decision. Though it’s easy to understand why she lied, I’m glad that the show is making it tough for her to work through these issues, and it’s clear that she still has a long way to go before reconciliation with Jenny. It’s an interesting twist on the “mercy versus justice” theme, in which Abbie still isn’t going to be let off the hook for what she did in understandable circumstances.
The unfolding mystery was nicely played-out, with immediate hints given out in the dream as to Abbie’s guilty/doubtful conscience (“she didn’t do anything wrong…did she?”) and the accusatory nature of the other people in the room (Vega, Irving, Ichabod and finally the Sandman himself, each one shifting their attention more exclusively on Adult!Abbie).
But I’m going to assume that the flashbacks to the interrogation room were filtered through Abbie’s guilty and warped memories of the place, as I find it hard to believe that Jenny would have been forcibly dragged from the room like that (or that they were even in an interrogation cell to begin with).
By the time Abbie wakes up and reaches the jumper on the ledge, it’s obvious that it’s going to be Vega, to the point where we really didn’t need to get that split-second flashback to her dream. Everything worked much better later on in Ichabod and Abbie’s shared dream, when Ichabod walks into the police station and sees Vega, Gillespie and an empty noose hanging from the ceiling – that summed up the whole situation without any need to spell it out for us.
It was about the time that Ichabod and Abbie went after Mr Gillespie that the plot began to get a bit wonky. First of all, the whole “hostage crisis” sequence went on for far too long and resulted in Abbie and Ichabod realizing things that the audience had already figured out for themselves ten minutes ago (and had Ichabod needlessly run through the police line only to do nothing in the resolution of the situation).
Secondly, what was with that odd little sequence in which Mr Gillespie snags his leg on a nail, blots it with a cloth, and then sets it aside in a close-up shot so that the audience can see that a Native American symbol has seeped into it? Why did his blood do that? That symbol was meant to act as protection from the Sandman, so why does it appear when he’s being haunted by it? And Ichabod and Abbie never find it (Abbie tracks down the identity of the Sandman by researching dream demons) why even include it in the first place?
Plus the actor playing Mr Gillespie wasn’t all that good. Did he look particularly scared or horrified or guilt-ridden to you?
Then after they’ve identified the Sandman as a Native American spirit of retribution, Ichabod states that they need to find a Mohawk shaman. Now, I’m not even an American let alone a Native American, so I’m not even remotely qualified to speculate on the veracity of what happened in this sequence, but from a purely narrative point-of-view, it’s remarkably silly for Ichabod and Abbie to go to a random Native American car-dealer under the automatic assumption that he would be able to provide the shamanic services they needed.
But hey, what do you know – this guy has a sweat lodge outside of town filled with Native American paraphernalia. And he doesn’t mind leaving work in the middle of the day in order to help them out free of charge. And he lets Ichabod guilt-trip him with the old “all it takes is for one good man to do nothing” adage even though if their little foray into the spirit world had failed, he would have been left with two dead bodies full of drugs and scorpion venom to dispose of. Try explaining that to the police.
Thankfully it all got back on track with the third act in which Abbie literally faces her demons and rescues Ichabod from the Sandman. The atmosphere of the forest was particularly well down, especially the surrealism of Ichabod coming across the red door of the police precinct in the middle of the trees.
But if anything, it was Ichabod who was slightly ill-served by this script, for at this point the writers are running the risk of making him a bit too good to be true. His transition into modern life is marked out by a few comedy sequences of him trying to cope with new technology and fast food, but there’s no indication of trauma or shock or fear whatsoever.
Now granted, this is a fairly light-weight supernatural/horror show, so obviously they’re not going to delve too deeply into the mental state of a person thrown out of their time, but his flippant attitude in regards to his wife and all his long-dead friends means that he’s bordering on Dissonant Serenity. I mean, how does he feel about being trapped in the 21st century? Does he miss his own time? Is he curious about what’s happened between then and now? There are some nice little touches here and there (such as him referring to the secretary as a “charwoman”) but in this episode he comes across as far too confident and calm. Hopefully we’ll get a quiet scene in an upcoming episode in which he’s allowed to be angry or melancholy or heck, even interested about what’s happened to him.
