Episode Title: “Vessel”
Story by: Mark Goffman & David McMillan
Teleplay by: Melissa Blake
Director: Romeo Tirone
“Sleepy Hollow” has been one of the few fall shows to breakout from the pack and draw in a sizable audience. There are a lot of people who really love this show. However, I’m not one of them.
But I want to love the show, or at least like it consistently. “Sleepy Hollow” has shown significant signs of improvement over the course of the season. Yet the same problems keep creeping back into focus. Very few of the main cast members seem to be able to keep up with Tom Mison, most of the monsters fail to register as true threats to the characters and “Sleepy Hollow” has absolutely no subtlety. When the writers want to make a point or get something across, they do so with some of the most banal exposition on TV. The show’s creative team seems to have very little trust in the audience’s ability to follow even the basic beats of the story.
The biggest example of that lack of trust is the relationship between Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) and her sister, Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood). As foil for Ichabod Crane, Abbie is terrific and she’s had some strong moments on her own. Likewise, Jenny has emerged as an engaging character in her own right. But when the sisters are paired together, there’s something insincere about their interactions. And both sisters tend to say exactly what they’re feeling for each other to the point of tedium. It’s bad dialogue that’s being used to deliver an ungodly amount of exposition.
I don’t think that Beharie or Greenwood are the problem here. This is strictly down to the writers of “Sleepy Hollow.” To the creative team’s credit, some of the new developments in Abbie and Jenny’s relationship unveiled in “Vessel” actually make sense in the context of everything that we’ve seen before and they even added a few different shades to their interactions. Jenny hasn’t been keeping her distance (emotionally and physically) from Abbie because she hates her. She was trying to protect Abbie from a threat that she didn’t believe in until recently.
“Vessel” also upped the personal stakes for Captain Frank Irving (Orlando Jones), as the body-hopping demon made good on its threat to come after his daughter, Macey (Amandla Stenberg). And the demon in question just happened to be the same one that possessed Jenny years before, giving her a personal stake in this episode as well.
There are full spoilers ahead for “Vessel,” so if you missed last night’s episode of “Sleepy Hollow” then you should probably skip this review or else you’ll have to play twister with the demon Macey.
As a demon, Macey actually become one of the more memorable villains this season. I loved the makeup effects on Macey’s face and body, but Stenberg’s performance as the demon was also impressive. Prior to her possession, Macey seemed to be a little one note with her overly positive outlook on life and her cheery disposition.
However, that’s one more note than Macey’s mother, Cynthia (Jill Marie Jones) had. Despite physically being present, Cynthia seemed to have no personality outside of her relationship with Irving and Macey. Cynthia wasn’t even very convincing when feared for her daughter’s life. In true “Sleepy Hollow” fashion, Cynthia also spells out Irving’s attempts to “fix” Macey; which he parrots later in the episode just in case the audience didn’t understand the point the first time. Imagine how that scene could have played without Cynthia’s dialogue steamrolling over the point in the earlier sequence. Again, it’s that lack of trust for the audience rearing its ugly, headless body.
The writers wisely chose not to have Cynthia miss Macey’s supernatural possession. Without his ex-wife to back him up, Irving would have looked pretty crazy to everyone but Team Crane. As it is, a squad room full of police officers saw Irving draw his weapon on another cop for seemingly no reason. But I doubt there will be any lasting repercussions from that. Although it would have been a nice touch if Luke Morales (Nicholas Gonzalez) had remembered his possession and the fact that a demon used him to kill one of his fellow officers. If Morales pops up in the next two episodes without having been profoundly changed by his ordeal than he will regain his title as the most useless character on this show.
Prior to Macey’s possession, Abbie and Crane discover an old video of the late Sheriff August Corbin (welcome back, Clancy Brown!) attempting to free Jenny during a time in which the same demon possessed her. It’s always good to see Brown back on this show, although his return was all too brief.
Jenny’s fear of the demon who possessed her gave the episode a chance to strengthen the bond between Crane and Jenny, as well as the one between Jenny and Abbie. I have a very strong suspicion that the writers did this for a reason. They’re trying to make the audience get emotionally attached to Jenny before they realize that she’s expendable. In many ways, Jenny is the only character who is expendable within Crane’s inner circle. Crane, Abbie and Irving are portrayed by three of the four regular cast members. Guess who that leaves out?
I don’t have foreknowledge of what’s coming up in next week’s season finale. It just seems like Jenny’s time is winding down on this show. “Sleepy Hollow” needs to close out its inaugural season with a bang and that usually means a major character death.
On the lighter side, the opening scene of the episode addressed Crane’s discomfort with modern clothing and his preference for the clothes he was wearing when he was buried. The comedy seemed forced compared to the truly hilarious “man out of time” scenes with Crane from earlier in the season. Mison is really talented and he’s often able to come up with comedic gold. But this time, even he couldn’t bring the laughs.
However, Crane was quite funny as he attempted to talk down some gun-welding end-of-days survivalists by convincing them that he fully bought into their worldview because they were right all along. Crane and Abbie’s escape from that situation was a little Jenny ex Machina, but I don’t think they will have her around for much longer.
As a set up episode for the two hour season finale, “Vessel” was better than it had to be. The gears of the story are moving into place and there’s a good chance that the final two episodes of the season can bring the sometimes disparate elements of “Sleepy Hollow” together for a strong conclusion. At least that’s what I’d like to see.
