Let’s cover the predictions first – Malcolm has dreams of
a terribad future in which democracy is suspended and he is the supreme tyrant
of the US while Ichabod is his prisoner. Equally Molly using her witness
abilities (she sees Jenny who does a ritual of finding your path – and Molly is
a prophet which is a convenient role for a child since it’s nicely behind the
scenes and out of combat).
I’m really trying not to make Trump comments here. Really
trying. Especially with Ichabod extorting how wonderful it would be if a leader
used social media to spread empowering messages
The monster of the week involves people catching a
disease and then bursting into flame. The first victim is a guy called Logan, a
social media celebrity who Molly is a big fan of – and it completely ruins the
fun and really cute outing Ichabod, Diana and Molly are having (trying to give
Molly some sense of morality after the revelation and actions of the last few
episodes)
Alex and Jake also see this with Alex’s tinder date
catching the same ominous burning disease – but at least the date was terrible
and over anyway (Jake was there for a bad date-rescue which wasn’t needed).
They follow this up and find the cause – a symbol people
read and when they do they catch the death burny flu. And it’s being spread by
social media which is terrifying
Ichabod has a cringeworthy moment which is ridiculous. Season 1, yes, he could have done something as ridiculous as ranting incoherently in the middle of a city. But now? Nah, he knows better than this
To the surprise of just about no-one, it turns out the
bury plague thing is another monster from the revolutionary war – really, did
any humans actually fight in this war? The monster is a djinn so we’re doing
the typical Sleepy Hollow think of
grabbing random monsters from foreign cultures, thrusting them inelegantly into
the Revolutionary War and ignoring all culture or context behind them
Speaking of – we also have a new dream team from way back
when set up by George Washington who were a special agency set up to fight
whatever and apparently no-one felt the need to mention them in the last 4
seasons for reasons. I mean, we spent half a season on Betsy Ross, but these
guys didn’t deserve a mention?
They were Paul Jennings (a
whitehouse slave – Ichabod calls him a servant and Jake excellently corrects
him), Davy Crockett, Samuel Wilson and Sacagawea. They formed an
early anti-supernatural super hero team and I’m leery. This show loves to name
drop and while it’s nice they took the chance this season to name drop people
other than the white folks of the time (though I still question how every
single person of note from the era could know about the supernatural and it be
so thoroughly forgotten) and that we have more historical and noteworthy POC’s
names being dropped – especially if they are names that are not well known. At
the same time building up a large false woo-woo history for POC which risks
rewriting what they actually did (unlike the notable white people mentioned who
don’t need to worry about what they did being forgotten or altered because of
how well known they were) or brushing quickly over the oppression and bigotry
they faced.
It has an extra problem of really putting the very
prejudiced founding fathers on a pedestal – the idea that Slave owning Washington
et al would embrace and respect POC to add them to these teams is, frankly,
dubious. It creates an idea that Washington et al were amazingly inclusive and
would have trusted POC with this vital role when it’s highly unlikely they
would have regarded any of these with anything resembling respect as human
beings.
I hope that Jake with his willingness to speak in and
over Ichabod (despite his hero worship) whenever Ichabod tries to gloss over
the racism of the time will help a lot with that. But I’m wary – this old timey
agency had 2 POC in it, I want to see how they are treated and referred to. I
think Jake’s intervention is far too little to counter the shiny impression of
the founders that Ichabod gives.
Especially since Ichabod has always been a walking
anachronism who has views highly divergent from the views he was likely to have
given his era and heroes
The djinn is, as well, treated as random fire monster.
Molly is infected by the disease and quickly leaves to
try and protect everyone – especially Jake – from her burning up. She leaves,
locking the door behind her and Jake is pretty devastated. We’re clearly
building a very strong bond between them
They follow the example of the agency before them and
decide to infect someone else and follow them to where the djinn is lying.
Ichabod volunteers but Jake has beat him to it because of this growing
connection between him and Alex
After that it’s a fairly standard monster masher – with
Ichabod apparently cluing enough to the modern age to actually electrocute the
djinn while everyone is saved and Alex and Jake reflect on their new closeness
Ichabod has angst though since he’s checked some
convenient belated messages and found he was expected to lead the old team
before the headless horseman hit: now he’s worried he may be leading people who
will die. As Diana points out, this is leadership
On the other leader side, wannabe dictator Malcolm has
achieved what he wanted: the whole plague was apparently a way to recruit
Logan, the social media celebrity, to his side for nefarious dark purposes. I
think Ichabod is getting an official team so so is Malcolm
