Previously on Sleepy Hollow...
Our quest will not be without peril.
Hi, this is Mark Goffman.
I'm one of the executive producers and showrunner for season one and two.
And I'm Tom Mison, and I play Ichabod Crane.
There I am with a drippy sword, so to speak.
The time has come.
Uh, there they all are.
This is "previously on" from Episodes 201 through 10,
as we are now watching the mid-season finale "The Akeda."
This will be exciting for all of us
'cause I have no recollection of this episode at all.
When we moved to 18 episodes
and because it was such a busy, hectic schedule,
within two weeks,
I will have completely forgotten an episode.
So this will be a real treat for me.
That's great. As we're watching for the first time.
You know, it was kind of like that on the writing side, too.
We had, uh, you know...
This was actually pitched in our original season as Episode 7
when it was a 13-episode order and then...
- Really? - Yes.
And as we sort of elongated to 18, it became Episode 1 1,
but initially Moloch's birth and arising was all in the seventh episode.
With the similar outcome when it was seven, of the killing of Moloch.
That part was all set at the beginning.
It was funny. Len Wiseman, you know, genius co-creator of the show,
never was satisfied with the way Moloch looked.
And over the hiatus, we had about a one week hiatus
between season one and season two in the writers' room.
But Len just one day said,
"You know, I wish we could just kill Moloch.
"He's... Like I just... I don't think he's scary enough."
And, you know... And it's funny,
we developed all these little tricks to sort of conceal him.
That's why the inside joke before he had a name,
- um, which was in the pilot... - The Blurry Man.
Yes, he was the Blurry Man.
Yeah.
And that was in part to make him scarier.
And we developed some, you know, sort of stutter frames
and other techniques to keep him really scary.
And then, after Len said, "Why don't we just kill him?"
You know, we thought about it and said, "Well, we can. Let's do it."
And that would be a way to really kind of reset the show,
and give us something really to kind of propel us
for the first half of the season.
But before he dies, we'll put him in a dress.
The long, flowing black dress in this one.
- The riding skirt. - Exactly.
Yeah. Now, Corey Castellano,
who creates all of the creatures for the show,
he always seemed to be
working on a new Moloch.
- Yes. - He'd be working at the individual episodes,
but always there were plans
for how to change Moloch next and make him scarier.
There was Moloch V1 from the pilot.
Then there was a V2,
which all of us kind of thought looked exactly like V1,
with the exception, I think it was about two feet taller.
- Yeah. - Um, so he was bumping into ceilings.
And we also, over the...
So far we've had three different actors playing Moloch.
- That's right. - In the pilot,
we had... The suit was like nearly seven feet. It was huge.
And so they just got the tallest person they could find,
who I think was the brother of someone working in the office.
And then when we started shooting season one,
there was a guy... I think it was season one.
- Yeah, it must have been. - Yeah.
It was a guy called DJ, who was a dancer, and moved amazingly.
And so could do a lot of the stuttery effects that we put on to the Blurry Man
- when he was still called the Blurry Man. - Mmm.
And the voice. You know, the voice was Alex Kurtzman.
- No. - Yeah.
- Really? - Yeah.
The place is abandoned.
And then DJ, who was a brilliant dancer and moved amazingly,
then was replaced by... Season two Moloch, was Derek Mears.
- Right. - Who is just mister creature.
- He's incredible. He was our Golem. - Mmm-hmm.
He was... Who else did he... Who else did Derek play?
Oh, God, I'm having a brain drain at the worst possible moment.
Yeah, a number of the bigger creatures.
- He and Marti were really our go-to's. - Marti Matulis.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Between them, they played pretty much all of them.
Yeah, the Sandman, most of our memorable, the Wendigo.
Yeah.
This is back in Fredericks Manor now,
which was...
Fredericks Manor came up in season one
when we were looking for a place for a haunted house episode,
and it became "Sanctuary,"
which of course had importance for Crane's history,
in that he and Katrina had visited there.
And it became sort of the...
One of the places that good had sort of housed
all of the secrets to the war.
And of course Grace Dixon was there, and ultimately where Henry was born.
Two locations in this episode became of historical importance to the show.
The Fredericks Manor, which is where Henry was born
and then took over once he moved back, and then Saint Henry's Parish,
which was the church right next to where he was unearthed.
