SLEEPY HOLLOW Review: Sisters and Dentists and Monsters

A Tricky Balance

Last week’s episode pulled off Sleepy Hollow’s greatest trick, when it’s working: balancing the scary and the poignant and the funny and the flashbacks. To quote Crane quoting Paul Revere, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This week seemed to lurch about from the farcical to the serious and back again. The Sisters Mills scenes were lovely, as we saw them talk about their past and what the sister bond really means. But Crane was back to being mostly comic relief here, and much of it seemed out of character and over the top for this show. In the scene at the dentist – Ichabod Crane’s version of “David After the Dentist” – Tom Mison is comic gold and it’s absolute fun to watch him play a loopy Ichabod. Especially his bitmoji of him astride an eagle – the show going meta again, as Ichabod sees for himself how adorable his fan art is. But it would have worked better if it stood in contrast to the usual, dignified Crane in the rest of the episode. Also, in that opening scene at home, Ichabod has somehow become a sitcom cliché: the man-child who needs a wife to whip him into shape.

Next week is the Bones crossover, which looks to be good fun, so let’s hope the balance is back. The mix of Jenny, Joe, Abbie and Crane is still working. Pandora is somehow more mysterious even as she reveals more of her herself. And clearly there is much more to be learned about Corbin and Papa Mills.