A Few More Thoughts on Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow)

Expect spoilers for the recent Sleepy Hollowseason 3 finale/excrement, as well as various Abbie-related spoilers from throughout the show’s run.

Nearly a week in, and I’m still dinged up from last week’s Sleepy Hollow a.k.a. The Night Those Bastards Killed My Abbie and Spit on Her Corpse.  In my post-finale venting, I mentioned that, at the very least, it’s in character for Abbie to sacrifice herself for others.  However, while I can’t deny that it’s a heroic trait, within the context of this show, I’ve also found it problematic.  Abbie has been poorly served by the writers in many ways, but this is the trait I want to look at today.

Abbie is totally a Jump in Front of the Bullet person, which we see bearing out nearly every time the show needs a big cliffhanger.  Season 1 ends with her taking Katrina’s place in Purgatory, she jumps into an unwelcoming past to save Crane from the (now-evil) Katrina at the end of season 2 (less self-sacrificial than the other incidents listed here, but still very self-risking,) and she does this twice in season 3, pushing Jenny out of the way and being sent to the Catacombs mid-season and ultimately being consumed by Pandora’s box in the in aid of defeating the Hidden One.  Throwing herself into the path of danger for others’ sake is just what Abbie does.  It’s weird to say this, like I’m arguing against an awesome woman being heroic and badass, but the accumulation of these moments troubles me.  Why is it always Abbie?  Why is she always the one to jump into the portal or fall on the supernatural grenade?  She and Crane as Witnesses are meant to be equal partners (and the disgusting season 3 finale tries to claim she was just a sidekick to the One True Crane,) but it seems like Abbie’s doing much of the heavy lifting.  She constantly gives of herself, whether in the general business of demon-fighting, helping Crane with his colossal family drama, or saving her partner in clinch situations, and while Crane speaks eloquently about their bond, Abbie’s actions tend to speak louder than his words.

This is especially evident in how these self-sacrifices shake out.  Obviously, the last one ends in Abbie’s horrendously-mishandled death, which I won’t rehash again, but let’s look at the others.  In Purgatory, Crane Moves Heaven and Earth to save Abbie, only to be sidelined by a doppelganger.  Abbie, however, figures this out and decapitates the imposter because she’s amazing.  Her time-travel experience is all about her saving Crane, so she’s understandably on-point there, and since past!Crane hasn’t met her yet, he can’t be faulted for not being Team Witness off the bat.  Eventually, though, Abbie wins him over; she’s been taken captive at this point, and he dashes off to rescue her, but Abbie totally rescues herself.  (I should point out that Crane is more helpful later, both in the past and the present.)  Finally, in the Catacombs, Crane Moves Heaven and Earth to save Abbie, except Pandora untethers his astral projection.  This leaves Abbie to be a Big Damn Hero, defy Pandora, and escape the Catacombs on her own before saving Crane, helping his astral self find its way home.  Now, Abbie is awesome through all of this, and again, I don’t wanna be all “why doesn’t the man come in and save her already?!?”, but it bugs me that Crane’s good intentions to come through never really pan out.  Something always gets in the way and Abbie always has to save herself.  While there’s of course nothing wrong with saving oneself, by the time I watched her escaping the Catacombs, I thought, “Does Abbie have to do everything around here?”  At this point, the woman has spent ten months in total isolation in another dimension, unbound by the time, sleep, or hunger, and terrified that she’s going crazy.  If that’s not the time for Crane to step in and take some of the load, when is?

Let’s Talk About Last Night’s Sleepy Hollow

Diving into spoilers in three, two, one…

Okay, I need a minute to vent about the horrific garbage that was Sleepy Hollow’s third-season finale.  I was just disgusted afterwards; I had to go run off some steam at the gym, and when that didn’t help, I had to get ice cream and watch Daredevil hit people for a while.  That helped a bit.

But honestly.  Honestly.  I can’t believe those dickwads killed Abbie.  I mean, I can believe it in the sense that the show practically sidelined her into oblivion last year, so they clearly don’t understand a good thing when it’s being an awesome BAMF right in front of their faces, but I just can’t believe it.  What on God’s green earth were they thinking?  How is it that they still don’t get that the Witnesses are what make this show?  Witnesses, plural.  Crane is great, but the show is Crane and Abbie, plain and simple.  Accept no substitutes.

