Season 2, Episode 6, “Deliverance”
It was the most demented episode of “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” ever.
That demonic spider that Katrina unknowingly swallowed at the end of last week’s “Sleepy Hollow” turned out to be potent in a way not normally associated with arachnids that have been ingested: It impregnated her, and the unborn entity was later determined to be Moloch himself. I’m a little unclear on the metaphysics of why Moloch would have to be born in this fashion, but it did give the makeup department a chance to do some grotesque things to the midsection of Katia Winter, the actress who plays Katrina. Monday’s special effects weren’t great by the standards of this show, but still – I hope no pregnant women were watching, because they’ll be having nightmares from now until delivery day.
Eventually, of course, Ichabod and Abbie warded off what would no doubt have been the most traumatic birthing scene since that thing burst out of John Hurt in “Alien.” But before they did, we were treated to the sight of Ichabod briefly going into a jealous rage.
He thought that Katrina might have become pregnant in the more traditional way through his rival Abraham, and we got to see Ichabod’s version of “furious.” Turns out that for
him, fury consists of glaring icily and smacking his hand on a table. Or maybe it was a cabinet. If this guy is going to continue hanging around in 2014, he has to up his anger game. Here in the demonstrative, easily outraged 21st century, glaring and smacking a tabletop are considered signs of weakness.
The scene, though, did make us wonder, again, just how stable this couple is. If they ever get the apocalypse averted and settle down in the suburbs, how long do you give their marriage? And which one of them ultimately causes its dissolution?
The best part of the episode was the nod to Election Day at the beginning. I loved the gentle reminder that the Founders, those beacons of democracy, had a rather limited definition of who was allowed to participate in the democratic process. The scene also brought to mind a question that deserves vigorous debate here: In 21st-century terms, is Ichabod Crane a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat?
On the one hand, he has an activist streak that might put him in the New Deal tradition: He is not content to sit back and let the Four Horsemen run roughshod over humanity any more than Franklin Delano Roosevelt was content to sit back and do nothing about the Depression. On the other hand, he seems skeptical that many of the changes since the 1700s constitute progress. Also, of course, he got caught up in this whole saga in the first place because he joined the Colonials in their fight to free themselves from the oppressions of Big (i.e., British) Government.
So, how does Ichabod vote on Tuesday?