Welcome back to Sleepy Hollow, the most pleasant surprise of the 2013-14 network season. If “This Is War,” the second season premiere, had an alternate title, it would certainly be “Who Needs First and Second Acts?” Unlike traditional scriptwriting–which features three acts that leave most of the action for the third and final one–the composition of this premiere allows almost no breathing room for its audience. This is less bothersome than it is impressive, and impressive is exactly the kind of thing that Sleepy Hollow could use to kick off a season of bland new network dramas. I would normally feel dumb for not being quite sure if what I’m watching is a dream sequence (or alternate reality or vision or whatever other term you want to use), but Sleepy Hollow is often hollow (!) entertainment in the sense that it doesn’t ask you for complete attention in order to have a good time. So, having been trained to half-pay attention to the intricacies of the plot, the first few minutes of “This Is War” genuinely had me fooled (or at least uncertain). Again: impressive.
Once we get back to the show’s reality, the figurative foot is immediately on the acceleration and does not let up until the final minute or two. Maybe descriptions like this are sometimes hyperbolic, but I’m not employing that device in the slightest. This episode is literally action-packed. If it weren’t for commercial breaks, this would be nonstop on-the-edge-of-your-seat viewing (or maybe it is for those people who get really excited about car commercials; you are the backbone of America, for better or worse). Even in a scene like Abbie’s conversation with Ichabod via Moloch’s insane visual gateway to the real world (apply “insane” to just about every noun when it comes to Sleepy Hollow)–a scene that has emotional heft by bringing our two leads together briefly–the camera is hovering around and not letting that urgency that pervades the episode fall to the wayside. It can be discomforting if you focus too much on it, but it ultimately works in the episode’s favor, since my final thoughts were “I can’t wait a week for another episode of this…” Thus, kudos to director Ken Olin and the production team for making “This Is War” look and feel as important as the events of the episode themselves.
Those events manage to address and wrap up a ton of threads that were left hanging at the end of last season (sadly, poor Orlando Jones is nowhere to be found, but hey, he, Lyndie Greenwood and John Noble join the main cast list!). Ichabod escapes from the coffin that his soul eater son put him in, Jenny beats down some anonymous baddies, the two join up to figure out how to save Abbie and then they do, in fact, save Abbie (well, mostly Ichabod). Done and done. Unfortunately, Katrina is still stuck with her ex-turned-Headless-Horseman captor, but expect that to be resolved next week. This premiere is all about bringing Ichabod and Abbie back together. I can’t help but wonder what the early part of this season would look like if the writing staff had contrived a way to keep the pair apart for a few episodes without them dragging, though. And that seems a reasonable enough bit of intrigue for Fox, which takes more risks with its scripted programming than CBS or ABC. But if it means we get more of that magical on-screen chemistry between Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie, then so be it. The Ichabod-Abbie reunion is still a lovely one, especially after a fake-out with one of purgatory’s finest pretending to be Ichabod (the best bit of detail in the entire premiere might be the way that Abbie deduces which Ichabod is real by the fake one calling her lieutenant instead of leftenant).
If I have any kind of legitimate issue with the episode, it’s the MacGuffin of the key that both sides are after. The season one finale did a wonderful job of leaving characters in dire circumstances with the promise of much conflict in the immediate future. That conflict is still everywhere in the background of “This Is War,” which sets the stage for the titular war and concludes with a rather wonderful addition to the cast of antagonists. By creating the idea of this key as a convenient way out of much of that conflict, though, and especially by having it disappear after one use, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed that there wasn’t a more clever way of working around some of the problems of the one-person-in, one-person-out rule of Sleepy Hollow‘s purgatory. The writing staff has earned plenty of good will by shirking things like this in the past and overshadowing them in unadulterated fun, but at some point, the “wait a second…” moments can’t be ignored. That said…well, who really cares? This is Sleepy Hollow–a show about a cop and a time-travelling Ichabod Crane solving mysteries while dodging the bullets of the Headless Horseman.
In the months since Sleepy Hollow has been on hiatus, I’ve always found it strange to hear or read about how people were worried that 1) viewers would forget that Sleepy Hollow was a thing that existed and was actually worth watching and 2) that the larger episode order (18 instead of 13) wouldn’t work. Even without advertising–and Fox has definitely been advertising for Sleepy Hollow‘s return–viewers remember the shows they watch. So, Sleepy Hollow‘s real fanbase was never going anywhere even if the numbers end up showing a slight dip tomorrow morning. And though the jury is still out on the effects of the season’s length, this is a series that has a very defined structure. It is a supernatural procedural that has an interesting macro-plot. When it needs to fill time with a case-of-the-week, it has proven it can do that with flying colors. When it wants to get back to this war that it’s building between the forces of good and evil, then it will. That’s enough to fill more than 18 episodes of a season. With that skepticism aside, do the only thing one needs to do with this show: enjoy it.
Thoughts from the Horseman’s Head:
– Any excuse to bring back John Cho is a good excuse, as far as I’m concerned.
– The font of the subtitles when Moloch speaks appropriately matches his character. It reminds of the first Diablo game.
– Things That Confuse Ichabod: birthdays. When asked to make a wish: “Is there no end to this birthday madness!?”
– “I shall consider myself punk’d.”
– Yep. That’s a naked Ben Franklin, all right. And his experiments with electricity? Nope. Had nothing to do with electricity. Had to do with good versus evil, because of course they did.
– Ichabod’s time in the coffin is exactly what Sleepy Hollow does so thoroughly well. First there is no service. Then, after he tries to record a goodbye video for Abbie, the memory is full. “Annnd none of that recorded. Wonderful.”
[Photo via FOX]
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