Sleepy Hollow Episode 2.7: Rosemary's...Er, Katrina's Baby

"Why am I giving birth in skinny jeans?"

If there's anything I've disliked this season more than Katrina going back and forth between the Witnesses and Abraham it's the entire “impregnating Katrina with Moloch” storyline. Thank you so much, Sleepy Writers, for bringing that ludicrous, boring, and tiresome storyline to a close.

[After seeing 2.8: Or so I thought. Damn.]

This episode was packed with emotional tension and triangulation, a lovely moment between Katrina and Abbie, a long-awaited emotional confrontation between Crane and Son, and Tom Mison and Katia Winter in bed together, finally. Sam Chalsen & Nelson Greaves' “Deliverance” delivered on many fronts (pun unintended. Really).

Opening with a surprising and long-awaited scene of marital tenderness between Ichabod and Katrina Crane, we're lulled into a false sense of security, led to believe we're in flashback, our lovers sharing their last precious moments together in bed before Crane departs on a mission for George Washington. As the Cranes' cuddling and dreaming about their future children gives way to Ichabod transforming into Moloch--typically Sleepy-Creepy--we find we're in Mrs. Crane's nightmare, alas one that doesn't end upon waking.

"No, Katrina, for the last time I'm not showing
you my chest hair!" 

In truth, the exposition part of the dialogue in this scene felt quite clunky to me, but the rest was lovely, and the actors, director effects team and lighting/camerapeople did a fine job overall.

The nightmare's metaphor poetically tells Katrina (and the audience) everything we need to know about what exactly is going on inside her body, yet it still takes the Scooby Squad the better part of an hour to figure it out. No matter. We'll come along for the ride because it's fun.

Once we're good and horrified, the scene and tone shift to a humorous—and surprisingly political—bit at a polling place. Sometimes these emotional-whiplash-inducing transitions work, sometimes they don't. This one worked for me, beautifully. Ichabod's wry commentary on Americans' apparent lack of appreciation for our suffrage—preferring instead to wallow in “American idolatry” (gorgeous)--sadly did not go in a direction it could have gone (i.e. questioning why people don't feel inspired to vote). Yet, through Abbie we are movingly reminded that universal suffrage was hard-won and late-coming. The charming scenes—intercut with the terrifying ones back at Camp Moloch--manage to acknowledge race, gender, and even class, concluding with Ichabod absurdly trying to give Abbie advice as to her voting, while helping build the tension steadily.

"And I would care what you think...why?"

It was terrific seeing dissension in Evil's ranks, as Abraham resists both his fellow Horseman and Moloch's orders, in an effort to keep Katrina from their grasp. Then, to make things even better, for the second time in a row, Katrina frees herself from certain death. Unfortunately, while doing so she was required to fall for no particular reason as she runs out to the highway. Sigh. Messieurs Chalsen & Greaves, unless your character is Jennifer-Lawrence-in-formal-wear, this trope is insulting to your audience, insulting to your character, cliched, and senseless. Please abandon it posthaste.

Back at the polling place we learn, adorably, that General Washington was not above bribing the electorate with beer, that Crane's disappointment with the state of American democracy can be (believably) mollified with an “I Voted” sticker, and that Mr. Empathy knows how to foreshadow a plot well, acknowledging that Abbie's “exclusion from Sheriff Reyes inner circle must sting.” Providing a once-again excellent transition, one of Abbie's colleagues informs the Witnesses that a Jane Doe fitting Katrina's description just showed up at the hospital.

“Katrina?” Abbie asks Ichabod?

“Who else could it be?” Ichabod responds, on behalf of the audience.  (Well, Caroline, for starters, if you hadn't killed her off, but, oh, never mind).

The act ends with a typically ho-hum reunion between Crane and the missus, despite Mison, Beharie and Winter acting their hearts out. They are all tonally perfect yet our lovebirds' painful lack of chemistry continues on.

The only one in the room with her head still screwed on right, Abbie brilliantly deduces that Henry will come for Katrina and soon. But do you seriously think Abbie Mills is going to forage a friggin' corset for Katrina? Oh, hell no! Look, I know y'all think corsets are sexy, but if you really believe in liberated female characters, get Katrina the hell out of that painful thing! Or else, spend a week in one yourself. Pulled good and tight, to slim your waist. Remember, Scarlett O'Hara's was only 17 inches!!