- And ultimately... - And took his name.
Yes, took his name.
How was this sword fight for you, Tom?
I loved doing all of the sword fights.
When we see another character with multiple actors,
Headless, without a head, is played by a chap called Jeremy,
who's a local in Wilmington.
And he's an expert in various forms of martial arts, armed and unarmed.
And also, is the chief lifeguard on Wilmington beach.
Oh.
And he just is a huge imposing man.
And so whenever they say, "All right, Tom, go and fight Jeremy."
I always think, "I know how this is going to end up."
It's always nice.
The one thing that I've always admired about Crane
is he knows he's never going to beat the Headless Horseman.
- Yeah. - 'Cause he's the Horseman of Death.
Yet, if ever he needs to stand in the way
between Headless and any of Team Witness,
he'll go and do it, he'll put himself in danger.
And this was the first fight
where he thought he could have the upper hand
because of the Sword of Methuselah.
- So he did. - And he approaches it
with a completely different, new...
You know, with vim and vigor
and breaks the Horseman's ax.
- I thought it was a lovely fight. - Yeah, it was really fun to see.
It was neat to see that reversal, too, with the Horseman.
- You know, if he had a head... - On the back foot, yeah.
...you would have seen him stunned.
Well, it's funny you should say, "If he had a head."
'Cause coming up now,
Katrina does another convenient bit of magic,
and we are soon to see the Horseman with a head.
Yeah, with Neil Jackson.
That too was something that I thought was fun,
because normally... Episode 10 was the first episode,
the one previous to this was the first time
that Crane had actually gotten to see Abraham,
his old friend from many hundred years ago.
Abraham.
But now he gets to have a conversation where he fully has the upper hand.
The Horseman of Death is no exception.
Yes, the Sword of Methuselah.
And it... I'm... Right.
Whenever Katrina is wearing the necklace, she can see Abraham.
- Yeah. - But no one else can,
until she does this nifty little spell.
That trick initially came up because the Headless Horseman
is about $10,000 a shot.
And so you can imagine,
you know, the cost goes up very quickly to do these fights.
And there I was thinking it was an idea
with story being the driving force. But no, it's cash.
- Well, sometimes, you know... - I didn't realize it was that much,
that much for the effects.
For some of the bigger ones.
I think the lowest it cost is about $3,500 to $5,000.
Wow.
But then a lot of the more bigger movement shots are about 10 grand.
So, you know,
between season one and season two, we wanted a way to keep Headless alive,
and show him in... You know, Neil Jackson we knew from...
I had actually worked with him on a previous show.
And I knew he was both
conversant with a sword and a terrific actor.
Yeah.
He seemed like a great part for the role
and we expanded it here in season two.
Both for production reasons and because...
As you pointed out for story, it really was a fun way to work.
And it allowed him to speak, which was...
You know, and without... And John Cho, at that point,
was off doing another show, so we couldn't have him following around.
Oh, of course, because we saw Headless
speak through John Cho in season one,
- at some point in season one. - Yes.
John Cho always replaced by a necklace.
Yeah.
And then, you know, this was a fun part to show, that there's...
One of the things we like to do on the show
is that there's always a cost to the magic involved.
And it can never be as easy as just getting a sword and saving the day.
So the question here is,
"Do we trust the conveyer of this information?"
You're not getting off that easy.
Oh...
I like that little moment between Ichabod and Abbie.
- Yeah. - Where he says, "I'll kill him now."
And she says, "You're not getting out of it that easy."
Right. She's not about to be left alone with this if he is right.
No, exactly.
It's great. It's a nice little... A subtle reminder of their bond.
And not just in terms of witnesses, but also as friends.
Yeah.
Yeah, a continuing theme in the show, and one that really is at the heart of it.
Exacting the cost of death for death.
Dwight Little, this was the first episode that he directed of the show.
And, Tom, how did you find working with him?
I love Dwight.
There's nothing more to say. I love him.
He's a man who constantly has very, very strong ideas.
He shoots quickly, which we like, and beautifully.
And also, he's quite unusual
when you've got the intense schedule of a television show.
Before every scene, he brings out a table and some chairs,
and we all sit around and discuss the scene,
which is such a rarity on a schedule like this.
We don't often get a chance to discuss the scene before we rehearse it.
That's not what I was gonna pitch.
