DearEvette

I don't know if it is fan wanking or if this is actually intentional but it seems like Jamal feels more sympathetic because he has been able to maintain a relationship with Cookie. She has acted as a humanizing influence on him in a way she hasn't been able to act on the other sons because they excised her out of their lives. Lucious has created a pretty toxic life for his sons. He has neglected his oldest son, he is bigoted toward his middle son and he has spoiled his youngest son. Jamal has managed to not to drown in it because Cookie has been a bit of a life-line. But Andre constantly seeks to get noticed and Hakeem preens in his entitlement. It is fascinating to note that Andre & Hakeem (the two men who cut their mother out of their lives) have both chosen to have romantic relationships with women who could be considered either a mother figure (Naomi) or a dominant female figure (Rhonda). People like Cookie more than Lucious for the most part, so it seems reasonable to think that the son who has benefited from her influence the most is also the most likeable.

"The name's Cookie, ask about me." I am here for Cookie! All day. That Tiana gal is a ...not great... actress but damn if she doesn't have a banging body! How very natural and effortless the scenes between Cookie & her sister and Cookie and Lucious are. Felt like you ere just hanging with friends so accessible was the dialogue and body language.

I honestly don't think the writers on this show have 1) the talent, 2) the interest or 3) the intestinal fortitude to depict any type of slavery in any way. Look at their track record. They have featured two characters of color in the 1700s. One was being persecuted not because he was black but because he was supposed to be a traitor. At no time was his race even referred to. Grace Dixon was referred to as as servant but treated as and mingled with invited guests. Now that doesn't mean they can't be dumb, but it will also depend on who is writing the episode. they did give us a good episode with Mama. So who knows... I am pretty protective of Abby and her character too, but I just can't get upset over that synopsis until actually seeing the episode. Who knows, it may turn out to be a total 'WTF' and an 'Aw Hell Naw!' or it might turn out to be a 'Meh, that's it?' I am content to wait and see.

Honestly, I am not at all perturbed by that synopsis. Even in that brief paragraph it seems clear that Abbie isn't gonna go actually be portrayed as a slave. It seems like a clear role reversal. Ichabod was suspected of being a murderer and a crazy man and he was imprisoned and put in a mental hospital. Meanwhile here is a strange black woman appearing in Sleepy Hollow in the 1700s and nobody actually knows her and she isn't from the area. Given that situation it isn't like she's gonna be allowed to wander around free. Of course that is the first assumption. It also sounds like she is sprung pretty quickly and gets back solving stuff. Frankly I think it sounds rather intriguing. I doubt she'll be there long. Probably about as long as she was in Purgatory.

I wonder if Abbie will come face to face with Grace Dixon? That would be kinda cool.

Uh... The finale 2.18 spoilers are out and oh my.... http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/02/sleepy-hollow-episode-218-tempus-fugit.html ..hmmm i probably should post this in spoilers... nvm already in spoilers.... LOL...

I forgot about the rather intriguing little nugget about time travel. I may need to re-watch but Team Undead has the evil grimoire that Solomon Kent was going to use to go back in time and Team Witness has Grace's journal which also gives them them some info about it. They mentioned Ley Lines etc. and the energy and power needed etc. Nothing came of it this episode, but it is out there now and a tantalizing concept for the show.

I think this episode was very much in the mode of Kali Yuga minus the fun karaoke scenes. Still not up to par with S1, but much better than a lot of S2 and a lot of Ichabod and Abbie togetherness. Also like the last episode this felt like an episode that is taking care of more things of the 'let's fix season two' checklist & answer some fan criticisms. To wit: - Ichabod acknowledging that he is thankful for Abbie letting him stay in the cabin but he needs a place of his own and his own money - Katrina's magic (or lack thereof) Outside of that I thought there were some things I really liked: - I said way back when in another thread that I wish the show had showed Katrina struggling to adjust to our time and realizing that a lot of the things she accomplished by magic was now accomplished by technology. I think this episode did that quite nicely. - Also thank you Abbie for reminding Ichabod that you all managed to deal with supernatual shit without Katrina's magic all last year. - Irving an Henry teaming up. I liked it. I really did. I was suspicious of Frank and thought a lot of things, but not necessarily that. But then.... - So what is it with having men go all evil because they are all up in their romantical feels. Get rejected by a woman? Go evil! And then try to win her back after you are dead! This is the hallmark of bad writing. - Tatiana Maslany has nothing to worry about. KW didn't even try with Grandma Van Tassel did she?

Thanks TV Juriste for the nuggets. It took them 13 episodes of myopia to damage a lot of trust and goodwill. I don't expect them to repair all that in two episodes. I too have the same level of Sleepy Hollow PTSD that Phoenics has. I watch each episode with a kernel of hope, but also prepared to be very disappointed. Like Abbie told Luke, I am tempering expectations. So even though I want it to hit every home-run possible, I will be ok with a base run. Right now I am in a place where as long as they don't screw Abbie, and give Ichabod some functioning brain cells when it comes to his trifling family, then that is enough to get me to stay and watch the next episode, even if I have to live with a little bit more of damseling of Katrina.

