Sleepy Hollow Takes Abbie Back To The 18th Century
Sleepy Hollow has always been known for its cool little maneuvers with historical events. Be it George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson; Ichabod Crane’s network seems to know no bounds. In the most recent episode of Sleepy Hollow, we saw Abbie getting transported back to the 18th century where she needs free papers just to walk around in the streets. Needless to say, with her attire and appearance, Abbie was subject to attention from all the British guards who capture her immediately. Tom Mison, who plays Ichabod Crane on the show, told Variety that, “Well, it’s nice to have the roles reversed. The thing that I really liked exploring in the pilot and early episodes, was how does Ichabod persuade Abbie that he’s the real deal when everything around him is so ridiculous and hard for him to believe? And now it’s completely flipped, and there’s only one thing he doesn’t believe and it’s that she exists, and she’s the one that needs to persuade him.
It was very nice to get to play around with the 18th century Ichabod, for longer than five minutes with a founding father. Instead, I get however long we have here, about 45 minutes, of seeing 18th century Ichabod, which is very, very different to modern day Ichabod. You get to see a man who has power and has people who obey his every command because they respect him and know that he makes decent decisions, instead of in the modern day where everyone thinks he’s a lunatic, including Abbie.”
Discussing about the adaptability of Abbie, Mison says, “I think she, very early on, learns how to behave in the 18th century, particularly as she knows what a stubborn prick Ichabod is. So, if she gets carried away she knows how to play him, that’s the really nice thing. She’s known this guy for a year and a bit and to him she’s a stranger, so she’s immediately got the upper hand by knowing how to work him. Then, also as you said, “on his turf” she has to behave very differently. I personally really enjoyed watching Nicole’s portrayal of Abbie, keeping herself under wraps. Abbie is someone who speaks her mind and we all love an Abbie Mills eye roll, and it’s nice to see her try and play restrained. I enjoyed that a lot.”
Diversity has always been big on the show and now, playing around with the past, might cause Sleepy hollow to touch some sensitive issues. Talking about the possibility of inducing the history of slavery, Mison says, “It adds a danger that we’ve never seen before on the show. It’s a situation that she certainly never imagined she’d find herself in, and I never imagined I’d ever see Abbie Mills in that sort of predicament. There’s been a lot of mentions of Grace Dixon. She’s quite a rarity in that she is a free woman, married to a white chap, and so that’s going to be your first port of call. I think the show did very, very well with the social commentary. It’s something that is at the forefront of the writers’ minds quite often, and when we flip back to the 18th century it’s not that easy to show social commentary when so much has changed. But I suppose it’s also very easy to say when things haven’t changed as much.”