DearEvette

One the one hand you could figure that she is lying. On the other, it is Katrina after all. Her "magic" probably told her he was free. ha! But for real, that was a good creepy scene. I have to admit that even Katrina was nicely sinister esp. when she was asking about Frank about Henry and he way it was shot. I actually think she is playing them and plans on using Frank to get to Henry.

Oh, this was a good one. Definitely need a re-watch. - The book end Karaoke scenes. So cute. Abbie & Ichabod can both sing. And I love their song choices. Also, I love that they were hooting & hollering for each other - Abbie smiling, letting her hair down and seeming to have fun. The drinking joking foursome of Millsx2 plus Hawley & Ichabod. A lot of good stuff even before the opening credits - Ichabod's face when he sees Orion's sigil that he gave to Abbie. Mison telegraphed Ichabod's hurt so well that Abbie would depend on someone else. - Ichabod & Abbie stuck in a vault and talking out their issues. They sounded like a married couple. -Her hand on his shoulder as she explained why she didn't tell him about Orion. My feels had feels. - Abbie's pointy finger at Ichabod when they got out of the vault - Lots of Jenny Kicking ass!!! - Very tiny amount of Katrina - 'His Witch Wife' - Abbie's shade so cool, so crisp - Cynthia as a lawyer! And her uneasiness around Frank - Are we finally seeing the real shadiness of the Witch? - this ep was supposed to be about Hawley but it was drowning in Ichabbie.

Yes, i think Kerry's pregnancy contributed to her smaller role. But that is only a part of it, even with her back-burnered, the actual writing for Olivia in the terrible S3 was equally terrible. This to me is a Shonda Rhimes thing. She has a lead character but she seems to get bored with continuing to write for that character in the way that made viewers initially like that character. She did it with Meredith, Addison and Olivia. Meanwhile she will single out a supporting character that she will write for and allow their character's arc to eclipse the lead in some ways. She did this is Izzy, Charlotte, Mellie and Rowan. I don't agree completely. The biggest signifier in 70s Blaxploitation is that the setting was usually always in Urban Ghetto areas and was sereved to showcase the total and complete 'otherness' of black people from whites via living conditions, speech patterns, even sexuality. For those who believe it was exploitative in truth, then it's purpose was designed package black people for non-black gaze in a way that negatively reinforces black stereotypes. While I do agree that reality tv seems to work within this framework somewhat. It is important to note that the predominantly black reality shows aren't actually showing or doing anything differently than their white counter-parts. In fact the black women on the shows look, speak, act and live almost exactly the same as their white counterparts in the same shows. So in reality we aren't seeing anything really 'othered' in these shows except the black skin on the participants. I think a show like Empire that is set in a Hip Hop musical scene would easily draw a knee-jerk reaction to that, but I don't agree that it is inherently exploitative. If anything the show is a retread of almost every glossy night-time soap that has ever graced tv and with predominantly white casts. In fact I don't see any real difference in story content between Nashville -- set in the country music scene -- and in Empire. Distilled to their plot elements, Nashville (with mothers in prisons, abusive parents, drug abuse, alcoholism. closeted gay performers etc.) is as soapy as Empire. But Empire becomes the subject of a ton of think pieces, while Nashville is allowed to simply be. What disturbs me isn't so much that people are discussing race & representation wrt to Empire, but that its' artistic validity as a 'good' show is immediately suspect because it is predominantly cast with black characters and is set in Hip Hop. In some ways this is analogous to a lot of the reaction when Kerry Washington got nominated for her Emmy. Her validity as a viable nominee was almost immediately questioned. Her acting was scrutinized to a degree a lot of the other nominees weren't. She 'took' Tatiana Maslany's place. It was a given that all of her white co-nominees were legit, their validity wasn't questioned. Anything that could be considered contributing to a ratings success becomes trendy in TV. I will say though that Season 1 of Sleepy Hollow, Abbie was not written peripherally. As a matter of fact her family and her background was important and integral to the mythology of the show. Nicole Beharie was cast before Mison and all the actors who read for Ichabod had to chem test with her. And she was important because Sleepy Hollow is a genre show. It is unheard of a black woman to be the lead of a genre show on a major network. Genre shows that deal primarily with science fiction/fantasy elements that appeal to geek/nerd culture have a fandom that are not kind to women to begin with and even more not kind to WOC. Gina Torres who playe Zoe in Firefly & Danai Gurira who plays Michonne from Walking Dead are notable exceptions, but neither of these women are leads by any stretch of the imagination. Before Nicole Beharie, Salli Richardson who played Allison in Eureka was probably the closest thing to a black female lead in a SF show, but she definitely was not lead billed. And Allison was not popular with a large contingent of fans for awhile. But yeah, season 2 of Sleepy Hollow pushed Abbie in the background. But she has a HUGE fanbase even across genders/races and amongst tv critics and, it is rumored Fox loves her. That is rather groundbreaking in and of itself. A twitter campaign made the writers sit up and take notice so if the get a S3, that probably won't happen again.

