Sleepy Hollow - S1E12 & S1E13 - The Indispensable Man/Bad Blood
This is a recap of the entire two-episode season finale, both parts of which aired back-to-back, on the night of January 20, 2014.
Previously, on Sleepy Hollow: “The Vessel”
Aw, Icky has a cell phone and the most adorable outgoing message! Each week he gets dragged a little further in to modern times, and today he gets stuck in the autocorrect loop. While Abbie texts back and forth with him from her kitchen, a noise crackles behind her—it’s Recurring Guest Star John Cho!!!! Once she gets him securely handcuffed to the radiator, sweet zombie Cho professes his love to Lieutenant Mills. He gives her the heads up that Moloch wants the bible for a map that it contains, and also that Crane is going to betray her and turn her soul over to Moloch in the end—no biggie. This should totally make her roll her eyes, except that Crane already told her the exact same thing. Surely it’s not going to be true?! Abbie doesn’t get the chance to find out because as soon as she turns her back, Cho dislocates his finger and slips out of the cuffs and back out the door.
At the cabin (the one with store telescope recession), Ichabod is still pouring over G. Dub’s bible, and it sparks a memory of a conversation with the General about Lazarus. Lazarus, the man who rose from the dead—of course! He rushes out the door to the batcave to meet Abbie, but before they can even exchange their pleasantries he uses all of his fancy-pants English to let her know that he knows what we all think of his flip phone. Crane shows Abbie his discovery of G. Dub’s 10 “extra verses” at the end of John chapter 11, which Icky knows is a clue for him. Using his magic invisible ink cocktail from last episode, he finds an entire two-page note from the Forefather explaining how he used magic and the occult (and just a few cursed prayer beads) to straddle the line between life and death after his body expired, passing secrets from the land of the dead into the Bible to be found by the living. He recorded a map, the path into Purgatory, and a way to find THE weapon to defeat all evil! Oh, and also it will help free Katrina, so I guess that’s a bonus.
Abbie looks nonplussed about all this “rescuing my wife” talk, but tries to focus on the actual task at hand—that saving the world task. The Bible has a handy-dandy index of people who know things, and the late Reverend of Sleepy Hollow is not only on the list but was present at the General’s funeral. They determine that the cursed prayer beads belong to the Reverend, and start their search for them.
In an ironic twist, the Cap’n is the one being interrogated about the death of Morales and Father Boland (they must not have found Buddy Cop’s body in the bushes yet). Cap’n’s superior officer Tom seems to be sympathetic, but finds it hard to believe that the enemy is actually Evil with a capital E.
Poor Guest Star John Cho. He just wants to be taken seriously, and he can’t even get respect from a stinking demon! Moloch mocks him and, when sad John Cho begs to be his weapon against the world, Moloch sends a swarm of giant creepy bugs that wrap Cho from head to foot (with conveniently crossed arms) in bug silk. He’s going to be a mummy, isn’t he?
Ichabod waxes poetic about all of his dear memories of Katrina, only to find that Siri can’t figure out what he’s talking about. We all miss empathetic Yolanda a little, don’t we, Ichabod? Parrish (the Sin Eater) gets out his expected cab and they go off in search of the beads. You wouldn’t think pulling a strings of beads off a corpse would be that big of a deal, but for some reason these beads won’t budge. They leave Parrish with a wicked burn across his palm, and he realizes that they’re cursed. They’re actually guarded against just this sort of grave-robbing adventure. Luckily for our heroes, Parrish is not of the faint of heart—although maybe he should have been. He gives the beads another go, and just before collapsing he reveals his sights: Washington and a map, rowing across water, carrying a secret parcel.
Abbie is starting to get the cold feet about this plan, and she tries her hardest to convince Crane that maybe their whole plan—the earth saving, the wife rescuing—is a bad idea. Crane is starting to get a little bitchy about her point of view, and it looks like they’re going to come to blows over Katrina vs. the Greater Good. This heavy foreshadowing is interrupted by a shrill cry, and the trio is descended on by Ninja Demons! Moloch is obviously trying to stop them from finding the map, and that’s all Ichabod needs as proof that they’re on the right path and shouldn’t be deterred.
