Well, damn. After 13 episodes of delightfully excessive evil, demony bits and totally necessary wig-hotness paced at a frenetic, breakneck speed, the first season of “Sleepy Hollow” is over. And my goodness, do I need a cool drink and a pool boy whose only responsibility is fanning me off. Straight up: “Sleepy Hollow” has no business being as good as it is. The premise is this: Ichabod Crane is hot, wakes up 200 years in the future because he’s secretly also Rip Van Winkle, and partners up with equally hot cop friend Abbie Mills to fight off apocalypse-related demon folk with George Washington’s bible as a field guide. George Washington’s bible, y’all. I am literally not making this up.
But somehow, somewhere between Ol’ Ichy learning about the triumph and revelry of a well-timed fist bump and bemoaning the constrictive nature of skinny jeans (“It wounds!” Oh, Ichy. I’ll show you something that wounds), “Sleepy Hollow” exposed itself as a wonderful show that is fun, clever, and makes no sense. But like, in the good way. And so, in the vein of scientific investigative journalism, using algorithms and stoichiometry, I will award points for the good, the bad, and the lace fronts. I know no other way.
Arbitrary Points for Sleepy Hollow, Season One
+450 points for Zombie George Washington.
Self-explanatory: this was a thing that happened.
+999,9999 for all Abbie everything.
First of all, Abbie is beautiful, and smart and amazing, and if I tried working out a little, I would probably look just like her (that is a complete and utter lie. I lack the bone structure, though not the sass). I could wax poetic on how great a character Abbie is, especially because this show is more interested in developing characters than developing a seamless, sensible plot — although, who wants a sensible plot anymore? But what I really want to talk about is how literally every person on this show is in love with Abbie. Sad, undead Andy Brooks is in love with her; that Luke Morales guy that will never go away is in love with her; and I think we all saw the way Ol’ Ichy caressed the back of her skull in the season finale when he agreed to just drop her off in purgatory like it was an after-school program. I mean, he has more chemistry with Abbie than he does with his wet rag of a wife, and even Katrina knows it. I mean, if we gave Katrina more than 10 minutes of screen time over 13 episodes, we’d probably see that she’s full on, head over heels in love with Abbie too.
Abbie’s fine, so it’s natural for all of you to feel that way, too. Abbie transcends sexual orientation. If you’re not in love with her, you don’t have a soul, so you should just go ahead and work on that.
-100,000 points for every time Katrina Crane blew in with a mega wind fan and mouth-breathed her way onto my screen.
This show is not without its flaws. Namely, it has one superbly major flaw, and that is Ichabod’s wife, Katrina. First of all, she never tells Ichabod that she’s a witch, and that she had their secret baby because she’s conveniently in purgatory, lighting candles and acting like her nouveau goth look is fetch every week. Second of all, her hair color and her sew-in are absolutely, positively not era appropriate, so honestly Ichabod should have known that there was some sorcery afoot from the get-go. Third of all, she’s so boring that she can’t even be bothered to aspire past anything more than 17th century Princess Peach, because it’s clear that she’d rather be at a seance, or like, dancing on the bones of her fellow witches that maybe she betrayed (I’m not really sure if that happened, because I fall asleep every time she shows her face). She was literally free from purgatory for five seconds before she got whisked off to play the victim, again. Classic Katrina.
+2,121,435 for every time Ichabod learns about something from the modern era.
I particularly like his fascination with plastic, doughnut holes, smartphones, and whatever fancy products he is putting into his hair off screen. I’m salivating right now just thinking about it.
-75 for those four episodes where we were forced to trudge through Ichabod’s entire life story.
Despite my endless love for him, which is well documented in every paragraph I’ve so far written, “Sleepy Hollow”‘s retelling of Ichabod’s backstory was tedious and tiresome. It’s like, yeah, I get it, you have a secret son that your shitty wife forgot to mention, and you’ve always been able to pull random factoids from your delightful, pantalooned ass, and you know how to spit mad game, and seriously you can instantaneously recall snippets of conversations you had with people over 200 years ago — but seriously, we don’t need four different episodes covering these facts and your Justin Bieber-like angst regarding the super noble mistakes you made when you decided to defect to the American side of the revolution. Also, stop talking about Katrina. Every time Ichabod tries to make Katrina happen, my fallopian tubes shrivel up by, like, 10%. So now, I’m basically sterile. Thanks a lot, Katrina.
+500,000 for Ichabod Crane in skinny jeans.
“Sleepy Hollow” knows how to pander to its audience, and it knows how to give good show. It knows what I want to see: dat ass. Besides, Ichabod knows he’s fine.
+2,621 points for John Noble feasting on scenery as if it were his last supper.
John Noble, who played sin-eater Henry Parrish, who actually turned out to be Ichabod and Katrina’s long lost evil son, who is also the second horseman of the apocalypse — just go with me here — was famished. And he had the urge to speechify. So he chewed up all the scenery, he chewed up Katrina, and he chewed up Ichabod, and he swirled them around in his mouth, spat them out, and was like “THIS IS WHAT YOU CALL ACTING.” Then he just walked away like everything was cool. Seriously, he and Jessica Lange should have an act-off where they both just chew up all of the scenery until they just can’t eat any more.
+10,000 points for everyone else.
There are other people on this show, too. Nobody really stoked the flames of my hatred like Katrina, although Jenny Mills’s eyebrows threatened to send me over the edge, but then I kind of started to like how she appeared an impressive combination of livid, excited and confused at all times. Also, she runs away from mental hospitals all the time, and Abbie is her sister, so I like to think of her as the perfect amalgamation of crazy, sexy and cool. Orlando Jones, aka the Black Jeff Goldblum (a fact that even he recognizes), is superb as Captain Irving, and he’s super into the creepy Tumblr fan fiction the “Sleepy” inspires, that I definitely have never read, ever. And I’d be remiss to mention, again, the wonderfulness of such a diverse cast that blends seamlessly and doesn’t seem like a mass diversity hire. Yes, I’m giving you the side-eye, “SNL.”
+An infinite amount of points for this GIFset.
“Sleepy Hollow” + “Mean Girls” = Infinite Splooshfest.
That’s all, folks. Feel free to join me in mourning for the next eight months — or don’t, whatever. I’ll be searching the catacombs and caves of upstate New York looking for any sign of Ichabod Crane, so you know what? Don’t wait up.
