Hey everyone, pushinguproses here and it's Halloween month! Happy spooky month my beautiful
voidlings!! To start the celebration, I have a fitting episode of Murder,
She Wrote to share with you, Night of the Headless Horseman. I love me a good Sleepy Hollow Parody,
and as far as apparitions go, I'm a pretty big fan of the Headless Horseman. He’s spooky and he
has a Jack ‘O Lantern that he can throw at people. That is DEFINITELY my type.
A few things about the legend; in American folklore, the Headless Horseman
is a fictional character from the gothic short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”,
written by Washington Irving. The character is believed to be a ghost of a soldier,
who was decapitated by a cannonball during battle. After his body was
buried in the town of Sleepy Hollow, he rose from the grave as a spiteful ghost,
and carries around a Jack ‘O Lantern which serves both as a replacement head, and as a weapon.
In Irish folklore, the character is actually a demon fairy that carries around a whip
made of human spines, and he can kill people by stopping his horse and calling out someone’s name.
One the name is called BAM, death. There are endless variations on this story,
including adaptations that take various liberties, but the American folk tale is the most well known.
Let’s see what Murder, She Wrote does with this story.
As we begin, we see a stereotypically dorky looking character named Dorian Beecher,
reciting some mediocre poetry to his love interest, Sarah.
Sarah: “Oh Dorian” poetry really churns my butter…
Dorian gets flustered and asks if she is done with her previously possessive boyfriend,
Nate Findly. She says yes, and he says he wants to go in to tell her Father his intentions.
Sarah says he needs to meet his family first. Sarah:
“You know how he feels about ancestry…” He’s been waiting on that 23 and Me report for months!”
Dorian starts walking home to the sound of some very ominous organ music. Suddenly,
he is startled by the sounds of approaching hooves. It’s the malevolent spectre,
the HEADLESS HORSEMAN. OH NO. HERE HE COMES… (rousing, exciting music plays)
*dink*
Oh.
Dorian curses Nate Findly, who has been antagonizing him since
he started teaching there in the fictional town of Wenton, Vermont.
Enter Jessica, who is there to see Dorian, she seems to be a friend this time.
Typically she travels to see one of her many, many relatives. He tells her he
got the job as the new poetry teacher at the Wenton Academy School for boys,
because the previous one was involved in a driving accident; the car went into the river
and she had drowned. Dorian: “And there’s talk she wasn’t the only one in the car,
there may have been a man behind the wheel.” Jessica: “Oh dear.” We all know how men drive..
Dorian asked her to come visit to help him out of a desperate situation.
Before he can explain, Jessica is approached by the town dentist, who was coincidentally
dating that woman who drowned in the river, and refers to her as Mrs. Beecher. Doc: “Bye Dorian,
and a pleasure to meet you Mrs. Beecher!” Yes, Dorian told everyone that Jessica is his mother.
She asks why he lied about her identity. Dorian: “Jessica… I’ve fallen in love.” Dorian really,
I’m flattered but I am WAY out of your league.” Is anyone else noticing how Dorian is steering?
They’re in front of a projector and he’s supposed to be driving straight but he’s
making these aggressive micro turns. *steering wheel squeaks*
Here’s the deal: Dorian is an orphan and to win the approval of Sarah’s Dad,
he needs to have a good family, so he wants Jess to play his mother.
Suddenly, GREG BRADY! (Horse gets agitated) Um…
did he ride over there just to scare them, then leave?
Sarah is happy to meet Jessica, but their greeting is interrupted by horses.
A few meddling kids let them out, and the stable hand angrily chases them.
You may recognize him as Elmo from the last MSW episode I reviewed. We then see Nate again, and
Dorian yells at him for the horseman stint before he rides away.. The owner of the school and also
Sarah’s father, Edmund Dupont demands the school administrator to kick Nate off the premises.
Headmaster: “Nate is great on the saddle” AND in the sack!
Hey everyone, Roses from the editing room here. I just realized that I’ve
been calling this character Edmund for the entirety of this episode. His name is EDWIN.
I call him EDMUND. I’m not changing it, I am just giving you the heads up that I call him
Edmund for the rest of this episode. Okay bye!
Dorian introduces Jessica to Sarah’s father,
hoping to make a good impression. Edmund: “So tell me about Mr. Beecher,
a professional man I presume?” He’s actually an amatuer man, hoping to go pro in the fall.
Later that night, Charlotte approaches Nate and tells him to stay away from
Sarah. Charlotte: “Satisfy your needs elsewhere.” Nate: “Is that a threat
or an offer?” Cause I’m INTO it. She threatens to fire him, but he implies if she does,
he’ll tell everyone about the affair they’ve been having. Nate: “I feel one good threat deserves
another.” That’s not a Mike Brady lesson I recall hearing. Barry Williams: “What the hell is this?”