Fortunately, the bad guys show up just as our heroes are fleeing the hospital so our brave and formidable Abbie can follow them while Crane and Katrina make their getaway. It's lovely but tragic that Crane's admonition to Abbie upon parting to “be careful” is so much more passionate, take-one's-breath-away intense than pretty much everything that transpires between him and Katrina.

His relationship with his wife still frustratingly but believably stuck in the 18^th century, Crane forgets Abbie's teaching that he could never make Katrina do anything she doesn't want to do by arrogantly lamenting, “This is my fault. I should never have left you with the Horseman.” He also treats her like she's weak, asking her if she should refrain from doing what she's doing—performing magic, helpfully, as a good member of the team—given her sickness. This pattern of treating Katrina like hand-blown-glass, and later, incapacitated hand-blown-glass, is so not what this character deserved after an entire season in purgatory.

I found myself disliking Ichabod for his slow burn of jealousy when Katrina refers to Headless as “Abraham,” and defends him as not having been responsible for the sickness. Crane's ridiculous, under the circumstances, response, “and what do you and...Abraham...converse about?” gets soundly beaten back by Katrina's firm but tender “whatever I must.” Kudos to Katia Winter, whose eyes and voice say it all (even in a whisper): Seriously?!?! I'm a spy and a prisoner and you're jealous that I'm talking to my captor? Who, incidentally, is the stalker-ex-boyfriend I dumped for you? Have I mentioned lately the part about how I spent 231 years in purgatory for saving your ass?

Hurt, Katrina nails her husband. “You think I enjoy it.”

“No, that's not it [that's so totally it],” Mison responds perfectly as Ichabod.

Unfortunately, the scene goes downhill from there with breathy, unbelievable protestations from Katrina and our couple again telling, rather than showing, how utterly in love they are.

I so want to give a damn about you two
and I just don't.

Meanwhile, Abbie follows the bad guys and discovers that Henry's buddies are really big on warehouses this season. Also, they now apparently include Scots. We get a lovely creepy moment courtesy of a dead hand, but since Abbie Mills has never needed anyone to bust down a warehouse wall with an ambulance to get her ass safely out of Dodge, she gets photographic evidence and a journal all by herself, thank you, without ever screaming about the dead hand, sprinting on back to the Bat Cave because, recapitulation of the main theme, Abbie Mills is friggin' amazing.

"I've seen worse."

With the Witnesses thankfully reunited back at the archives (because every scene that they're apart feels like an eternity in Sleepy Hollow time), Ben Franklin, MacGuffin-Meister-Par-Excellence, continues his season-long roll, again proving invaluable to our detectives' case-solving.

In Act Three, we get treated to a delectable smorgasbord of emotions from Tom Mison's Crane in response to Katrina's pregnancy--disbelief, fear, jealousy, distrust, outrage, and sheepish guilt--in a matter of moments. Thankfully Nicole Beharie's fabulously clear and grounded Abbie has no trouble believing Katrina's pregnancy was as chaste as that of Our Lady of Everywhere and gets to work immediately detecting what might have happened. Abbie continues her wonderful badassery as Katrina's warning hex goes up in smoke and our brave leftenant must take up the rear to stave off the bad guys while Crane and the missus escape, again. (Yea! For once she's shooting at a killable target!!). Hell, once they get to St. Henry's Parish, Abbie shows she even knows how to work a breaker box! Katrina can't even work a friggin' radio (I don't care if she wasn't born in this century, writers. I just don't care).

The inevitable tension between Abbie and Katrina gets ignited the moment our trio reaches a potential safe-haven. Katrina does an admirable job trying to convince Abbie and Ichabod that Henry is still salvagable, Abbie does an admirable job of keeping her head about her while all others are losing theirs, and poor Ichabod navigates the shark-infested waters flowing between his wife and his partner like a drunk pirate, waffling more than an IHOP, as each demands a commitment of him: “Keep Henry”/“Kill Henry.” The direction and all three actors' performances make this scene electric.

When Crane inevitably sides with his wife and agrees to go ask Henry to undo the terrible thing he himself has literally just done, Abbie's anger is crystal clear but gorgeously restrained as she accepts the fruits of democracy. It's an interesting call-back, actually, less to the earlier scene at the polling place than to the scene in Crane's cabin in “The Kindred,” when Abbie sided with her partner against Jenny's more rational arguments, another acute moment of loyalty asymmetry in Abbie's and Crane's relationship.

"Are you saying they've figured out a way to compress
our boobs without whalebone?"