I hate that she’s killed in the first half of the episode and no one even realizes it’s happening.  Everyone thinks she’s just transported somewhere (not unprecedented for her) and they can get her back.  And when the bomb drops, it’s in the midst of so much craziness, there’s just… It’s awful.  You can’t do Abbie like that.  It’s not right.  I hate the bull they try to pull at the end of the episode about the whole “Eternal Soul” thing, the idea that Abbie’s spirit will be uploaded into a new Witness for the hypothetical season 4 and it’ll be just as good and you’ll never notice the difference.  I hate that Crane and Abbie seemed to be moving toward something that will never happen now.  Yes, I shipped them, but I’m not saying I needed a sex scene or a passionate kiss or a grand declaration of love.  But something, something more than we got.  And not just because I’d have liked to see them together.  Because Abbie was so amazing, and I needed someone to say that in no uncertain terms.  Finally, as lovely as the scenes between her and Crane are when he’s momentarily caught in that in-between place with her, I really hate that she says she’s “done” because she’s taken Crane as far as she can.  The whole point of the Witnesses is that they’re two equal partners and both are vitally needed to combat the coming apocalypse.  To kill her off for nothingand then suggest that her life was all about facilitating Crane’s journey is so gross and reductive and stupid, not worth the dirt on Abbie’s shoes.

Let me try to bring a few modicums of fairness into the conversation.  First, Nicole Beharie apparently wanted to leave the show – and given Abbie’s treatment in season 2, I can understand why – so it’s not like she was thrown under the bus for Teh Drama!!!  Second, it’s hugely in character for Abbie to sacrifice herself to protect others.  It’s not really a season-ender without Abbie leaping into the path of danger on someone else’s behalf, but she’s always come back, and it sucks so hard that she won’t this time.

In the event that the show is renewed for a fourth season, I think I might be out.  And look, I watched all of Dexter.  I stuck it out with How I Met Your Mother until the bitter, bitter end.  I do not quit shows easily, and this would be a huge bummer, because I still love Crane and Jenny’s still wonderful.  But what would be the point?  Abbie was what got me into the show, and Crane and Abbie are what made me stay.  They’re what kept me hanging in there even when things went south, and whether I’ve rooted for them as friends or lovers, they’re the beating heart of the series.  Without Abbie, it’s just… I can’t begin to imagine what they were thinking.

Relationship Spotlight: Jenny & Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow)

Oh, how I love the Mills sisters.  The Crane-Abbie partnership is probably the show’s best-known quality, and rightfully so, but there’s so much great material to dig into where Abbie and Jenny are concerned.  It’s been fantastic to watch how their relationship has grown and deepened over the series, and I’m eager to see where they go in the future.

Any discussion of Abbie and Jenny has to start with their childhoods.  The fissure that’s colored their relationship formed on the day the two girls saw a demon in the woods.  When the missing sisters were brought to the police and asked to explain their unaccounted hours, Abbie was adamant that they keep mum.  Separated from their mother, bounced around the system, and finally in a decent foster home, she was afraid that two disadvantaged black girls spouting stories about demons would be wanted even less than they currently were, and she didn’t want them to lose their living situation or, worse yet, get split up.  Jenny, however, couldn’t tell anything but the truth, and her bid for Abbie to back up her claims went unanswered.

This is the moment they veered off.  While Abbie has some reckless years before being taken under the wing of a caring mentor and getting her act together, Jenny has a much harder time coming back from their experiences.  She presses against the bounds of the law, the bounds the society’s definition of sanity, the bounds of what most people would call reality.  Her time between incarcerations (criminal, mental health, or both) is spent dangerously while Abbie slowly gains respect as a police lieutenant.

Even though the actions of both sisters in that moment were understandable – impulsive, earnest Jenny doesn’t want to lie, and shrewd, protective Abbie is looking at the big-picture implications – it leads to such a divide, such hurt, between them.  Jenny blames Abbie for leaving her to be branded a liar and lunatic, for turning her back as Jenny gets lost in her precarious life.  Meanwhile, there’s a part of Abbie that wants to reach out to her sister, but she feels so responsible for the way Jenny’s life has turned out that her guilt overwhelms her.  Of course, any attempts to help on her part are met by Jenny’s resistance anyway, a square-shouldered dismissal that Abbie’s never cared about Jenny’s well-being before, so why should she start now?

