Sleepy Hollow - S1E8 - Necromancer
Previously, on Sleepy Hollow: “The Midnight Ride”
New Characters: Abraham von Brunt, Ichabod’s best friend and fellow patriot
Picking up the at the millisecond Episode 7 left off, the HH is frozen by the seal and by the “sunlight”, and since Jefferson’s demon catching machine included hardcore pulleys and chains, he is effectively not going anywhere. With the HH locked up, Mills can barely contain her grin as she adorably teaches Crane the fist bump as a sign of subdued elation; subdued elation is such a British emotion it’s surprising he didn’t already know it. The Cap’n is keeping an eye on the HH through the interrogation window-good thing Jefferson had to foresight to put that in-and when Abbie and Crane start listing all of the other freakish kinds of terrors that are going to invade Sleepy Hollow, Cap’n realizes that they mean to interrogate their prisoner…even though he’s not much of a talker. Abbie thinks the HH will talk to the Previously Dead Guest Star John Cho, who she and Crane will track down while Cap’n finds Jenny Mills on her first day out of the mental institution.
In that damn creepy wood around Sleepy Hollow, two hunters who are out to take down some wildlife first thing in the morning instead come across a horse, a demon of a beast with red eyes. It’s HH’s horse! One hunter looks on in even more astonishment as his buddy gets on his cell phone and starts talking in German, but his face shows the most astonishment when German-speaking buddy turns around and shoots him through the chest. As he extends his arm, we see the same ship-wheel tattoo that the HH has on the back of his head. This must be one of the members in hiding, waiting for the supernatural war to start!
Our heroes start their search for their favorite Guest Star in the last place they saw him alive…er, dead…er, upright and mobile: the tunnels. They find his tattered and probably rat-infested lair, but no sign of Mr. Cho (who they keep calling Andy). As they rifle through his possessions, Crane comes across a bit of Egyptian hieroglyph that doesn’t fit in with the rest of Cho’s angsty newly-dead prose. Just as he brings it up to the light (to read, as I’m sure Crane also knows ancient hieroglyphics. He knows all of the other dead languages.), Cho appears behind him and freaks right out on him. Abbie uses her most soothing tone and indirect eye contact, describing how they have the Horseman and want to communicate with him. Barely letting John Cho say that it can’t/shouldn’t be done, Crane interrupts and accuses him of having Egyptian symbols for communicating with the dead. John Cho is the Horseman’s Necromancer!!
Abbie is using all of her feminine wiles on Cho, even caressing his rotting corpse hand, as she asks Cho to help them talk to the Horseman. Poor John Cho looks like someone just kicked his puppy-if that someone is Moloch and the puppy was his own soul. He doesn’t have a choice in his actions anymore because Moloch owns him, and he merely helps Abbie when he can to make up for his poor choices as an actual person, and he is practically crying when he tells her that talking to Death will be a big mistake full of pain and misery that will haunt her forever. Crane either wasn’t listening or didn’t buy the act and practically forces Poor John Cho down the halls of the tunnel.
The Cap’n, meanwhile, finds Jenny Mills in the most unsuspecting of place-the halls of the police department! Actually, it looks like he had her brought in, so it probably wasn’t a surprise to him. He plays both sides of the good cop/bad cop coin on her, which is very confusing to everyone involved, and as he’s explaining that Abbie has helped capture one of the Four Horseman, he gets interrupted with a 211 (that’s a robbery in progress) at the old Adams Antiques store. Jenny, who used to work there as a freelance acquisition getter, chases after Cap’n for a ride along to the crime scene.
As they peruse the shattered cases of the antique store robbery, Jenny notices that the most expensive items (including the register full of cash) are still in the store. It’s like the robbery that never happened! Knowing where the store owner keeps his most valuable goods, she leads the Cap’n into a secret room where they find Adams shot in the leg on the floor. It’s a good thing that secret room isn’t so secret, or he would have been lost forever!
Adams is frantic about figuring out what the thieves made off with, and instructs Jenny to the box covered in 16th century Druidic scripture. The box used to hold a Thracian phiale, a (fictional) warlock-protected relic that could be used to break a hex spell-like the one protecting the HH’s cell! The Horseman is weakened by the power of the cell and the “sunlight”, but if the thieves take out the power grid like Jenny predicts they will do next, the UV lights will be cut off and the Horseman will escape.
Crane and Abbie and Poor John Cho have made it to the Horseman’s cell, and Cho reminds them once more that this is a really really bad idea, guys. Cho spits German out at the Horseman, but when they don’t get a response, Crane mercilessly taunts the Horseman right to his face…er, neck. We’ve never seen our hero so pitiless!
He actually shoves the Horseman, causing the Horseman’s necklace to fall to the ground, and as we’re all wondering how exactly the HH can even keep a necklace on, Poor John Cho starts going into convulsions. Crane picks up the emerald necklace and flashes to Katrina, not at all Amish this time and wearing the emerald. Possessed John Cho starts speaking in the Horseman’s voice, surprisingly in English and without a hint of a German accent, and confirms that it was hers.
Taking a moment to gather his wits in the demon cell interrogation room, Crane explains to Abbie that the emerald was given to Abbie by another man: her fiance and Crane’s best friend, Abraham von Brunt. Crane helped him pick it out, proving to us that he knows Katrina better, but after Abraham presents it to Katrina at a fancy party (another decidedly non-Amish affair where Katrina has traded her bonnet in for cleavage) she slips away with Crane to tell him she is breaking off the engagement. She can’t marry Abe for all wrong reasons, especially when her heart belongs to sweet Icky.