I am going to join you on your grassy knoll. No way if TV Guide has had this arrow in their quiver since November that they would not have loosened it before now, especially with all the discontent of S2. it does lead me to believe that Fox probably does have some say over what content can be released in interviews in order to give the media access to stars so that mags & blog etc. don't release an inadvertent spoiler or something before they want it to. So yeah, I am gonna go all conspiracy and say Fox let this get released now to woo back discontented fans. And say what you will about so called shipping wars, you will never convince me that Ichatrina fans have any where near the numbers that Ichabbie fans or even non-shippers have. The vast majority of people can not stand Katrina, so they aren't trying to placate her small number of fans. And it is not just Ichabbie fans they are wooing but Abbie fans. Mison leads the interview saying 'It is all about Abbie' after all. All that aside, it is a master stroke of PR at this point. It gets the fandom all atwitter (ha, no pun intended), it somewhat placates the Abbie fans, it send the Ichabbie fans over the moon, and it allows Mison to be the one to take the brunt of any discontent by angry Katrina/Ichatrina fans so they don't spew their venom all over Nicole. She didn't say it after all and in her talking head she was still trying to be Katrina's friend. And finally, it makes me think that Mison was being sincere at least. I was leaning toward him trolling a little bit, but either the man is an actor worthy of giving Meryl Streep a run for her money or he was telling the truth. Maybe he was sure this would not be released to the wild and he felt he could say what he wanted to in this instance? As I said above, he certainly acts with heart-eyes when he is around Abbie and we know Mison loves acting with Beharie. I wonder if it has been some of his acting choices all along that have fueled the fires for the shippers? People are saying he is the Captain of the Ship, I was thinking they were being a bit hyperbolic and over hopeful, but now.... I dunno.

Ok, that 'Ichabod Crane' account is kinda... whoa. Um... step away from The Twitter. Also, Tom Mison officially cracks me up. I do think he's sorta fucking with the fans. But he says it so sincerely you do kinda wonder if, from an acting standpoint, that is really how he is playing Crane. Some of the looks he gives Abbie are so soulful, you really do have to wonder.

Welp, I just gonna grab some popcorn and sit back and watch heads explode.....

I think this makes sense, yeah not in a satisfying watching tv way... but in what might actually really happen way. The realization that she was still trapped, after the adrenaline high of feeling that she'd fought herself free of her ordeal must have been crushing in it's disappointment. This on top of who know really how long she's been there, having witnessed & been the cause of her neighbor's death, having been played by Ian etc. etc. There is a wall that people hit. Sure it would have been cool if she had gone all She-Ra woman of power and fought etc, etc. but if she had people would be ridiculing the reality of that as well. Also all he needed was to have her alive and speaking. He had the upper hand in strength etc. he could have easily broken a limb or something and she'd be in worse shape than she already is. She can't win here. I do think the episode had a lot flaws. For instance, they were 100% sure exactly how Jake would react and planned for that completely so they had a fake car all ready to go. But from the looks of it, they had to have had all the surveillance equipment set up in that woman's apartment before Olivia called Jake to come over. And yet, they couldn't have been in that woman's apartment too long because her absence for any length of time would be noticed and she appeared to only have just been taken hostage herself. So it felt very slick like something that had been planned for a very long time, but the timing and execution of it seems to have too easily accounted for random factors that they could not have predicted would happen but actually did happen. Also, Olivia should have been more suspicious of Ian. And his presence and her admission felt unnecessary since they already knew she was important enough to kidnap in the first place. So yeah, a lot of flaws eps. of logic. But I have to say that Olivia's actions and reactions don't strike me as one of them. But like I said above, I actually liked the episode. It felt like the writers wanted to do something a little risky and i think is paid off. My husband at the start of it called it. He said "Looks like Scandal wanted to do a bottle episode."

ABC has been doing promos for Fresh Off the Boat and I see that they have the youngest son being into rap/hip hop but he doesn't seem to have any black friends (at least in the promos). This made me wonder now that I think of it, there are shows -- esp. comedies -- where the Networks are kinda tooting their own horn about diversity but I am noticing a very insular sort of diversity. These shows that feature primarily black, Hispanic and now Asian casts will interact with, be friends with and have regular or recurring cast members that are white. But it is rare that they'll be friends with or have regular cast that are members of other ethnic minorities. It seems that diversity within a show always means one minority group + white people. Makes me appreciate Neighbors a bit more where we had a black actress (Toks Olagundoye) as the mother of an Asian actor (Tim Jo). Brooklyn 99 seems to buck this a bit, and possibly Mindy Kaling show. Interestingly those are workplace shows and one would expect them to cast a wider diversity net. But the family based shows don't seem to.

