All pictures courtesy of FOX
Ahhh!
Why do I even try? Ever feel like life itself is going against you at
the moment? That is precisely how I've been feeling for the last near
two weeks. Every year, usually twice a year my computer gets a virus
or gets so hot that it overheats and does this ten minute shutdown
thing for a few days (the computer is a little old, so...). As luck
would have it, both things smacked me at the same time I was doing
cleanup in my garden. I had to focus on getting my yard together
while trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer and ended
up rebooting and re-installing everything on the computer. There's
not much on here save for a few programs to help me create my books
and other such works. Still, it is a hassle, especially if you have
to do it a few times because the code is rootkited or whatever. I'm
not going to go into it.
So,
with that mini-rant about how computer viruses are from the devil, I
get back on topic and give you a review of FOX's confusing and
confounding crossover event from last night, Bones and Sleepy Hollow.
Now, to be fair I read an article yesterday on my phone (should have
saved the link and emailed it to myself) that stated how little the
actors understood the crossover also. Other than the fact that they
were both on Fox and both had a male and female partner that clash at
first like oil and water (bad and overused cliche; hey, I haven't
written anything in over a week. Gimme a break!) before accepting
each other's differences and maybe even coming to appreciate them.
And they're both FBI.
But
when looking outside of that, one show is steeped in modern-day real
world science while the other deals in fantastical paranormal occult
stuff. It would be like if Walter White showed up on The Walking Dead
because everyone discovered that the way to defeat the zombies was to
give them blue meth. If that's confusing, well, it's probably because
I don't watch the Walking Dead, or it could also be the fact that the
idea doesn't make any sense. If anything, FOX could have done a
crossover between Rosewood and Bones (something I expect they will do
come next season) or a crossover between Sleepy Hollow and, uh...
hmph? The one show I can think of is NBC's Grimm but network
logistics and all. Other than that, they could have waited until
their Lucifer show (premiering mid-season) came out but who knows if
that'll last and if it'll replace Sleepy Hollow as the strange show
on the network.
How
did they do with this strange, ill-advised crossover event? Believe
it or not, I'd say they did OK.
First
off, though I wanted it to be, I quickly realized that this wasn't
going to be some explosive mind-blowing crossover that ends with all
of the crossover characters in a shootout for their lives and
situations that had long-lasting repercussions on both shows. No,
this was more of a toe-dip into the water of making a shared TV
universe where they can have their different shows crossover with
little problem to mark special occasions. In this case, the occasion
was Halloween as this was to be a haunting crossover spectacular. And
while it didn't live up to that moniker per se, it did do a nice job
at making us believe these two radically different-in-tone shows
could coexist in the same universe.
Beginning
with Bones, the team found two pairs of human bones because... well,
the show is called Bones. I can't imagine what it'd be without actual
bones. Anyway, the first set of bones belonged to a woman from this
time period. Recently dead, she had much of her skull intact and had
clue markers on her like hair that had recently been dyed back from a
previous purple hue, and multiple earring holes. Nicely dressed, she
appeared to have been a puritanical church girl until those two clues
(because straight-laced people would never do something so silly as
dye their hair a cool color or get more than one ear piercing).
They
discover that she was actually a doctor going for higher position, so
she wanted to be taken seriously. That, however, still did not
account for why she was found in the near vicinity of the second dead
body.
Enter
Ichabod and Abbie. The second body belongs to a redcoat fella from
back when redcoats and bluecoats and midnight rides were still a
thing. He first determines that the man is one person but when Dr.
Brennan does a facial reconstruction and analysis through her neat
machine, they match the possible face to the man that Ichabod had
been talking about for the last few weeks, a General Howe. I say
possible face because for more than half of the show the body did not
have a head. Why? Because the purple-haired woman believed back when
she was alive a myth from long ago that spoke of the head somehow
being a gateway into life after death. Essentially a good luck charm,
she could resurrect so long as she had the head near her. How she
discovered the body was where it was I can't recall, but she found
the general's grave, sliced off his skull and took it back to her
place where she participated in a crazy stunt.
A
morbid but natural fascination with death, the woman had previously
gotten a doctor friend to stop her heart with a drug cocktail before
reviving her. When she died, she went to what she perceived as a stop
before heaven where she spoke with her sister who died as a young
child (the catalyst for her death intrigue). This life-changing
experience is what prompted her to act differently, re-dying the
hair, removing the earrings, etc.
With
the experience so phenomenal, she pushed her boyfriend to do it with
her the next time. He went first and all he saw was darkness and
nothing. So frightening the experience, that when she revived him he
panicked and accidentally killed her. And so solved the case of The
Ressurection in the Remains.