IKR? I just can't with all the acclaim for Downton Abbey. It is a soap opera in period costume and British accents. But still a soap. I think that it helps that they only have to worry about acting. So no screenwriting or directing or cinematography etc. Just acting awards. In reality they probably had to make it about TV and Movies just to fill a two hour stretch. I am pleased by all the wins except William H. Macy, Kevin Spacey and Downton Abbey. I think Shameless could do without his character and not miss a beat. To add insult to injury, Emmy Rossum can't even get a nomination. Frances McDormand, otoh, killed as Olive Kittredge. I also would have given the statue to Matthew McCaunaghey over Spacey. i think his work in True Detective was much more nuanced. In truth, Matthew riveted me to the screen. Spacey...the character of Frank Underwood is more interesting that the portrayal of him, imo.

I did a re-watch trying to make sure to watch objectively. On first watch I was so pre-disposed to dislike the Katrina/Ichabod crime-solving partnership that I wondered if I was just allowing myself to be too negative. While I still think the special effects are the thing that really saved the A-plot, I as able to make some deeper observations about the episode. - The one scene where Katrina and Ichabod are looking at the other couple as they grab ass. The facial expressions on Ichabod's face vs. Katrina's face is very telling. He looks superior and a little cheeky. He's telling her something. Giving her some intel about this new time. Mison is selling it as usual. Winter, otoh, doesn't change expression. She should looked a little shocked, maybe. Metaphorically clutching her pearls? Nope. She looks like she is waiting for her line. - Did 18th century women wear 3 inch heels? Cuz girlfriend was wearing those pumps like a pro. - Abbie's marksmanship. I didn't notice it in first watch. but she put her bullets in the hanging man in the painting in a perfect cross: head, heart, groin, left arm, right arm. Such precision. - I will admit that the last conversation between Ichabod and Katrina where she says she misses her friend Abigail and then Ichabod gives the speech about them trying to make their way ..or whatever... I thought that was the realest the two seemed together since their argument on the Weeping Lady episode and the best acting Winter has done since that episode as well. It was a good scene. It felt authentic. Too bad it came so late. - Putting aside the chemistry problems between Katrina & Ichabod, I think this episode tried to do something they should have done much earlier in S2. It attempted to look at Katrina's own problems with adjusting to this time & some of her loneliness. I actually found myself feeling a little sympathy. It felt like Katrina wants to go back to the 1700s while Ichabod wants to stay here. For a moment there she felt a bit human and not just a walking trope. - From the time Irving appeared, Abbie went 100% guarded. The whole time Nicole's Beharie's body language, facial expression, speech patterns all felt 'closed.' It is like Abbie put herself & her emotions on lockdown, like she couldn't trust herself to even try to relax & believe Frank. The only time she seem at all relaxed was when she was talking to Crane on the phone. On first watch it felt like Abbie just felt off and I chalked it up to the oddness of the Ichabod & Abbie separation, but on second watch it felt more like a deliberate acting choice. If there hadn't already been so many MOTW episodes this season and and if I wasn't already completely over how much focus we've already had on Katrina, I might have like this more than I did. That said, I did like it a tick more on re-watch.

