Sleepy Hollow: The Sin Eater

The plot of this episode draws upon the bond that Ichabod and the Headless Horseman share with each other: their "lives" are connected due to the fact that they "killed" each other (even though neither of them are dead - don't you just love genre television?)

 

By simple dint of his existence, Ichabod poses a threat to the entire world, as while he lives, so too does the Horseman. Killing Ichabod removes the threat of the Horseman returning to Sleepy Hollow, and so he is kidnapped by a group of Freemasons who first question him to confirm his identity, and then provide him with a vial of poison so that he might take his own life.

 

Abbie is obviously gonna have none of this, and so (having received a tip-off from Katrina) goes in search of a man known as the Sin Eater, who possesses the power to break the blood-tie between Ichabod and the Horseman. In doing so, she also ropes in Jenny, knowing that she's an expert on these matters.

That's a great setup, especially as it provides us with some insight into Ichabod's past, Abbie at her most vulnerable, Jenny getting on board the investigative train, and some much-needed focus on Katrina. And for the most part, the whole thing worked. We now know how Ichabod met Katrina and why he turned on his own country, and get a bit more of the emotional strain that exists between the Mills sisters. Throw in a Freemason conspiracy, and bingo! Even the climactic scene when Ichabod decides to drink the poison was immensely effective: though we knew he wasn't going to die, the actors made it work by selling the hell out of it.

 

But here some my caveats about the storyline...

 

I'm afraid I couldn't quite get my head around this concept of a Sin Eater. I loved John Noble's performance, as you could see in his eyes the physical and mental toll that his gift took on him, but... let me get this straight. A Sin Eater is someone who can cleanse the wicked of their sins, not through absolving you (like a priest) but by reaching inside you and taking the sin. Not to get all metaphysical here, but that feels like an utter cop-out on a deeply spiritual level. Does this mean that a remorseless criminal could meet with a Sin Eater and simply have their crimes removed as though they'd never done anything wrong in the first place?

 

To me, a person can only be freed from sin if they actively and knowingly repent and go in search of forgiveness. This made it sound like the process of being absolved by a Sin Eater gave a person a clean slate through no effort of their own. And apparently this was exactly what Ian Kellet was doing when he visited death row inmates...?

 

We talk about how the act of killing is bad because we don't have the right to appoint ourselves judge, jury and executioner over life and death, but I'd argue that neither do we have the right to simply remove a person's sins for that exact same reason. I know this may sound like nitpicking, but I just can't get behind the idea of a Sin Eater, and it didn't help that his sanctification of Ichabod was (somehow) tied up with his guilt in not saving Arthur Barnard's life. What exactly did that have to do with his bond with the Horseman and the spell that Katrina put over him? It was a tentative link at best.

 

As we discovered over in the flashbacks, Ichabod was originally a British soldier who was ordered by a superior offiicer (actually a demon in disguise) to oversee the torture of a freed slave in order to find out the identity of an insurrectionist called Cicero. This man, Arthur Barnard, coaxes Ichabod into switching sides, but is killed anyway by the demon. Ichabod carries the guilt of not letting him go sooner, but Arthur appears to him and basically says: "if I hadn't died, you would have never found your destiny, so it's all cool." Heck, I don't even have to paraphrase. The line is literally: "my death saved your soul. Only you chose to see it as a sin when all along it was your salvation."

 

On a less diversive show this scene would have been pretty unforgivable, but whatever way you want to justify it, I really, really hope my purpose in life isn't to die so that some white guy, no matter how nice, can have a wake-up call about his destiny. That would really suck.

Oh, and that the Sin Eater turned up out of nowhere at exactly the right time for no apparent reason was also a bit daft.

 

Elsewhere, Katia Winter has the utterly thankless task of expunging mountains of exposition, but something about her in this episode emerged that caught my interest, which sadly I haven't seen discussed yet. According to the Freemasons she and her coven were in league with them before she betrayed their trust by hiding Ichabod's body from them. By doing this, and knowing full well that Ichabod and the Horsemen were connected, she chose to leave open the opportunity for the Horseman to return. It's the old "do I sacrifice a loved one for the greater good?" conundrum, and it says a lot about her that she was willing to risk the world to save her husband's life - as was Abbie.

 

She's still more of a plot device than a character at this stage, but I think the writers have a couple of secrets up their sleeve in regards to her.

 

Miscellaneous Observations:

 

Okay, I know this is going to make me sound like a spoil-sport but...yelling abuse at umpires is a really shitty thing to do. I didn't like seeing my favourite characters doing it. Sorry.

 

I loved Abbie/Katrina's shared vision, and I wonder how much of the detail will be important later. Like, what was up with the crying doll in the baby carriage? Or the George Washington (?) figure with the noose around it's neck? Or the veiled women sitting at the table? It was great to see these women in their first scene together, but - jeeze Katrina, couldn't you have waited until Abbie wasn't driving a car? You nearly got her killed!

