So I got to see the new “Sleepy Hollow” pilot and GUYS.
GUYS.
LISTEN GUYS.
It’s so fucking great I can’t even tell you, but one thing the trailer doesn’t do justice to is the overall tone of the show: this is definitely much more horror than anything, and there’s a lot of emphasis on the kind of, “we few, we brave few standing for the light against the hideous dark” type of rhetoric that is my JAM, I can’t even tell you. Plus, I’ve never screamed like a girl out of sheer bowl-twisting terror before watching a TV show, but now I definitely can say that cherry has been popped. So to speak. It starts out kind of supernaturally (not as in SPN, but like, the word “supernatural.” Goddammit another reason to hate that show), but then pretty quickly goes from that to an odd apocalyptic tone, and then to the horror which I hope it will keep, since that was where the show was strongest. Four white trees have never scared me as much as they did in that pilot.
And for people out there who actually think that having an African-American woman as a lead is somehow tokenism: a) you’re an idiot, and b) Abbie Archer is literally the main character. Ichabod is very much her sidekick; the show (or at least the pilot) is about her, her journey and her past and her decisions. She’s amazing, and hilarious, and literally like three feet tall to Ichabod’s seven, seriously, there are scenes where the camera’s like a mile away so that it can get them both in the same frame. (I’m asking now for any and all porn to be written with this in mind. Just saying.) And she’s absolutely real; I know and am friends with Abbie and women like her. I think a lot of it is the acting, since so far the writing is okay but nothing amazing, but Nicole Beharie has clearly come ready to play, because she made Abbie into what I think will be the most interesting lead character of any TV show in 2013.
I mean come on, the first thing Abbie says is, “What’s wrong with your face,” and then she proceeds to steal her boss’s fries. If you don’t love her after about thirty seconds watching her, you have no soul and I feel sorry for you.
And another note on tokenism or whatever the fuck people have decided this show is doing wrong already: of the half-dozen or so main character types, only two are white dudes, and one of them karks pretty fast (…okay including the Headless Horseman there’s three. But if anybody wants to fight me on the Headless Horseman having white privilege, please just… don’t). Abbie’s cop friend is John Fucking Cho (playing such an interesting role, although he’s not there nearly enough for my taste); the detective dude who looks like he might be the main antagonist is Orlando Fucking Jones; and throughout the episode there were women and POCs all over the place, being awesome - and more importantly, none of it felt like some kind of politically correct bingo, where the producers were trying to score points. It felt like reality, frankly.
In conclusion: is it September yet, I need this show in my eyeballs.
(please note she is most definitely standing on like four boxes stacked on top of each other in this picture)
