Sleepy Hollow: “Paradise Lost” Review

After a pretty bad midseason finale, I was hoping the midseason premiere would come back and the show would be stronger than ever. While that didn’t exactly happen, Sleepy Hollow did come back with some interesting surprises.

Incredibly undead spoilers below.

We get a quick little recap of the events of last episode—Henry’s avatar killed Irving, then Henry killed Moloch—before jumping straight into a six-week timeskip. Katrina and Ichabod are living separately, Abbie and Jenny seem to be getting on better, Hawley still exists, and Katrina is guarding Headless Abraham, which means there was some terrible decision-making by everyone at some point. In fact, as it turns out, Katrina wants to see if she can separate Abraham from the avatar of Death. She feels guilty that her and Ichabod’s love “drove” him to his state, which, no, she needs to realize that he was a grown-ass man who made his own grown-ass choices. Ichabod is a little swayed by his estranged wife, but Abbie remains resolute: the Headless Horseman should be killed, and Abraham with him, as soon as they figure out how.

Our Witnesses are joined in their mission by Orion, a real angel with real wings, who thinks that he and Abbie understand each other perfectly and offers to kill the Horseman with his halo-ish weapon. Just in the brink of time, Ichabod finds out Orion’s history and Orion tells Abbie he intends to not only kill the Horseman, but also absorb his powers, so that he will be able to judge the people on Earth a little quicker than he usually would. Abbie and Ichabod, acting in perfect sync with each other, manage to defeat Orion and save Abraham, and Orion flaps off to probably come back in another episode.

Oh, and then the recently deceased Captain Frank Irving appears barefoot in a Sleepy Hollow convenience store and steals some milk and sandwiches.

Yessssss.

Save for the last scene, the episode was pretty laid back and dealt with the psychological aftermath of the midseason finale, rather than more plotful issues. Abbie and Ichabod both wonder what they should, or can, do, now that they are no longer soldiers in the war against Moloch. Although that philosophical debate has to take a backseat to more Crane family drama and Orion, it’s the first glimpse we’ve gotten of an “after” for our protagonists. Katrina and Ichabod also made some advances in their relationship, agreeing that they should probably put some effort into communication if they want to “redefine” their marriage.

When Orion appeared, did anyone else instantly think Castiel from Supernatural? He even appeared in a barn!

I’m glad Orion isn’t our ally, because that would be too close to Supernatural, but I also don’t particularly want him to be our next big bad. For one, what would that mean for Henry? He can’t just up and disappear into thin air, even if Headless seems to be getting the brunt of the Crane family drama. And for a time, Orion seemed like he would make an interesting addition to the team—Abbie actually asked him questions about religion, the afterlife, and God’s general person, which is something the Winchesters never did. (I was especially stoked when Orion said the concept of gender doesn’t apply to God!) Even though Orion’s black-and-white view of the world proved to be too much for Team Witness, keeping Orion would certainly add something to the show. If the writers wanted to get real with things, Team Witness going against Orion and Moloch/Henry would place them firmly in the middle of the morality spectrum: perhaps their roles were defined by the Bible, but they are not its servants. I’m cautiously interested in seeing how this will unfold.

Finally, as much as I love Irving being back… we had better have a good explanation as to why, especially given the extremely public funeral they had for him. Did they bury his body and then did his soul somehow escape from Purgatory, gain physical form, and wander back to Sleepy Hollow? If there was no body, wouldn’t Irving’s family and Abbie have searched for him? Answer my questions, Orlando Jones!

Since Irving is back, though, and Henry appears to be missing, I hope this means that Irving will get much more to do in this half of the season than he did in the first half. He’s out of Tarrytown now, and whether or not his soul is still bound to Henry, he can definitely do more when not trapped in a poorly-depicted asylum. Hawley and Jenny, too, got more screentime (and more implied romance)—Hawley continues to be a treasure trove of weird magical objects and not much more, but if the writers have to keep shoving him on us, at least Jenny is there to temper his usual Hawley-ness. So it’s not all bad. Now, if the writers would only give us a reason to care about Katrina and Abraham. Maybe next episode.

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