Tag Archives: Abbie
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“Sleepy Hollow” Post-Mortem: The Death of Abbie and the Painful Erasure of Black Women

By on Saturday, April 9, 2016

The formulation of this post started at some point between this tweet:

And this tweet:

with some final conclusions coming in at around these tweets:

Indeed, several TV critics on Twitter were aghast at what happened:

And several online recaps had the same theme throughout the post: If Abbie and Nicole Beharie are gone, then what’s the point of even watching the show? Just as important: Why on God’s green earth would the writing team as a whole (including the showrunner) go out of their way to lead the fanbase on and act like they were going to give the fanbase what they wanted (which is a final say-so on #Ichabbie) just to turn around and destroy the only thing that made the show worth watching? To quote Vulture’s Rose Maura Lorre, “The latter statements [of Pandora stating in her dying breaths that Ichabod loves Abbie] lead me to believe that, intentional or not, this show’s careless disregaard of its Ichabbie ‘shippers has been fucked up. Make them just-friends or make them more-than-friends, but have a conversation about it and stick to your decision. Don’t keep stringing the ‘shippers along with your hand-kissing and your ‘be still my beating heart’ (which no person has ever said platonically) while you know Abbie’s imminent fate full well.” And as The A.V. Club’s Zack Handlen wrote, “I’m not sure if there were behind-the-scenes issues we are privy to, but Beharie’s a crucial element of the series. Tom Mison is a fine actor, but without the two of them together, what’s the damn point?”

The chemistry between the two leads, Tom Mison and Beharie, was the only thing that kept mostly everyone tuned in. (I say most, because somehow, there are folks out there who think Sleepy Hollow is just Ichabod’s story of time travel. When was he the only lead on this show? I have a lot more to say about this later on in this post.) Sure, the creative elements that made up the show, like the lighting, the set design, the creature makeup and stuntwork, and the time travel/Christian apocalypse madness were amazing and really gave the show its creepy edge. But the glue that stuck all of those disparate parts together were the grounding forces provided by Ichabod and Abbie. Without one or both of them, the show’s just a bunch of junk, to be quite honest about it. So I ask again: Without Abbie, what the f*ck is the point of watching a fourth season?! 

I don’t even like using coarse language, but how else am I supposed to get this point across? How much more plainly can I say it? Abbie was the show. Even Mison would agree to that, I’m sure, since he was never without a kind word to say about working with Beharie and being able to share the same breathing air as her. Mison has always stuck up for Beharie and looking back on it, it makes a lot of sense as to why neither Mison nor Beharie have done a lot of press for this season. It’s slowly come out that Beharie was deeply unhappy during S2 and wanted out of her contract, and I don’t blame her for wanting to leave, because as I’ve written before, Abbie was made to be a house slave for Witchy White Feminist Katrina.  As far as Mison is concerned, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Mison eventually leaves as well. If someone decides to interview Mison about his thoughts on everything, I betcha he’ll reveal his true emotions over this, just like how he did with Ichabod fawning over Katrina in S2. (To paraphrase him from an earlier interview, he had a serious disagreement with the writers about how Ichabod was acting out of character. We already know how he felt about Katrina from some of his DVD commentary, in which he shades Katrina for only being able to lift a stick even though she was supposed to be a powerful witch.)

I could just go on rambling, but I’m going to use my favorite writing tools—bullets—to boil down my points into easy-to-follow chunks.

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Monique’s “Sleepy Hollow” Recaps Now Exclusively at Black Girl Nerds

By on Tuesday, February 9, 2016

If you remember a few months ago, I talked about some remodeling I was doing to the site. You can read about it at length here, but one of the changes was no more focus on recaps. The only recap I wrote I’d continue was Sleepy Hollow, and that those recaps would be exclusively for the Black Girl Nerds community. In case you are new to the site and heard about me and my recaps and are surprised not to see any new recaps here, just head over to Black Girl Nerds to read what I’ve got to say!

The latest recap is of the midseason premiere, and I have a lot to say about everything that went down, including Ichabod basically proposing to Abbie without Abbie even being in most of the episode. Here’s a snippet:

I had been waiting to see Ichabod finally be beside himself with grief, and I got what I was looking for. Ichabod has finally let go of some of his decorum and is now outwardly showing his feelings for Abbie. Well, by “outward,” I mean telling wedding vows he usually reserves only for talks with Abbie to someone else. It’s probably because Foster indirectly reminds Ichabod of Abbie that he was able to say how he actually feels about Abbie, and it could also be because Foster’s a stranger; I still think he’d have enough decorum to not blurt this private talk to Jenny. But the fact that he’s willing to confess to someone else that he truly believes Abbie is his better half, the person that makes him better just by being in his life, means he’s got a more complete handle on what his feelings for her are. Sometimes the person you love has to go away in order for you to realize what they mean to you, and even though Ichabod has generally shown how much he appreciates Abbie, this seems like the first time he’s realized exactly how important she is to him. It’ll be highly interesting to see how he acts when they finally get back together[.]