Always back at the batcave: this time, with Parrish in tow, they start brainstorming back and forth until they realize that the map must be buried with Washington! Unfortunately, Washington has multiple well-knows gravesites, which Crane determines most of which have to be decoys. Now to narrow down to which specific grave he’s actually buried in…
Have you ever noticed how much time John Cho spends ion the tunnels? He is literally on the other side of the wall from the bat cave all the time, but they can never find him or even know that he’s there. It’s no surprise to find him in the tunnels yet again, but this time…what is happening to you, Guest Star John Cho? He’s breaking out of his cocoon, and instead of emerging as a beautiful butterfly, he is a veiny, goo-covered, freakishly strong, bulbous-headed Demon John Cho, servant of Moloch and destroyer of brick walls!
Crane is discovering that even with a fancy phone, the useful features are never the ones that work when you’re out on an island in the Hudson River looking for a secret Masonic Grave. Abbie gives him the WORST EVER summary of the Manhattan Project and Hiroshima as a deterrent to give up on the map (way to step in on that argument, Parrish, and point out the it also ended WWII). They seemingly wander around the island looking for G. Dub’s secret grave, giving Abbie a chance to quiz Parrish about this prophesy where Crane turns on her. She probably shouldn’t have asked, since it turns out it’s really a thing—but can she outrun a prophesy by trying her best not to believe in it? As Parrish puts it, prophesies have a way of becoming self-fulfilling…he’s not saying that Abbie will actually be the one to turn on Crane, is he?!? A triumphant cry from a clearing up ahead means that Crane has found the Masonic clues to the grave site. With a little quiet and concentration, the grave magically opens up with a turn of a rock and the wave of a hand.
It turns out that when demon-possessed Morales killed Father Boland, it left behind some DNA. Tom, the investigating officer, wants to screen everyone who was there at the murder, and that includes the Cap’n, the ex-Mrs., and wheelchair-bound Macy. Who’s DNA did they find on the Father? And who’s will they find on Macy? How is this episode halfway over and we have more questions than we started with??
Down into the crypt of General Washington, Crane finds a marker with the initials of G. Dub’s nickname, the “Indispensable Man”, but the grave under that marker is too obvious and also booby-trapped. Their next guess, under the seal of Cincinnatus, turns out to be a better bet, and as Crane unlocks the secret key and the tomb’s torches self-ignite, the corpse of the General is revealed holding a scroll in his withered hand. Crane unrolls the scroll with a hurry to discover that it’s the map—everything they’ve been looking for! Now on to saving Katrina! And the world, of course.
But before they can make their way to the exit, a noise comes from the ground level outside, and Guest Demon John Cho descends on them, new trench coat swirling around him like a comic book character as he drops to the floor inside the tomb. Before Abbie can even fire a shot at him, Guest Demon John Cho rushes her, takes her gun, drops a torch, surrounds Icky with a ring of fire he can’t escape, and has Abbie by the throat. Dirty pool how Abbie all of a sudden plays the “if you love me” card, but she is begging him for her life when Parrish crashes into him and does his Sin Eating badness. The demon temporarily flashes back to regular-style John Cho, and he begs Abbie to destroy the map and him as well. She grabs a crowbar, and as his demonness is creeping back into him, she stabs the crowbar through the center of his forehead, making a clean and rather dry looking hole through the back of his head. In what will forever be the biggest waste of effects and makeup for a 3 minute bit, Demon John Cho (and also Recurring Guest Star John Cho) have been put out of their misery.
More noises are coming from ground level, and it sounds like our heroes are being sealed into the tomb from the outside. I bet it’s more of those pesky Ninja Demons! The go further into the crypt looking for another exit (are crypts usually built with exits? They’ve always seemed like more of a last-stop scenario that requires no additional doors). While Crane is finding the Masonically-marked secret exit, Abbie turns around to see GUEST DEMON JOHN CHO!! He’s rising up, hole in his head be damned, and as he makes his way with supernatural speed, Abbie trips the booby-trapped pyramid grave and the ceiling collapses onto the demon. I’d bet dollars to demons he’s not really dead, though…
As they climb out of a secret trap door, Abbie tells Icky that Cho wanted her to destroy the map, that it was all Moloch needed to win. She leaves the ball in his court, and in a flash of conscience Crane sets the map on fire. He and Abbie must choose their own destiny, and he wants to throw in with her lot. Crane just chose Abbie over Katrina!!
