Sleepy Hollow- Episode 8

Death is trapped and Abiie teaches Ichabod how to fist bump.

But try as they might, they can’t destroy him. But he is trapped in a bunker designed by Jefferson and his wife’s witch coven.

They plan to interrogate the Horseman.

“I don’t think he’ll talk.” -Captain Irving.

Ichabod and Abbie decide to call in Brooks (John Cho)

Irving: “A dead man, a mental patient and a time traveller from the American Revolution”

Abbie: “That’s our team.”

Meanwhile; 2 hunters find the Hessian’s horse and one makes a phone call saying they must assemble a team. Then he shoots the other.

Jenny gets picked up while she was enjoying a sunny day and a soy latte. No reason, but Irving wants to talk to her. Irving wants to make sure she’s really down. 

In Andy’s things, Ichabod finds a tablet with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Andy freaks the hell out. Ichabod finds that Andy is the necromancer, he gives Andy a chance to redeem himself. Andy begs Abbie not to make him go to the horseman. His soul doesn’t belong to him anymore. He has no choice not to obey the horseman. But Abbie says please, and he agrees.

Irving takes Jenny to the scene of a faked robbery. The shop owner, hiding in a room behind a fake wall, has been shot. And something that could break the hex spell on the horseman’s cell has been stolen. Jenny surmises that they will take out the grid next so that the UV lights that weaken the horseman will go out. 

At the interrogation, Ichabod pushes the horseman and a  necklace belonging to Katrina falls from his uniform. Then we are treated to a flashback of Ichabod, Katrina and Ichabod’s friend who Katrina was originally betrothed to, Abraham. 

At the power grid, Irving and Jenny are teamed up and suited up. Irving gets snuck up on, but quickly gets the upper hand (Orlando Jones is such a badass lately). 

The Horseman says he knows Katrina’s destiny. Ichabod taunts him. The Horseman lashes out and says he will kill Ichabod. Ichabod was his mission, Washington’s prized soldier. The Horseman set out to avenge the death of Abraham (who Ichabod betrayed and killed!?)

The power goes out. UV lights are off. The Horseman releases Andy from his control. 2 hours until the power is back on and every minute the horseman grows stronger.

Abbie wants to know what happened with Abraham. Devastated after Katrina broke her troth, the pair were on a clandestine mission to deliver the Declaration and Resolves. Abraham is concerned about how he will look with Katrina leaving him! Ichabod confesses that Katrina admitted her love to him and he asks for his blessing (really, you thought this was the time?). Abraham challenges him, at first Ichabod refuses to draw his sword and yields, but Abraham does not decline. Hessians shoot Abraham while Ichabod is at his mercy and they surround Ichabod and Abraham, the other man orders Ichabod to flee and finish the mission. 

Abbie tells Ichabod that the interrogation must stop because he is out of control. Irving and Jenny come down to the tunnels. Irving suggests back-up, Abbie and Jenny disagree, could be dirty cops again. They decide to keep everyone out of the tunnels, but leave to get heavier artillery. Ichabod stays behind, unwilling to leave the horseman alone. Andy pulls a talisman out of his gut and recites an incantation that summons demons and will free the Horseman. He had tried to tell everyone that he had no choice and wouldn’t be able to stop something like this.

The Horseman challenges Ichabod to a sword fight. During the duel, he realizes the Horseman is really Abraham. Morlock came to Abraham as he died and he made a deal with the devil.He says that Katrina is held for him and will be his.again. At the last second before the Horseman has his revenge on Ichabod, Andy calls the acolytes of Morlock to secure the Horseman. Ichabod lives and the other two disappear.

Talking it over with Abbie, Ichabod says he created a monster. Abbie says that Abraham made his own choices and that people are responsible for themselves. They discuss Katrina and Ichabod says that she is the key and must be freed.

This episode was truly awesome. Action packed. Jenny’s back, Irving played a great role. 

Unfortunately… it didn’t really make sense overall. The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse… you know, from the Bible, had mythology that long predated the American Revolution. So how is it that Abraham could be one of THE Horseman? The whole universe revolves around Ichabod? a little ridiculous. Just a little. And why did it take so long for them to decide to get Katrina out? You’d think Ichabod would have been working on that somewhere in between contracting the plague and getting kidnapped by freemasons. But I’m glad it’s being addressed so she can either be free or dead and there is some sort of resolution either way with how Ichabod’s affections will go. 

I am pumped that Jenny and Irving and Andy were all in the foreground this episode, certainly the most diverse cast in genre fiction TV at the moment. Although this might hold more meaning if events of biblical proportions weren’t all centered around Ichabod (a true American patriot), his “true love” and a jealous jerk.

5 more episodes this season, I hope to see John Cho again and sincerely hope that we get more Jenny and that Captain Frank Irving gets his action on. After being skeptical and hands off in the first few episodes it’s nice to see him show what he is made of. 

Sleepy Hollow- Episode 6

After three weeks, Sleepy Hollow is back! And so is the Headless Horseman (well… a little) in this episode, titled “Sin Eater.”