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That said, this episode’s theme of truth and trust was well served by his established personality, especially in contrast with Abbie’s. Abbie is all about the lie she told as a child and how it destroyed her relationship with her sister (and almost her own life), yet Ichabod practically beams conviction and honesty and sincerity. It’s almost his superpower, as it allows him to connect with people and read body language and draw out information, as we saw him doing with both Jenny and Abbie. It’s rare to see such intuitiveness in a male character, but whether it’s pre-emptively answering Abbie’s questions or instinctively knowing when she’s holding back, it’s a great character trait that has the added bonus of nudging the plot along.
Miscellaneous Observations:
In the opening sequence Irving states that Ichabod is interrogating a witness and I rolled my eyes because – no way. I’m still not entirely sure in what capacity Ichabod is “working” for the police force, but at least this detail was the first clue that Abbie was dreaming.
That said, I thought it was interesting that Ichabod took on a threatening persona in her dream, and it kind of matched up with Ichabod’s insistence throughout the episode that she divulge the truth to him. And that said, the white-eyed Ichabod in her dream was also the one to give her a clue as to how to defeat the Sandman: “the truth will set you free.”
I don’t know what the script is calling for, but when Abbie mentions that she had a dream about him, Tom Mison plays his lines in a flirtatious tone. Don’t deny it.
So will these prophetic dreams be a staple part of Abbie’s life now that she’s the Second Witness as identified in Revelation?
That was a pretty realistic jump that Mrs Vega took out the building.
Abbie gets ticked off when Ichabod lifts the police tape for her. Heh.
I like that the sisters are called Abigail and Jennifer Mills. These names have an old-fashioned quality when said in full, though are easily modernised by calling them Abbie and Jenny. That said, I like that Ichabod refers to Jenny as “Miss Jenny”.
“It’s all over but the crying.” Great spooky line from Jenny!
There were other lines here and there that fitted in neatly with the theme of the episode, namely Ichabod’s “you’re secret is in the way of a truth that we must uncover” and “I’m too tired to lie.”
The receptionist that Abbie spoke to is the same one that gave Jenny her pills last week. I’m betting she’s up to something… there’s just something shifty about her if you ask me.
This show loves those quirky “upside down” shots, where a scene either begins or ends with the camera revolving 360 on its establishing shots. So far there’s been one each episode.
Ditto the recurring image of the cracked mirrors, which I suspect is less of a stylistic feature and more of a deliberate motif that we should be paying close attention to.
All the buildings in this show are beautiful, especially the brick facades. Must visit Tarrytown one day...
It was very sweet that Ichabod immediately decides to trail Abbie through the dream-world, though I’m surprised that the demons (or whatever else is in there) didn’t try to distract him with a vision of Katrina. Though seeing the state of the fandom at the moment, perhaps that would have just added fuel to the already-rampant ship wars.
They give us a scene of Ichabod discovering Red Bull but not television?
I’ll admit, right at the end there I was afraid that Abbie would enter her sister’s room only to find her hanging from the ceiling. (After all, there was that foreshadowing of the third noose in her dreams). But nope, Jenny and Abbie’s reconciliation with her will have to wait for another day. Whew.
So in short, this episode was a nice character-study for Abbie, answered some question about what happened to her and her sister, and provided a nice hook for next week. There were a lot of the usual horror tropes at work here: nightmares, strange eyes, suicides, sleep deprivation and so on, all of them so overused that I wasn’t actually scared at any point, but I enjoyed the elegant way it was strung together. Basically: a better villain in a weaker story than last time, but still plenty to look forward to.
In Hindsight:
Not a whole lot to add here; this story was designed to introduce the dynamic of the Mills sisters, though it's clear even this early that Jenny was going to be of utmost important down the track.