Through the halls of the precinct, Cap’n does his slo-mo walk, flashing back on his ex-Mrs. and Macy, and then he’s in front of Tom. He puts his gun down on the table and turns himself in as the killer of Morales and Father Morales. Cap’n, say it ain’t so!! He’s so worried about what DNA they’ll find to link Macy to the killing that he’s giving up his part in the fight against evil to keep his little girl safe.
Ichabod is sad. He failed his wife, he left her in Purgatory, and he’ll never see her again, but he did the right thing…or did he? That sneaky Ichabod and his eidetic memory—he’s just going to redraw the map! That’s kind of cheating. Is this how he betrays Abbie and turns in the other witness’ soul?
In a flash of light, we’re in the unsaturated woody forest outside Sleepy Hollow. As the moon eclipses the sun, Moloch calls forth another of his riders and resurrects him from the ground. This rider, on a horse who breathes fire and wields a flaming sword, is War.
Ichabod, standing on the edge of Lake Champlain, sees a flash of red hair behind him. Is this a flashback, or has Katrina found a way to reach him again? He follows her across the field and as he reaches the crest of the hill, he sees scores of redcoats milling about, preparing for battle…a modern reenactment of the Battle of Champlain. Before he can join in to correct their historical inaccuracies all Crane-style, he gets an urgent cell phone call from Parrish, who must see the Witnesses immediately!
Okay, Crane didn’t drop everything and run to the cabin; he stopped at the Historical Reenactment Supply Store to buy a nice clean copy of the exact outfit he’s been wearing this whole time (minus the snazzy coat). Parrish bursts in and starts frantically retelling his Moloch dream that he had—he saw Moloch in the woods, raising War from the ground. But also the Cap’n’s trial for the “murder” of Morales and Father Boland starts today, AND it’s also thirteen years to the day since Jenny and Abbie got lost in the woods as little girls. There are just too many coincidences adding up here—Parrish is certain beyond a shadow of doubt that War will descend on Sleepy Hollow that night at the solar eclipse.
Abbie rushes to the courthouse to get to the Cap’n’s trial, but a sudden change of venue means that she’s really hours late. Cap’n left a package for her, though—we don’t know what it is, but we do know that she needs to check out the marked pages. He left her a sticky note that says just that.
At the batcave, everyone else fills Abbie in on what’s been going down—they can bind War’s soil patch but they need a witch, they don’t know a witch, Katrina was a witch, Katrina’s in Purgatory, and Crane told a slight lie and decided to redraw the map. With the best intentions, of course, and now look how handy it’s going to be! Abbie is pretty pissed (I keep expecting every slight rift between them to turn into them tearing each other’s throats out), but can acknowledge through gritted teeth that this might be the solution they need. Crane shows her the map with its criss-crossing lay lines, and thinks he has the location of the soil patch. But Jenny—hey, everybody, Jenny showed up!-wants to know more about the rest of Moloch’s riddle and the bit about the saint’s name. Luckily, the Cap’n was one shackled step ahead of them on that. He knew that Corbin and the Reverend had been working together, and that all of the Corbin’s audio tape files must hold the key to the riddle. Abbie puts Jenny on the task, since she’ll be busy walking into Purgatory.
Leaving Jenny behind to research, our other three heroes are tracking the coordinates of the lay lines through the woods while Parrish takes the time to lecture them on Purgatory. It will present itself as real life with all of the trappings and temptations, but they must not eat or drink or believe what they see, or they will be trapped there forever as well. Oooh, is that how Katrina got stuck there? They find the convergence of lay lines, and Parrish pep talks them into making quick work of their chore and finding their way back. As Abbie and Crane chant the spell, the background literally shatters into floating pieces of glass, and hand-in-hand they walk through the doorway.
