“Sleepy Hollow” premieres Sept. 22 at 9 p.m. on Fox.
Credit: Brownie Harris/FOX
The end of “Sleepy Hollow” Season 1 was the best kind of finale, one of those suspenseful, jaw-dropping episodes that left viewers wondering, “How the heck are they going to get out of that mess” all summer long. Pretty much every main character in the supernatural thriller was trapped in a life-threatening situation before the credits rolled, from Ichabod buried alive in a coffin, to Abbie stuck in Purgatory, to Jenny appearing to be dead. And then there was that crazy reveal about Sin Eater/former good guy Henry Parrish: He’s actually Ichabod and Katrina’s son Jeremy, who also happens to be the Second Horseman of the apocalypse. But fret no more, fans of the most unlikely crime-fighting duo on TV — we snagged Ichabod Crane himself, actor Tom Mison, for intel on Season 2.
After reading the script for the Season 1 finale, did you have the same “holy crap” reaction that fans did watching it?
Yeah. I had a conversation with Alex Kurtzman, one of the executive producers, who told me [actor] John Noble was the Horseman of War. I had no idea. I knew when John joined us that he was going to be revealed to be my son; I didn’t know that he would be a bad son, so that was a huge surprise. Everyone is left in a situation that I didn’t see coming, but they’d been planning it.
When Season 2 picks up, hopefully everyone gets out of these dire straits pretty quickly, because they’ve got an apocalypse to prevent.
That’s the big question: Not only how do people get out but if they get out of those situations. And then once we are out, how does it affect the relationships? And that’s something that resonates throughout the rest of the season. The Horseman of War doesn’t come with bombs and guns; he comes as the type of person who can plant little seeds of doubt in relationships. So the way he wages war is by breaking up communities and relationships.
How is the Ichabod-Abbie-Katrina relationship affected?
What do you do with relationships when the apocalypse is coming? Tricky. There are new relationships; there are new interests. There’s someone who has his eye on Abbie. There’s of course still Katrina, and how do you reach her when she’s with the Horseman of Death?
I would think it makes things a bit more urgent.
And it’s a bit of a mood-killer. [Laughs]
How big does the war get? Do people outside of the gang realize what is happening?
Well, how do you tell people the apocalypse is coming and not get locked up? [Laughs] That’s another dilemma — we have to be a secretive army. We’ve kind of become the Avengers — there’s the problem of how do the Avengers stay quiet, and then eventually they have to battle in New York and everyone knows about them.
Ichabod has had a full season to acclimate to the 21st century. How’s he dealing with modern conveniences in Season 2?
The way our writers are dealing with Ichabod in the modern world… I’m always excited by it and I keep finding it funny. The moment he’s fully a part of the modern world we lose something quite important. Plus, the nice thing about Ichabod and Abbie is that they’re so wildly different. It’s a partnership that shouldn’t really exist: The modern, streetwise cop and an 18th century spy. It shouldn’t happen but it really works, and I really hope we don’t lose that. Ichabod also brings an 18th century mindset, and sometimes it helps to think outside of the box. Plus, he was mates with George Washington.
Speaking of the 18th century, let’s talk about Ichabod’s clothes.
Well, you know, superheroes don’t change their capes… well, actually, they do. And Ichabod will as well. In the last episode last season he meets a character into battle reenactments and she gives him some new clothes. And he might need another change, so he might go and revisit her. But that style, that’s home for him. So it’s good that he has an outlet to provide him with new old clothes. It’s helpful to me as well as an actor. The moment that Ichabod’s in jeans and a T-shirt with a crew cut, you lose a lot of [who he is].
