Sleepy Hollow - Pilot - Recap and review

Disclaimer: this is a detailed recap and brief review. If you'd like more of a review with less recap, wander over to the version at Pop Goes the World.

Specs
Broadcast Network: FOX

Brainchild of: Orci & Kurtzman (guys behind - writing/creating/producing - cinematic reboot of Star Trek, Transformers, Cowboys & Aliens, Alias, Hawaii Five-O, Fringe, Xena, Hercules, Mission: Impossible III, The Mummy, Van Helsing)
Starring:     Tom Mison, Poirot: Third Girl, Lost in Austen, Lewis,
                                   Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, POSH.

                  Nicole Beharie, unknown to me

                  Orlando Jones, Office Space, Primeval, Men in Trees,
                                         Pushing Daisies, House, lots more.

Guesting:    John Cho, Star Trek, Flash Forward, Star Trek Into Darkness,
                                 lots more

                  Nestor Serrano, 24, Homeland, Dexter, Blue Bloods, lots more

                  Clancy Brown, Carnivale, Cowboys & Aliens, ER,
                                        Starship Troopers, Earth 2, lots more.

Premise: Ichabod Crane, who fought in the Revolutionary War as a soldier under George Washington, awakens in the 21st century. As does the Headless Horseman. This is a case where the audience knows (or do they) know more than the characters, as many viewers will be familiar with the legend of the Headless Horseman – but it is precisely this legend the writers and producers will be messing with, so assume nothing.

Pilot: We start off with the Revolutionary War. There's shooting, many horses, red coats vs blue. Ichabod (a blue) checks the hand of a fallen soldier. A masked rider in a red coat appears on a white horse; he is merely unhorsed when Ichabod’s shot hits his shoulder. The two fight hand-to-hand (what mano a mano actually means), Ichabod sees  a brand in the shape of a cross (?) on the horseman’s hand and notices the white, bloodless eyes. Well, we notice so I’m assuming he does too.  They counter-injure each other – Ichabod gets an injury SOMEWHERE (sparks do fly – is there magic afoot?) and Ichabod decapitates the horseman and passes out.

Fast forward to now, an underground cavern, and Ichabod rising out of the ground. A snake slithers away. We know it’s now, because he finds a road and automobiles and, well, he doesn’t. A snake in a cave? I know they add atmosphere, but they’re cold-blooded and caves are generally rather cold, so, reality check: unlikely.  

We now meet Lt. Abbie Mills and the Sherriff (August Corbin, possibly her mentor? They seem close in a paternal way) in a diner. It looks as though Abbie’s leaving all the charms and weirdness (unsolved cases) of Sleepy Hollow for the allure of the FBI. They are called out to a stable. Looks creepy: it’s night-time, there’s a storm coming in, the horses are restless, no-one is home, the music is creepy, there’s atmospheric disturbance when Abby tries to communicate with her partner. She finds the decapitated body of someone called Ogilvie, the Sherriff finds the Headless Horseman on whom bullets have no effect. The Horseman rides away, but not before Abby sees the brand on his hand and the Sherriff’s head. She calls for assistance. Enter John Cho, who finds Ichabod standing in the middle of the street, and arrests him.

In the cells, Abbie is brought to holding to see the suspect. It’s not him, but she describes who she saw in Ichabod’s hearing, who chimes in asking about the broadaxe. He’s further confused to receive confirmation that the last ‘man’ he fought is also in the same time as he is. Enter Nestor Serrano, who is there to give a polygraph. We learn Ichabod Crane’s backstory: he was a don at Merton College, Oxford, in the department of History; enlisted in the Queen’s Regiment to fight the Patriots; changed sides to become a spy under the command of General Washington... the epic line from the trailer “do you KNOW him?” Nestor is rather matter-of-fact in telling Ichabod where he finds himself, illustrated via a one dollar bill. And once he’s with the LEOs again, the Captain (Orlando Jones) orders a psych eval. Makes sense. Abbie wants at him though. She knows the man she saw had no head, but admitting it would jeopardise, well, everything, so she tries the science angle. The wound on the Sheriff’s head/neck was cauterised (explains the sparks from earlier) and she wants to find out more. Captain agrees to let her transport Ichabod to the hospital. Good to know Ichy isn’t misogynistic or racist – he takes being introduced to a female lieutenant of colour without batting an eyelash. Verbal sparring outside the car. They drive by the church – Ichy recognises the father. Bad news perhaps, the father recognises him. Ichy shows her the cavern. Ichy finds the Bible that was given him in triage (Washington’s bible, as it happens) – a passage from Revelations is marked: turns out ‘our’ Horseman might be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Dude on the white horse is Death! Abbie’s not buying it. Ichy tells her the last mission Washington gave him – essentially, to kill the Horseman.  

Death rides through the forest. His horse has red glowy eyes. Hmmm, that’s new, but then, we didn’t see the entire horse in the stables, but if Horsey had been around for 250 years, and saddled and bridled the entire time, SOMEone might have noticed her/him.

Padre runs outside his church in a panic. Hears hooves and whinnying. Oh, look. Padre’s got some mojo. But Death has his broadaxe. Famous last words: “I’ll never tell you where it is. I’m prepared to die.” You know what happens. Hey, there’s an “it”!