Abbie seems surprised that Crane has game, even though they’ve been flirting since they met, but this only enrages Crane more. He has to know why HH has the necklace: does he also know why Moloch is holding Katrina hostage? He is going to find out what he needs to know, against Abbie’s warning to not let HH know that Katrina is his weakness.
At the Sleepy Hollow Power West Grid, the Cap’n and Jenny had time to change into tactical gear. Cap’n disables an armed bad guy who sneaks up behind him while Jenny, against his instructions, has also bagged a bad guy of her own. As she starts to become surrounded by more baddies, Cap’n pulls out his own Sleepy Hollow SWAT Team and saves the day.
Or he saves the Power Grid, at least. Jenny comes across the bag that the head Hessian henchman was carrying, but by the time she gets to it, it’s empty. That means that the phiale is still out there somewhere, and the day still needs some saving.
Crane is being so forceful and cold to the HH as he interrogates him; anytime the HH doesn’t cooperate, Crane reminds him who took whose head in battle. This really gets the HH’s goat, so in classic villain format, he lets Crane know that he, Washington’s prize soldier, was HH’s mission, and that he has come back from the past to finish his job and dispatch of Crane. It is to avenge the death of Crane’s partner Abraham, whom he betrayed and killed. Crane killed his partner!?! That doesn’t sound right!
Just at this moment, Jenny comes across a bundle of wires that probably used to be something important looking. As she shows it to the Cap’n, the building behind them explodes and the town goes dark. The power grid has gone down, and with it the UV lights that are keeping the HH weakened and imprisoned!
Crane wants to keep interrogating HH, but since he just blew up like the power grid at the accusation that he killed Abraham, Abbie won’t let him go back in until she knows the rest of the story. When Katrina broke off her engagement, it devastated Abe, distracting him from the brand new super important and super-secret mission. Crane confesses to him that he and Katrina are in love, which understandably makes Abe attack him.
With a saber. Icky tries to yield, but Abe’s fury won’t allow it, and the two take ten paces and throw down in the woods. Just as Abe is about to wield his death blow, he is hit in the chest with a shot. A team of welders swarm out of the woods onto Crane-oh wait, those aren’t welders, but they are Hessians! Crane fights them off, trying to save Abe, but has to escape to complete their super-secret mission. As his story winds down, Abbie can tell that the interrogation has to stop-they cannot get information from HH while he’s regaining his strength, and they certainly can’t do it while Crane is on the verge of losing his shit.
Luckily the Cap’n shows up just in time to cut the tension between Abbie and Ichabod, although bringing Jenny along for the ride was not exactly what Abbie had in mind. They searched all of the Hessian henchman at the Power Grid, but no one had the phiale on them; that means that in order to thwart a sneak attack, our rag tag team will have to guard the HH until the Power Grid comes back up. Crane, who has become quite sullen, “volunteers” to stay with the prison while everyone else makes an artillery run, and Abbie can’t do anything about it but tell him to keep his cool, and also take Poor John Cho’s head if he gives any lip.
Speaking of Poor John Cho, It’s too bad no one is paying attention to him, because he is in the process of trying to extract something from the inside of his flesh. He worms his hand around in a cut in his side, and pulls out a large round coded object. Sneaky Guest Star John Cho has had the phiale this whole time! As he starts to speak the words of the phiale, it comes to life with writhing skulls-he’s breaking the hex! The evil is coming!
And it certainly does not waste any time. In the tunnels, both the Cap’n and Abbie and Jenny are attacked by ninja demons that explode into shards of charcoal when they’re shot.
Crane just can’t resist the temptation, and goes back in for a little more face time with the HH. Just as he starts up with his taunting again, he realizes that Sneaky John Cho has broken the hex, and the Horseman breaks through his chains and makes a break for…his fencing sword? Instead of going straight for Crane’s head, they engage in a duel-wait, a duel?
Didn’t we just see a dueling Crane scene?? And at the exact same moment, Crane realizes along with the rest of us that the Headless Horseman is Abraham von Brunt!
When Abraham was shot in the woods, the Hessians captured him for Moloch. They shaved his head and branded him, making him the newest non-German Hessian soldier in Moloch’s army, and Abraham sold his soul to him-not to extract his revenge on Crane but to possess Katrina’s soul.
The Horseman knocks Crane’s sword from his hand and picks him up by his throat. As he is about to deliver the final blow, Guest Star John Cho yells that he musn’t, that Moloch won’t allow it. All of a sudden ninja demons appear, hanging from the arms of the HH and pulling him from Ichabod. In a flash of light and smoke, HH and Sneaky John Cho and the ninjas disappear into thin air.
Abbie and Ichabod have their weekly wrap up at the batcave, where Abbie tries to convince Crane that Abraham von Horseman is not his fault. They realize that, if Moloch and his ninjas wouldn’t let HH take Crane, Crane must be meant for someone else. Another Horseman? Maybe Moloch himself? They don’t know the answer-yet-but what they do know is that the key to all of this is clear: Katrina.
Next week on Sleepy Hollow: the Sleepyville Horror.