Of most interest is the fact that all the talk about how Jenny and Abbie hearing the voice in the words that said "come and see" actually had nothing to do with them at all. They just happened upon Moloch raising Jeremy from the dead and were dealt with accordingly with a bout of amnesia.
And they did manage to address some of my complaints about Ichabod: he does come across as a bit too-good-to-be-true here, but later episodes certainly deal with his pride in not wanting to admit when he's wrong and his other foibles in putting his wife's wellbeing over that of the bigger picture.
Blood Moon was exactly what I expected from the second episode of this show – not that that’s a bad thing. The writers are still establishing the character dynamics, building up their mythos and sowing seeds for future storylines, which means all the stuff about the witch was far less important than the scenes involving Ichabod/Abbie bonding, Abbie’s sister and ex-boyfriend, Ichabod’s dreams about his wife and Fish Out Of Temporal Water situation, Irving’s attitude, John Cho’s resurrection and Clancy Brown’s brief reappearance.
So let’s get Serilda out the way first. She was a fairly standard “filler” villain, the kind that simply serves to give Ichabod and Abbie an enemy to fight while the more important stuff happens in between scenes. The bits with the necklace were elegantly done (emerging out of John’s throat, being placed on a plinth under the blood moon, ending up around the witch’s neck) though at this point I think the Burn the Witch trope has all but run its course.
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By today’s standards witch-burning has become such a potent symbol of patriarchal cruelty/medieval superstition that any depiction of a woman getting tied to the stake is bound to make an audience feel sympathy rather than satisfaction at her demise, regardless of whether or not said woman is actually evil. I think the writers tried to compensate for this by having the whole good coven/evil coven dichotomy going on, with Katrina (rather than a priest) being the one to sap Serilda’s powers.
On that note, this episode very much revolved around good witchcraft versus evil witchcraft, with Christianity put on the back-burner, so I’m still looking forward to seeing how the good coven managed to co-exist alongside the church and how Katrina dealt with her secret life.
There was a rather odd Red Herring regards to John Cho specifically asking Serilda’s victims for their names and insisting that he had to hear them in full (suggesting that it was somehow part of a spell that was needed to establish them as the intended sacrifices) but then it turned out that Serilda was just searching for the descendants of the judge that had her executed. So he was just… confirming their identities?
Okay whatever, it was a neat little twist that Serilda wasn’t after the little kid at all, but instead made off with his (adopted) father’s ashes. I have to say that her demise was a little anti-climactic, but I do wonder if that’s the last we’ll see of her. She was described as the leader of the dark coven and hinted at a history with Katrina (“you carry her stench in your heart”), giving the sense that her place in the mythos was one of relative importance. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Poor John Cho! (No one else seems to be bothering with his character’s name, so we’ll just stick with John Cho). That was a pretty gruesome sequence when the demon brought him back to life with his neck still yanked all the way over his shoulders, though I have to wonder why it killed him in the first place if it was just going to resurrect him again. Does resurrection put him under some sort of duress that he didn’t have whilst still alive? I only ask because it didn’t seem as though he wanted to do the demon’s bidding (apologising to his victims, grousing about digging up Serilda’s bones, etc) so hopefully we’ll eventually get some answers on how and why he got wrapped up in all this.
And what was up with him stalking Abbie in the tunnels without touching her? He didn’t look like he wanted to do her harm, in fact the expression on his face suggested he need help.
I’m still not really feeling Ichabod/Katrina. This is mainly because the writers are (at this stage) simply using her as Mrs Exposition, but also because Ichabod’s reactions to her seem a little off. Twice now he’s seen his long-dead wife, but reacts to her quite nonchalantly. In seeing her in his dream, he doesn’t think to move closer to her or try to embrace her in any way, and doesn’t seem particularly cut up about the fact that she’s a) dead and b) a witch. (Whereas he seems utterly fascinated by Abbie, just sayin’).
