'Sleepy Hollow' Postmortem: Showrunner Talks Abbie's Fate, What's Next

It is a truth universally acknowledged that death is rarely permanent on Sleepy Hollow (unless your name happens to be Katrina Crane). So when paranormal investigator Abbie Mills disappeared through a hellbound portal at the end of the midseason finale, the show’s fanbase was 90 percent sure (okay… maybe 70 percent sure) that she wasn’t gone for good. “Our fans are sophisticated enough in genre and have a strong enough relationship with this show to know that anything is possible in Sleepy Hollow,” admits showrunner Clifton Campbell.


Sure enough, Campbell didn’t waste any time revealing Abbie’s fate. Just before the end credits in the winter premiere, “One Life,” we catch a glimpse of the cop-turned-FBI agent waking up in an otherworldly realm, although where exactly she is — and, more importantly, how she plans to get back — are being saved for future episodes. In fact, Campbell held back on including an extra moment with Abbie to maximize the dramatic impact of her return. “We were originally going to take her scene a beat further, but we realized that what we had set the table for the episode that follows. Abbie’s storyline is going to play heavily into the origin of this season’s big bad, as well as the overarching ‘twistory’ this season involving Betsy Ross and her relationship with Crane. So it was the right thing to do — this scene really sets the table for the back half of the season.”      

Besides providing proof of life for Abbie, the episode put a number of other key plotlines in motion that Campbell says will play out as the season races towards its finale — one that he promises will wrap up this particular arc, while laying the groundwork for a fourth year. Read on to learn whether “Joenny” will replace “Ichabbie” in shippers’ hearts, if Nikki Reed will ever leave Betsy Ross’s corsets behind for contemporary street clothes, and when we’re going to hear Ichabod opine about the Broadway smash Hamilton.