Sleepy Hollow 4×09 Review: “Child’s Play”

I’m not sure what it is because I love Crane, he’s one of the funnest characters on TV right now, but boy Sleepy Hollow, am I losing interest fast in these new characters. In this week’s episode “Child’s Play,” I’m not even sure if the over-arching plot advanced much towards whatever end goal they plan to reach by the end of the season.

Besides us learning that Dreyfuss is a total creep. I mean really, really creepy. In a painful-looking forced vision, Dreyfuss sees a future not alone but with Molly at his side. The two of them ruling some sort of post-apocalyptic America with Dreyfuss acting as a father figure for Molly.

It got creepy when Dreyfuss actually meets Molly for the first time towards the end of the episode. Major stranger danger alert, but at least Molly had the brains to get away from Dreyfuss fast.

The rest of the episode focused solely on Molly and her relationship with her mother, Diana. Molly has a lot of pent up anger for a kid, and we first see it when she practically ignores her art teacher who’s concerned about her home life.

It’s not the art teacher Molly’s angry at, but her mother and this manifests in Mr. Stitch. Molly’s imaginary best-friend come to life to exact vengeance on her behalf. It first goes after the art teacher, who Diana finds knocked out in his classroom, and it’s up to our heroes to save the day.

Do I care though? I want to care. I want to care about Molly and Diana. I want to care about Alex and Jake. I want to care about Crane. I even want to care about Dreyfuss.  But, it’s becoming really hard to when the same thing happens over and over again in each episode with no twists, no surprises, just our heroes saving the day over and over again with absolutely no character development.

It may sound harsh, but if Sleepy Hollow wants to survive it needs to know the truth: that I’m finding it hard to care. That I’m latching into the fun twisted history moments and Craneisms with my life in order to care about something in this show.

Sleepy Hollow needs more Craneisms, more fun moments. Last week’s selfie was fun and this week’s moment with the Chinese food was okay, but the shining moment that kept me interested in the episode was Jake screaming through the wall at the Agency, even though the walkie talkie was right there.

When the highlight of the episode is a side character screaming though a wall we have a problem.

So please, Sleepy Hollow, make me care. Make me care about Dreyfuss’ plot to take over the country. Make me care about Diana and Molly’s mother and daughter bond. Make me care about Crane again, who just seems so lonely even  though he’s not really alone, but, actually, he is because the other characters are just so flat they don’t even seem like emotional, full-fledged characters anymore.

We are rooting for you Sleepy Hollow! We are all rooting for you!

Sleepy Head Highlight: Again, Jake screaming into the wall and Crane’s love for Chinese food intensifies.

Sleepy Hollow airs Friday nights on FOX.