 

Craig Parker!!! Okay, I know everyone else was excited by James Frain and John Noble, but here in New Zealand, Craig Parker is one of our local celebrities. (You probably know him best as Haldir from The Lord of the Rings).

 

That red contact that they put into Arthur Barnard's eye to denote a burst blood-vessel looked really fake.

 

Another bit of moral screwiness that was on par with the Sin Eater was Katrina telling Ichabod (after the executions): "do you think you'll be forgiven just because you didn't pull the lever?" Well, technically the guy who pulled the lever isn't responsible for their deaths either. He's just doing his job. The man who ordered their deaths is the one responsible for it.

 

Katrina looked really cute in that little Quaker cap. We should bring those back. And it was SO NICE to see her smile finally. "You are a terrible liar, sir. It's quite endearing." D'aww.

 

Nice linguistic link between Ichabod's role as a Witness and Katrina's line: "you have the power to bear witness" (ie, see demons for what they truly are).

 

That was a beautiful monologue from Abbie about how she continues to lose people and articulates exactly why she needs Ichabod so much. Nicole Beharie has a wonderful way of making Abbie as tough-as-nail and utterly vulnerable at the same time.

 

Best line of the night went to Jenny: "the next time you see that witch in a dream, tell her to be more specific."

 

"And through these centuries, against the impossibility that we would find each other, we did - and I am most grateful for it." Be still my heart!

 

Combining the voices of Abbie and Katrina each begging Ichabod to stay with them was a wonderful way of establishing his transition between life and death.

 

Finally, great ending sequence with the Horseman finding Ichabod's resting place. Let's hope those that were assorted in the basement at the end of this episode (Jenny, the Freemasons, the Sin Eater) are still around next week.

 

In Hindsight:

 

This is the most pivotal episode of the season thus far, though none of us were aware of it at the time. I'm referring of course to the fact that Henry Parrish is actually Jeremy Crane, coming face-to-face with his father for the first time, and that all this is the first step in Moloch's master plan, one that culminates with Abbie in Purgatory, Ichabod six feet under, and Katrina in Abraham's clutches, and it starts with Abbie seeking out "a Sin Eater".

 

Wow. It's so obvious once you know.

Katrina is the one who initially drops the term, which if memory serves, is fed to her by Parrish himself without her being aware of it. Having already risked the safety of the world by keeping Ichabod alive (and with that, his connection to the Horseman), she reaches out to Abbie with a way in which to sever the two of them without the need for Ichabod to sacrifice himself.

 

Of course, the jury is out on whether Parrish is a Sin Eater at all. Apparently sin eating is a genuine practice, and it's likely that Parrish was simply posing as one as part of Moloch's elaborate long con. His attempts to save Ichabod were in fact nothing of the kind, but rather a way to prevent the Horseman from being nullified, which is what would have happened if Ichabod had gone ahead with his self-execution.

 

But if one thing doesn't quite mesh, it's Abbie and Jenny establishing that Parrish used to visit death row inmates. Granted, they only presume that he's abolishing them of their sins (perhaps he was actually enlisting a bunch of serial killers to Moloch's army - plot bunny!), but there's a genuine sense of goodness about Arthur Baynard that's difficult to reconcile with what's actually going on in Parrish's head.

 

Arthur Baynard's appearance is played with sincerity, and (regardless of Parrish's ulterior motives) he allows Ichabod to shed the guilt that was binding him to the Horseman. This may have had dire consequences later down the road, but in the here and now it's an indisputably good thing, an act of sanctity and forgiveness that doesn't feel like it should (or could) be channelled through a corrupt mediator. Yet our only other option is that the whole thing was a carefully choreographed fake-out, one designed to make Ichabod get over himself and free the Horseman. If so, it worked.

 

But watching John Noble's performance with full knowledge of who he really is makes for an intriguing study. Did Noble know his character's backstory? There has been more than one crime drama that held back on delivering the final script to the cast so that the killer's identity wouldn't be compromised by an actor's performance, but watching what Noble does here certainly leaves that open for debate.

 

When Abbie and Jenny first confront Parrish, there's a strange sort of vibe about him, one which I first took to be reflective of the physical and mental toll of being a Sin Eater, but which could  just as easily be the twisted reverence of a man who has waited an awfully long time for this meeting to take place. There's the sense that he's playing coy in the face of their desperation for him to save Ichabod, and deliberately refusing to go with them in the attempt to sell his reluctance.

 

And after the Mills sisters leave the apartment, we get one last glimpse of Parrish as he stares out into his garden:

 

 

Blank hopelessness? Long awaited anticipation? You be the judge.