The only time I really get the sense of them as lovers is in that brief scene in the opening sequence. Hopefully there’ll soon be flashback sequences between the two of them so I can get a fix on what their relationship was like.
Of the two new characters, I must say I’m more interested in Abbie’s sister than her ex-boyfriend. Luke is certainly good-looking, and there’s the potential for more amusing alpha-male tension with Icabod, but I feel that Jenny is going to be much more integral to the story. Clearly she hasn’t dealt with her childhood trauma in the same way Abbie was able to, and apparently the demon is still interested in her. And judging by her fitness regime – she knows it. Can’t wait to meet her properly!
That said, there’s no way any self-respecting facility would a) have its staff goad the patients about monsters, or b) be so easily fooled by a patient hiding pills under their tongue. Though I suppose the only response to that is that this isn’t a self-respecting facility.
Miscellaneous Observations:
That was a fantastic cold opening with Headless Horseman being joined by the other three Horsemen of the Apocalypse. What is it about horses galloping in slow-motion that always sends a chill down your spine?
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I’m disappointed that the other officers recanted their testimonies. I liked the idea that the existence of the supernatural would be an open secret in the town of Sleepy Hollow (and it would have given Ichabod a legitimate reason to be allowed into various crime scenes), but now it seems that they’ll ttake the usual “don’t ask, don’t tell” route, with Abbie treated as the misfit with the inexplicable sidekick that the rest of the force side-eyes.
I probably wasn’t meant to laugh at the footage of John Cho running headfirst into the mirror.
Scenes of time-slip characters trying to adjust to whatever new period they find themselves in will never not make for quality television. I especially loved Ichabod’s satisfied little expression when he uses the hair-dryer to dry his clothing (hey, we’ve all done it in an emergency).
I love Ichabod’s complete conviction in what he’s doing, and his need for Abbie to believe in him. “Something’s given you reason to doubt my veracity.” Perfect line and delivery.
Those opening credits are GORGEOUS! The flow from period to contemporary was a particularly nice touch.
I don’t know what’s cuter: Nicole Beharie’s eyes, nose or mouth.
“Help me understand.” Possibly the most romantic line I’ve heard since Aladdin asked Jasmine: “do you trust me?” or Sybil told Gwen: “your dream is my dream now.” Sorry, I don’t know how these comparisons spring to mind.
So I guessed they’ve tried to cover for last week’s nonsense over a condemned witch being buried in a churchyard by stating that Katrina’s remains are elsewhere and that the headstone was just a ruse to hide the Horseman’s head – but that still doesn’t explain how a witch’s headstone was allowed on consecrated ground. Maybe the decapitated priest had something to do with it…?
Great detail on the saggy folds of skin around John Cho’s neck.
The burnt makeup on Serilda wasn’t that impressive, but I loved the effect of her merging with her bones and seeing the embers of her skin flying upwards. Still, it’s a bit of an oversight that the writers didn’t really get across the consequences of her resurrection. I think Katrina mentioned something about her being the first of the Horseman’s army? Or something?
So is Clancy Brown going to be Abbie’s guardian angel now? The “believe in yourself” shtisk and needless riddles could get old, but I suppose we need some benevolent supernatural figures to offset all the darkness.
In Hindsight:
This early on the good/evil covens and Katrina’s role as a witch leader felt much more important than they ultimately ended up being. Serilda wasn’t particularly important in the long run either.
Though we got our first hint of the crush that Andy has on Abbie (stalking her in the tunnels without touching her) we never learn much more about how he initially became a servant of Moloch – and there’s a good chance we never will considering Andy Cho is now starring on Selfie.
All in all, I think I was pretty spot-on in calling this an episode that was more involved with establishing the central cast than adding important facets to the mythos.
And though this was the most original episode of the series so far, dealing more with the idea of time travelling (or at least with a village suspended out of time) and utilizing another horseman to contend with, I’m not entirely sure the plot itself holds together.
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