Donald Todd

At a time when Sleepy Hollow is running the risk of losing its vital energy thanks to an excess of plots and characters, it’s important to remember the things everyone loved about the show in the first place. It captured the attention of viewers thanks to the ludicrous concept of a Headless Horseman wielding automatic weapons, and delivered that early and often. It moved past initial absurdity by capitalizing on the chemistry between its two leads and building a dynamic that everyone wanted to root for. And it managed to remain a consistently solid supernatural drama, deploying well-executed monsters and suspense.

It’s fairly obvious that to the Sleepy Hollow writers, the entire American Revolution is a bucket of plot hooks, which is why it’s surprising it’s taken them a season and change to find a reason to use Benedict Arnold. One of the war’s most notorious figures—as Fat Tony’s henchmen would say, the same Benedict Arnold who plotted to surrender West Point to the hated British—he’s a persona that even someone with a surface knowledge of American history could identify. And given Sleepy Hollow’s keen interest in the ideas of loyalty and betrayal, he’s a prime candidate to fit into the show’s narrative and prompt questions about whose side someone is on.