Abbie is teaching Ichabod about the modern American dream as expressed through baseball (aptly timed, since the world series was last week). Ichabod still has not been shopping for modern attire. After  heckling the little league umpire, Ichabod goes to visit Katrina’s grave. He is hit with a dart in the neck and kidnapped.

Driving home Abbie goes into a trance and ends up in an echo house that Katrina communicates through. Katrina tells her about the Sin Eater. She says that the blood bond between Ichabod and the Horseman could be reversed (as now, the horseman was summoned, so Ichabod woke up. And if the Horseman dies, so goes Ichabod.)

Abbie wakes up behind the wheel with a message to find the Sin Eater and nearly collides with a tractor trailer truck. Abbie heads to the chief and tells him about the Sin Eater. He doesn’t buy it. Ever the skeptic, even after meeting a known time traveller, a body awakening in the morgue, reports of a Headless axe murderer, a ghost plague that could only be cured by crossing over to a time portal occupied by residents of the lost colony. So instead Abbie goes to recruit Jenny (back in the institution while Abbie’s guardianship paperwork processes- paperwork has to process on a TV show?! say what!?). Jenny is still feeling sassy, and slighted. But joins up quickly at the mention of the Sin Eater.

Ichabod awakens in a room full of candles. With his captor, Rutledge, and does some Sherlockian stuff to prove that Rutledge is a freemason. Rutledge asks about the phrase “Order from Chaos” and Ichabod remembers Arthur Bernard, a freed slave suspected of treason (by the British, for inciting the American Revolution), Ichabod was asked to torture him, which is where he met Katrina. Ichabod, of course, wants to show Arthur mercy and Katrina does also, because she “is a quaker”

Abbie and Jenny are looking for the Sin Eater. Jenny had previously researched a man visiting death row inmates globally, when those he visited met their death, their parting words we’re all the same, “I am sanctified.”

Arthur tells Ichabod that there are demons all around. Ichabod protests against the usefulness of public hangings, is threatened by his commander and then the other man goes all demon face. Katrina and Ichabod have a heart to heart and she finds out he knows about the demons.

Jenny cross references every death row inmate’s visitors log… umm… seems impossible, but okay. Abbie hashes out why Ichabod is so important to her, and then Abbie gets to go Sherlockian to find that the Sin Eater has been taking the identities of the dead death row inmates. His real name is Henry Parish (Walter Bishop… I mean, John Noble). Abbie says she knows what he is and who he is and says she needs his help. He says he doesn’t do that anymore. After telling him how important it is, four horsemen of the apocalypse important, he tells Abbie that Ichabod is underground with freemasons.

Seems like it would be hard to find an underground lair of a secret brotherhood… but whatever,

Back in the 1700s, Ichabod is ordered to kill Arthur, who says that if Ichabod pulls the trigger he will live with sin inside his heart forever, that he will beg for salvation. Ichabod spares him, intentionally missing, but is caught by his demon commander who shoots Arthur in the back. Ichabod drags himself to Katrina to heal him and says “Order out of chaos.” His sin is not acting sooner to free Arthur.

The freemasons have Katrina’s diary with the account of this tale and are satisfied that Ichabod is the real Ichabod (apparently they have been fooled before, how does that come up?) They convince Ichabod that he must kill himself to kill the Horseman forever.

Ichabod is willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Abbie says no. But tearfully relents.

Ichabod drinks the poison, but the Sin Eater arrives. He stops the poison from flowing to Ichabods heart and says he will save Ichabod from the poison and his sin. He asks Ichabod to summon Arthur and Arthur forgives him as a reenactment of the initial battle between Ichabod and the Horseman commences.

Ichabod is sanctified as wind blows and candles explode in the underground lair.

But it’s nightfall, and the Horseman is riding.

A great episode for sure. Good pacing, Abbie and Jenny using their wits, John Noble joining the team!

Ichabod is getting close with Abbie despite missing his wife, Katrina, and reminiscing about their complicated introduction. Although, I would have thought that the fact that his British army superiors were demons would have come up sooner (and frankly, this *true Americans fight on the side of goodness and humanity against evil* is a terrifying political sentiment to me). Also, I’m glad that Ichabod did not kill Arthur, because portraying that as forgivable would not work for me.

“For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.” Katrina says this to Ichabod. It’s an Edmund Burke quote. Burke felt the British government was fighting “the American English”, with a German-descended King employing “the hireling sword of German boors and vassals” (AKA Hessians, one such, the Headless Horseman himself) to destroy the colonists’ English liberties. Meaning; the Americans were more English than the English who were too, German.. On topic of American Independence, he wrote: “I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression and absurdity.” Which is very sensible and also very in line with Ichabod’s “personal beliefs.”

Sin Eating is also a real idea, presumably Welsh in origin in which the chest of the deceased is salted and then bread placed on top, a beggar or relative of the deceased, depending on who you asks (or how fond the family is of eating off of corpses) is passed a bowl of ale over the body, drinks the ale, eats the bread and the sin is absolved. Not quite at all the same from what was present in the episode, but interesting none the less. Want to know more about interesting European death rituals? Read here.