Sleepy Hollow, Episode 1: "Pilot"
Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of the most well known pieces of American literature. Most people are aware of the story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. Besides the book, I am most familiar with the Tim Burton-Johnny Depp-Christina Ricci film. I'm pretty surprised that this is the first time that an iteration of the classic has come to television. If you watched Fox at all this summer I'm sure you saw multiple previews for the show. I have to say, I was a little trepidatious. It looked a little cheesy. I knew it comes from Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the co-creators of one of my all-time favorite shows, Fringe. So, I tuned in last Monday, with (kind of) an open mind. What did I think? Hit the jump.
The episode opens in 1781 on the battlefields of the American Revolution. Ichabod Crane is facing a Hessian-- thanks Assassin's Creed III-- soldier who has a weird, bow scar on his hand. Crane shoots him, but nothing happens. After getting sliced in the chest, Crane slices off the head of the soldier. Everything goes black and the next thing Ichabod knows, he is clawing out of a grave in a cave-- yay, rhyming-- that is full of jars with odd parts of stuff and bugs. Ichabod makes his way out of the cave and is clipped by a car. Something is different here.
At a diner, Lieutenant Abbie Mills is eating with her boss, Sheriff Corbin. Abbie has been accepted to Quantico and is preparing to leave, but I think we all know that isn't going to happen. They are called out to a local farm. When they get there, they figure out that something is amiss. Abbie finds an open truck with a shotgun on the ground, then she finds something a bit more disconcerting, the headless corpse of the farmer. In the barn, Corbin comes face to... um... neck with the Headless Horseman. He fires some meaningless shots and is decapitated. Abbie gets a good look at the Horseman as he rides away.
In town, Ichabod is arrested by John Cho and taken to the station.
What follows is what you'd expect. Ichabod is given a polygraph, which he passes, but Captain Irving (wink, wink) is unconvinced and sends him to a mental institution. Abbie agrees to escort him so she can question him about the Horseman. While Abbie and Ichabod are investigating the cave that he woke up in, a priest is murdered by the Horseman, a priest who was alive in the 1700's. Abbie gets the call and goes to the scene with Ichabod in tow. At the scene, a bird leads Ichabod to his wife, Katrina's, grave. Irving isn't super happy to see Ichabod with Abbie and again he orders her to take him to the asylum.
At the asylum, Abbie confides in Ichabod that she has a soft spot for people who are called crazy. It turns out when she was a girl, she and her sister were walking in the woods and saw four strange looking white trees. A man appeared in front of the trees and approached them and they ended up passing out. When they woke up, there were no trees and no man. When they tried to tell people what happened no one believed them. Abbie dropped it, but her sister wasn't able to and she has been in and out of institutions ever since.
That night, Katrina visits Ichabod in a dream. She tells Ichabod that she was burned as a witch and her body is not in her grave. The skull of the Headless Horseman is in her grave. It is what the Horsemen is looking for. Ichabod and the Horsemen are bound by blood. It wasn't Ichabod that was awakened, it was the Horseman. Katrina tells Ichabod that the Horseman is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and if he regains his skull and becomes whole, the other three will join him. Ichabod is the first witness.
After finding out that Sheriff Corbin had been investigating the odd happenings in Sleepy Hollow for years, including what happened with her and her sister, Abbie shows up with a fake court order to get Ichabod out of the asylum. She calls John Cho for backup and lo and behold, turns out Sulu is working for the Horseman. He ambushes Abbie on the scene, but she bites his finger almost off. They are able to keep the Horseman away from his head until the sun comes up and he vanishes.
At the police station, a creepy demon straight out of Pan's Labyrinth decapitates John Cho, right before Abbie and Ichabod go to question him.
Whew. A lot happened in the premiere. There was a lot of exposition, but the episode never really dragged. One of the major keys to the pilot and potentially the whole series' success is the chemistry between Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie who play Ichabod and Abbie, respectively. They have a lot of great moments and play off each other realy well. Ichabod's fish out of water status will be milked for laughs and in the pilot, at least, it works. From his take on an emancipated slave wearing trousers and being part of the constabulary to his fascination with automatic windows, it is all pretty great and Mison is incredibly charming.
The show introduced a relatively dense mythology with Abbie and Ichabod being the first two witnesses to the coming apocalypse. In the book of Revelations it states that there will be seven years of trials, so, at least they have a plan.
Not everything worked. I can understand how the writers might think that the Horseman brandishing automatic weapons would be a hoot, but it came off as cheesy and a little bit like a Terminator rip-off. That's a minor quibble though. As long as the writers can keep the mythology accessible and utilize their charismatic leads, there's a good chance that Abbie and Ichabod may be able to complete their seven year misson.
So, what did you guys think? Will you be sticking around? Did you like Abbie and Ichabod? Should I bother to learn John Cho's character's name? Let me know in the comments.
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