Frankly,
I thought the Bones episode of the night was rather lacking in
excitement, though all readers should take that with a grain of salt
as I don't normally watch the show. Outside of a few cutesy
referencings of Ichabod's strange character, his garb, how much he
knows about history of that pre-revolutionary era, and an odd note
with his signature on it as dictated to or by George Washington,
nothing else leapt out as overly strange. There was some talk about
Abbie's FBI mentor also being the mentor of Boothe and a throwaway
line about Ichabod and Abbie having a romantic relationship in the
future but other than that it didn't reach the heights of weirdness
more than a few of us were expecting it to; instead, everything made
perfect sense.
Moving
into the Sleepy Hollow episode, Abbie requested the headless man's
body be moved back to Sleepy Hollow as ordered by George Washington
long ago. See, he had not only given the order to kill General Howe
but knew that burying him in England wouldn't be beneficial to the
patriots. Why? Because the purple-haired woman was right. The general
had some kind of artifact that tied him into the dark plans of the
evil one Ichabod and Abbie are always talking about. While they still
haven't fully engaged in Christian lure and just outright said it is
the devil doing this stuff, it has been hinted at more than enough
times (giving him other names doesn't change that when they're going
off the Christian book of Revelation). This amulet or stone the
general has allows him the power of resurrection, not only making it
easier for him to be resurrected by someone else (Pandora) but to
call forth his own dark army that can only roam around during the
night and become subterranean during the day.
Naturally,
when the transport for the body is interrupted and the dead guy
escapes, the Bones crew is called on for some assistance as they can
get Ichabod and Abbie into a historical monument in D.C. While
Brennan is tripping off of how historical of an archaeological
discovery this all is, Ichabod finds a secret passage where the
general's body was to originally be stored under Greek fire or napalm
as scientifically pointed out by Brennan. She and Ichabod get trapped
and almost burnt to death before Booth shoots out the keypad to
reopen the secret passage door. I don't honestly know what to say
about that part as the archaic lock popped off like cheap house
siding in a summer rainstorm, prompting the question of why Abbie
doesn't always do that. That was pretty much it for the Bones' crew
as Ichabod and Abbie took over, discovering that General Howe's
undead army was defeated by the Greek fire in the battle of Manhattan
where Betsy Ross helped burn the city to the ground.
Abbie
and Ichabod, along with her sister and the old sheriff's son lure the
zombie-gopher soldiers into an underground tunnel where they burn
them all. Then, in a strange twist, the general walks into the fire
on his own and roasts himself. Still trying to figure out why he did
that.
To end
the episode, Bones got their new artifact to obsess over with the
secret passages, Ichabod and Abbie stopped another
monster-of-the-week threat that had brewed since the season opener,
and Abbie was confronted with info that her sister was caught up in
an ongoing FBI investigation. Again, this is a bias statement because
I don't normally watch Bones, but I found Sleepy Hollow the much
better episode in the crossover. I enjoy crossovers so long as they
are done correctly (still waiting on that Agents of Shield/Daredevil
crossover). Though they showed no split or frayed seams between the
two shows, I would appreciate a little more fireworks and bizarreness
the next time the network and producers go for #HollowBones. Viewers
certainly did enjoy it as both shows saw a slight uptick in ratings
for the historically tough Thursday night.
As a
side note about ratings, with canceling season upon us, I will soon
be giving my predictions on what will and won't stay and why. For
now, I still have a few more premiere week three week roundup posts
on new shows.
What
did you think viewers? Did you watch the Bones and Sleepy Hollow
crossover? Did you like it? Did one hour standout over the other? If
they do this again in the future, what would you like to see happen?
Let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button
if you see no comments).
If
you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind,
#DARKER,
#BrandNewHome
or
#ThePowerOfTen.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check
out #TheWriter.
The full first season is OUT NOW exclusively on Amazon. Join us on
Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my
blog with that Google+ button to the right side.
Until next time, “I saw the sign and
it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign."
P.S.
Yeah, it's Friday and I just hit you with a little throwback 90s jam
music from Ace of Base. The lyrics sorta apply here... kinda. OK,
maybe I'm reaching a little but I couldn't think of anything else to
write and it was in my head. I think of something better next time.
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Twitter@filmbooksbball
After
Nick kidnaps and holds hostage the FBI woman, she tells Hank and the
others that she has a meeting with her people scheduled for later
that night. She and Nick go to the meeting only to find it already
ambushed by another group. Her people are dead and the new monsters
have a knack for leaving huge calling cards that resemble something
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' villain The Shredder might leave. Four
slash marks across the side of the empty warehouse where they get the
best of the FBI agent and they are off into the night, leaving Nick
the clue to what comes next. With her dying breath, the agent says
horsemen and tells Nick that it's four (or at least I think that's
what she said. It could have been Norsemen too). I'm assuming this
refers to the book of Revelation's four horsemen prophecy that
signals the end of days (everyone loves mixing in Biblical references
these days).
