‘Sleepy Hollow’ season 3: James McDaniel arrives as Mills’ father, Abbie returning
Fox’s Sleepy Hollow just delivered fans as Nicole Beharie’s Abbie Mills sacrificed herself to save her sister Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) and fellow “Witness” Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) in the season three mid-season finale.
With one of the Witnesses seemingly dead, and Pandora (Shannyn Sossamon) and her lover The Hidden One (Peter Mensah) still on the loose, things look bleak for the Ichabod and the “good guys” heading into the back half of the season.
Variety spoke to Sleepy Hollow showrunner Clifton Campbell about Abbie’s decision, and how her sacrifice will affect the show moving forward.
“We felt really good about the relationship that Abbie and Jenny have this season. There’s an awful lot of angst from the first two seasons that they’ve grappled with…” he said.
“This season has been a lot about the support that they have for each other, and starting to live with it as fans and an audience. It’s one thing to see them acting better, but you put enough energy into that relationship and start to see them support each other in a very specific way, and it has more resonance. It just felt right this season, that we could put Abbie’s decision to utterly and completely support her sister, come what may, to the test. And that’s what led us to this sacrifice, and it isn’t just a sacrifice that she makes for Jenny, it’s really for Team Witness, which was really important for us.”
Sleepy Hollow‘s reputation presents an expectation that Abbie will be back sooner than later.
“I don’t want to tell the audience how they should be looking at it. [Laughs.] I think, like all of us, they should enjoy the episode for what it’s worth and embrace the sacrifice that Abbie Mills makes, not only for her sister but for Crane and this world that they’re inhabiting, and just be utterly and completely surprised at how everydiv reacts to this gigantic sacrifice that she makes,” Campbell tells Variety.
Jenny’s burden to bear, how they may try to bring Abbie back and how Ichabod copes are all topics before discussing the new character, the Mills’ father.
“We’ve cast James McDaniel who’s a phenomenal actor, and James and I have had great conversations about this character. There are a lot of blanks that that character can fill in for anydiv who’s a fan of this show, anydiv who’s a fan of the Mills family story. All of their angst and the loss and sacrifice that they’ve been living with since day one is going back to their mother, so he can provide a lot of emotional context to the audience which we find very satisfying, and he’s really the perfect guy to play this.”
Campbell reminds fans that Pandora and the Hidden One are out there, “…not sitting around whining about their loss” and talks about returning for the second half of season three.
“When we first start, it’s very driven. When you’re left with a hole this size, people want to fill it in as much as they can, not only in terms of story and character development – we do that rather quickly – the audience can also look forward to the [architecture] of a world Pandora and the Hidden One once had and once ruled over. And their plan to move forward with that and continue their reign of terror and their campaign to restore the world in their image is going to reframe all of our characters in a really fascinating way. I’m absolutely thrilled by the way this season is coming together in the back half…”
Check out the full interview at Variety – click here
Sleepy Hollow season 3 is set to resume February 5, 2016
