S04.E04: The People vs. Ichabod Crane

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

When a monster fashioned to make its victims live out their most personal and haunting memories hits D.C., the team must find its weakness to save one of their own. Meanwhile, Jenny forms an unlikely bond that could be important in saving the world. Can the group prevail against one of the most insidious monsters yet?

Promo:

[Primetimer]

A guiltophagic spider (...mmmmmmmm hmm) puts Crane on trial. Will the defense Witness come through?

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[janeta]

Well, that was a bit of a mish-mosh. 

Yeah, i got nothin'.

[Commando Cody]

When the bad guy was in the museum, did anyone else think he was stealing the drawings for Tia's star case?

[ChromaKelly]

I really wanted them to say, when reading from Grace Dixon's journal: "I have never seen the General so despondent".

Eh, the new people just aren't growing on me yet. I'm trying. I guess I haven't moved on from Abbie yet either. I didn't really need Henry to come back.

[Free]

46 minutes ago, janeta said:

Well, that was a bit of a mish-mosh. 

Yeah, i got nothin'.

Yup, the Venom black goo kidnaps Ichabod so we can go though a boring mock trial of dropped plot points.

[Cigale]

Didnt really like seeing Henry either.  But I like at least one of the new people.  Jake is so full of fanboy enthusiasm and Jerry MacKinnon plays it very well.  

But I still fast forward quite a lot and yes I did during the "boring mock trial " (™ Free).

[Yolapukka]

Sooooooooo.......

 

I finally got around to watching a episode only to be greeted by Henry and more whinging about the Crane family drama,  I can't imagine why anyone thought that unnecessary and dull recap was worth watching. At least John Noble ably acted that bit of same-old same-old. Which incidentally drew attention to the glaring weakness of most of the cast.  I miss Abbie, but I also miss having a strong cast, despite the marvellous job TPTB have done wasting their better cast members. I really can't decide what was more flat and wooden, the writing or the acting. I will now be forever baffled that after going to the effort of establishing Sophie last season, they unceremoniously dumped the character and swapped her out. I enjoyed her, I never really saw her as an Abbie substitute, that's probably why I liked her. I think the producers saw her as an Abbie substitute and as such, interchangeable. Jessica Camacho could at least act, Janina Gavankar, not so much, not in this episode anyway.  Lots of grimacing not much in the way of emotion or believable reactions. I won't say much about the kid, all she is, is an idea, a not terribly interesting idea, at least the child actress isn't too grating and cloying, even if the writing for her is.

At least I'm never going to suffer from disappointed anticipation like I did last season when they manage to devote so much screen time to Peter Mensah and Shannon Sossamon hanging around pontificating and shooting each other stink-eye. Nope, the most tension I feel over Jeremy Davies' villain is whether he'll eat a sandwich or try decaf. I'm really hoping for the latter by the way. I was tickled to see Kamar De Los Reyes as The villains assistant, If I watch again I can look forward to some grade-A, cheesetastic eye-bugging and scenery chewing, he excelled at it  when I watched him years ago on "One Life to Live".

I liked seeing Grace Dixon. 

Meh. Not terribly impressed by what I saw. I don't rule out watching it again, but I doubt I'll make a point of it. I think the only reason I remembered this week is because I was watching Dirk Gently on Netflix and it ended precisely at 8:59.

To add;

Quote

But I like at least one of the new people.  Jake is so full of fanboy enthusiasm and Jerry MacKinnon plays it very well.  

I  enjoy him too, he's one of the few new hires that seems like an actual character, rather than a collection of tics.

Also, was that jar of goo threatening a return of Jeremy? Noooooo!

Edited January 28, 2017 by yuggapukka

[Free]

32 minutes ago, yuggapukka said:

Sooooooooo.......

 

I finally got around to watching a episode only to be greeted by Henry and more whinging about the Crane family drama,  I can't imagine why anyone thought that unnecessary and dull recap was worth watching. At least John Noble ably acted that bit of same-old same-old. Which incidentally drew attention to the glaring weakness of most of the cast.  I miss Abbie, but I also miss having a strong cast, despite the marvellous job TPTB have done wasting their better cast members. I really can't decide what was more flat and wooden, the writing or the acting. I will now be forever baffled that after going to the effort of establishing Sophie last season, they unceremoniously dumped the character and swapped her out. I enjoyed her, I never really saw her as an Abbie substitute, that's probably why I liked her. I think the producers saw her as an Abbie substitute and as such, interchangeable. Jessica Camacho could at least act, Janina Gavankar, not so much, not in this episode anyway.  Lots of grimacing not much in the way of emotion or believable reactions. I won't say much about the kid, all she is, is an idea, a not terribly interesting idea, at least the child actress isn't too grating and cloying, even if the writing for her is.

