Sleepy Hollow Episode 3
Episode 3: “For the triumph of evil”
There is a creepy dream sequence where Abbie sees herself as a child being interviewed. You don’t realize it’s a dream at first and it reflects dream reality in a creepily effective way. THEN THERE IS A MOUTHLESS BALD GUY WHOSE EYES ARE SAND.
Image via here
Abbie is woken up by her phone ringing.
Jason: Go ahead, answer your Windows phone. You know? That phone people only use on TV shows.
Me: It’s like how people on TV actually use Bing. ‘Oh, I binged it.’
They go to track down a woman who kills herself for not helping Jenny, Abbie’s sister in the asylum. Dead Woman’s eyes are funny, and after she jumps to her death, her eyeballs crumble.
Jason: My eyeballs exploded into dust once. But I got better.
Katherine: It’s more like sand.
Me: Breaks out into, “MR. SANDMAN, BRING ME A DREAM…”
HINT: yes, the spirit is a version of the Sandman.
Okay, at this point I don’t necessarily go in order, as I sort of lost interest in the episode. Here are some highlights:
- Turns out there is a Native American curse that kills people who didn’t believe in Jenny (Abbie’s sister, who, like her, “saw something nasty in the woods”). Jenny maintained what she saw was real, which resulted in a life of being locked up and spitting out her psych meds.
- Ichabod is appalled at the fate of the Native Americans, as he fought alongside them in the American Revolution. While this is convenient (like with the slavery thing, it was be awkward if Ichabod was Mad Racist), I think it reflects the reality that attitudes have shifted in various ways over time: my pet peeve is the myth that “everything is getting better” and we’re all getting more and more enlightened and less racist–instead of an upward line, history is more of a series of zig zags.
- Abbie’s sister Jenny has amazing eyebrows.
Image from here
- Jenny asks if Ichabod is her sister’s boyfriend: Icky: “We are amicable and yes I am male. But I expect you are implying something else.”
- When she finds out his name is Ichabod, she asks, “What do your friends call you? Icky?” THAT WAS MY IDEA
- Jenny is not pleased with her sister, and Abbie says it’s complicated. Icky: “I was born 250 years ago and my wife is a prisoner in an unearthly realm. I am no stranger to complications.”
- Turns out Abbie lied and said she saw nothing in the woods, when SHE TOTALLY DID.
- We get a flashback where Jenny gets dragged off the loony bin the second she tells about the “man in the woods,” which seems a little unrealistic. Wouldn’t they give a traumatized child a little bit of the benefit of the doubt? But it turns out Abbie and Jenny had been in a foster home (FINALLY a decent one, after lots of terrible ones), so Abbie didn’t want to take chances. Abbie stayed in the foster home, but Jennie had to go somewhere else.
- Ichabod sums it up: “You were afraid. Not only of the creature but of the earthly consequences of the tale,” and “You are afraid of the truth. That you turned your back on Miss Jenny.” THE THEME OF THIS EPISODE IS FEAR.
- He also calls the Sandman a “faceless nightmare monster,” which is hilarious and perfect.
Faceless nightmare monster via Culture Mass
- We get Ichabod drinking Red bull for the first time and calling the receptionist a “char woman.”
- I do love that they visit a Native American Shaman and that he runs a secondhand car dealership and is pissed at them for appropriating his culture: “No one’s your chief, no one lives in tee pees, no one has pow wows.” “You stopped doing pow-wows?”
- Ichabod quotes Edmund Burke (often misattributed) that the “only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. That’s why the Native American Sandman is attacking people who turned their backs on Jenny. Conveniently, it guilt trips Car Salesman Shaman into helping them, so that he doesn’t get turned into dust for turning his back on someone in need.
- Ichabod and Abbie drink “dream tea” which looks like blue gatorade (mmmmm….). Also, it apparently taste better than Red Bull)
- Ichabod goes with Abbie to Dream World, which is kind of sweet. And we get to see him shirtless! AND Abbie.
Image via i09
Jason: Mmmm, bra.
Me: I KNOW.
THEY ARE ALSO STRAPPED DOWN.
Thoughts drift inappropriately.
They have to be stung by a scorpion for the spell to work. Ick.
Jason: I also keep scorpions in jars for occasions just like this.
Blah blah blah, Abbie faces her fears, admits she was wrong to turn her back on Jenny, Sandman crumples, they wake up, everything is okay for now.
Abbie reminds Ichabod that they face “Seven years of tribulation” as the two witnesses. Ichabod tries to lie that it will all be okay but is too tired. I wish to squish them both to my bosom.
They are given permission to work in the old tunnel buildings by Orlando Jones, proving that he’s definitely in on the magic in some way.
Abbie thanks Icky and acknowledges she needs to see her sister. It’s sweet.
Of course her sister has already busted out of the asylum, duh.
Image via here.