Yeah. I thought... Also, it created even a calm, you know,
- before, that everyone gets. - Absolutely.
He's like, "I know this is taking time,
"that we're supposed to be shooting,
"but it's okay. I'd rather have this conversation now.
"Let's all sit around the table and walk through the scene."
And I really liked that approach.
Yeah, especially for scenes like this, where there's three of us with...
This is probably another seven or eight page scene.
Yeah.
It's good to find the corners that we all need to turn within it,
so it's not just three people talking at each other.
- Not that it ever is, of course. - Yeah.
I actually really loved getting Lyndie
or Jenny back in this scene. It was...
One of the things about this episode that was really fun for me
was that it was the first time, really,
that we were all coming back together again,
that the group was getting to reassemble
after several episodes of sort of having to all be separated.
Yeah.
Here's... You can see how we're obscuring Moloch there.
But this is another new Moloch.
That's when Moloch shed his old skin and becomes a...
- Yes. - ...powerful shadowy Moloch.
Another... I thought really smart Len Wiseman pitch and idea,
he actually came up with the idea
that Katrina becomes pregnant with baby Moloch.
And as part of that, his earthly look should be different
- than what we saw in Purgatory. - Right.
A binding ritual is no future.
A last resort.
I fought for you,
and in return you tried to deceive and destroy me.
Not to destroy you.
Moloch.
Little spat here between former captive and captor.
Ex-fiancés.
But...
While I was with you...
The idea for this episode actually came as I was thinking about...
This is really the first time...
Just like it was the first time that Crane had the power to potentially kill Headless,
it was the first time that that sword also gives him the power to kill Henry,
- who's been the nemesis for the season. - Yeah, quite.
And in thinking about the story of Abraham and Isaac,
I'd read a long time ago this story,
the Kierkegaard story called Fear and Trembling,
which was his kind of reconciling of this incredible ask
that God requests of or demands of Abraham to prove his faith.
And that last step, according to Kierkegaard,
before you can have faith is really infinite
of giving up of what you believe and what you see.
And to do that for his son, and he just questioned,
"How could any god ever demand that?"
Which, of course, seemed like the right motivation to give to Henry.
He doesn't buy in to our world anyway.
And to say that the world is unjust. I mean, look at what's happened to his life.
He was put in a box for a couple hundred years
after being tormented, having just a pretty hard childhood.
- Oh, who hasn't? Get over it.
So, in this cruel world, no god could have created a world...
No just god could have created a world that way.
So, of course, that's a god who's going to try to have a father sacrifice his son.
In the heat of battle, we may not have the opportunity.
There may be no other way.
My love, there's always another way.
Have you discovered anything new about the sword?
Yeah, in the Alexandrian version of the Bible,
there's a reference in Genesis.
Adjacent to the story of Abraham and Isaac.
An unnerving test of faith.
We were looking for an image of the story of Abraham and Isaac
that best sort of typified it.
And also, one that I wanted Crane to be able to recognize.
And that seemed like a good one from...
Just an incredible... It's a really moving painting.
But, yeah, back to your point.
I love... One of the things we got to finally put into the penultimate episode
was where Crane finally gets that chance to say to Henry,
"I never even knew you were born."
- Talk about misplaced blame. - That was such a relief.
It was a relief to finally have Crane say that as well.
I'm sure.
Signing off. 9-23-17-8-0.
The tricky thing actually throughout this season is trying to find
why Crane holds on to Henry so tightly.
Because he didn't even...
As he says later in the season, he didn't even know he existed.
And he's not to blame for Henry's treatment.
Not only did he not know he existed,
he didn't even know Katrina was ever pregnant.
- Yeah. - His hands are completely clean.
But I guess it says a lot about him as an honorable man
that he is trying to find a family.
Also, maybe a man... You know, he's 200 years out of his time.
- Yeah. - He's trying to find the family,
trying to find anything that he has from the past.
Also, I guess there's still the remainder of the guilt
of abandoning his family and country before he came to America.
To be accused of being unjust
and to be accused of abandoning something unreasonably,
I think that probably cuts him, and he wants to try and grab hold of it.
And that is something... We didn't really get into it this season.
Well, clearly family was a big theme this season,
and finding your family,
and having a family, and unconditional love and acceptance.
And he doesn't have anyone else.