A scene opens up with Abbie waking up in a bed in Corbin’s cabin. A bump on her head explains why, when she calls for Crane, Corbin and Non-Demon John Cho show up. She’s been at Quantico this whole time, and when she was hurt during a training exercise Corbin and Cho picked her up to bring her home and heal. Abbie’s falling for all of this, completely forgetting Parrish’s warning that nothing is real.
Somewhere else in Purgatory a church bell rings, and Ichabod is clearly in a flashback of his own. Crane has returned home from war to the applause of his peers and his father—but this is not how Crane remembers it. When he turned his back on England to fight for America, his father swore that he was dead to him. Is he misremembering, or is he being sucked down the rabbit hole as well?
In simultaneous scenes, Abbie and Crane are being tempted by food. If only someone had told them not to be tempted!! Abbie’s poison is the apple pie a la mode, Corbin’s special treat that he shared with her, and she feels all of the love and warmth that she’s been missing since Corbin died. She raises a bite to her lips, but at the very last second has a flash of reality and throws her fork down. Her pie starts to bleed, and Cho and Corbin beg Abbie to stay with them, not to leave them there. It’s disturbing to think of her mentor and her friend being stuck in Purgatory (one headless and one broken-necked, no less), but as she opens the door she is sucked outside and away from the cabin
Crane is tempted by his father’s libations in a toast to his son—his son? How does pops know about Jeremy? Crane didn’t even know about his own son! Icky realizes it’s a dream, and as the facade crumbles around him and his father’s eyes blacken into demonness, he throws the glass into the fireplace. Father Crane erupts into bloody, wide-mouth screams as Crane is also sucked out through a misty doorway.
Jenny has listened to tape upon tape of Corbin’s notes and finally stumbled onto something. Corbin mentions an antique pamphlet for a church abandoned in the woods. When he asks the Reverend about it, the minister insists that the Sheriff meet him in person. Jenny pulls the pamphlet out of Corbin’s files as she listens to his voice, and before she can finish the tape she is out the door and on the way to the church.
Crane wakes up in a Purgatory cemetery, and in one of the creepiest scenes this show has produced yet, he tiptoes through the walking shrouded corpses to the figure of a crying woman in a chair. As he reaches for her shoulder to console her, she raises her head and has no face!! It’s like the brother from the Twilight Zone movie didn’t stop at the lips and removed every feature! Understandably startled, he backs away from her and through a misty, dark meadow, only to stumble on the prostrate body of Abbie. With a fist-bump for proof of each other’s existence, the heroes again pair up to navigate the Purgatory terrain. They walk over a slimy pair of torsos who cannot crawl all the way out of the ground, to a churchyard full of shuffling, tormented souls. These are the lost of Purgatory, forever looking for their salvation, and Abbie and Crane sidestep all of them and make their way into Katrina’s church.
As Crane drops the bar into the door to lock it, Katrina turns to see him and, instead of being excited that he’s here to rescue her, cries out that Icky was never supposed to look for her. What an ingrate! She knows nothing of the secrets of G. Dub’s bible, but since she’s a witch she’ll suit their purposes. They all but drag her towards the door, but she won’t go. No one has explained to them that she can’t leave Purgatory without Forgiveness for her sins; to do so would break down the very fabric between life and death. If someone wants to volunteer to take her place, though, she’ll be more than happy to walk out the door. She didn’t exactly give Abbie a pointed look during that conversation, but she might as well have! Will Crane sacrifice Abbie’s soul for his wife’s?
Short answer is no: Abbie volunteers, and quite forcefully. She wants to make sure that humanity can endure, and she’s willing to make the sacrifice to see that happen. Katrina gives her a witchy amulet that will protect her from Moloch during her stint in Purgatory, and “promises” to return to take her place back when this is all over. With a tender hug, Crane promises to come back for Abbie, but is cut short by the silhouette of Moloch banging against the window. Crane and Katrina speak the magic words and walk back through the shattered glass gateway between worlds, back to modern time and Parrish.