That’s the messy backdrop against which the two women are brought back into each other’s lives.  Much of Jenny’s violent or illegal activities in the intervening years have been embroiled in the good vs. evil battle that Abbie and Crane now fight, and they need allies where they can find them.  Jenny’s skills, knowledge, and fortitude are vital, but bringing her back into the fold isn’t easy.  Aside from all the massive issues mentioned above, there’s Abbie’s status as a prophesied witness and Jenny’s belief that it’s undeserved.  Why not her, the sister who told the truth and took a stand against evil from the start?  The one who didn’t abandon those she cares about or deny the evidence before her eyes?  It’s so complicated and tangled, and though they’ve come a long way, it’s definitely been a two-steps-forward-one-step-back situation.  I lovewatching them work through all this baggage – the genuine hurt, the guilt, the misperceptions – and slowly coming together on the same path again.  For so long, they’ve been the good one and the bad one, the officer and the criminal, the cynic and the believer, the mentee and the loner, the stable one and the crazy one, and it’s incredible to see both women start to throw off these labels and recognize one another as their true, more in-between selves.

Favorite Characters: Oz (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a fan of the whole Witches in Love thing, and in its day, Willow/Tara offered critical representation that was sorely lacking on most of TV.  Liking that relationship, however, doesn’t mean I can’t also love Willow’s first squeeze, a certain taciturn guitar player.  (Some spoilers for Oz-related plots in seasons 2-4.)

Oz is, like a number of characters I’ve highlighted on the blog, privileged by his supporting player status.  He doesn’t get weighed down much by high drama elsewhere in the plot, and that helps him to avoid the nearly inevitable pitfalls of being a major character in a genre series:  temporary “dark” arcs, story-demanded bone-headedness, and general moral failings.  TV shows need conflict, of course, and I love me some flawed characters, but shouldering so much of that conflict means they more frequently wind up doing things that make me want to smack them.  If Oz is easy to love, it’s in part because the story rarely has him making those kinds of mistakes.

Instead, he’s mostly just fun and awesome.  He’s an effortless “cool kid” in a band, but when I say effortless, I literally mean “without effort.”  He doesn’t try to be cool and makes no attempt to be as socially desirable as he is.  He’s utterly mellow, with a laconic unflappability that aggravates higher-strung characters like Xander.  After seeing Buffy stake a vampire for the first time and being unceremoniously informed that Sunnydale is overrun with demons, he simply replies, “It explains a lot.”  His nonchalant brevity is a regular source of humor in the face of apocalyptic catastrophe, and his quiet confidence is always present but never insists upon itself.

One of his greatest qualities is, of course, his love for Willow.  Like many fans, I was wholly won over by sweet, shy, nerdy Willow in season 1 and wanted better for her than an unrequited crush on a mostly tone-deaf Xander.  So, when Oz comes along and is instantly captivated with her (dressed as an Eskimo in a party filled with skimpily-costumed girls – sweetest meet-cute ever, and they don’t even meet in that scene,) he immediately scores some major fandom points.  After a slow-burn start, Willow/Oz is a relationship that’s mostly left to its own devices in season 2.  While everyone else is swinging from one extreme to another and physically going to hell, Willow and Oz pretty much get to be fun and cute, with her being all bubbly and adorable about having a boyfriend and him being everything she needs to go “Xander who?”  Even their biggest roadblock that season, the revelation that Oz is a werewolf, is pretty easily dealt with once it’s out in the open.

I really like the plots we get about Oz’s lycanthropy (well, I’m not crazy about the season 4 unpleasantness, but the fact that he’s a werewolf isn’t what makes that storyline unpleasant.)  Given how chill Oz is as a human, and how gentle and loving he is with Willow, it’s an even greater contrast to see him transform into a snarling monster.  It’s one of the only things that can really freak him out.  Although he gets into the routine of locking himself up before the full moon and almost never talks about it, his worst fear is of the wolf breaking out and hurting someone, especially Willow or one of his friends.  When he frantically pores over the newspaper the morning after escaping  his cage or when, his senses disrupted by a malevolent demon, he leaves his friends and desperately pleads with himself not to change, we see a fuller character than Willow’s boyfriend or a foil for Xander.  They’re stories about Oz and, as such, offer a glimpse into everything he doesn’t talk about.

Favorite Characters: Ichabod Crane (Sleepy Hollow)

 

Last time it was Abbie, and today it’s a closer look at the other member of Team Witness.  All the way from 1781, it’s Ichabod Crane!