At least I'm never going to suffer from disappointed anticipation like I did last season when they manage to devote so much screen time to Peter Mensah and Shannon Sossamon hanging around pontificating and shooting each other stink-eye. Nope, the most tension I feel over Jeremy Davies' villain is whether he'll eat a sandwich or try decaf. I'm really hoping for the latter by the way. I was tickled to see Kamar De Los Reyes as The villains assistant, If I watch again I can look forward to some grade-A, cheesetastic eye-bugging and scenery chewing, he excelled at it  when I watched him years ago on "One Life to Live".

I liked seeing Grace Dixon. 

Meh. Not terribly impressed by what I saw. I don't rule out watching it again, but I doubt I'll make a point of it. I think the only reason I remembered this week is because I was watching Dirk Gently on Netflix and it ended precisely at 8:59.

To add;

I  enjoy him too, he's one of the few new hires that seems like an actual character, rather than a collection of tics.

Also, was that jar of goo threatening a return of Jeremy? Noooooo!

Of all the things they decide to bring back, they had to bring back Henry and his daddy issues.  The villains have been disappointing season after season.

[Frozendiva]

I wasn't expecting Kafka's 'The Trial' and wasn't disappointed.

The spider goo was interesting but the creature - what exactly was it? I also saw a face in the goo jar at the end, but didn't figure out who it was. Jeremy?

Ichabod's apartment is pretty sad. Surely there are better places to live in Washington and not that fixer-upper-dump. How cheap is the rent?

Why was the creepy dude in the Smithsonian storage room? The map must be important, but no idea why. Molly being Deus Ex NewWitness wasn't doing it.

Just watching now because there isn't much else on.

[Cigale]

1 hour ago, Frozendiva said:

Why was the creepy dude in the Smithsonian storage room? The map must be important, but no idea why.

It was a map of ley-lines.

[gameoff]

When they were cutting Ichabod out with the torches I really wanted one of them to say "Don't cross the streams!"

[MrSmith]

Sounds like it's a good thing my wife and I decided to just give up on this show and skip watching this episode. We taped it last night, but we couldn't bring ourselves to watch it. Like others have said, we just don't care about the new people and the storylines aren't interesting. I might pop by to see what each episode was about. I'm curious how this show will end, even though I can't bring myself to watch it. (And I'm sure it's going to finally end after this season.)

[CooperTV]

I liked the episode but it was kind of unfocused at times. Probably because A plot with Ichabod in Despair's clutches barely had to do with B plot of Jenny and Diana bonding all over DC. And C plot with Alex and Jake ended up being the one that drive the main arc forward, what with the Dreyfuss's Hot Demon in the Smithsonian shenanigans.

I always enjoy this framing device in supernatural shows where main character gets stuck in something and reveals their inner struggles. This was not exception. It was so great how the writers dug in Ichabod's psyche in general and post-Abbie's death in particular. This man indeed had so many guilt inside him, Spider Demon (who looked scary as hell!) could gorge on all that guilt and pain. Tom Mison was so great in his scenes, I felt for him even more that usual. It's interesting that they brought John Noble back for this, because who could do better at taunting Ichabod than a creature with his son's face.

It was nice to see Jenny attempting to open up about her family experiences to Diana even after Diana shut her down in the very callus way. [Side note: Diana, stop being a jerk to people you know nothing about, ugh.] Jenny should have told Diana how her mother killed herself in the mental facility because evil powers  forced her to, and stop handling her with the kid gloves. Diana needs her reality check.

OMG, I was soo happy to see Grace Dixon! The best thing about this episode, probably. Also, the flashback was haunting.

The way they brought Molly into this was really strange, and I was mildly disturbed by the scene of peaceful Molly describing Ichabod and saying he should never give up hope and distraught Ichabod trying to hang himself. I don't even know how they're gonna deal with this bond going forward.

The scene with the Big Bad was mercifully short. My only thought was that he needs to wash his hair. It looks terrible.

6 hours ago, gameoff said:

When they were cutting Ichabod out with the torches I really wanted one of them to say "Don't cross the streams!"