Jessica plans to tell everyone the truth, but Dorian charms her out of it with his poetic words.
The dentist joins them and admires the waitress's necklace. She tells him Nate gave it to her.
Speaking of the devil, Nate approaches the table, planning to start some crap.
Oh my god. I’ve found it. I’ve found the worst tattoo. It begs for death.
He and Dorian get into a fight, and
oh Greg Brady. How the mighty have fallen. Nate: “I think something's broken.” It’s your brain.
Dorian finds a sword and I have no idea what was planning to do with this thing,
but a cop comes in to break up the fight. Did… he just grab the sword by the blade?
On his way home, Nate’s friends ridicule Dorian and drop a sword by his feet.
Out of the dark, the headless horseman approaches again and… Dorian holds up the
sword. He gets knocked down by the horse and falls unconscious, sword next to him.
On her bikeride the next day, Jessica spots a crime scene. Cop: “I’m sorry ma’am I can’t
let you through.” Other cop: “That’s all right Charlie.” She’s hot and I want her to see my tan!
Sooooo this guy is dead. *sad kazoo* Yep, it’s Nate,
no one else has that sharpie tattoo. His boots are on the wrong feet and someone cut off his head,
which is missing. Dorian is the main suspect because he was found with a saber,
which would not be able to cut off a head that easily. Jess gets a little inpatient and the
cop sasses her. Cop: “Now miss, turn down your burners.” Turn down for what? Unfortunately,
while Jess is defending Dorian back at the station, she spills the fact she isn’t his mother.
Cop: “It sure is encouraging to hear, lil Dorian here doesn’t lie!” A FALSEHOOD,
this PROVES he’s the murderer! Jess and Dorian brainstorm what could have happened.
There’s some padding in the meantime, with Jessica interviewing Sarah and her father
about their whereabouts. Edmund: “JB Fletcher.” Higgins: “Oh my god.” Edmund defends himself
by saying he was elsewhere last night; he claimed to have gotten an anonymous letter,
saying Charlotte, the school administrator, was embezzling money from the school, so he went to
discuss it with her. He denies any involvement with Nate’s murder. Edmund: “It is my belief
that Dorian Beecher is a cold blooded killer.” Oh yeah, just look at him, total psychopath.
Jess talks to Charlotte next, who confirms Edmund’s alibi.
She shows Jess the note and speculates that Van Stotter could have written it. So yes,
now we have a plot line involving embezzlement.
Jess then approaches one of those pesky kids who attend the school.
She noted how much he looked after Nate’s horse, saying she couldn’t help but notice
him taking care of it. Todd: “Look, I gotta go.” DEFINITELY not suspicious.
She also runs into Van Stotter, the man who looks after the horses,
who refuses to answer any questions while holding a sickle. Jess: “I wanted
to ask you-” Van Stotter: “Look you got questions missus, you ask somebody else.”
As Jess leaves the stables she is spied on from these creepy-ass kids hiding in this murder attic.
--break--
Meanwhile, Dorian looks like a wreck. The waitress comes back and tells him
she’d understand if he’d killed Nate in self defense since he looked terrifying.
Jess asked when she saw him and she replied around 11:30, wearing the cape
and the hat and making a ruckus. However, the sheriff said Nate was at the bar until 10:30,
meaning there was an hour not accounted for. Then Dorian hurts his tooth on an olive.
Dorian: “OW OW OW.” Jess: “Dorian!” Nice setup to have to go talk to the dentist. Jessica
asks Doc a few questions about Nate, yes, the dentist’s name is Doc, but he doesn’t say anything
significant. She also notices a picture of his ex-girlfriend Gretchen, the one who drowned in
the lake. Later that night, a mysterious figure buries something in the stables as these pensive
steeds look on. It’s the right size… FOR A HEAD. One of the kids happens to see it.
The next day, Jessica goes back to the stables to snoop around, but she
keeps getting distracted by noises coming from above. Oh good, she found the kid’s occult room!
Jess: “Now boys…” Let me show
you how to be a witch. Lansbury, singing: “Substitutiary locomotion, mystic power--”
The kids actually admit to the first Headless Horseman prank played on Dorian-
the oldest, Todd, was riding Nate’s horse. Since he took such good care of it,
it trusted him. But they claim that was the only time and they have no idea who
was on the horse the second. This kid, whose name I already forgot,
says he DOES know who cut Nate’s head off because he saw him burying it in the stables. Van Stotter.
A few detectives arrive on the scene and the bag is found. Inside… a box. Now, let’s play a game.
What thing do you think Van Stottor put in the box, then buried in the stables.
A rotten tomato A tomato plant
The antidote The ball that cost him the big game
Dirty laundry with the stench of biblical proportions
100 McDonald’s gift cards Aztec Gold
OR a Head. Put in your vote now.
