HalcyonDays

You know, I and some others have commented on how on earth could Ichabod have a bond, love his son because he literally doesn't know anything about him. He's just a concept. Katrina at least knew the kid for a year. But the reverse also applies to Henry. He was given up at one year of age. Babies (as far as I know) are not going to remember that far back, so Henry won't remember his mother at all. He is more likely to remember Grace Dixon. So again, as much as K and I want to redeem Henry - he knows nothing about the, remembers nothing of Katrina at all. Yes! There are some really good recaps out there that are hilarious. The io9 one is always a riot (it's by Genevieve Valentine), as is the one by PTV. Because what else can we do but snark and dissect this show, right? As for the Kindred, Henry, Andy and some other stuff that'll happen --> I'll head on over to the Speculation and Spoilers section for this.

Babel +++ Dramatis Personae +++ (yeah, I like this one) Duet +++ (it's that good it must be voted on ad infinitum) Dax --- The Nagus --- Move Along Home ---

The Halloween episodes were always the best. The costumes were made of win, and like you said, bunnywithanaxe, they didn't need to be sexualized costumes. They were awesome ones. I loved Becky's zombie/plane crash stewardess and Darlene all covered in blood with a axe in her chest. Hilarious! Favourite episode is when Dan's "boss" or soon to be boss drops by the house on Halloween - which has been converted into a haunted house. Roseanne deliberately freaks out the boss, Dan is freaking out over what's happening to his boss, and we find out the boss was in on the gag. Best ever. I wish TV would rerun marathon Roseanne Halloween's every Oct 31st. Oh and sad commentary on 2014. No parent ever would allow their kid to enter a strangers home to get candy/go through a haunted house. Sad.

Get in line. :') But we'll start at a bar first and get him good and liquored up! Useless Trivia for this Episode: The final yoga post that Abbie does is apparently called Bakasana Pose aka Crane Pose. I love little shoutouts/easter eggs like this.

Yeah, I never understood this argument either. The common line I've heard is "I just want ONE show to not feature the male and female leads romantically together." So is it ONE show out of all of the shows that air, or one show out of the ones you watch? Because just as you listed, Miss Dee, there are many shows out there that don't have the mains together. I would include the Walking Dead in this list. Even though the cast is larger, the mains to me are Rick, Carol, Michonne and Darryl and no romance there. Just survival. The fact is the two leads have amazing chemistry and as I mentioned elsewhere, more sparks/chemistry/etc between each other as current friends, than most romantic couples have on other shows. I know that some people are against it because its not the same as the perfect harlequin romance ideal that Katrina/Ichabod is supposed to represent. However, I don't quite get why a relationship with one spouse lying about anything and everything is appealing, but hey, that's me. What do I know. I DO think that most of us would want to have a husband (or wife) who is as insanely devoted and loyal and charming and all forgiving as Ichabod is. That's part of the appeal, but it's not realistic in life. A good relationship cannot be built on lies, mistrust and manipulation. I would like to see the mains together because I think they become better people in each others presence. Chemistry's already been mentioned. They make each other laugh, they support each other, they have fun together, they compliment each other, they care deeply for each other, they (according to the writers) are attracted to each other, they enjoy each others company. What more is a good romantic relationship than that, besides adding a level of intimacy. Love is not epic yet empty declarations that have no substance, which is how I see the K/I thing, to be honest. And the old addage is that best friends make the best and most satisfying lovers/long term relationships. The relationships on SH right now (and I would guess permanently), are only there to serve the purpose of advancing plot and being obstacles come up that are barriers to the Witnesses fight against evil. Jenny and Abbie's fracturious relationship started because of Henry being raised/Abbie being a Witness. Katrina affects/influences Ichabod because of her directing his path to Witness. Henry is the result of bad decision making and is now providing an evil barrier to dispatching evil. Andy's love of Abbie led him to the dark side. And there is more coming. Everything is entwined around Abbie and Ichabod in terms of their relationships with other people and how it positively or negatively affects their overall decision making and resolution of their Witness duties. That's now I see it.

Oh god no - I fully endorse the stubble. I think Henry looks so much better now than in the flashbacks where he is cleanshaven. So much better. My preference, obviously. Which makes me wonder - the "stubble" on IG looks like real hair - not "shoepolish" colouring, so how do they film this. It takes time for him to grow in some hair nicely, so did they plan out some of the episodes, film the flashbacks first then had him grow the facial hair?? I am very interesting to see how fast the show is going to have Henry reveal his secret to Jo. I bet it'll be accidental in her presence, but wondering how long they will drag it out.