hu·bris ˈ(h)yo͞obrəs/ noun: hubris excessive pride or self-confidence. synonyms: arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness, superiority; What I am mainly getting from all of this is that Goffman is a very bad showrunner with a writing room that feels like it is filled with just out of writing school amateurs and who because of all of the critical and fan-love from S1 they developed a sense of Hubris that they could do what they wanted in S2 an everyone would be on board with it no matter what. Even worse, when confronted with criticism & declining ratings, rather than reacting to it like professionals they should be they reacted to it with all the arrogance that Hubris gives them. Goffman's response was to continue to hard-sell his vision of Katrina, convinced that as long as he talked about her enough & showcased her enough, we'd all be converted (even against growing evidence that nobody cared about his vision or his boy boner with the character). The writers' response was to lash out, showing how immature they really are. I don't get the sense that there was some agenda to quietly rid the show of the black actors or really even to reduce Nicole's role. But I do get the sense that Goffman came in with an agenda for S2 and was writing for it rather than for their story. And in his arrogance he lost sight of the story, the characters, the actors and the audience. In Greek tragedy, the character Icarus whose own Hubris made him challenge the gods, got his wings nipped and he crashed and burned back to earth. We can only hope this is what happens to Goffmann.

I think it is hysterical that all we do is watch the show and we remember more details while these people write the show and can't. I'd almost say it was the fault of new writers but Goffman himself wrote the Golem episode and a S1 writer wrote this one. Yeah, I don't think they'll kill her either. But if they send her off with Abraham nobody can complain because it is book canon.

In the last episode, Ep. 13, the one with the painting, Abigail Adams congratulates Katrina on her pregnancy and mentions Ichabod will be so happy. But in the Golem episode, Katrina told Ichabod she didn't find out she was pregnant until after he was dead. A lot of people caught this and called it out as a lapse in continuity. I did too. But I am wondering if it really was deliberate. Given Tom Mison's recent interviews where he seems to be hinting that he finds out something rather big that affects the Crane marriage, and given that Katrina has lied to Crane before, I wonder if that is somehow related? Also the 'let's try to work it out' at the end of the Ep. 13 may just be setting Ichabod up for a fall. A girl can dream. I really want Ichabod to really see Katrina for the lying liar she is and not just see her through his nostalgia glasses.

Ha! You are so right. The absurdity of this show is such that I really didn't even question it.... Of course they know who Puma is? Don't err'body?

“I want to know who the hairy dingleberry had dinner with last night.” - Lucious

With last night's episode, I officially like them as a couple. I can't wait for what we learn next about them. Exhibition & Voyeurism? D/s (with him being the sub)? And yeah, I think it would be kind of interesting to see Rhonda and Cookie form a relationship that wasn't necessarily based around the Lyon struggle for power but as a recognition of one kinda of predator to another.

I don't know that we can look at Cookie's current mode of parenting as actual parenting, though. She missed the kids' formative years for the most part. These are now grown men who had already developed their own personalities in her absence. She was in prison on drug charges and was expected to be in there for at least 10 more years. She had no power to force anyone to do anything. She could insist, rail, threaten etc. but she couldn't really do anything. In the end, Lucious was the custodial parent. It was in his power and his alone to make sure the kids had some sort of relationship with their mother. In reality, what can Cookie do as a parent to these men? She can beat Hakeem with a broom all day, but in the end what would that really accomplish? Only Jamal is really receptive to her even on a person-to-person level, nevermind as a son to a mother. It is human nature to want to feel needed. In this case I think Cookie figures Hakeem and Dre don't need her as much as Jamal does. Maybe as the show goes on she'll realize that each of her other sons in their own way need her as well.

I am 100% TeamCookie, but you are right, I am liking seeing that Annika has some claws too. Although, pulling out Debutante cred as a threat is rather...lame. Her delivery was fab, but Cookie been in prison for 17 years. Has Annika not watched Oz? I know rich chicks can be underhanded and cut-throat but there is a whole other animal layer of survival and cunning in a prison. The knowledge that you dressed up for a Cotillion just doesn't inspire as much fear. But baby steps. I am still here for a more level playing field and long as Cookie triumphs the most. Also, Dre & Rhonda's marriage seems like it works. It feels like the show is side-stepping cliches with them. They feel like a a kinkier and scarier Ice-T and Coco. I loved all the cameos. Naomi Campbell strutting in in her gold shorts-jumpsuit just about had me singing a hymn. She is fab. I liked the Agent Carter scenes. That actress and Taraji had some fun chemistry,

Yeah, that isn't the writers that is whatever intern they have doing the FB page Whoever does the FB page is basically in love with Ichabod and must have gotten a memo to include more Abbie and this was the result. Sigh.