As we are finally treated to the Father and Child Reunion we've patiently awaited since last season's finale (okay, maybe I haven't exactly been patient), Abbie and Katrina share some nice moments alone as they focus on figuring out who or what this demon baby is. The make-up and effects department did a phenomenal job conveying Katrina's excruciating, ill-fated pregnancy. I particularly loved how, in one cutaway, the Alien creepiness in Katrina's lovely midriff goes from zero to nine months. Hey, Moloch may be the Big Bad, but at least HE got Katrina out of her corset!

I never liked Katrina as much as when she suggests Abbie kill her to keep Moloch from rising. Since there's no way Abbie wants to be saddled with trying to explain that one to Ichabod, she declines, but with a tenderness, empathy and respect for Katrina which is deeply moving. She also shows that at least this Witness gets the sacrifice Katrina made for Ichabod. “...All the voices of Heaven and Hell were shouting in your ear, 'let him die'; you found another way to save him.”

“We will find another way to save you.” Abbie Mills for President, 2016.

Meanwhile, the marvelous Orlando Jones gets relegated to the role of Crane's secretary/butler and, excruciatingly, that's all we see of Irving for the entire episode. I don't need to explain to you guys why that's a problem, do I?

The scene between Henry and Crane most decidedly does not fulfill my dreams and expectations for that confrontation, but it is certainly powerful. John Noble's delicious “demon?!” deserves a frame and a mantle all for itself. As for Crane's faux confidence, it worked magnificently in the interrogation scenes with Headless; Crane making that choice here rang false for me. I don't get why pummeling Henry with the idea that he loves his mother was supposed to work. I suppose there's some primal law of nature that demands father and son try to assert power over the other in a sustained pissing contest even when one of them isn't a horseman of the apocalypse. Still though, for my money, the scene only gets interesting once both men have shot holes in the others' facades and their vulnerabilities surface.

One thing about that scene did strike me as particularly odd. As Crane comes to the horrifying realization that Katrina is pregnant with Moloch, Henry asks him, “would I lie to my own father?” Was that supposed to be funny, along the lines of “you should be proud; your son's a lawyer”? It didn't land as funny. It landed as sincere, which is ridiculous given that, a) Henry lied to Crane for the entirety of their relationship in the previous season, and b) Henry buried his father alive. I mean, really, isn't lying to one's father rather pedestrian by comparison?!?!

For any of us fans losing our hearing, we are thoughtfully told repeatedly that Moloch is the demon in Katrina's belly. But once Moloch's finally in the conversational rear-view mirror, Crane desperately tries to persuade Henry to save Katrina, telling him “your mother's love banished her to purgatory!”

And the filial shit finally hits the paternal fan. “Her love for you,” John Noble's Henry replies transcendentally, “her decision to save you.” Whoo-hoo! Greek tragedy comes to upstate New York!

“Then read my sin!” Crane retorts, determined to regain control of the conversation. “You're afraid to see how I've suffered!” Whoa! Cool! Did not see that one coming. But now, double whoa, you turn that on its head and have Crane see that inside Henry is a terrified, lost child. Gorgeous. Truly gorgeous. Though, when Crane says, “that was you,” I get the feeling he's referencing a scene that was left on the editing room floor. If so, that's a damned shame. But the climax of that scene was masterfully done by all.

When Abbie starts to tell Crane, freshly returned from his failed meeting with Henry, that the demon inside Katrina is Moloch--“you'd better sit down for this,”--Mison underplays his devastation beautifully. “Oh, I know.” The look on Mison's face communicates magnificently Crane's sense of having failed his wife and son as he sits down at (incapacitated, naturally) Katrina's side.

In the marvelously tender scene between Crane and Katrina, she finally nails him with the ole “two hundred thirty-one years I spent in purgatory every day believing without proof I could save you.” Unfortunately, it's just to save Henry, not to stand up to Crane for his idiotic jealousy, and when she coughs pathetically the whole thing devolves into melodrama.  Still, though, she had a moment.

I am shocked but not surprised to learn that Ben Franklin will again prove our savior in the moment, although why on earth he would put the prism to stop Moloch inside the very tablet he knows the bad guys may use to raise Moloch is beyond me. Doesn't that seem like a rather unsafe place to keep such an important weapon? More to the point, if Franklin had the tablet in his hands, wouldn't it have been worth exposing his infiltration to destroy the bloody thing?

Oh, who cares. This episode is all about the feels, which are fabulous.