You know, I love the little things that Ichabod does in the modern world. Most if not all of the stuff has been hilarious, mostly because Mison always commits 110%. But when I heard this karaoke thing, I was like...*cringe*. Really, show? Karaoke of all things? There isn't anything else we can see Ichabod doing at all? More bar hopping, playing some pool, going to a shopping mall/grocery store, BBQing on the porch, playing some basketball, etc. I don't know - something. But karaoke? I don't know about this one. My preference is for the song he sings to be from an English band - preferrable NOT any of the recent ones. Older classic ones, is my preference. Phil Iscove has great taste in music (it happens to mostly be my taste - ha!). But my first thought when I read the words '"fully commits to the performance" - why do I think it'll be the song YMCA. Please no...Or the American national anthem? Still --> karaoke....*shudder* I just hope Ichabod (and Tom Mison) are/were bloody drunk while doing this....

Finally got around to watch the third episode. The small scare - do these guys not know what scary is? What kind of toys did these people play with as kids? A vacuum? Vacuum? Really? The idea of the robot eating the kid was a better idea - the face is pretty decent, but it just makes me think of a kid getting stuck in the washing machine. The best idea was the Monkey Shines monkey. That would be considered scary, and now just listening to the guy judge's comment - ugh, these judges. For the main challenge, I thought the one with the sarcophagus was the best one. The pyramid in the background, the tools, the mummy was freaking as hell. Awesome. Totally reminded me of the movie The Mummy, to be honest (the one with Brendan Fraser.) Corpse Crushers is the team name. The one with the werewolf holding the mummy in the air was good too, but the mummy looked too comical. The judges comment about the third team (with the werewolf on all fours) saying they didn't understand the background. Really? Sometimes these judges.... Okay, Corpse Crushers won - the right decision for sure. And Dead Reckoning lost, but again, for once this seemed to me to be the right decison. Good episode.

Replying to phoenics from the Abyss thread... Can I tell you, I was so disgusted and annoyed at that promo, at Katrina in distress again, and demon babies (demon babies, for fucks sake), that I never even thought that this was an attempt to bring Moloch into the real world. Didn't even cross my mind... But dammit, I love it. Totally makes sense. In the pilot, they wanted Ben Franklin's key, so that the gates to Purgatory could open and Moloch and his minions could enter the real world. So you think that Katrina's gonna spawn Moloch himself into the real world. Yikes. Okay, I can see that, based on the previews. The only flaw with this is that we are assuming that Moloch can't appear in the real world of his own volition, but we know Moloch did appear, because we know that he raised Henry from his grave in the real world, when Abbie and Jenny witnessed it. But I wouldn't be surprised if the show explains it away as a one-time thing to get the Horseman of War above ground, and he can't do it again. Alright, okay...I'm on board. That could be interesting...but I still hate the reduction of a "powerful" witch to basically a uterus that spawns evil, all the while weeping and crying. Unless she uses her powers to get rid of it. Interesting...

phoenics, I'm taking this to the Speculation thread but this I need to comment on...

Fallon or Craig Ferguson or even better, Jon Stewart. Yeah, the Daily Show is not a "talk show" per say, but I think the discussion could get really interesting, intelligent especially if they get into some politics. He seems pretty socially aware. Mison apparently wanted to get into politics at some point, so that could be very interesting. And Stewart does have actors on the show so...

I liked it actually. Twisted but interesting and very creepy. That shot of the body flailing in the bodybag, then going through the windshield - good creep factor. I haven't read the comics and seen bits and pieces of the movie, but think Matt Ryan is a good choice for JC. Dracula took me like 5 episodes to really get into and then I liked it. The costume porn helped also! This show was better at grabbing me sooner than later.

I liked this episode. I guess I just like the cute fluffy nature of the show. Love Abe and Henry's interactions and also Henry and Jo's. I really like how Alana de la Garza portrays Jo. I don't know what it is - she just seems like a normal human, not a super human cop character. I love that about her. I also like her asking Henry little questions, just trying to get to know him, figure him out. Even the scene when the Captain is telling her story about when she shot someone, and Jo answers exactly the way I would expect a person to. First, by answering in a way she expects the Captain to want to hear (but then she is wrong), but then just trying to appease the Captain while getting the heck out of there because she doesn't want to deal. It seems really real to me and I think partly because I can totally relate to her. Even her story about her in boarding school and the rich kids rang dead on true for most of us normal minions growing up. I really like her character and her chemistry/friendship with Henry and I like how she's slowly bringing Henry out of his shell, so to speak. It's a good entertaining show that I enjoy.