Came across a tweet from the Kurtzman/Orci productions twitter handle which says starting ep 15 they 'start a new storyline' that drives everything to the final. But they started making changes at tail end of ep.14 So there is some evidence that there was absolute response to backlash and ep. 14 is the earliest they were able to address it. Apparently with so much in the can already I can only guess how much work they had to do to re-conceive the last parts. And since they just wrapped production it seems likely there was some stuff happening right up to the end. I will say that that particular twitter account @abaiers is very responsive and respectful to the fans (the tweet was response to a fan inquiry). Huge contrast to that one writer who called fans 'haters' and who I saw was listed not only as a writer, but also an EP for the show in last night's episode.

This is TV show preservation. In The Sanctuary episode Ichabod finds a copy of 'Gulliver's Travels' siting right there on the rotting floor. Only thing is, that was Katrina's copy because it had an inscription so we conveniently learn that Katrina has been in that house. But the book, despite being basically exposed to air, sun, dirt, moisture etc. for 200 years was perfectly fine. So yeah. TV show preservation.

On some reflection I think I am going to try to re-watch this. I think I had mentioned before that I can't just relax and watch Sleepy Hollow anymore, I keep waiting to be disappointed. Now that I've gotten through it and know what to expect I think I can watch it now. I did like the painting stuff and would like to watch that more closely just to wallow in the creep factor. I will say, though, once again it bums me out that we get indications that Ichabod actually has a social life while Abbie is being portrayed as this joyless work horse. I mean we know that Ichabod has/had friends amongst the re-enactors and now we know he actually was buds with historical society guy. And he actually takes time out to go on a social date. Meanwhile there has been no indication that Abbie has any friends ... at all. She helps Ichabod get ready and it is strongly implied she took Katrina shopping (I thought I read somewhere there was a scene of that.... probably got cut), but she goes back to the office and works. Fine we don't need to see her doing jello shots and dancing on bars, but it would be nice to know she too has some interests. Hell, show her shooting at the range for shits and giggles if we want to keep her bad-ass cred intact. Or at least have her chilling at home with a big glass of wine while she is reading Grace's journals. But throw us a bone at least.

I think on Sleepy Hollow, in my observation, that while a lot of the criticism is on the character of Katrina .. and to lesser extent the male character of Hawley, the lion's share of the blame is rightly apportioned to the showrunner and the writers. I think the dislike of Katrina at this point is like long-bottled up frustration over the character spilling over into an unreconstructed spew. In the beginning people were fine with her. In fact, I would characterize the fan's relationship with the Katrina character like the 7 stages of grief but only in reverse. At first there was Acceptance & Hope. She had a place in the ensemble, and yes it was ephemeral, but it was fine. There were hints she had a larger part of play. But as the season went on the writing for her got worse and worse the fans began to fan wank and write better scenarios for her (Reconstruction & working Through). After the reveal about Henry, there was a renewed interest in what her role would be (The upward Turn) but as S2 progressed, she became the focus of a lot of bad tropes. So we are at the Anger & Depression stage. And it doesn't help that there are meta issues at play as well -- again mainly directed to the showrunner. There is a clear perception that the raising of her profile (and Hawley's) coupled with the near disappearance of two characters of color feels like a usurpation of their roles and Abbie's (which was somewhat groundbreaking in genre as a WOC in a lead role). So I guess my UO is that sometimes the dislike of a character isn't just hating for hating sake. At least in the case of Katrina there is a clear provenance to the point where the fans are.

I know right. I swore Katrina hadn't discovered she was pregnant until after Ichabod was already dead. And I know she is immortal, but how old is Katrina supposed to be? Ichabod said she delivered all of Abigail Adams' children, but Abigail Adams had her kids over a 7 year period with the last one being born in 1772. Ichabod supposedly dies in 1781 so Katrina has been a nurse for at least 16 years or more by the time Ichabod died?

Overall I found this episode dead boring. It is official Katia Winter and Tom Mison have ZERO chemistry. No, wait -- Negative zero chemistry. Watching them do their Daphne & Fred impression was --no pun intended -- like watching paint dry. I weep for Mison. I was much more engaged in the Frank plot. Once again we se that Abbie is the anti-Katrina. She is willing to sacrifice Frank for the greater good. She is not trying to save his soul or get him help. I love her attitude: Not quite trust, but totally verify. I wasn't as underwhelmed with Cynthia as some. She is in on the secret that they are in the middle of some heavy supernatural crap, after all she had a front row seat to her daughter being possessed by a Demon & killing their priest. I would think that would rather rub some awe from her. And yeah it is rather cheap that she got told about Frank's death off-screen. She could have had a scene or two. They couldv'e cut that superfluous Hawley scene last week and given us a flashback or something. I did like the special effects. The painting stuff was cool and creepy. Michelle Trachtenburg was horrible. her line readings were awful. Abbie saving the day at the end instantly injected life in the Crane scenes.

