Warning: This contains spoilers for Sleepy Hollow.
There’s even more “batshit craziness” to come in Sleepy Hollow, according to the show’s writers and cast.
The first season of the fan favorite show—which gained a huge following for its major twists, supernatural elements, diverse and fully fledged characters, and fan inclusion—ended in a major twist that had jaws dropping. But during a press roundtable at New York Comic Con, the show’s creators, writers, and stars, promised that things would get even crazier from episode to episode.
“What I can promise you is you have no idea what’s about to happen next,” Orlando Jones, who plays Frank Irving, said. “It’s a crazy season. It really is crazy.”
Jones previously hinted that fans should “expect the unexpected” in the upcoming season, but in the most recent episode, they got a taste of what he meant. Irving, who’s currently stuck in Tarrytown Psychiatric (the same place that Abbie Mills’s twin sister Jenny and their mother spent time), had a vision of what his life as a soldier for the Horseman of War would look like once all hell broke loose, and it felt like it came straight out of an apocalyptic film.
Executive producer Mark Goffman says the twists in each episode are made to “feel like the finale” and keep that story going. In recent episodes, Sleepy Hollow puts its twist on the Pied Piper, the lives of Benjamin Franklin and Benedict Arnold, and teases a future take on the succubus, and there will be plenty of twists on history—which the writers call “twistory”—down the line.
In the upcoming season, we’ll get to see even more of Ichabod and many connections to the Founding Fathers, but the show plans to dig even further into the pasts of the main characters. Not only will it expand Ichabod and Abbie’s relationship, it’ll expand that of their family, both blood and non-blood.
“[Jenny] trusts him a lot more and she likes him a lot, but I think there definitely has been some concern with her and her trust with Ichabod and what he really means to do with Abbie,” Lyndie Greenwood said. “There’s the whole, ‘Should we really go after Katrina again, Abbie? What are you doing here?’ But I think Jenny respects Ichabod’s dedication to the cause.”
Jenny Mills started out pretty one-dimensional and grew into a well-rounded character with a unique skillset and flaws. She’s already been put through the ringer, and while she and Abbie have made up, they still have a long way to go.
But the one thing everyone kept latching onto was the idea of family. From Frank Irving’s relationship to his daughter, the Mills’ sisters with each other, and Ichabod to Katrina and their son Henry, it’s felt throughout the series.
“Everything can be traced back in some form or another to Katrina’s choices and Abbie’s mother’s choices,” Goffman explained. “There’s an arc this season with Abbie’s mother so we’ll definitely get to see her coming up, and it’ll be threaded throughout the season.”
House of Cards star Sakina Jaffrey, who recently joined Sleepy Hollow as Sheriff Leena Reyes, echoed the sentiment around that relationship. In an earlier episode, it’s revealed that her character was the one who committed the Mills’ mother to Tarrytown Psychiatric.
“Isn’t it so interesting, this show, that the mother makes all of these choices?” she noted. “Did you think about that? It’s such a fascinating theme for me because you have all this regret and all these choices in a terrible moment… I feel like that it makes the whole show so rich.”
It’s not all about the supernatural. Fans have loved seeing Ichabod’s constant comments about modern technology ever since he woke up in present day. Wiseman and Goffman teased even more of them to come, with Crane discovering yoga and karaoke in upcoming episodes.
Sleepyheads, Check Out These Pics of Icahbod Crane Learning What Yoga Is https://t.co/Uap2iz0Z6E #SleepyHollow pic.twitter.com/BWBweZP9TG
— The Mary Sue (@TheMarySue) October 16, 2014
“I just enjoy that he’s 250 years old and he was part of this world when it was being formed as we know it,” Jones said. “And looking at the principles that he was fighting for—and frankly died for if it wasn’t for his witch wife—is interesting to see how he feels about it today. It’s one of my favorite parts of the show.”
But just because the humor is still intact, don’t expect any of the crazier elements to die down soon. With 18 episodes this season, there’s even more room for anything to happen.
“We will do whatever will freak anybody out,” executive producer Len Wiseman said. “We love to twist where people will think we’re going. It’s part of the fun of the show. And there’s always a plan.”
Photo by Michelle Jaworski