Funny – in the brief scene where Padre controlled chains to try and bind Death, and one of the chains snapped and ripped through the back of a sign by the road...now we see the front of it – it was a “Horse Crossing” sign, and the head of the rider has been sliced off. Obv, Abby still hasn’t dropped Ichy off at the mental hospital, and the Captain doesn’t take kindly to that particular factoid – even if it does mean that Ichy is innocent of the crime on the Sherriff and even if (and it is) the Padre’s wound is also cauterised – and threatens suspension. Wise words from Cho as the voice of reason, but we already know Abbie’s not going to follow orders to the letter. In the meantime, a bird of prey leads Ichy into the churchyard where he finds his wife’s grave – and that she was burned for witchcraft in 1782. Convo – Abby lets something slip that makes her reluctant “to be alone again arguing a case I don’t understand based on something I can’t explain”. Ichy picks up on it (and therefore we too) and accuses her of running away.

Hospital room: empathy from Abbie, self-doubt from Ichabod. Abby does decide to share the ‘again’ – flashback to teenage Abbie and her sister Jenny – they see four white trees in a row in the wood, hear a voice of some kind, and black out. Jenny was apparently unhinged by the experience and is in and out of (mental) hospitals, Abbie – well, we’re finding out. She goes to the Sherriff’s office, out of uniform, where she finds a key behind a photo of herself. It opens a secret drawer of tapes and files – the Sherriff, it appears, was onto something. The weirdness he mentioned in the diner, he has his theories that it might have something to do with witches. Two covens – one good, one evil. And, he has a case file on her and her sister, linked to an almost identical occurrence from 1882. The Captain walks in just as she’s closing the file – innocuous convo, but sinister look by him into the general area of the cabinet. Does he know? What does he know? Is he part of one of the covens? If so, which one?

Ichabod wakes up to the sound of a bird’s wings. It’s inside his cell, on the bedpost at the foot of the bed. It flies into the mirror – our gaze follows it, and we see Katrina standing in the woods. They have an interesting chat. Her body isn’t in the grave, but ‘it’ (the grave) marks the true location of the Horseman’s skull and one of her coven had been guarding it (Ah, the “it”!) – the Padre! Ichabod seems a little less than pleased to find out wifey was a witch, but she continues with the explanation for why Ichy’s connected with the Horseman: during the mutual injuring on the battlefield, their blood ran together and presto change-o, I guess they’re now yin and yang. Katrina cast a protective spell of sorts, but is trapped wherever she is and tells Ichabod that the reason he woke up after 250 years is because some evil has woken up the Horseman and is controlling him. Heightened tension as the four white trees emerge and final moments for Katrina to impart key knowledge: if the Horseman finds his skull, he’ll be whole again. And something about “three more will follow and then it will begin”. Another “it”. Oh, “it” is The End, as in End of Days. The Horseman’s weakness: light, he can’t survive the sunrise (hmmm, define ‘survive’ – he’s survived 250 years of deathly sleep okay) and something about Ichabod being the first witness. And the answers he’s looking for are in Washington’s bible and that he can free her from ‘this place’. He needs to find the skull and he needs to wake up (wow, that’s a LOT to take in, did you get all that? Did I?) – a doctor is preparing an injection, but before she can administer it, Abbie busts him out, purporting to take him back into custody. In the car, she shows him the map she took from the Sherriff’s secret cabinet and fills him in on the existence of the files. This is where she comes to realise that it’s all real, what the Sherriff believed, what Ichabod believes, what she has tried so hard not to believe. She tells her colleague Andy (John Cho) what the Horseman is after and where it is and asks him to get to the graveyard.. He tells her he’s just getting home, which is true, but his apartment’s been broken into and whilst surveying the damage (his gun safe has also been broken into) the Horseman rises from the armchair. His first words – “I know where it is.” Judas.

Ichabod and Abbie are in the churchyard – he digs, she lights. They find the head. The Horseman finds them. Ichabod jumps into the grave while the Horseman shoots at Abbie. Thinking her escaped, he goes after Ichy. Fighting. Andy rolls up in a police cruiser. She asks for his rifle out of the boot, he tries to knock her unconscious with it. So when he was acting as the voice of reason earlier, he was protecting her? Andy believes the Horseman is Death, so maybe. Abbie manages to turn the tables on him while he tries to subdue her. In the meantime, Ichabod is trying to make his escape on foot with the head while the Horseman stalks after him. Death has since found a machine gun (prob from Andy’s gun storage) and the rather sudden and quick sunrise halts the spray of bullets into a police car where two police officers are hiding. The Horseman rides away into the sunrise, many police cars arrive, we have the obligatory “he’s with me” from Abbie.

Walk and talk debrief with the Captain*, Abby decides not to go to Quantico. More Revelations verbiage – discussions of purpose and wanting answers: Brooks**. Before they get to him, Andy is in his cell, a demony voice in a demony language tells him he’s failed and Andy asks for another chance. He’s not given it by the demony shape that enters his cell. It continues into a mirror, where Abbie sees him in a wood on the other side. As the figure turns back to face her, the mirror suddenly cracks. Cool. End of episode.

*Oh, and the Captain’s name is Irving, as if to provide a nod in the direction of Washington Irving, the author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.

** in IMDB, John Cho’s character is listed as Andy Dunn, so who the heck is Brooks, unless it’s something I missed entirely or an in-joke on the country duo “Brooks & Dunn”. I dunno.

To be frank, after almost 30 years of watching science fiction and speculative fiction and various other shows with supernatural elements (and a whack of drama and crime procedurals), I don’t know why pundits are calling this show all kinds of insane. This stuff is not new, per se. The things that are new are the ways in which they’ve been put together, the actors, the characterisations, going with trope and against trope simultaneously. I knew I’d be interested and the programme hasn’t disappointed in that department. There’s a lot of potential in the quippy-banter department and I hope we don’t waste too much time getting Ichabod up to speed on 21st century gadgetry and all that (he’s mastered power windows and electronic car door releases in a day or two, so, he’s one of the sharper tools in the shed). So, until we go waaaaaaaay into left field or I get bored (hey, it could happen), I’m in.