That CPR scene in Deliverance enraged me. Not because it was a blatant 'see what we did here' to Ichabbie fans, but because it was a slap in the face to Abbie herself. No Effing way would Abbie have just sat with a derp look on her face while Katrina was dying. She would have been the one doing CPR, not Ichabod. It was a low form of pandering. Yeah, this is why I was so puzzled by how disingenuous all the writers sounded at ComiCon with all the Ichabbie questions. Dude, you've been doing interviews all year where you 'don't dismiss' the possibility of some future romance. And then all pf a sudden they are like "Chemistry? Romance? What are these foreign words you are using in relation to Ichabod and Abbie?" And yeah, this is why I suspect the whole Katrina push was sooo deliberate. Not necessarily story dictated but completely writer dictated -- and story illogical -- to manipulate fanbase. Huge mistake. Fandom is an organic thing. You can't mold it the way you want it to be. It develops and grows on it's own.

Exactly. I remember after the pilot people were all upset she used the term 'faggot.' I was like... did you all NOT just watch the preceding 50 minutes? And did you not get the ironic context in which she was using the word?

That is my theory as well. I still think that the Jenny/Hawley stuff from the last episode was all reshoots inserted in post production, considering those two very craftily did not share any scenes with anyone else, and the only scene of Abbie on a phone with Jenny she was in a shot all by herself. So, I totally think Tom and Nicole being MIA at the TCAs is work related. I agree with everyone else that the chemistry between Mison and Beharie feeling off can be attributed to the presence of Winter. Lord knows I don't think much of her acting, so this isn't really a slight to her, but so much of her has been inserted in their dynamic and so clumsily that it can't help but throw them off. Also, I would not be surprised if there is some direction in there the specifies the two of them acting at odds. I have long suspected that the over-insertion of Katrina is not only the result of Goffman's baffling investment in her but also I feel that TPTB et. al consciously tried to downplay the Ichabbie stuff to either artificially create a true shipping war (let's face it Ichatrina has about only 10 devoted stans total) or to just stop the Ichabbie stuff cold.

I have to agree with those who felt this was the weakest episode so far. There were some really great lines, I loved the entire scene in Rainbow's car and in the mini-mart store. And yeah, the enmity between "Diane" and "Charles" is intriguing. But on the whole I could not enjoy this one. I think so far the show has been maintaining a great balance between Andre's neurosis and the sharp commentary the show is trying to make. But I think Andre's antics went 100% over into the neurosis part and as a result the satire & comedy suffered. It went beyond just being uncomfortable, it kinda went into outright buffoonery, imo. So yeah, didn't like this one so much.

They didn't promo Sleepy Hollow during the premiere. But after the premier got monster ratings (a 3.8 in the demo) and a ton of Social media buzz, they heavily promoted SH during the second episode. One thing that has been remarkably consistent in various articles, interviews etc. throughout SH's run is that Fox is all about Tom and Nicole. After a day of some calm reflection I have to agree @Halcyondays' suspicion that what they were saying is corporate double speak. They love Tom and Nicole means that those two are the only things really safe. And although they say no cast changes, I have worked in enough places where the first thing the captain of a floundering ship says is that they are not going to get rid of anyone ... until the first bodies start disappearing overboard. I have hopes of who those casualties might be. I also don't think serialization is quite the problem they think it is. Unlike even five years ago, we now have tv show viewing capabilities that remove those old barriers to serialization. All of Netflix's shows are predicated on serialization. People can now watch shows one after the other to bring themselves up to speed. You are no longer stuck with just the most recent episode and the fear of having no point of reference anymore. Now you can go to a streaming service and pick up the ones you missed. And even with all that, Sleepy Hollow's own broadcast fills in the blank for you. Every show began with a summary up to date 'My name is Ichabod Crane..." I am kind of hoping that 'Less Serialization' is just code for less soap opera. I don't mind some of the MOTW, but like S1 they worked in context within a larger story frame. I just don't want the show to turn into Abbie and Ichabod as a wacky supernatural crime fighting duo. I don't know if I could co-sign with that.