saathi1013:

God. I am sitting over here fuming not just at thefuckingAbbieDeathDebacle jesus christ

but like, in retrospect, the whole… broken way they played out damn near every storyline?  Every promising meta arc on that show just fizzled.  Whoever was in charge of ultimate narrative and thematic shape of the series, each season?  Failed.  Repeatedly.

To show you what I mean, here’s one way it could have gone:

Season 1 – they combat the Horseman of Death. Blah blah Death is Van Brunt reveal blah blah historical love triangle blah blah stuff about Katrina being a witch blah blah… but let the emotional through arc of the first season mirror the Witnesses’ fight against Death – aka, let Ichabod grieve the death of everything he knew, including his wife. And! let Abbie deal with revelations about her mom and her ancestors being all magicy in a way that parallels Death’s riding around all willy nilly (ie something resurrected from the past) so that she can deal with those.  Two Witnesses, two perspectives on dealing with Death: grieving for and letting go of what’s lost vs learning to embrace and celebrate that which still lives on in those that survive.  Season Finale:  They figure out that they can temporarily turn a Horseman back to its mortal self just long enough to kill it, and the spirit of the Horseman can be banished to purgatory.  So Van Brunt dies and Death gets banished.  But! Katrina’s still “alive” in purgatory? They can bring her back??  Then, in trying to get her, something goes wrong and Abbie gets pulled in (not to replace Katrina).

Season 2 – other things seem to have slipped out of purgatory when Katrina escaped.  Including – DUN! – the Horseman of Pestilence, this season’s major villain.  Abbie in purgatory has to face memories of her past, decisions she made that still haunt her, her own personal demons, while Ichabod fights literal demons that escaped from purgatory and is trying to get her back.  Demons as pestilence, as scourge.  Katrina helps him, and Ichabod is not sure the sight of her using magic is unnerving because she’s hid it from him for so long or if, no, magic is just fucking creepy.  Midseason Finale: Abbie comes back, Katrina is revealed as the Horseman of Pestilence, having made a pact with Moloch (after years of torment in purgatory, which we can sympathize with because we’ve seen what Abbie went through there) so he’ll release her.  Back end of the season is all about people dealing with the idea that the people they love not being the people they know anymore.  All about the idea of the complex interplay of the effects of illness (again: pestilence) and agency and identity.  Again: two sides of the Horseman theme.  Season Finale: they’re given the option to attempt to ‘exorcise’/separate the Horseman from Katrina (more risky, not certain that she’ll survive or that it will work at all) or to kill her so they can just banish the Horseman like they did the last one.  Interestingly, let Abbie support exorcism and Ichabod be in favor of just letting his wife go and finally be at peace, and let the Witnesses fight over it.  Katrina gets exorcised, dies anyway; the spirit of Famine is banished.  Ichabod and Abbie part ways, still upset with each other and how things went down.

Season 3 – A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS.  It’s the Horseman of Famine, yaaaay!  Again, parallel this Big Bad with the emotional throughline of the season, and show the Witnesses with distinct perspectives on the concept.  Famine is all about sine qua non (without which [there is] nothing), about losing essential nutrients, about quod me nutrit me destruit (that which nourishes me, destroys me), about Tantalus.  On the one hand: the idea of a total lack of nourishment, starvation; on the other: empty calories, the idea of fullness without actual substance.  Ichabod and Abbie learn that they depend on one another, they rely on one another, and yes, that they need each other.  Midseason Finale: they finally get back together as partners after a lot of nudging from Jenny (who has opened up an artifact fencing… uh, antique shop, and is dealing with the pain in the ass that comes with being Respectable (ugh taxes) and trying to dodge trouble from her past).  Season Finale: Abbie and Ichabod banish Famine, their UST is off the charts, are they gonna–?

Season 4 – Horseman of War. I think you see where I’m going with this?  Events ramp up, episode setups get increasingly confrontational and violent, there’s a shit ton of conflict both within the police department and in the supernatural world, etc, etc.  Two sides of dealing with conflict (theme) = de-escalate or bring a bigger gun and win.  Silver lining: Abbie and Ichabod are, like, tentatively courting, and it’s adorable and sweet until, like, a demon comes racing through the park they’re having a picnic in, or a rage virus starts infecting people when they are at a romantic restaurant or whatever.    Midseason Finale: they totally hook up. But the morning after, Ichabod wakes up back in the middle of the Revolutionary War.  Abbie chooses to astrally project herself to ‘wherever he is’ (she’s invisible to others!), and episodes take place combining both timelines.  …if this show isn’t above referencing other stuff, we can give a nod to Quantum Leap, although there should be some equal back-and-forth helping across timelines, like Ichabod finding an artifact Abbie needs in the present, which he hides in a safe place so she can go find it centuries later.  He also sends her love notes that way because he is a huge nerd.  Season Finale: Ichabod comes back, they banish War, but Henry – who has thus far just been an occasional guest star who Jenny hires sometimes to authenticate shit, or who helps consult on cases – turns out to be Ichabod & Katrina’s son and Moloch’s minion! And he’s been the one to mess with stuff like sending Abbie to purgatory or sending Ichabod back to the past!  DUN!

Season 5 – Henry!  Themes are betrayal, sabotage, shaken trust, that kind of thing.  Midseason Finale: Jenny gets possessed by some trinket Henry had left behind in the shop ages ago that they’d thought was inert, becomes corrupted by evil power.  The entity that was Jenny works with Henry against Witnesses, trying to free Moloch.  Season Finale: with Abbie’s (and Ichabod’s) help, Jenny gains control of the power within her and uses it to kill Henry.  But: Henry’s death opens the doors to purgatory, letting out not just all four Horsemen, but also Moloch.

Season 6 – Moloch! Themes are: ultimate Evil, the darkest corners of one’s soul, worst fears realized.  Also, the ideas of ‘too much of a good thing,’ or ‘be careful what you wish for.’  Episode before Midseason Finale ends with Team Witness (Jenny retained power; Irving – who, yes, has been around but I was TRYING to keep this concise, oops – also there, plus, okay, Joe and Andy maybe? Let’s say Andy came out of purgatory with Katrina and joined Team Witness after proving himself.) squaring off against the Horsemen, while the Witnesses face Moloch. Midseason Finale: Black screen, caption reads: One Year Later.  Post apocalyptic time jump!  (Come on, all the cool kids do it.)  All tech infrastructure ceased functioning; most of humanity is either vanished or dead.  Team Witness hunts down the Horsemen one by one and banishes them again.  This should keep us occupied until the Season Finale: facing down Moloch, who, sensing his defeat, turns back the clock to the pre-midseason faceoff.  But Abbie and Ichabod, being Witnesses, remember how he defeated them that time, and Moloch ends up killed for good.  Everything as it should be. Fin.

And, because Six Seasons And A Movie is a great idea: Pandora can be the movie.  Pandora, opening the gates of Hell (Moloch only ruled purgatory, after all).

…and like, this is just me spitballing off the top of my head.  It’s entirely possible that this is flawed in some places or could be punched up in others, but like. Jesus.  The material they had to work with, the staggering potential… and we got what??  

blarg.