Diana is still firmly on the side of “these supernatural
people need to keep far far away from my daughter” and Jenny doesn’t do a great
job of convincing her otherwise – especially since Ichabod was supposed to be there
Instead he has been captured by a spider demon, cocooned
and forced to go on trial for various guilt things. Like the death
of Abbie. And inflicting
Cranewreck on us. And the terrible
storyline of us deciding his son, the horseman of freaking war, needed
handingly softly softly. And the treatment of Frank. And the introduction of
Hawley
Oh wait, that’s my trial for the writers of Sleepy
Hollow.
So this means the death of Abbie, the death of his son
and the fact he spent a hot minute grieving for Abbie before moving on to a new
team who will probably die as well. A
Ichabod argues eloquently in his defence (because Abbi
made a choice! By Abbie we, of course, mean the shitty shitty writers who we
will never ever forgive) before succumbing to the Sadness and preparing his own
suicide – which is this demon’s whole mojo. It will then use its sadness powers
to spill out everywhere.
So to the gang. They go investigating where Ichabod got
to and Jenny heads off to the cave of sadness where he is being held (after
some nifty research) – she goes alone because she doesn’t think Alex and Jake
are up to it. They follow her because there’s a limit to what one woman can
face alone
We also have a really nice biplay between Alex and Jake
about their new lives: Jake was planning on quitting before this. He realised
he was doing nothing and the archive was full of cool ideas but none of it was
real or meaningful. He was ready to move on to do something – and now Ichabod
came into their lives with all the supernaturalness and everything is cool and
awesome and he loves it so much because it’s exciting and interesting and making
a difference and real.
Alex, however, perhaps more reality based – asks if it’s a good thing that all this terrifying dangerous stuff is actually real
When Jenny is captured trying to sneak into a military
base Jake and Alex do the sensible thing and… call Diana. Yes, no hotdogging,
no silly rescue attempts, a very sensible decision
Diana rescues Jenny – though Jenny is very quick to point
out she didn’t need it and was quite ready to escape on her own. Which is
probably not wrong, to be honest. Diana is onside to rescue Ichabod – sure she’s
not happy with him or Jenny and doesn’t trust either of them and definitely isn’t
going to let them near her daughter – but nor is she going to let him be eaten
by a psychic despair spider demon. Especially if said despair demon can make an
entire military base commit suicide.
But the direct approach doesn’t work since any injuries
the spider demon takes so too does Ichabod. Since it’s a giant spider demon let
it be known that I am totally team “sorry Ichabod, you had a good innings, DIE
SPIDER DIE!”.
Instead it’s back for more research including accounts
from Jenny and Abbie’s ancestor Grace who defeated this beastie before by using
the fire of joy which isn’t a euphemism
This requires lots of illegal stuff gathered through Alex and Jake’s and Jenny’s contacts while Dianan either covers her ears or gets Jenny’s contact to play ball by invoking military backgrounds. They can then mix it up and prepare to fight again with their new toy
Along the way Jenny and Diana discuss a lot of the whole
Witness thing – including things like how Ichabod knew Grace then moved a few
centuries forwards and ended up with Grace’s descendants. Jenny makes the point
that it’s not a coincidence – it’s a connection, a mystical connection that
draws them all together. Including Molly. Diana has also checked out Jenny and
researched her stay in mental institutions and prisons but Jenny isn’t phased
or ashamed. She knows her past – a past directly caused by facing the
supernatural at a young age and not being prepared or protected. She further
brings up that her mother was a single mother – like Diana – who nobly,
desperately fought for them. But against the supernatural pressures that come
with being a witness she just couldn’t do it without help
Yes it’s a really big sales pitch but it’s an excellent
one. And you can see why Jenny is so invested because this is a mirror to her
life – but with a chance to stop that one derailing moment when she had so
little support. Rather than push Diana, she lets her own story be a tool to
explore what being a witness without support can mean, especially as a child.
She presents herself and Ichabod not as dragging Molly into something – but as
protecting and supporting her in the face of what is coming to her door anyway
So they go back with the toys, break Ichabod free and
kill the big bad – and Ichabod won’t wake up. His soul is adrift. Now one point
Jenny made is the connection between Abbie and Ichabod was so awesome it would
literally pull each other from different worlds
So they call Molly to do just that – and lo Diana accepts
at least a little the whole Witness thing
And I scream. Oh how I scream. Abbie and Ichabod had a
connection. It was an awesome connection. It was an awesome connection based on
several episodes of interaction, development, characterisation and general
awesomeness. One of the reasons everyone loathed the Cranewreck
so completely was because it distracted from that connection.
That connection was an artful piece of writing, acting and development. Don’t reduce what was built there to “witness woo-woo”.