 

As with Abbie, I liked Crane pretty much immediately in the show’s pilot.  After the 18^th century prologue, Crane awakes in the present day and, as he’s interrogated by the police, adopts an instantly self-assured attitude.  He demands to speak with the local magistrate, comments on Abbie’s apparent “emancipation,” and speaks confidently about his encounter with the horseman.  There’s no “You wouldn’t believe me!” hemming and hawing, no “I know it sounds crazy!” apologies – he merely reports the facts as he knows them and turns up his nose at the officers who question his sanity.

 

A layered, thoughtful characterization follows this first impression.  I really like that, while Crane is cast in more of the “believer” role to Abbie’s “cynic,” he’s not painted as some ignorant fellow from the past who unquestioningly accepts all manner of superstitions.  On the contrary, Crane is highly educated and knowledgeable.  He acknowledges that this world of demons, witches, and magic is just as incredible to him as it is to Abbie, but he’s accepted the truth of it because of his personal experiences.  Now, he devotes his education and intelligence to researching the supernatural and displays courage and cunning in fighting the good fight.  (He also makes it clear that ideas like racial equality or sexual diversity didn’t spring to life fully formed out of the modern age.  Not that it doesn’t surprise him to see Abbie working as a police officer, for example, but he’s no old-timey backwater bigot.)

 

Of course, being from the 1700s means Crane also provides us with plenty of fish-out-of-water humor.  He takes to some aspects of the 21^st century, like trash-talking umpires at baseball games and driving, with gusto, while the appeal of other things, like yoga and skinny jeans, eludes him.  He’s forever perplexed by what Abbie and her contemporaries do or don’t know about prominent figures from his era – he criticizes the label on a Sam Adams bottle because the aristocratic Adams would’ve never been so coarse as to roll up his sleeves, and it rankles him that a blowhard like Benjamin Franklin is so well-regarded.  Sometimes, however, Abbie’s 18^th-century knowledge goes beyond his; there’s a great montage of his outraged reactions to hearing her “slander” about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.  And aside from his general exposure to modern life, I love the 18^th-century mindset with which he approaches it.  His voicemail is composed as a formal missive complete with a salutation, and I never get tired of his shock and disgust at our levels of taxation.  Why haven’t the people taken to the streets, indeed.

 

All of this is funny, obviously, but I also like what it tells us about Crane himself.  He’s a self-assured man who’s used to knowing everything (the eidetic memory doesn’t hurt,) and it frustrates him to feel behind the times.  He still hasn’t gotten the hang of the Internet and handles Abbie’s computer a bit like it’s a bomb, and Abbie sometimes teases him when he refuses to admit he doesn’t know what she’s talking about.  At the same time, though, he puts a lot of effort into learning about the customs and conventions of his new home.  Despite the overwhelming amount of new information, technology, and popular entertainment out there, he dutifully chips away at it whenever he’s not being attacked by monsters from assorted circles of hell.  A tall order, but he’s up to the challenge.

Favorite Characters: Lt. Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow)

 

Abbie could’ve easily been a nothing character.  A small-town police officer, she’s mundane compared to Ichabod Crane the time-displaced Revolutionary War soldier.  Since she’s more reluctant than Crane to believe all this headless horseman business, there’s a tendency to automatically label her the Scully of the pair, an important but often thankless role.  And yet, she’s awesome.  Seriously – I’m a grown woman, and when I watch Sleepy Hollow, my brain keeps saying, “I want to be Abbie when I grow up.”

 

First of all, as you get to know her, you see there’s nothing mundane about Abbie.  At the outset of the series, she’s preparing to leave Sleepy Hollow for Quantico; clearly, she’s no flatfoot.  Her early actions show her to be driven, curious, perceptive, warm, and tough (and no, those last two aren’t mutually exclusive.)  And while Crane obviously has more extensive experience with the supernatural, Abbie’s life hasn’t been untouched by the freaky and inexplicable:  back in junior high, she and her sister blacked out after seeing a demon in the woods.  It’s an event that had a profound effect on her life, and she spent a long time getting in trouble as she tried to bury it. 

 

So, though she’s skeptical about horsemen of the apocalypse, warring covens, and Crane being from the 18^th century, her newfound partner doesn’t have to drag her kicking and screaming into the brave new world.  Her rationalizations, excuses, and comments about Crane being certifiable dry up fairly quickly.  Granted, she still makes plenty of “you’ve gotta be kidding me” remarks, but it’s more about acknowledging how bizarre her life has become than remaining willfully ignorant in the face of blatant evidence.