Trek and other, you make very good points about the "Good guys" who can only attain moderate margins of victory. If they didn't the show would be over. Excellent points. I thought the same thing last year - if Katrina actually blurted out this one line." Ichabod, I need to swap souls to be saved from Purgatory and the Horseman of War is Abraham and oh BTW we have a son." half of the season wouldn't exist. Also good points about Henry/Jeremy being like a petulant teenager. I wonder if its deliberate, since he was put in the ground when he was in his late teens. But then Henry was moving around society for about ten years before the Sin Eater thing, so he must have matured...a bit. Him stomping his feet and spouting "evil" poetry and sulking like a child? Not so scary. Henry/Jeremy is not 800 years old. I'm not sure where this number came from. He would be a bit over 200 years old. He was put in the ground around 1800 (was born in 1782, buried at a late teen) and woke up ten years before Crane. So around 200-ish years old. Not sure where the 800 comes from. Read a really good observation elsewhere that Ichabod himself is acting somewhat like a sulky college kid over the whole wife/kid thing. Chugging beers, playing video games, driving Nascar style, being all sulky at times. I thought that was a funny observation. I think that Katrina/Katia Winter is the "muse" of one of the writers, hence shoehorning her into the show. Just compare how much Katrina is featured in an episode, verses who wrote that episode, there is a very clear pattern of who that particular writer is. I get that in season 1, she needed to withhold information to advance the plot and allow Abbie and Ichabod to do their thing. The majority of the people thought she was shady or evil. And logically, it would make sense if she was. But now, they are pushing that she is good only, had the best intentions, and the writers wanted to avoid the trope of shady behaviour = evil. Instead, they forced her into another stereotypical trope, that of a damsel in distress who needs constant saving, is always weeping and seems so weak. I would rather have seen season 1 unfold as it did, then season 2, Katrina quickly joins Henry and play little manipulation games with Ichabod. The conflict he would have is similar - Ichabod have to come to terms with the fact that he has a son, but also has to fight against his son and wife, and he'd be dragged back and forth and could provide a very interesting good versus evil, family versus Witness responsibilities dynamic. You would have Abraham, Henry and Katrina versus Abbie, Ichabod, Irving and Jenny. Keeps team Witness together and on their toes, plus some angst and drama plus Irving and Jenny would be more heavily featured in the mix. As for a power inbalance, you delve into Abbie and Jenny backstory, find out they are dormant witches, thus ensuring more of a power balance. Irving himself could have some latent supernatural abilities. Then we could find out something about Ichabod that could tip the scales in Team Witnesses favour (like him + Abbie is the most powerful combination or something). That would be interesting (to me). AND the four mains wouldn't have been broken up and two mains sidelined. Instead next week, it's familiar trope "Save Katrina" (and we all saw the preview for next week featuring another common trope) followed by "Redeem Henry." *grumble*

Watched it too - charming for sure but I think he maybe was a bit nervous? He seemed a bit off and reserved. AND no quirky outfits! He went quite reserved actually (but looked good). Letterman obviously didn't know anything about the show/him but he did ask a couple of good questions, which seemed to throw Mison off (only because he gets the same stuff asked over and over, and he just answers from the script in his head, I think.) Overall, good appearance and good on him, since Letterman is over next year and I don't think he's ever been on a late night talk show before.

I don't mind Hawley at all, to be honest. He provides a humourous foil for Crane and they are funny together. Besides, Crane needs some male bonding. I would be thrilled to see the two of them drinking up a storm in a bar, trading insults and just being ridiculous. What can I say. What I don't like is that Jenny now seems sidelined. What a brilliant character and she's being sidelined. Loved this to death. Got such a kick out of it. It actually reminded of me of when Daniel Radcliffe attempted an American accent on some talk show. Both of their voices dropped a serious octave. Much deeper than their own voices. Just hilarious and yeah, Mison I think tried to add a bit of a southern twang to it too. Hee.

Saw that too, phoenics. I'm not sure what to think, to be honest. Speculation: I'm going to hate the next two episodes, what with demon babies and Katrina entering the fold. It's going to ruin the dynamic. *sigh* Demon babies...*shakes head*. The writers could have had Katrina escape herself without being harmed and rejoin the fold. Instead...demon babies and ye olde "Save Katrina." *biggersigh*