And that's why it was so important when Katrina finally entered the world,
and to have a son, there's the family that he's always wanted.
And we know that his relationship with his own father became strained.
And I think there's a big motivation there to not repeat that
and to try for salvation knowing that it is something that's possible.
And to exhaust all possibilities before,
finally, as we get to the end of the season, saying it's not possible.
And this is really the episode where I think Crane abandons hope
that there is good in his son and moves on from that notion.
If we do nothing, we all die.
Ichabod's story, as far back as we can go in the character's timeline,
has always been one of loss.
And this an important episode, as you say,
because it's when he finally agrees that it's time to shed his son as well.
He loses his family and his country back in the 18th century.
From the time he comes out of the ground he's just...
Well, also in the 18th century, he loses his best friend Abraham.
Then he loses his entire time.
Everyone he's ever known is lost to him,
and everything he's ever known, lost to him.
And over the course of these two seasons, we've only seen him lose more and more.
He supposes that he can win Katrina back,
and that's the one thing that he has from his time.
But she eventually is lost to him as well, as is Henry.
It's quite tragic actually. I've not really thought of it like that. God.
Though, in this episode, he does get to ride a motorcycle.
So he does gain something.
Was that the... Had you ridden a motorcycle before?
Oh, when I was 15, round a friend's back garden.
- But no, not really. - It did... It looked like fun.
Found this old-school motorcycle.
The question is...
In fact, actually at the end of the first season,
I remember you, me and Alex Kurtzman sitting in a field.
- It was the re-enactment battle. - Yeah.
- That's right, that's right. - We were discussing ideas
for this second season.
And I said, "I think Ichabod should ride a bike.
"During the hiatus I'm going to learn to ride a motorbike."
And the look on your faces
when their lead actor said, "I'm going to learn to ride a motorbike."
That's exactly what you'd expect from a producer.
We're like, "Wait."
And then of course, we have you not wearing a helmet in this episode.
The Four Trees.
- The Four White Trees? - Not anymore.
So, I added the line, you know,
that all laws are suspended during the apocalypse.
Oh, yes.
With each tree that is burned black,
more evil may enter.
This is where Crane and company are learning
what Moloch's plan is here.
That Purgatory is merging now with Earth.
The fall of the third tree will bring Moloch's demon army.
But he has to 'cause now there's...
We found somebody, Irving, who can use the sword.
And that was our piece of twistery in the episode
was Irving's code that he left him
was based on the...
It was John Andre.
A letter that Benedict Arnold had written to John Andre
to give up West Point.
Which could have turned the war, and Andre was arrested
and we found that those papers on him in 1780.
And Crane, of course, was familiar with that story
and knew that Andre was taken to a holding cell in Sleepy Hollow,
which is then where Irving had been camped out, present day.
- Very convenient. - Mmm.
It's amazing how much happened in Sleepy Hollow
- during the revolution. - Isn't it? Isn't it?
Franklin spent quite a bit of time.
Washington. Yes.
Well, but, you know, it was the hub of all,
ground zero for evil, you know, the nexus between worlds,
so all part of the secret war.
I didn't know you guys liked to party.
Quite, it's a cross between... Two ley lines cross there.
- Isn't that right? - That's right.
- That's that one solved. Phew. - All the way from there to Stonehenge.
Does that mean season three will shoot in England?
You know I've been pushing for that for a long time, Tom.
- I know.
24 shot a season in England,
and we were trying to convince Fox to, you know,
take maybe the tail end of their production and shoot for a couple weeks there.
Maybe, season three.
Doomsdayers are zero for 10,000 years.
This scene, so the hail of blood were these rock candies,
and they had an entire truckload of these.
Now, I don't know if anybody ate any of them,
but it was pretty cool.
- And then they just run out. - Yep.
- The second truck didn't arrive. - No.
- It's expensive. - That's ingenious.
- You need hailing blood. - Mmm-hmm.
I wouldn't know where to start.
But, you know, obviously sweets, boiled sweets.
You know, Jeremy Cassells, our production designer,
Tyler is our new prop master,
and Natalie, Jeremy's wife, is the art director.
I think they killed it all season.
- I mean... - Yeah, agreed.
Just every single, you know...
I mean, look, you mention props. Look at this.
Yeah.
Well, just the Archives, just this room is incredible.
