I think this is gonna be the last time I talk about Sleepy Hollow. As far as any publicity-machine is concerned, any publicity is good publicity and I won’t help feed the beast. I don’t want to help anyone at FOX think I have any shits left to give about a post-Abbie season four of SH. ‘Cuz I don’t. They’ve already said there’s a chance it’ll be renewed (which frankly sounds insane) and don’t intend to aid in that endeavor in any way. Don’t get me wrong I’d be happy for Tom Mison and Lyndie Greenwood because they get to stay employed, but it irritates me that TPTB at FOX display such little care for Nicole and the fandom in general.
I said before I was salty, but that’s not entirely accurate. I’m annoyed that TPTB could co-sign on the disrespect of Nicole by the showrunners (when, for real, even Variety acknowledged SH was her show) but largely I’m indifferent. Unlike a lot of people who had invested time and heart and spirit in this show since day one, for me SH had stopped being part of my top ten somewhere in the midst of season two. (This is really the most psychic energy I’ve expended on this show since Katrina and Henry died…and fittingly it’s likely the last bit).
Honestly, I’m more irritated on a meta-level. Upset about what this all means as a Black woman for the Black women and other PoC in Hollywood right at a time when it seemed like we might be coming into our own. I despair that the renaissance I thought we might have been on the cusp of was really all Hollywood PR and wishful thinking. Because on the real, real I’ve been done with SH for a while. To be perfectly truthful, my mind had been elsewhere. I’d been on a Richonne/TWD high for a couple of weeks (months?) now, so my other shows have been on the backburner lately. And to make matters worse, I was planning to run full-steam straight into GOT on the 24th (do not pass GO, do not collect $200). So, everything else, while I was definitely still watching, was only getting half my attention.
Now having said that, I wish I could claim that that was why I was basically over Sleepy Hollow. But sadly no. I had become disillusioned with the show last season and was really only still tuning in (like a lot of other people have admitted) on the strength of Nicole Beharie and Tom Mison…and let’s be real, because I didn’t feel like reprogramming my DVR. (I stuck through the end of Burn Notice too for the same reasons…laziness). That all said, I was still (kinda) watching. I was still (relatively) invested. And most importantly, I did still (basically) care. Ironically, I think that’s why I realized eventually that TPTB actually didn’t.
Full Disclosure: I heard what happened before I saw it with my own eyes. And after I heard, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to bother. So I looked at the outcry from fans and critics and was really just shocked. I mean, more than any other emotion, I felt stunned. Stunned that this happened and stunned that the showrunner entrusted with the care and upkeep of a show could be so clueless about what actually made the show tick. (It was the stars, stupid!) Stunned Nicole left, really had been driven off. Surprised they hadn’t done a better job of preparing the audience. I mean, from the Series Premiere to last Friday night, fans and critics alike have always said that what makes Sleepy Hollow great is that while it’s bat-shit crazy, the leads have insane chemistry and they make the wild ride fun. (I’m totally paraphrasing but that’s always been the basic gist). What is there left without that key ingredient?
I remember when this show was considered a paragon of how to write (and cast) a smart, fun show (that was also diverse) for the Twenty-first Century (‘member that shit?) When FOX did a victory lap preening in trade publications about how they valued PoC voices and realized that giving PoC opportunities to shine only mean more shine for them. Big talk! Then they sat back and allowed Season Two to happen. And it’s like they completely forgot all that. They LITERALLY wrote off all the existing PoC on the show and replaced them with generics (sorry, Sophie and Daniel but brown people are not interchangeable, ha!) except for Abbie and Jenny (I had assumed at the time, because they realized there’d be no show without them, double-ha!)
Even then as they stripped the show of everything that had made the first season fun and memorable, I kept the faith. I rejoiced when they finally got rid of Goffman, even though Clifton Campbell was a head-scratcher choice for me (and I say that as one of the ten people who used to watch The Glades). I vowed to stick with it. I breathed a sigh of relief when they got rid of Katrina. I cheered when they brought Joe back. I celebrated, believed they’d right the ship.
Even when it was clear that their attempt to exclude Nicole from the DVD commentary was a HUGE red-flag, I chose to ignore it. And even though I low-key shipped Ichabod and Abbie, I was willing to wait however long for that to happen. I had tolerated Zoe (and had even liked poor, dear doomed seamstress Caroline the season before). I figured, “I’m coming from TWD, dammit, I can do a good slow-burn.” LMAO! I’ll go wherever it is they’re leading.
But then they introduced the awkward, uninteresting, walking-anachronism that was Betsy Ross and suddenly it was as if they had learned nothing at all. They did the FBI/Daniel thing, which I didn’t, at any point, understand or give two shits about, but alright. (Not to mention, they’re BOTH nine months out of Quantico and yet he’s already the special agent-in-charge and they’ve already had and ended a torrid love affair…in less than a year? O…kay.) They introduced Sophie, who I admit I’ve grown to like (so kudos to them for that) but let’s not pretend that they didn’t DEFINITELY set her up as an Abbie-replacement while they put Abbie herself in a faux-purgatory again. And yet again, I still hung in there.
I’d be lying if I said this had all been a totally and completely unexpected development. I had heard Nicole was unhappy, not attending Cons, not giving interviews. So the mid-season finale was a big red flag too. I thought they might be doing a Tisha Campbell in the final season of Martin- deciding to create a plotline that gave Nicole space and time. But I had still hoped Nicole wouldn’t be driven to departure, though clearly something was up. Still as the episodes wore on you could tell they were angling toward some bullshit. Not because things were being well written just because she was being sidelined again, for Ichabod and Betsy and Joe and Jenny. And though I honestly never imagined this, you could just feel them gearing up in 3B for some ole okey-doke.
Around that same time I realized that though technically I hadn’t stopped watching, in essence I’d stopped really caring a while back. They had successfully taken this show from me and essentially driven me away too! In times before, SH had been my appointment tv, my first-run, watch it live with the commercials even though you’re recording it-viewing. My friends and I would even do a post-mortem and then I’d lurk on the tag and enjoy what my sistren and brethren had to say. But Goffman/Campbell had ruined that. Yet even then, despite everything, I still watched with the faintest of hopes that they’d find a way to pull things back together, even while I could sense they were devising new ways to disappoint. I just didn’t realize the utter disrespect with which they’d go about it.
Look ultimately, I’m happy for Nicole. Like anyone escaping an abusive relationship, I hope she finds something else worthy of her time and prodigious talents. And I also want nothing but good things for Tom and the rest of the cast. But Sleepy Hollow is dead and the idiots behind the show killed it. The best way to help them understand that is through our collective silence and indifference. The more we rage, the more they think there’s still an active fan base to renew for. As they say, let’s “vote with our feet” or in this case, our eyeballs. In the end, it’s rating and digital views that will decide these things. Don’t help “Sleepy Hollow” trend, abandon the tag. They’ll get the message. Our indifference will put CC, et. al. on the unemployment line soon enough.
TL:DR Fuck FOX, Goffman and Campbell for destroying an awesome show and much more importantly, for making my girl Nicole feel like she had to abandon her own show to preserve her well-being.
