Some observations on ‘Heartless’ which was all about LOVE

Our character’s thoughts on Love:

• Ichabod - Love is hard-won, based in sacrifice and commitment. Translation: Love is commitment. Notice the absence of play, of intimacy, and passion. Ichabod’s view of love is one that in which all of those aspects above have been undermined by betrayal. He is overcompensating with commitment to his wife because he believes it is the honorable path and maybe he believes if he is just committed enough he can rebuild the intimacy and passion he believed they once had. Ultimately though, commitment is not enough, especially with Katrina apparently not cluing in to what he needs from her. His love for Katrina is currently an Empty love.

• Katrina (to Ichabod) - Love is neither a duty nor a burden. It is a gift. Translation: Love is passion. Lbr, a gift can be taken back. There is nothing mutual about this, the emphasis in on the giver. Little consideration is given to whether the love is even welcomed. I mean, no wonder she can emphasize with Abe. Now considering her past with Ichabod, we can safely assume that intimacy is not important to Katrina. Intimacy requires openness and honesty. It requires truly knowing and wanting to be known by the person you are in a relationship with. I do believe Katrina is committed to Ichabod… for now. But unlike Ichabod, her commitment will always hinge on the strength of her feelings for him. Should they wane, so will her commitment. Katrina’s love for Ichabod is a Fatouos Love.

• Abbie (to Ichabod) - Love is a complication. Abbie (to Katrina) - Love is not enough. Translation: Abbie needs so many hugs. All the hugs. Please god, someone hug Abbie. That said Abbie is not entirely wrong. Furthermore, she would probably be the best at maintaining a romantic relationship - in the abstract at least. Her and Ichabod’s relationship for example is defined by their intimacy and commitment to each other, something she has deliberately fostered and I could theorize purposefully set boundaries for, so that it would not veer into passion. And this is not super clear but I can’t help but speculate that Abbie has always separated her relationships along these lines. Passion was fine for temporary lovers but deeper relationships were always to remain platonic. Ultimately, Abbie is guarded against love, but is wiser than just about anyone else on this show when it comes to navigating it (see: people change and relationships have to change with them). Likely due to an increased self awareness that informs her on what to guard against.

• Katrina (to Abbie) - Love can be a very dangerous weapon. Translation: I’m honestly not sure about this one. Like is it Katrina confiding in another woman that seems to share a similar magnetism, giving voice to what they both already know? Is this suppose to be foreshadowing for the ‘bargaining’ we get to look forward to between Abbie and Halwey? Is this foreshadowing the revelation that Katrina is still manipulating (maybe even enchanting?) Ichabod just as completely as she is Abe? Now that she is finally away from Ichabod is she voicing her true feelings and she is actually far colder and more cynical than she was letting on? Or did she just say this because she thought it was something Abbie would respect? All I can say is that it is certainly a huge contradiction to the ‘Love is a gift’ line she delivered to Ichabod. Each seemed to be specifically tailored to their recipient.

• Hawley - Look, not everything’s about a balance sheet, okay? I know you think that’s all I care about, but… Translation: Love is passion or infatuation, plus a lot of love is an identity crisis sprinkled in for good measure. Frankly, I’m not sure why I’m even including Hawley in here. Well I mean I do but he was mostly unimportant in the scheme of things. This episode was ultimately about ‘THE’ love triangle between Abbie, Ichabod, and Katrina. Notice how Jenny was originally in this ep but got cut out - in editing probably. That triangle despite how much they might like to push it in promo material is ultimately playing second fiddle to main attraction here. And with that in mind, Hawley was a catalyst.
  

Ok, from here on out this is pure speculation and basically Ichabbie headcanon but…..

• Crane, you like to dance? Wouldn’t you like to see? Here, we have and example of play.

• And since when has opening our hearts to new possibilities been a complication? Since always. And an example of intimacy.
  

• This episode was admittedly pretty lacking on commitment but I’ll get to that, just imagine all those other times Ichabod voiced marriage proposals in Abbie’s general direction.

• Mr. Hawley, what are your intentions towards Lieutenant Mills? It should be noted that this was after he caught Hawley leering at another woman and was followed up by him not answering Hawley’s sincere question about Abbie asking after him. Not exactly best wingman material there. Protective maybe, but Hawley rightfully points out when he states that it is none of Ichabod’s business that Ichabod has no claim to that. That exchange makes Ichabod look possessive more than anything.

• And now she is no longer in your debt. Another possible example of possessiveness, jealousy? Both indicators of passion.