 

As she starts to believe, it’s in a hesitant but inevitable way; her head wants to tell her these things can’t be true, but she also can’t deny the things she’s seen.  This is a major adjustment, of course, especially since she tried so hard to put her encounter in the woods behind her, but Abbie steps up like a pro.  Before long, it’s second nature to scour scriptural passages or centuries-old legends for vital information.  She stands her ground against spirits, witches, and demons, and she accepts that “impossible” is a word that no longer has a place in her life.

 

Also, she’s hardcore amazing.  The woman has nerves of steel and a real hero’s heart, she’s a shrewd tactician and a dogged researcher, and she can more than hold her own in a fight.  She’ll put herself in danger for the greater good, she goes to extreme lengths to help those she cares about, and she displays tremendous strength and grace when confronting her fears.  She’s an honest cop who prefers to keep everything above board, but she’s not such a stickler that she won’t step outside the lines when she has to.  Plus, she has a fun sense of humor and enjoys teasing Crane during her frequent crash courses for him on 21^st-century living.

 

On a side note, I find it interesting that several characters have expressed romantic interest in Abbie but, apart from awkward conversations with an ex-boyfriend coworker, she’s basically untouched by it all.  Her focus is on the mission and her friendship/partnership with Crane, and I never get the sense that she’s a) angsting about being “unable” to pursue a romantic relationship because she’s trying to combat the apocalypse, or b) secretly pining for the unavailable Crane.  I like that romance isn’t a big part of her storyline and that lack of romance isn’t, either – no one’s running around making constant comments about her being unattached.  It’s so refreshing.

Sleepy Hollow (2013-Present)

 

I initially narrowed my eyes at this show.  From the promos, I got the impression that it was a supernatural procedural with an out-of-time hook and a bit of literary crossover – and really, now that I see it in print, I don’t know why I wasn’t all over that, but for whatever reason, it didn’t grab me.  It wasn’t until I found out the series featured the always-great John Cho and began hearing tremendous things about its female lead that I decided to give Sleepy Hollow a chance.

 

And boy, am I glad I did.  Its first season isn’t without its growing pains, and it sometimes mistakes “implausibly coincidental” for “mind-blowingly fated,” but overall, it’s a smart, engaging thriller/mystery with fantastic character work and some superb acting.  It has an unexpectedly fun sense of humor, it strikes a good balance between monster-of-the-week plots and more arc-based storytelling, and I like the way the show has one foot in the present while keeping the other firmly rooted in the past.

 

Quick rundown of the premise (be warned, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s actually awesome) – in the 1700s, Ichabod Crane defects from his British brethren and joins the Americans in the Revolution.  However, more than liberty is at stake in the war, and Crane discovers its fantastical undertones when he receives a fatal wound from the Hessian horseman whom he’s just decapitated.  This secret battle continues long after U.S. independence, and Crane’s part in it is far from over; thanks to his wife, a witch fighting for the good guys, he finds himself resurrected in the 21^st century.  His new lease on life goes hand-in-hand with the horseman riding once again in Sleepy Hollow, and Crane sets out to stop his headless foe’s deadly extracurricular activities.

 

As it happens, the horseman is noteworthy not just for his missing head, but for being one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.  So naturally, he’s keen to do what harbingers do best and usher in the end of days.  All manner of otherworldly beasties are on his side, but luckily for Crane, Lt. Abbie Mills is on his.  Abbie is a young police officer who’s forced to adapt quickly to the idea that demonic forces plague her town, and together, she and Crane constitute the two Witnesses from the book of Revelations.  In other words, it’s up to them to wage war against the horseman and his buddies going bump in the night.  Though neither of them have signed up for this responsibility, they take to it courageously and capably.

 

What can I say?  Crane and Abbie are both wonderfully-written characters played to perfection by Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie.  The relationship between these two strong, intelligent, layered people forms the excellent core of the series.  The show nicely juggles large, earth-shattering plots full of action with deft character interactions and more emotional stories, and the fish-out-of-water comedy arising from Crane’s time displacement is a constant delight that always knows when to defuse the tension.  Plus, there’s the show’s matter-of-fact inclusion:  in addition to Abbie being an amazing black female lead in a genre series(!), Sleepy Hollow features many actors of color, including Orlando Jones and the aforementioned John Cho, and one recurring character has a disability that plays a part in her storyline but doesn’t consume it.

 

Warnings

 

Supernatural violence (including some gore,) swearing, some drinking, and general scariness.