First off, this is not a review. This show ran for 4 seasons, and I never saw the last one. I don’t feel comfortable giving critiques to something I didn’t take in completely, but I will be giving my thoughts on a particular aspect I noticed while watching the first three seasons.
Sleepy Hollow was a supernatural procedural show that aired on Fox from 2013 to 2017. Story-wise, Ichabod Crane was put into a deep sleep so he could wake up in the future to stop the End of Days with his partner, a fellow Witness. Now, I love genre shows. I watched Dark Angel in the mornings before elementary school. I’ve watched the entirety of Supernatural no less than 3 times and when I feel depressed one of my comforts is watch The X-files. I put my friends on to Firefly and Serenity, but the one detail that sold me on Sleepy Hollow was that his partner was a black woman. Black women in genre stories are a rare commodity, and it’s even rarer for them to be a lead. I was determined to support this show, so I’d tune in weekly to watch Abbie Mills and Ichabod Crane conquer enemies of biblical proportions, and needless to say, I fell in love.
But the scariest thing about falling in love is the inevitable hurt that comes along with it.
Throughout its run, fans, myself included, couldn’t help but notice the chemistry between Ichabod (portrayed by Tom Mison) and Abbie (Nicole Beharie). They were frequently compared to Mulder and Scully, even down to their height differences. During episodes the writing wasn’t that interesting, it was common to tune in just to see their interactions together. We also noticed that Abbie, while still technically lead, had considerably less screen time. There was a noticeable shift from their duo to a focus mostly on the white male lead and his family. Production wrongly assumed that because the show was called and based on Sleepy Hollow that the audience, the very vocal audience that went unheard, wanted a series about Ichabod. By season three, the show we watched was completely different. The excitement was gone, but one thing was the same. Ichabod and Abbie were biblically ordained to save the world together, it’s why he had to sleep, to meet up with her in the future. It had to be Abbie. Or so we thought. In the season finale of season 3, Abbie Mills was killed off. I for one wasn’t convinced at first. I went to Tumblr and Twitter to confirm and saw articles already popping up about Nicole Beharie’s exit. I couldn’t believe, yet I could. She was by no means the first black character I have seen succumb to generic writing, less screen time, an unsatisfactory death. It felt like the show went looking to strike oil but struck gold. Instead of carefully mining what they had happened upon, they decided to pack it up and try again for oil somewhere else. It makes me wonder what do black characters have to do to be worth taking a chance on?
I don’t want this to be taken as a rant that my “ship” didn’t happen, so now I’m mad. But sometimes, I still wonder what the show would be like now if they banked on the dynamic of Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie. Yeah, I “shipped” Ichabod and Abbie. It was a fun aspect of being a fan. Debating when or if they would get together. Overanalyzing their every interaction. Leads of tv shows got together all the time, and it was nice seeing a character that looked like me have such character development and romantic interest. She was infallible because she was a lead, and they don’t mistreat leads. I got comfortable and remained optimistic, but by the time Nicole Beharie’s time with the show was coming to an end, it was easy to tell that the show evolved into something different from the one I started watching, and not in a good way. Yeah, I would have love to have seen their first kiss and watch the sleepyheads go crazy on twitter. I just really want to know what would have happened if she lived.
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