…Their relationship down the road will get really, really fascinating, seeing how he still hasn’t broken up with Zoe. We completely forgot about Zoe in this episode. That says a lot about her character. (Full admission: I had to go back and edit this article to write “Zoe” instead of “Caroline.” That shows just how much I forgot about Zoe and how much of an impact Caroline made. She’s still effective, and she’s been dead since Season 2. We still miss you, Caroline! Zoe’s an evil replacement!)

Read the rest at Black Girl Nerds, and make sure to catch me and Black Girl Nerds’ Jamie Broadnax on the Sleepy Addicts’ Hollow Hangout event this Friday, Feb. 9, at 9 p.m. ET, right after the airing of the latest Sleepy Hollow episode!

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“Sleepy Hollow”: Concerning Abbie’s Validity

By on Tuesday, October 27, 2015

In my last Sleepy Hollow recap, I wrote this small passage:

[W]hat I do know is that the whole situation and my look at the Twitterings online about Betsy Ross (whom I’m getting to) made me think about why we want Abbie to get with Ichabod in the first place. I mean, I get the argument that black women need to be at the center of main-tier relationships in TV shows. That’s a completely valid thing and I get behind that so don’t misunderstand me. BUT, is there a dangerous element of wanting a black woman to be “validated” as it were, by the white male gaze, after centuries of being denied and/or wrongfully exoticized by it? I’ll write more on this in the coming days, but I just want to throw that out there, because sometimes, certain discussions about Ichabbie makes me slightly uncomfortable, to be frank, and because Danabbie is still a very real possibility as well. If Ichabod can have his woman for the moment, then Abbie can certainly have Danny for a moment as well.

I wrote I’d have an article about it, and here it is.

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"Sleepy Hollow" recap: "Tempus Fugit"

By on Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Grace Dixon, in her infinite wisdom, said, “Sometimes, all it takes is to put pen to paper to make a difference.” I feel like whoever wrote this line wrote it with their tongue in their cheek.

There have been all sorts of things happening this season of Sleepy Hollow because someone put their pen to paper, but while there have been a lot of good, there’s been a heck of a lot of bad, chief among them Katrina and Henry weighing down Ichabod’s storyline. But while “Kali Yuga” got rid of Hawley and “Awakening” saw the death of Henry, “Tempus Fugit” rights the last wrong left standing—Katrina. This difference is one that can be felt like a wave throughout the Sleepy Hollow fandom. I’m still in shock that the writing staff actually did it.

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"Sleepy Hollow": The Lesson Fox Learned about Viewers' Love for Diversity on TV

By on Monday, February 23, 2015

I’ve been following Sleepy Hollow since the beginning (from my first website, Moniqueblog.net), so I’ve followed the fans ups and downs, whether it came to the first Ichabbie hug or when Katrina finally got out of Purgatory. I’ve loved seeing what meta critiques the fans have, and, to be fair, I’ve tried to do my part to stop needless worry about upcoming storylines, whether I helped or not. To say the least, my relationship with the fandom has become as layered as a relationship with fandom can become. Today, I’m writing this piece to give the Sleepy Hollow fandom the props they deserve.

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"Sleepy Hollow": Four Storylines to Use in Season Three (and Two That Need Wrapping Up)

By on Thursday, February 19, 2015

I’m still in the belief that Sleepy Hollow will be renewed for a third season (probably with some changes which can be read about here and here). Because I believe it’s coming, there are some storylines I hope the writers use. These storylines will not only keep the show focused, but it’ll also make the viewers really happy (I think so, anyway). Let’s take a look.

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"Sleepy Hollow" recap: "Awakening"

By on Tuesday, February 17, 2015

WHAT AN EPISODE. Also, it’s a strange (and, in many ways, fitting) to go into this episode, “Awakening,” with an already heated mindset from watching The Book of Negroes, since Abbie gets sent back to that time period. At the very least, we can hang our hats on the fact that Sleepy Hollow is on standard television and also is not a faithful rendering of the horrors of the 18th century, so we won’t see Abbie beaten or worse. But Abbie just being back in the 18th century is trying enough on the nerves, not to mention the worry of how she’ll convince 18th century Ichabod that she’s trustworthy.

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