And day one, I went around sticking my name
on all the bits of furniture that I wanted when the show finishes.
They were quickly taken off and replaced by the props master's name.
Oh, that's too bad.
I liked in the season premiere when we just...
We changed very subtle things actually in the Archives
to show that... Just to give hints that it was Purgatory.
I don't even know if all of them ended up on camera.
But we flipped the mural that's behind Hawley here.
- The mural of Washington? - Yes.
Yeah, crossing the Delaware.
And we changed the color of the leather chairs that are in the back.
Wow.
This ain't no Wendigo.
The Horseman of Death.
You'll have everyone going to Episode 1 on the DVD now
to see if they can find all the differences.
There were differences, Abbie's wearing peculiar earrings.
- Mmm-hmm. - I seem to remember that.
That symbolized something.
They did tell me, but as I said,
I've no recollection of anything before last week.
- Wait, really? - Yeah.
I like Abbie assigning
Hawley here to just keep an eye on, you know...
"Keep an eye on the Horseman. Things might get really out of hand.
"So, I'm gonna go take down the big bad but you gotta watch this guy."
I need to trust you
to watch over the Headless Horseman until we get back.
It's not a party,
you cannot have any friends over.
She has a lot of faith in Jefferson. That's the subtext here.
Jefferson created this and Katrina put a magic spell on it.
And it's Abbie showing that she has faith in two of Ichabod's things,
Jefferson and Katrina,
faith enough to leave Hawley, who isn't entirely trustworthy.
No.
But I like that, you know, it gives him something to do,
and I just love the way she speaks to him in that scene.
You know, "It's not a party."
Hmm. I like the way the two Cranes speak to each other here.
This is the first moment that we see a growing chasm in their relationship.
Well, up until this point...
You know, obviously, season one, she was in Purgatory
and there were very urgent conversations.
And then, really even in season two,
so many of their conversations had to be truncated or just about the mission.
And now they finally have a moment to really have it out.
Yeah, this is... Is this the scene?
This is the first scene that they've been together,
just the two of them alone, outside of Purgatory.
Sometimes, I question the very idea of our "marriage."
And this is where it ends up. And, you know, they're doomed.
No matter how hard they both try, they're doomed.
Also, I think Katia's cracking in this.
Mmm. Yeah, absolutely.
We are both better off considering ourselves
in the roles we have to play in this war.
Soldiers.
Yeah, I think it was such an emotional scene,
you know, to finally... Cathartic, in a way.
All season long, she's been really trying as hard as she can
to figure out her place, and to keep with the mission,
and figure out where her relationship is with Crane.
And it's been evolving as she's spent more time,
you know, on the other side,
and I think she's really struggling here.
The third tree burns
and we still await the Horseman of Death.
The witch created weakness in Abraham.
She must have delayed him.
The sword.
You should have prevented this.
That's not Alex as well, is it, doing that voice?
No, that was not Alex.
That was Marti.
It was him on stage.
We checked. We actually tried a few different voices.
I think we ended up sticking with him.
But in post we always try a few different things
and we re-pitched it and added some...
I don't know, some audio design.
I volunteered to do my Alan Bennett,
but it was overruled.
- Too intimidating. - I think so.
I take it you two spoke.
We agreed.
We share a single focus,
Moloch.
We got company!
And that crossbow. Do you have a story with the crossbow?
No. It's actually... Yes, yes, I do.
The crossbow, very early on, in season one, I'd made the decision,
I didn't want Crane to use modern weapons.
We had the great gag in the first episode
where he doesn't realize that it fires more than once.
And after that, it was something that I particularly wanted to avoid.
And eventually, someone came up with the crossbow,
- which was an excellent idea. - Yeah.
Now, the interesting thing about it is later on
you see Ichabod with a pump action crossbow
so that he can shoot more and more arrows.
Yep.
You know, I thought it was amazing and weird and amazingly weird.
And I looked it up. And you know, that was invented
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
Yeah.
- The pump action crossbow. - Yep.
And I had no idea.
I thought it was, you know... I thought that was us really testing...
Asking the audience to suspend disbelief with a pump action crossbow.
But, actually, the Chinese invented it centuries and centuries ago.
There's a really cool YouTube video of a crossbow expert
and a bow and arrow expert who trained in the ancient way.
And it's kind of amazing how quickly he can pull.