Abbie, left behind in Purgatory, is being hunted by Moloch. When all of the other souls cower away from him, she picks a fight—it’s actually a bad idea, when you’re less than half the size of a demon, to pick a fight with him. Moloch hoists Abbie up by the throat, and in a fit of rage and lack of oxygen, Abbie rips the amulet from around her neck and presses it into Moloch’s skin. I’m sure that’s not what Katrina meant by “protection” but it does the job as it melts into his flesh and he releases Abbie. She runs away, now amulet-less.
Katrina is thrilled to be back in the land of the living, and makes immediate friends with the Sin Eater, who is there to tell them the constant time updates. Katrina uses a spell to find the soil-patch of War’s emergence, and our new trio rushes off into the woods to stumble upon just the right clearing in the woods, now replete with 4 white trees. Just as they do, Jenny pulls up to the abandoned Church. The moon is beginning to eclipse the sun as she finds a sign in the dirt that once belonged to the Church. She’s figured out Moloch’s clue!! As she speeds away, leaving Abbie a voicemail about how you can’t trust the _____, a shot blasts through her windshield. Holy crap, it’s the Headless Horseman!! Who knew he’d make an appearance in his own show?! He shoots out her tires, causing her car to flip and come to a grinding halt, and as he rides off on his horse we’re left wondering what Jenny’s message was. Who can’t Abbie trust???
Abbie’s amulet trick did not amuse Moloch, and he is chasing her with a quickness through the woods. As she runs to escape him, she trips…and falls into her and Jenny’s old dollhouse? Well, that’s weird and thoroughly unexpected! She finds young Abbie and young Jenny, who assure her that this is a safe place but also tell her the rest of what happened the day they blacked out in the woods.
Parrish, Crane, and Katrina are standing on the soil-patch, but Katrina’s having trouble making her mojo bind the dirt. Parrish insists that this is the spot, and then in a flash and a clever word, the white trees have grabbed Katrina and Crane and are holding them hostage at branch level. Through a ton of exposition and flashback, Parrish reveals that HE is War—The Sin Eater is War!! He’s been here the whole time, raised up by Moloch thirteen years ago when a teenaged witness (young Abbie) was too young to stop them. He’s been waiting for this day, biding his time, because not only is he the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse, he’s also the son of Crane and Katrina! This is young Jeremy, buried alive by Katrina’s coven under a death hex!! Parrish knew how to defeat the Golem! Parrish knew how to find the soil-patch! Parrish has had everyone fooled the whole time, all to get back at the parents’ Crane for abandoning him two hundred years ago! Once he was raised up, he stumbled through the woods to the first building he came upon: St Henry’s Parrish. That was sign at the abandoned church that Jenny found in the woods when she was attached by the HH!
At the same time, and on a different plane, young Abbie is showing current Abbie her memories of that day. Abbie really does remember what happened, and what she saw really was Parrish being pulled up out of the ground by Moloch. She instantly realizes just what all this means—they’re relying on Parrish for help and guidance, and he’s not even on their team! She starts running between windows and doors to find a way out, but all of them are completely sealed. Young Abbie tells her that this is her home now, and as Abbie peers out a dark window the camera zooms out to show her trapped in her childhood dollhouse in the middle of the misty woods.
As Parrish/Jeremy/War winds up his hateful description of what his life has been like, his buddy Headless rolls up on his horse and steals Katrina away. Crane yells for his wife, who is useless and has already fainted, but as soon as HH and Katrina are out of the way, Parrish has him released from the trees’ grasp. He pushes him forwad with sheer magic into his former grave. He sneers as he throws Icky into the crude pine box, cursing him to spend the rest of his life with lost faith. He breaks the second seal over Crane’s new grave just as the lid slams shut.
And that’s it; that’s Season One. Season Two starts in the Fall of this year, but how can the show start when Abbie is trapped in Purgatory and Crane is trapped in a grave? Will Parrish’s last words to Ichabod come back to haunt him? And how can they defeat War and Death?