I actually thought it was deliberate Ghostbusters callback, because those things sure looked similar enough!

Edited January 28, 2017 by CooperTV

[saber5055]

I've been watching X-Files reruns on Antenna TV. Last week the alien was a black ink blob that oozed across the floor before infecting a person. I'm guessing SH writers saw those episodes.

[Free]

3 hours ago, saber5055 said:

I've been watching X-Files reruns on Antenna TV. Last week the alien was a black ink blob that oozed across the floor before infecting a person. I'm guessing SH writers saw those episodes.

SH feels like a bland mish mash of other genre/supernatural shows.

[ganesh]

I get that Diana isn't going to suddenly be seamless in her acclimation of fighting demons and whatnot, but I wish they could have come up with a better directorial choice than just snap at everyone and repeat facts in an incredulous voice. It's kind of derivative. I'm kind of iffy making a kid the new witness. It would have been more interesting to me if it was Faraday.

[NuncaNunca]

I refuse to watch this trash, but skimmed the transcript--I really wanted to know how repugnant the show continues to be, especially in attempting to deal with Abbie's death.

This episode was as insulting as the finale to S3, and seemed to be written to be as damaging to the memory of Abbie as possible. It wasn't in any way "honoring" Abbie. It was half-baked racist BS attempting to troll fans w/ John Noble and references to Abbie. Yuck.

[Cyranetta]

I do appreciate how the writers didn't just erase the memory of Abby, but allow her to be an emotional engine while the newer characters get established (or don't).

[ganesh]

I agree with the gist of the that premise. I don't know if I liked the execution much in this episode. I would have rather Crane's guilt/despair be something he struggles with over the course of the show with the new people slowly growing into his new emotional support. I feel like they just did this one to "get it out of the way."

[thuganomics85]

The Monster of the week was pretty creepy, but the entire "Ichabod on trial" hallucination was lame, and the return of "Henry" was underwhelming.  John Noble was phoning it in, but I guess I rather he do that then horribly camp it up like he did in season two (I still can't believe this show got a bad performance from John Noble.)  Plus, I got the sense that the original draft might have all of the past dead characters make an appearance (Joe, Katrina, maybe even Abbie herself), but none of the actors wanted to come back (wouldn't blame them.  Especially Nicole Beharie.)

I guess I kind of enjoyed the Jenny/Diana pairing, even if it was a bit of the normal hostile, but on the same page duo that has been used several times.  But Lyndie Greenwood and Janina Gavanker sold it.

Diana is beginning to accept Molly's role as the new Witness.  I'm glad they are at least aren't dragging things out too long, but I just wish I found the plotline more interesting.

Dreyfuss and Jeremy Davies continue to be a dud.

Still having problems warming up to either Jake or Alex.  Feels like they are trying too hard with them.

[Free]

6 hours ago, ganesh said:

I agree with the gist of the that premise. I don't know if I liked the execution much in this episode. I would have rather Crane's guilt/despair be something he struggles with over the course of the show with the new people slowly growing into his new emotional support. I feel like they just did this one to "get it out of the way."

He should've confronted his past with other people, not have to relive a rehash of Henry's daddy problems.

7 hours ago, ganesh said:

I get that Diana isn't going to suddenly be seamless in her acclimation of fighting demons and whatnot, but I wish they could have come up with a better directorial choice than just snap at everyone and repeat facts in an incredulous voice. It's kind of derivative. I'm kind of iffy making a kid the new witness. It would have been more interesting to me if it was Faraday.

It was contrived, that and so her magical Witness (Chosen One) daughter can give a corny power of friendship speech to inspire hope in Ichabod at the end.

[CooperTV]

7 hours ago, ganesh said:

I would have rather Crane's guilt/despair be something he struggles with over the course of the show with the new people slowly growing into his new emotional support.

To be fair, exactly this was spelled out by Molly at the end:

DIANA: Why is he sad?

MOLLY: He thinks that he's alone. But the funny thing is, he's wrong. He's got lots of friends. But he feels like he's let them down.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

How long before Crane refers to Miss Molly and then we get the inevitable "Good Golly, Miss Molly" joke?

I wish Jenny had just straight up told Diana that not knowing about the supernatural and the role of the witness made her think that she was crazy and that's why it's better to be honest with Molly about all of this from the beginning.

