‘Sleepy Hollow’ season 4: The (likely) end of the Ichabod – Abbie ‘ship

If you’re looking at this series in terms of other through-lines, you’re not going to find many from one season to the next. Season 1 was an engaging circumvention of history and a chance to see some classic “Sleepy Hollow” lore a la the Headless Horseman. Meanwhile, season 2 was more of an utter mess, stuffed to the brim with Crane family drama and flip-flops when it comes to character arcs. Katrina was finally interesting by the end of it, then she was gone in the blink of an eye. Season 3 was slightly better, but there were still some elements (i.e. the Betsy Ross story) that viewers were far-from-thrilled with. That’s without mentioning the season 3 end, which we will get to shortly.

The Ichabod – Abbie relationship was what kept many fans watching. It was a partnership between a man lost in a different time and his “Leftenant,” a woman driven by her passion for justice and doing the right thing. There was not a clear romance between the two, but there were other feelings you could see there as a foundation for something down the road. They were supportive, compassionate, and certainly had fun with each other. She was there for him at a time when few others were in the early going, when he was quickly perceived as the town crazy-man upon his arrival.

So to see their story end without a definite movement in a romantic direction is admittedly quite sad, and it generates those thoughts of what could have been, and the fun that we could have witnessed (Witness pun clearly intended) watching these two try to figure out what it would mean for them to work together and be romantic together. Maybe it was never meant to be, and the producers would’ve just left it to fanfiction. Or, maybe this would’ve been a plotline for a season 5 or 6, at some point far down the road when it didn’t feel like much effort at all to get them together. You don’t want a relationship to change the fabric of the show, and there are clearly some on network TV that paired people up too soon out of either impatience or fear that ‘shippers were going to start tearing them a new one on social media. The relationship between Castle and Beckett, at least in terms of when they got together, could’ve been a nice blueprint for this show.

Either way, Ichabod and Abbie, one of our favorite pairings out there, are suddenly no more. She’s dead, and while we can see Nicole Beharie popping in maybe for an appearance or two in the future, it won’t be as a regular and it doesn’t look like producers are planning to cast a quick revival spell on her character. Maybe the show won’t be back, either, but regardless we’ll just have to remember this partnership for some of its funnier times, and wonder how things could have changed if Beharie and Tom Mison continued to work together for a few more years.