I could kiss all of you for “I must internet immediately.” (And that would be the moment, ladies and gentlemen, when “internet” became a verb in the English language). Yet, although I adore the simile--“it sounds like a swine being strangled”--I don't buy Ichabod's frustration with dial-up any more than I did his frustration last season with flip phones. Okay, granted, his wife is dying and time is rather of the essence. But, to me it was a cheap laugh to presume that someone who still thinks “internet” is a verb is going to fail to be anything but mesmerized even by dial-up.

While I'm throwing kisses around, Crane deserves one for the profound tenderness, without condescension, with which he explains to Katrina how a radio functions. (Not that he ever had to explain that to Abbie, but whatever).

Since Abbie's the one in this century with an army they can draw upon, Leena Reyes is given the chance to show the fandom that she's not a Horsewoman (at least not yet). The act break of Abbie saying she's going to tell Reyes “the truth about what's going on in Sleepy Hollow” was fantastic because of course we have no idea what version of "the truth" she's going to share. The assault on the warehouse allows our heroes both to get the tablet and the prism, and to finally upgrade Crane in the Sheriff's eyes from Abbie's-Weird-Renaissance-Faire-Boyfriend to Valuable-Operative/Potential-Paid-Employee.  

"Crane, we really need to discuss
division of labor!"

Let's not even get into the absurdity of the sheriff executing a search warrant and move straight on to Crane and Abbie's hilarious deciphering of the passcode to the box holding the tablet. Crane, ever-impressed with his own brilliance, initially deduces the passcode may be the address of the Hellfire's London Clubhouse (I ask you, WTF kind of a secret evil club publicizes their address? And hasn't changed it in 230 years?) While Crane resurrects every piece of arcane knowledge he has in his noggin' about the Hellfire Club, Ms. BAMF not only holds off the bad guys single-handedly but solves the riddle: “They're a freaking evil club! Try 666!” Pure genius, that.  I would have loved some kind of warm-up to Crane's new cover springing forth from his head fully-formed--“I'm a criminal profiler specializing in historical hoo-haa”-- but the sound of both Reyes' and the audience's jaws hitting the floor was sweet music.

To absolutely no one's surprise, Crane successfully uses the embedded prism to free his wife of Baby Moloch. Katrina stops breathing in an unsuccessful attempt at holding the audience in suspense. Abbie decides, wisely, that she's going to pass on saving Mrs. Crane this time, but because She's His Wife, Crane obligatorily fights for her with appropriate desperation. His wildly incorrect CPR works, and lovely Katrina regains consciousness with a happily surprised, “you're here!” a line which exists solely for the purpose of setting up Crane's and Abbie's telling lines to follow.

“Where I belong, ” Crane responds tenderly, Mison trying so hard to gaze into Winter's eyes adoringly.

“Whereas I belong somewhere else,” Abbie says out loud to no one in particular (and the entire Ichabbie-Shipping-Fandom collectively said “OOOOOUUUUCCCHHHH!”).

When Crane eventually remembers he has a partner outside, Abbie's hoping his wife's near-death experience has succeeded in removing his head from his rectum. “At least now we're clear where Henry stands.” We are clear, right Crane? Crane?

No such luck. It seems poor Abbie not only has to share Crane's attention with Katrina, but also his loyalty. “You gotta be kidding me? You still think you can reach [Henry]?”

Unfortunately he does, and because we have no idea how else to end this scene, we get the most unfulfilling fist bump ever between Abbie and Crane as the Witnesses try to stitch together a silk win out of a sow's ear.

The highlights of this episode for me were the confrontations and triangles, with things that have needed to finally coming to the fore. I also really appreciated that, given a chance to demonstrate that she can hold her own in this company of fine actors, Winter did a very good job, even without much of a discernible character beyond breathy romance heroine/devoted mom. As usual, Mison matched her, moment for intense, believable moment, and Beharie—still the most consistent of the Witnesses from an acting department—remains the show's divine light. Oh, and seeing Neil Jackson's Headless kill someone with his broadaxe was pretty awesome too.

The biggest sticking point I have with the series so far this season was unfortunately only underscored by this episode: we need to care about Ichabod and Katrina as a couple so that we give a damn about their trials and tribulations. I didn't want Katrina to die, even though it may have been best for the show, because I still hold out hope her character can become strong and interesting. But we need to believe these two are in love, and I, for one, still don't. I can't lay this at the feet of Chalsen and Greaves. They inherited this problem and, I think, did their best to try to rectify it while staying true to the characters. Alas, while you've done a LOT of telling us they're in love, Sleepy Writers, you haven't shown us yet, and that sadly renders all these good efforts really rather moot.

Let us love the Cranes, or leave them. Please.