[ganesh]

Quote

To be fair, exactly this was spelled out by Molly at the end:

Clearly, I meant not having the show tell us verbatim how a character feels, but rather having this a continual plot point. I feel life this is something they want to address but just did it all in one episode to get it or if the way. 

[Texasmom1970]

I am only half watching this show now. It makes me sad because I used to love it. Now it is neither here nor there with me. If I miss an episode I would just be like whatever. Tom Mison is the only reason I am even still giving it a chance.

[MakingBacon]

I am trying really hard to not let this show go. I keep telling myself to just see it through the end of the season because there is no way it can be renewed. This used to be must watch tv for me. The first season I would watch with all the lights off and let it freak me out. Now it is basically running in the background while I do other things. 

I pretty much hate the new people other than jake, and I only like him because he is sort of a young, non-time traveling, Crane who always has a fact from the past to go with every clue found. I don't even see the point of the red head. I hate the whole Diana/Molly storyline. I feel like the writers decided a kid would be the second witness and made her mother an agent because the show needed someone with access to government information. I would bet Diana is going to take a bigger role on the show and Jenny will just be pushed into the background, just like when crane's ex wife pushed Abbie into the background. I am sure we will soon get an all about Diana episode where we will find out her ex husband was actually/or has become a monster they have to find a way to Kill. 

[Free]

13 hours ago, ganesh said:

Clearly, I meant not having the show tell us verbatim how a character feels, but rather having this a continual plot point. I feel life this is something they want to address but just did it all in one episode to get it or if the way. 

Especially if this is going to be her role.

[Watermelon]

On January 28, 2017 at 0:36 AM, Frozendiva said:

Ichabod's apartment is pretty sad. Surely there are better places to live in Washington and not that fixer-upper-dump. How cheap is the rent?

 

No version of cheap. 

The one bedrooms in my apartment building are 900 dollars and it's basically a steal. 900 most places in the city will look like a barely cleaner version of what ichabod has 

[bros402]

The trial made me bored, so I was trying to figure out how one gets a job at the library of occult stuff - is it a job posting, or does the government send people they just want to hide there?

[Teitr Styrr]

Well, I seem to be in the minority, but I still love it. I loved Crane's monologue when he was defending himself, and I loved Molly's voice getting thru to him in the end. I do miss Abby, and that's all I'm gonna say on that. The weakest of the newbies is the fixit girl, but hey somebody's got to be the weakest. I still like her enough.  

[proserpina65]

On ‎01‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 5:17 PM, NuncaNunca said:

I refuse to watch this trash, but skimmed the transcript--I really wanted to know how repugnant the show continues to be, especially in attempting to deal with Abbie's death.

This episode was as insulting as the finale to S3, and seemed to be written to be as damaging to the memory of Abbie as possible. It wasn't in any way "honoring" Abbie. It was half-baked racist BS attempting to troll fans w/ John Noble and references to Abbie. Yuck.

The actual episode was nothing like what you're describing.  Other than taking the form of Henry, the actual trial dealt with the Henry & Katrina situation very quickly and mostly focused on Ichabod's guilt over Abby's death, as well as the deaths of others connected to him.  It was that guilt, not any perceived 'man pain' over his family, which almost drove him to suicide.

Edited January 30, 2017 by proserpina65

[jhlipton]

On 1/28/2017 at 0:36 AM, Frozendiva said:

Just watching now because there isn't much else on.

Lucifer isn't back on until May (what???) but it has a child actress who can (a) act and (b) isn't over-used.

On 1/28/2017 at 5:17 PM, NuncaNunca said:

I refuse to watch this trash, but skimmed the transcript--I really wanted to know how repugnant the show continues to be, especially in attempting to deal with Abbie's death.

This episode was as insulting as the finale to S3, and seemed to be written to be as damaging to the memory of Abbie as possible. It wasn't in any way "honoring" Abbie. It was half-baked racist BS attempting to troll fans w/ John Noble and references to Abbie. Yuck.

I'm not watching either, and if anyone should be feeling guilt about the death of Abby, it's the jerks behind the show.

On 1/28/2017 at 5:18 PM, Cyranetta said:

I do appreciate how the writers didn't just erase the memory of Abby, but allow her to be an emotional engine while the newer characters get established (or don't).

Yep, they established in the final episode last season that Abby wasn't a real person, she was just an engine to power Crane.

Bitter?  Who, me???

[Watermelon]

Kind of odd that the spider demon creates an illusion of a court, but the people in the court somehow have independent will