Brad Pitt: “What’s in the booooox??”
Cop: “It’s alright ma’am” Just McDonald’s gift cards!
Nah, it’s just money. See, Van Stotter was the one embezzling the money, and he admits to it.
He wanted it so he could hire a detective to find out who was in the car when his daughter drowned.
Strangely, no one seems to mind that he took the money. He says he didn’t write the note,
but Jess now knows who did. She believes Nate wrote it for a completely different
reason. Jess: “The pieces are finally beginning to fit.” So am I going to jail now or vhat?”
Jess invites the dentist, Doc, to the restaurant to talk, and holy hell I love how this mystery
concludes; Nate sent Charlotte that note because he wanted to end Stottor’s investigation;
Nate was the man in the car. When he drove it into the river, he saved himself, but not Gretchen,
so he wanted Stottor to get caught so that he WOULDN’T. Doc was meant to marry Gretchen before
her death, but right before that she went out of town and started seeing another man.
Nate Findly. Doc found out it was him because he noticed this necklace the waitress was wearing
earlier - she said Nate gave it to her. Well, this photo shows Gretchen wearing that same necklace.
Doc had made it for her, he told Jess early on that he made jewelry as a hobby. That’s how he
concluded that it was Nate who abandoned Gretchen in the car, leaving his ex-fiance to die. When he
was fixing Nate’s tooth after that bar fight, he went into a rage and stabbed him. The new
dental work would give it away, so he sawed off his head. Talk about literal overkill.
Doc admits to all of it, but doesn’t reveal where he put the missing head.
That’s… weird. I wanna know where he put the head! It should be noted that Nate directly
told him that he had left Gretchen there to die; he was drunk and rambling while he
was in the dentist’s office, so Doc didn’t just take a weird gamble; he knew for sure.
At first he wanted to just make it seem like Nate died somewhere out of town,
making sure people saw him leaving as the headless horseman, but when he saw Dorian,
he figured it would be the perfect setup - Dorian beheading his ghostly antagonist? Sounded perfect.
So he sawed Nate’s head off with the saber then dumped the rest of the body in the river.
Well now that that’s done, let’s check in on Dorian. Seems Sarah was inspired
by Jessica’s independent nature and was tired of men treating her like a doormat,
so bids the town and Dorian goodbye forever. Good job Jess. *Ta da!*
Right, Final thoughts. So during my initial watch I kept feeling these pangs of disappointment,
because the more the story went on, the less Legend of Sleepy Hollow it became, but after
watching it a second time I REALLY appreciate the more intricate story and detailed hint design for
this episode. I also noticed more things that took homage from the tale this time around;
things like how the characters connect to the ones in the book: Dorian as Ichabod,
Edmund as Batlus Van Tassel, Sarah as Katrina Van Tassell, and Nate as Brom Bones.
The atmosphere is also fitting; the academy is set right in this small, wealthy town that
looks very colonial; even the characters seem to dress for the setting. Every now and then
there’s this threatening organ music that plays during scary scenes, giving me those sweet,
sweet Halloween vibes. The story itself was more complicated, with the embezzlement sub plot
and the story of Gretchen’s death; even though there are a lot of characters that all seemed
to be connected in some way, this episode was very easy to understand and I really
liked how it got to the solution. Murder, She Wrote isn’t always a show you can follow along
with in regards to the mystery; often, some hints happen off screen, interactions happen off screen,
or something is revealed right at the end of an episode, but this one gives the viewer a lot of
clues and information to work with, it’s really fun. It’s also not as campy as other MSW episodes;
I think it was trying to go for a more serious tone. Though it’s hard to take anything seriously
when this snek tattoo is staring at me through this thick layer of arm hair. Great acting all
around from some well known names too, but I must admit, I am still morbidly curious about
the location of that head. I know it’s dark, but I want to know. Where are you, Greg Brady?
If there is an episode of Murder, She Wrote you are just DYING to see me cover, then please
leave a suggestion in the comments, and until then, happy sleuthing. Happy SPOOKY sleuthing…
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my video on the Night of the Headless Horseman, I hope it
sasitiated your need for Halloween frights. If you want to see more spooky videos, I have some for ya
but first, a quick shout out to my patrons because if not for them, I couldn’t buy all the skulls I
have on my mantle. HUMAN skulls. If you’d like to support my frightful endeavors please consider
donating to my campaign and if not, shares, likes, and comments also make me feel good.
If you wanna see more videos, here’s a few recommendations. On the right I have a video
about Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask, and on the left I have the previous video I did on Murder,
She Wrote. You may also want to just take a glance around my channel as a whole,
I have content for the whole family. Thanks again and as always I’ll see you in the next one.