I liked it. Although I wish Liv were a little savvier about her cell mate. It seemed so obvious and Olivia really should have known better. But overall, I liked it. And I LOVE that Vermont house. Sigh. If the Tubeys were still around, I'd totally nominate Liv's underwire for Best Performance by and Inanimate Object.

Some observations on re-watch: - The stuff with Cythia and Frank felt a bit oddly written. On the one hand Cynthia transmitted discomfort several times. Right after all the criminal charges were dismissed, they hugged and he said something like 'I can't want to go back home with you and Macy' or something like that. She looked at him in surprise and then grimaced a little. Later when they were getting ready for bed, she looked at him nervously again and made a comment about "you coming back here." At first it made me think that Frank had completely forgotten he was divorced and no longer lived with them and Cythia was suspicious about his memory lapse. But on the other hand, later she does refer to him as her husband and acted overjoyed when Katrina declared him "clean." In the earlier scenes it made it seem like there was more wrong with Frank than just the lingering suspicion that he might have a dirty soul. But with the last scene it seems that all was forgiven. - The conversation in the vault with Abbie & Ichabod felt awkward, but the right type of awkward. I know as a fan I wanted Ichabod to admit he let Abbie down over and over again. But this felt more right, like people who wanted to confront some things but not really ready to go there. They sounded like they were dancing around stuff. Maybe I was reading too much but I thought it was interesting how much they both studiously did not mention Katrina as a source of their distance and yet they didn't have to because they both knew it. Abbie couldn't mention her as one of their issues for obvious reasons and Ichabod wouldn't mention her. So yeah, not quite as cathartic as I would have wanted as a viewer, but felt about right for the characters. - I think we are supposed to infer that Ichabod has moved back to the cabin in the aftermath of his date night with Katrina and they are working on repairing their marriage. Which is probably another reason why Ich & Ab wouldn't bring her up as an issue since he is working things out with his "Witch Wife" - Ichabod and the crossbow. I am noticing he's carrying and using that more. I am trying to remember if that is one of his weapons from the Season premiere. - I have been trying to interpret Katrina's expression at the end as well as the puzzle of the no reflection. Part of the frustration is you don't know if KW's face is supposed to convey something or if the actress is just staring blankly off into the distance. And the no reflection thing -- another frustration with the show this season is you never know if something is intentional (Irving had a reflection last week, but not this week) or if it is just continuity error.

Yeah it was all Nolan & co. CBS is in a very comfortable position of being the #1 network, so they weren't worried about trying to keep brown faces on their shows. Of course, that was before #TGIT and of course POI was pulling demo ratings in the high 2s. So they could shrug off any criticism. But the ratings have steadily declined since Taraji left and it is now struggling to pull high 1s in the demo. People of course don't correlate Taraji leaving with the ratings, but I do think it is very telling hat POI was always a top ten show in black households according to the Nielsens when she was on the show, and after she left, POI disappeared altogether from black households. That is major since blacks and Hispanics make up a disproportionate amount of tv viewers vs. their percentage of population. And given the weekly rise in Empire ratings (3 weeks straight) plus the dominance of Shonda-Thursday plus the strong showing of Black-ish, Deadline was reporting that Networks are now looking to diversify and since they are in Pilot season right now, it is a good time to insist on it. So it will be interesting to see the cast make-ups of new shows in the Fall '15 tv season and see if diversity really is important. i love that third week in the row, Empire has added more eyeballs. They remain the same in the demo (altho some expect it to adjust up in the finals) it has more overall viewers this week.

Yes, that red animal print dress was great and I liked the strappy, tall sandals that were paired with it. The silhouette was fab. What about Anika's dark brown lipstick. I waffled over it. On the one hand I like the drama of if and thought it perfectly matched her dress. but on the other it felt a little harsh. I think I finally came down to, she carried it off but not everyone could.

Ha! Reading that Kurtzman quote is now so laughable. - “And now that the audience is invested in her" <--- since when has the audience ever been invested in her? Curious? Yes. Frustrated? Hell yes! But invested? - "fiery personality" <--- Fiery is not how I would described the personality that was displayed on the show. - "And the more we invest in her, the higher the stakes become." <--- Yeah by investing in her so much the stakes became really high for the show. Like cancellation threat high. And given that Aaron Biers pretty much admitted the Katrina arc was something they wanted to try out and did not catch on with the audience the way they wanted, I am not surprised that Orci/Kurtzman was part of it. But I still think Goffmann as showrunner bears a lot of the responsibility for the actual execution of it.

