Sleepy Hollow Season Premiere: I, Witness Was a Step in the Right Direction
Spoiler alert: This article contains information from the Season 3 premiere which may not have aired yet in some regions.
In the Season 3 premiere episode titled “I, Witness”, Sleepy Hollow viewers witnessed a premiere with the potential to return the series to the show they loved in its first season.
Sleepy Hollow has always been a great mixture of supernatural, action, adventure and humor thrown in for good measure.
The biggest problem with Season 2 was the uncertainty of the motivation of several of the characters, in particularly, Ichabod’s wife Katrina and his son Henry. Depending on the episode, the viewer didn’t know whether these characters were good or evil. The only character that suffered an explainable personality change was Captain Frank Irving. He became evil because his mind was taken over by an evil presence. It was hard to invest in these characters, so therefore, a lot of viewers chose not to further invest in the show.
The writers made a wise decision to tie-up Katrina and Henry’s storylines at the end of Season 2 by killing off both characters. The season 3 premiere addressed Frank’s absence with the standard left town explanation.
“I, Witness” takes place about nine months after the season finale and finds that Lieutenant Abbie Mills is now Agent Abbie Mills of the FBI. She and Ichabod haven’t seen each other in those months as they both decided that they needed time to think and reflect after the traumatic events of the last year.
When they meet up again, Ichabod is being held by Immigration and Customs for attempting to smuggle an artifact into the United States. Crane explains to Abbie about the item and how it again may intertwine their destinies.
The threat in the episode involved an ancient Fear Demon that dated back to the Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill. It’s great how the writers of Sleepy Hollow use history and connect it to whatever the current danger is.
Jenny Mills was also back to aid Abbie and Ichabod in their Fear Demon fight. The episodes are always great when those three work together. Abbie, Jenny and Ichabod are like Sleepy Hollow’s version of The Three Musketeers.
Two new characters were introduced in the season premiere: Betsy Ross, played by Nikki Reed and Pandora, played by Shannyn Sossamon. Here’s hoping that these characters add to the show without overshadowing the main characters.
Overall, “I, Witness” was a very enjoyable episode and was successful in setting Sleepy Hollow back on the right track.