But that's my point. We haven't seen any indication of Katrina doing anything to stop her son. She's right there in his presence. Same with Ichabod. Why isn't he researching, figuring out stuff in his downtime. Not that I'm complaining about the fun downtime scenes (I love them). But it just seems that they are reactionary, as to being proactive. Instead, we have a final scene where Crane is like "I want to try to redeem my son." No, Ichabod, you do not. What you should have said is "I'm going to try and take out my son." Instead, as they waste their time trying to appeal to Henry's good side, more people will die, all because the Crane's have decided their own son is more important than the rest of humanity. Another example of the Crane's arrogantly Playing God - notice how they don't deem Abraham worthy of redemption. Not one word. If you can find a way to take down one Horseman, you can take down the other. But no, Ichabod and Katrina have not once said "I want to redeem both of them." It's all about the son son son. Enough. They are such a toxic pairing it's not funny. Only Abbie and Jenny have a modicum of common sense. I know we will agree to disagree, BM on this. I just loathe seeing an intelligent moral character make stupid decisions. It's like character assassination to me, and also makes no logical sense, in my view. You know how Katrina was doing her little napping thing - well, Henry wasn't around there, was he? It looked like daytime, so Abraham isn't there either (sunlight harms him). She can't just walk out of the confines of the house, and disappear? She would regain her magic - we saw that last episode. Being within the walls blocks her magic. Outside - magic. Then she can work on taking out the Horseman AND has magic to protect herself and the others. Instead - nothing.

Death list due to Henry: The soldiers in Afghanistan, the partiers at Pioneer Point, the banker lady, the guy in the flower shop (it blew up), the kid who blew up his father in the flower shop and Caroline. And that list is only from the last three episodes. While Crane and Katrina go running around wasting time trying to figure out how to redeem Henry, he's out there doing his evil Horseman of War thing and innocent victims result. Instead, they need to focus on taking Henry out now, not waste time with trying to appeal to his "good side". The synopsis for episode eight also reveals He's not worth redemption. Some people just want to watch the world burn. So it's best to take them out for the greater good of humanity.

New option in the poll: I read the comics but don't really want a separate episode thread for comic discussion

The Good: Yoga, drinking beer in the bar, Abbie getting Crane to admit his unhappiness with Katrina, Crane killing Zombies, Joe Corbin being an awesome character and dammit, looks just like Clancy Brown. The comic hero discussion, Corbin's car! Big Ash! Crane's American accent! Also loved how Abbie admitted that when arrested, she wanted to change her life, but the full reality is that she didn't want to go to jail. THAT is a very honest thing to say, because most people don't have those immediate revelations. Most people want to avoid jail. Love that. The Bad: Not enough Irving, Barely any Jenny. I miss her the most. I did like how Ichabod was at her side when she was throwing the organs to the Wendigo, ready to protect her is something happens. I need more Jenny/Ichabod scenes. The final minute. The Sexy: Ichabod with his hair down, Ichabod in those yoga clothes, Ichabod chugging a beer...Wow. Just wow. It's good to be a Witness: Screwing around with yoga and bar hopping and playing video games, etc all while Irving is rotting away at Tarrytown and the wife is dozing as a historical novel female character would. The Reality: How can I get 55 minutes of episode goodness, and the final minute literally causes me to get so angry and irritated it's not funny. Truly. The same with, how can 95% of Ichabod Crane be awesome and amazing, but that 5% - the Katrina/Henry percentage - totally make me loathe him to death for being such an ignorant idiot. How, show? How? How on earth can Crane "love" Henry. He knows nothing about Henry. It's the same as if I walked up to someone on the street and said "Hey, I'm your mother. BTW, I love you." There is no connect at all with this stranger. Just the concept in my deluded mind. And Ichabod and Katrina are deluded. Henry is unredeemable. Unredeemable. There is a significant difference between not realizing the killing you are doing (because you are cursed) and being regrettful, and actually consciously going out and doing that evil in a calculated manner. Crane comparing Joe to his son - please... Which is why it makes sense to me that Ichabod is wearing his hair down now looking like Jesus Christ. Because apparently it allows him and his wife to Play God and pick and choose who gets to live or die. So while they Play God and try to redeem their evil unredeemable son (one person), scores of innocents are being killed in the process. It makes me so angry to think this. It makes me even more angry when I realize that whenever Ichabod is in his Katrina/Henry mania, people die all over the place. Whenever he is with Abbie, people are saved. When this show gets cancelled - and it will sooner than later, what with them shoving their muse Katrina down our throats - I hope that another network casts Nicole Beharie and Tom Mison together in a situational comedy. Not only do they have the awesome chemistry, and can do the dramatic well, their comedic timing is spot on.

Lyrics for your song: Don't eat me please, I cannot stand the way you season me.... What the hell have you people made me do??

Damn - didn't even catch that! But did catch the gleam of the red handle hanging on Rick's belt. Justice is served! As for how Daryl walked out, all ominous - nah, that tone was just cliff-hangerness. I think they have Beth with them, but his words and tone were just meant to convey a feeling of "OMG!!"