Count me in as one who liked that this episode seemed to slow down and take it's time. You simply can't sustain a break-neck pace week in/week out and have every other scene being high, high camp drama before the show and the characters all become cartoons. I like that the show stepped back and took the time to look at more of business aspect of Empire and let some of the interpersonal drama take a bit of a back seat. I also like that this episode seemed to focus on the women a bit more and let the men take a bit of a back seat. While I enjoy Cookie pwning Boo Boo, I do appreciate the deeper look we get at Annika. I can only imagine that being a debutante with a privileged background may have been somewhat of a sore point at times, what with the pre-occupation in the Hip Hop world for 'keeping it real.' And what is less real to an art form that takes it's pride from it's artists mostly being 'from the streets' that some bougie person like Annika who simply can't relate to them. While Lucious is now a rich man, he still has street cred and his kids gets a pass as well. An now here is Cookie, the ultimate representation of Hip-hop keeping-it-realdom in Annika's face. I like that Annika feels threatened by Cookie on a business level, not on a romance level. I also liked what we saw of Tianna. I had dismissed her as a little fuax-Rihanna stand in just for titillation purposes. But I liked them showing that she is focused on her career. I like that she recognized that Cookie is hungrier than Annika and would work harder for her. And I liked that she is not letting her involvement with Hakeem mess that up. In fact she is being smarter about her career than he is about his. And finally, I like the conversation between Cookie and Fatima. On one level you know Cookie was there kinda under false pretenses and playing a bit of a role. But on the other hand there was a great honesty in her conversation with Fatima about mothers raising sons. It was a really nice beat.

I think the 1.5 is the final same-day rating in the 18-49 demo for SH, not counting Live +3 or Live +7 DVR stuff. The first ratings that come out (last night was 1.4) are the fast nationals which only measure what is aired on that network in that time period across all affiliates. The final rating that comes out is after they adjust for such thing as affiliate pre-emptions, time overruns etc. so the final rating measures who actually watched that particular show. Certain things happen on certain affiliates that look like they inflate of depress ratings in the fast nationals until the adjustment is complete. We don't see the +3 and +7 for at least a week. And I don't know how twitter ratings come into play but I saw that for the first time in months that SH trended.

Ha! In that case she needs to fire her PR team. Because the first rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club... er I mean, you don't cast blame ever. Either you reply with some perfectly bland 'Sleepy Hollow fans are the greatest and I love how much you support Katrina' or you pull an Orlando Jones, establish your cred as a member of the fandom and learn how to deliver your criticism via shade that sounds like comedy. But you don't respond this way which simultaneously sounds like a 'woe is me' and a 'I am doing the best I can.'

I think Henry had something to do with Frank's exoneration. Whatever is going on with him, having him on the run, locked up or constantly being hunted by the police most likely does not serve their purpose at this time. If they wanted him off the grid, they could have kept everyone believing he was still dead. But the fact that he showed up and walked into the police precinct means his being there in Sleepy Hollow and able to walk around freely is some part of the plan. One of the saddest things about S2 is that we've lost so much trust in the writers. If this season had kept on the S1 trajectory, I would have no problems believing 100% there is some long plan behind what we've seen of Frank's reappearance. If this were S1-like season, I would have no problem thinking that Frank's determination to move in with his estranged wife and his seeming eagerness to have Macy back is because of whatever they have up their sleeves. But with what has happened with S2, it is hard to speculate because nothing about this season has been clever so far or even hints at long term planning. I hope I am wrong an will be surprised. That said, I still really liked this episode.

Yeah I saw that tweet from her last night and was like... "Wha....?" I couldn't find who she was replying to. But it did set off a lot of replies to her affirming how awesome she is and how some fans are ruining the show and how people shouldn't hate on her. I get that it can't feel good that your character is not liked, but even on twitter which can get rather salty, I can't recall seeing anyone dissing her. The animus is almost 100% reserved for Katrina. And for the most part even the most disaffected fans have been really careful to maintain that distinction. Personally, I have no feeling good/bad or indifferent toward KW as a person. I do think she is a limited actress but that is a valid criticism/opinion for anyone in her profession. But like her other tweet she did before Deliverance, this feels kinda passive aggressive and it seems to show she doesn't know how to interact with critics. That said, I wonder if alluding to 'Katrina standing her own ground' is further confirmation that we are done with this wishy-washy shit and she is finally gonna be in open opposition with both Witnesses? If we have to keep her on then make her useful. And as an actual adversary for Ichabod & Abbie --especially one that he now knows either doesn't love him and/or doesn't value his love -- would be better than what we've had to suffer through.

Yeah, Cynthia's lipstick this ep was not great. I remember when we first met her last season and she was rocking a fab hat and a gorgeous shade of cinnamon red. With lucious lips like hers the right lipstick is a must. During the Kali conversation with Ichabod describing the arm positions, all I could think was they finally got an opportunity for Mison's hands to actually act! On purpose.