 

It's during the scene in which he absolves Ichabod of his sin (or whatever the heck he was actually doing) that things get really interesting. Lines like "so long I've hoped for this day" certainly take on a more sinister edge as we realize they're coming from a man who is not finding his purpose, but fulfilling the first step of a master-plan. The strange relish with which he goes about the sin eating doesn't quite gel with the haunted reluctance he displayed to Abbie (who isn't here to see this ritual), and it's easy to suppose that his mask slips a bit here; that his excitement at meeting his father for the first time can't quite be contained.

Well, played show.

 

For the record, Katrina's entire time-line is still hopelessly convoluted. At this point in time she's apparently an undercover witch  posing as a Quaker nurse in league with the Freemasons who are looking for one of the Witnesses...? How she goes from this to a proper Georgian lady engaged to Abraham is a complete mystery to me.

 

But Abbie's vision at the start of the episode did indeed bear fruit, most obviously with the appearance of the golem in the baby carriage and the veiled coven at the table, complete with evil laughter. Still not sure about the hanged George Washington doll in the crib, though the eagle is possibly a call-back to how Katrina contacted Ichabod in the first episode.

 

"See yah soon!"

 

 

 

 

Outlander: Rent

Outlander is one of those shows that I appreciate instead of enjoy (much less adore). I appreciate that that lead character is a woman and that the story is told exclusively from her point-of-view. I appreciate the gorgeous scenery and the attention to historical detail. But I’m not gripped by what’s going on here.

As we saw at the end of last week, Claire is travelling with the clan to collect taxes, discovering that Dougal is gathering a bit on the side. She assumes this is for himself after witnessing him tearing off Jamie’s shirt to reveal his scars to the assembled villagers, using it to convince those gathered to denote more money on top of the taxes. It’s only when she hears the word Stuart does she recognise that all this is not for personal but political gain. These guys are Jacobites, and Claire is suitably humbled.

But hang on, this demonstrates that Dougal is not as bad a guy as we originally thought. Yet didn’t he attempt to rape Claire just a couple of episodes ago? Jeez, what is up with the bizarre mental disconnect between the depiction of rape and the expectations of television writers? It’s like how we were all meant to keep shipping Jamie/Brienne on Game of Thrones an episode after he raped his sister beside the body of their dead son. (Ever thought there’d be cause to write that sentence?) Such things don’t make a show “edgy”, they just end up alienating most of the audience.

I’ve learnt since then that this particular rape attempt didn’t even happen in Diana Galbaldon’s book, and I’m left wondering why on earth the writers would want me to invest in a character who recently assaulted our heroine. So when the episode ends on something of a cliff-hanger in which Dougal’s safety hangs on Claire’s testimony after they’re approached by English soldiers asking whether or not she’s being held against her will, I’m honestly not sure how I’m supposed to feel.

I get the feeling we’re meant to hope she protects the man who recently assaulted her, but as moral conundrums go, I can’t say I’m too riveted.

What a headache, especially since most of the stuff with the Scotsmen was nicely played. Jamie is quietly supportive, Claire makes friends with Ned Gowan the lawyer (they bond over poetry which is sweet), and the moment she makes Angus (?) laugh with a dirty joke feels genuinely earned. I’m even willing to take the Scots’ brawl in defence of Claire’s honour in the spirit with which it was meant. (I generally can’t stand the “how dare you insult the woman in our possession!” trope).

But the best part would have to be Claire meeting several of the Highland women and embracing her “when in Rome” attitude, first with helping them with their “waulking” (yes, they really did use urine to cleanse wool of any impurities) and even hitching up her skirts to contribute to the piss bucket.

So far all the women in this show have been friendly and supportive of each other, and Claire even puts herself in serious conflict with the boys to return a goat to the community for a needy baby. Of course, it just lands her in further trouble, and catches the attention of Jeremy Foster, an English officer (and presumable spy) who ends up following the group with reinforcements.

I gotta say, Claire is a lot braver than I am. I have to admit that if I was in her circumstances I’d be keeping my mouth shut and my head down.

Then of course, there’s the time-travelling element. Up until this point, it’s simply been used as an easy way to set the scene and the protagonist’s personal storyline, with only a few little moments here and there demonstrating Claire’s foreknowledge. But on learning that the people around her are preparing for a conflict that will end at Cullonden (which as Frank says, more or less ends the rebellion and their way of life) Claire feels compelled to do a little meddling.

So will the usual rules of time-travel apply? Can she change the past? Set right what went wrong? Now that the question has been opened as to whether or not Claire can change things, the story can perhaps begin to explore what has otherwise been an extremely light treatment of its sci-fi element.  

Sleepy Hollow: John Doe

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 21^st 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.   

Doctor Who: Robots of Sherwood

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.

Sleepy Hollow: The Lesser Key of Solomon

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:

 

Review: The Amaranth Enchantment, The Iron Witch, Stolen Songbird

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 19^th 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.