• And then there were those scenes that had more to do with Tom’s acting choices. How Ichabod’s eyes dropped when Abbie reached out to touch his knee, how he looked a bit caught in the act when Katrina walked in, the look of shock and dismay when he realized Hawley desired after Abbie. Again all indicators of desire and passion.

And finally that scene with the succubus. So I read all the meta for this scene and like a lot of you I’ve quibbled back and forth about what it meant. This is what I settled on…

• I can sense your desire. It burns strong, even though you try so hard to hide it. And yet… the emotion in your heart has soured, hasn’t it? I know that taste. It’s the taste of doubt. You don’t have to be strong any more. You don’t have to pretend you’re not scared of losing all you love. Let me take your doubt away. So this is how I see it - She is sensing his desire for Abbie. She knows he is hiding it because of loyalty to Katrina and in the past his emotions for Katrina would have been enough to maybe even squash that desire entirely but because his feelings for Katrina have soured due to her betrayal and lbr whatever it is between her and Abe, he can’t quite shake it and that is truly unsettling to him. His being strong is referring to the false confidence and overcompensation of commitment he has employed in the hopes he can regain the fantasy Katrina he married and in doing so bring a bit of his past to the present (see: losing all you loved - also considering Abbie’s standoffish-ness when it comes to love, Ichabod very well may think acting on his desire for her would lead him to losing Abbie as well - hence even more reason to hide it). When she implores him to let her take all that doubt away it shows us why she presented herself as Katrina, she was betting that his longing for certainty, for a simpler time, a simpler wife, and simpler desires outweighed his desire for Abbie and the ‘doubt’ in his marriage and good character that that had come to represent. And I think we would have all agreed with Lilith that that was probably the best way to gain Ichabod’s soul without a fight right up until the moment he stabbed her. Cue me being shocked as all hell. And then, admittedly it is super ambiguous, Lilith pulls out the knife, seemingly corrects course, and does that patent Abbie head tilt and smile and watching Ichabod react is just a thing of beauty. You can watch it all just click into place for him and then wham - soul sucked. This is my cannon guys no one can take it away from me.

Tying up the loose ends.

• Some of meta about Abe and Ichy’s jealous behavior in Deliverance had me thinking about that old bit of wisdom that if you’re romantic partner is quick to accuse you of cheating it’s probably because they are guilty themselves. I think Ichabod knew subconsciously he was too emotionally attached to Abbie and that’s why it was so easy for him to imagine Katrina doing something similar.

• And honestly I think that is one of the reasons he is so blindly following Katrina right now and callously pushing Abbie to the side, it is partially motivated by guilt and this idea of false equivalency. Like if he can make himself stop feeling all these things for Abbie then maybe Katrina and Abe won’t be a thing. Hence him reaffirming his commitment to Katrina at the expense of Abbie. It doesn’t have to be that way, but that is what he is doing.

• Just wanna echo some other metas here by saying I don’t think that scene with Ichabod in the car with Abbie was him playing wingman to Halwey or Abbie, but him very cautiously testing the waters and gauging where Abbie stood on the matter. I feel like he was fishing for a ‘I’m so not interested in Hawley’ in a way that Abbie wouldn’t catch on to him being weirded out by the whole thing.

• I still feel that Abbie’s feelings for Crane are mostly platonic, like I could see an attraction there before but I’m not sure if that will withstand all the nonsense he has been throwing her way lately. And in my head, Abbie is endlessly patient with him but her abandonment issues are certainly gonna have to rear their head up eventually, curious to see how all that is gonna shape up.

• Crane on the other hand, well I don’t think he is in love with Abbie but I do think he endlessly confused and frustrated by whatever feelings he has actually acknowledged for her. I think one of he reasons he may have been cool with Katrina going back to headless was because after the revelations with Lilith he needed the space. Ultimately, what I think he took away from the experience was that Katrina was never going to be the woman he thought he married and he had to come to terms with that, but it still felt like a lot was left unresolved. The false confidence is still there as well as the commitment, its just that he is now placing it in her usefulness to the cause and independence a little more so than he was doing in the past. Though his claiming that the relationship needed to evolve was certainly more open ended than anything he said in the past about him and Katrina and therefore the tiniest little bit less frustrating.

• I think they pretty much confirmed that Katrina joining the gang does in fact mess very heavily with the Ichabod and Abbie dynamic, just as we all feared it would. Thank god they did they right thing and removed her from the picture, even if the way they went about it continues to be so dumb.

• I think Katrina may have left because she realized that Abbie was going to steal her thunder every time and she didn’t want to be there when Ichabod caught on to that. In fact, she may have even been betting that in her absence he wouldn’t catch on to that.