It's...
I thought that you probably adopted your style from his.
They actually shoot the arrow on the right side so that they can pull it.
And somehow in the last, you know, 50 to 100 years,
we've done some things to make it more accurate
but it's taken away the ability to shoot quickly.
Which was, you know, prior to the advent of guns, much more important.
I love this effect. I thought that was really cool.
Mmm.
I love that there's a crossbow expert.
I'm gonna give up acting. I've got a new aim in life.
You know, you have a future there
if you so choose.
Thanks, man.
Uh-oh.
- Here it comes. - Mmm.
Yeah, this realization.
Captain.
In this death scene, this... I think is the first...
The first time... Is it the first time I call him captain?
Orlando and I discussed it,
and I really wanted to refer to him as captain,
and treat him like a fellow officer,
an officer of equal rank dying on the battlefield.
A soldier. Yeah. I thought that was really, really moving.
Just really fantastic performances here.
You fight.
You're a captain, you fight.
Yes, you fight.
You know, it was funny because
as emotional and impactful as we wanted it,
and again the cost of the sword,
and to really show the toll it had taken on our team.
Also, you know, we knew that he was coming back in the very next episode.
But it was something we had to conceal for over a month
since we were off the air for the next five weeks.
Another moment of firsts, I think that's the first time
- Ichabod has touched Abbie. - Hmm.
It's almost always her touching him.
And this, to look out for her.
He grabs hold of her, which is something he would never normally do.
- That was nice. - Yeah, yeah.
And we played that scene, that was MOS,
just with, again, our brilliant composers coming up with a score
that kind of swept us into the scene.
We lost him.
Is he really gone?
He saved our lives.
He died a hero.
And in his name, we soldier on.
It gave a nice moment also to separate
Crane being there with Irving's death,
and then being able to tell Abbie about it afterwards.
And then to, sort of, unpack it here.
That was another, you know... It's funny 'cause people ask, you know.
Some people had talked about that battle scene
and Nicole's or Abbie's...
The fact that she was out of that scene, very quickly.
This is something in the chaos of production
and we're shooting multiple episodes at a time.
There's so much production going on.
The schedule's created so that, you know,
we only have a certain amount of time with each actor.
And I thought it actually worked very elegantly with the story
to then have her in here with Jenny and getting these separate moments.
...other than this moment.
And then building up to this where, you know, Abbie really rallies the troop.
It's not just you.
All of us, here...
And it's very typical of the two of them
to have an argument about who sacrifices themselves.
Yeah.
And that was another thing in this episode, though.
We've seen both of them willing to make a sacrifice of themselves, you know.
Crane many times starting, you know, with the Sin Eater,
willing to make that ultimate sacrifice.
And Abbie willing to spend time in Purgatory.
This episode it's, you know, can you sacrifice someone you love?
Are you willing to make that sacrifice? Is Crane willing to sacrifice Henry?
I am not gonna let Moloch
take another soul from this earth.
I do like that Abbie, you know, puts up a very, very good argument
and says that she's gonna be first, and when she falls, Ichabod takes it,
and when Ichabod falls, the next one.
Mmm-hmm.
But then in the actual plan, Ichabod has the sword.
I love that she rallies with, "I'm gonna do it."
But actually, "Here, you take it, you take it. You put up a good fight as well."
Yeah.
Well, she's got the opening salvo in this scene, so...
That's why she says, "There, you haven't heard my plan.
"I'm willing to do it, but so must you."
You would have me die?
There were Horsemen before you, there will be Horsemen after.
And then Henry, of course, learning.
He, you know, on the opposite end of the spectrum,
not willing to sacrifice yourself, Moloch says, "Hey, this is all about me.
"There've been other Horsemen before you. There'll be others after you.
"You've served your purpose now.
"And now becomes my time and you should just be happy
"that you got the chance to serve me."
I will obey.
Which is when he says, "You know what? Dad's aren't all they're cracked up to be."
Only an actor of John Noble's caliber
could still be intimidating whilst wearing knitwear.
Yeah. He's such a gift.
- He is. - Yeah.
He was so much fun this season.
War is hell.
And this is Saint Henry's Parish.
This was actually a location we found in season one.
And then, as we started to build out its significance, Jeremy came to me.
I didn't think we'd be able to build such a, you know, fantastic location on our stages.
