I’ve decided I’m going to call Ichabod Crane “The Bod” because he’s just that yummy, although the folks at FOX creatively lit him in the altogether so that we saw NOTHING. Bastards!
So we pick up from last week with The Bod narrating the events of the pilot and begin the episode with him dreaming of being chased by the reconciled four Horsemen and visited by Katrina, who’s re-warning him that a bad witch is on her way. He wakes up in the hotel where they’ve stashed him, with helpful Post-Its explaining the TV, coffee maker, and indoor plumbing, and when he’s ready to leave, he finds he’s under a protective order that requires a deputy to be stashed outside his door. He berates the man up one end and down the other but he doesn’t really try to get out.
Back at the station, Irving tells Abbie to keep things on the DL because she’s trying to explain to him that Andy didn’t ram himself into a wall as security footage would have us believe. And we find out the Pez treatment didn’t kill him—he’s still in the thrall of the mystery demon who compels him to go wake up Katrina’s bad witch, and she becomes the monster of the week this week—taking out the heirs of the magistrate who condemned her to death so she can reanimate herself with their ashes (karma is a bitch).
This all goes on as Abbie prepares herself for Corbin’s funeral. She and The Bod find out his files have been moved, and thus begets a nifty trick where he shows her the walled up tunnel system between the station and the archives next door. They get what they need, track down the witch, and later the catacomb tunnels become a convenient place to make her go boom when they ignite 250-year old gunpowder but amazingly do not cave the street in above them.
New background info was revealed on both our leads. While Abbie’s sister went crazy, she buried herself in drugs and bad boyfriends until Corbin busted her during a pharmacy break-in and took her to what would become their diner–giving her until his pie and ice cream made soup (a line we had in the pilot) to decide whether to change her life or go to jail. She tells The Bod he gave her more fathering in that few minutes than she’d ever had. And we learn that the Bod has an eidetic memory, so that will be handy later—right now, it particularly pains him in light of how much time he’s missed.
Later, Abbie has a living, breathing vision of Corbin (and I’m totally down with that if we get Clancy every week in a little metaphysical therapy session). He points her toward her sister, who’s still locked up—palming her meds and training Sarah Connor T2-style for some kind of boogedy that’s on its way.
And that’s that for episode two.
The show maintained its pilot rhythm—equal parts silly and scary and snarky. I really like the chemistry between Abbie and The Bod, and that they freely take the piss out of each other. She tries to grill him on how he met Katrina, but shuts him down when he returns the favor about her recent break-up with another detective. And she keeps him in check when he starts to rant about “Washington” this or “taxes” that.
We can assume she’s the one behind the Post-Its, but that’s not confirmed. I like that he’s learning as he goes. Abbie hands him a gun to defend himself and tells him “point and shoot” but doesn’t tell him it’s got a several bullets in it, so he drops it to the ground after the first shot, presuming it to be empty and useless. And when Abbie’s ex tests The Bod on his cover story (visiting professor from Oxford), he holds his own when challenged about being a war veteran. I’d like to know if the people in the town recognize the lore of Ichabod Crane, i.e. “hey wasn’t that the name of…?” but I’m guessing they don’t because that would be an easy joke every week.
I’m digging having this show on Monday nights after the start of the work week, and I’m glad we had it as a timely autumn launch vs. a mid-season spring or winter show.
You can watch “Blood Moon” now on Hulu.
Photo courtesy of FOX/Brownie Harris.