But Jeremy said, "You know what? I can actually do more here."
Let's see what you're made of, Lieutenant.
And originally, a lot of these scenes were gonna take place exterior in the woods.
As Tom probably knows a lot better than me,
the woods in Wilmington, you know, especially summertime,
are not the most pleasant place.
And it's a little hard to control. There's a lot of bugs out there.
It's tough. It was... You guys, I can't believe the, you know...
What you guys do for this show is just amazing.
I struggle to believe it as well sometimes, Mark.
The many, many all-night shoots, just incredible.
So, when he said we had the ability to build this,
we actually then built it for Episode 207, and were able to keep it
and use it as a primary location in this episode,
which really allowed us to shoot within the number of days we had.
It won't be that easy.
If you want to leave here,
your only option is to kill me,
Father.
Here we come to the climax.
So here I am.
Kill me.
You see it.
That shot, bringing us back into that scene,
that's the sort of shot that we probably couldn't have done if we were on location.
It's another benefit of building on a stage
- is it's ours to play around with. - Oh, yeah. It's so much easier to control.
The episode with the Aurora Borealis,
pregnant with baby Moloch episode,
that was a scene with the Aurora at the end
that couldn't have been done if we were on location.
So we're again very lucky that we have someone like Jeremy
who can build sets like this.
Yeah and it just, it looks fantastic.
It looks, in fact, I think better than actually had we been on location.
And, you know, as you said the camera angles we're able to get,
just really work.
A mighty ram.
- Moloch... - Moloch.
My son,
let me pass
and I will dispatch Moloch to hell
and you will be free
to live a life of your making,
not a pawn in his game.
This is where we hear the story of The Akeda.
And, you know, it conveniently worked out that Moloch has horns like a ram.
We were able to use that part of the story. God provided a ram.
...while you go face Moloch and die?
That is what sacrifice is.
And again, and Henry realizing,
that it's interesting for him to realize in this moment that his parents
have not given up hope yet.
And that they still, you know, despite the evidence are willing to believe
that he wants family as much as they do.
And they have this unconditional love that only a parent can have for a child.
Don't look at Katrina. Never look at Katrina, for God's sake.
All it takes is that one moment.
Oh, Crane.
I can wield this with impunity.
Faith, hope and charity,
the Holy Trinity has brought you to your knees again, Father.
Come.
Moloch is waiting.
And this sequence here, we wanted to set up that this is now...
Earth is really merging with Purgatory. There are beings that escaped.
And so that shadow that we ran across
was helping to set up in the rest of the season
that we might see new creatures, new beings that were able to come through
in this brief moment before Moloch died.
Kill the witch.
- Oh, whoops, I gave away the ending. - Oh, Mark.
But she is Abraham's.
Abraham failed. He gets nothing.
The witch dies first.
And here in this we wanted to... Since Moloch was about to end,
we wanted to really kind of showcase him and let everybody see him in his full glory.
Now.
I don't know what they put in his mouth to make...
It's just... It's pretty gross what this actor has to go through.
It's hours and hours of makeup in there as, Tom, you know, too.
I mean, to prepare the creatures on this show
and even in your costume,
just everything on this show is just incredibly time-intensive.
Yeah, every time we look at the call sheet and see,
we've got a 5:30 pick up.
We can never complain nor roll our eyes or sigh
because you look at Marti and Derek or any of the creature guys
and they're in at 3:00, 3:30, start putting it on.
The story of a cruel and merciless God
who designed a cruel and merciless world.
Nothing like a John Noble speech in the woods.
Who could worship a deity
who commands a man to sacrifice his own son?
Those days have come to an end.
Tom, your performance is just fantastic in this episode.
- Every episode, but this really... - It's because I'm not saying very much.
- Thanks.
But that's, you know, it's funny, you say that, though.
I'm always amazed at finding a lot of times
fewer words suffice 'cause you can do so much with your expressions.
I find the same with Nicole as well.
It's always... Well, actually with every, you know, we've got a great cast,
- who can all say a lot with a look. - Yeah, they really can.
I had no idea what look to give here when we just had
Dwight behind the camera saying,
"And Moloch's turning to flames and is growling.
"And then he's dead."
Well, it was nice to be reminded of that episode.
Yeah, that was fun. That was. It was an intense one.