Sleepy Hollow - S1E9 - Sanctuary
Previously on Sleepy Hollow, ‘Necromancer’
New Characters:
- Lena Gilbert – socialite philanthropist whose lineage goes back to the Founding Fathers
- Lachlan Fredericks – war supporter, friend of General “G.Dub” Washington, all around great guy
- Macy Irving – wheelchair-bound disgruntled teenage daughter of the Cap’n
On a picturesque tree-lined dirt road, a well-dressed woman and her bodyguard/driver are making their way towards an aged and not-picturesque estate. This overgrown, vined estate has been in her family for generations, and she is going to restore it to its original glory, even though the bodyguard wisely points out that it looks haunted. 10 points to Gryffindor! Too bad she doesn’t listen. Ignoring all of his bodyguard wisdom, she rushes in and explores with enthusiasm, already making restoration plans. She opens one closet door to find…a bunch of vines. Not just thrown on the floor of the closet, but the whole thing is overgrown with vines from floor to ceiling. She reaches out to touch one, and rips her hand open—and then the vines reach out to touch her, grab her by the wrist, then by the ankles, and drag her in!
Back at Ye Old Precinct, Crane and Abbie have shown up with the same hairstyle AGAIN. How embarrassing. It’s the time of day for Crane to give Abbie his daily “things are different than my time and they’re worse” opinion, this time about fast food and meals on the go. I guess he’s already forgotten how those modern UV lights saved his ass last week, although it’s pretty funny when he vaguely calls McDonald’s Scottish. Turns out he’s just grouchy because the Thanksgiving holiday has him missing his family and his demon-enslaved wife. Abbie, who has confused Thanksgiving with Festivus, lets Crane air his grievances and proposes that a night off would ungum the works—right as Cap’n calls them into his office.
It seems that Lena Gilbert has gone missing, and for some reason Sleepy Hollow has to find her. Except there is a reason: Cap’n hands them a sheet of paper that was found on Lena’s desk, and amongst the scribbles and arrows is the name Katrina C. Crane’s wife is on Lena’s paper! Also, the GPS on Lena’s car last shows her in Sleepy Hollow, so technically there are two reasons they got called in on this one.
Our heroes get on the wondrous internet (it is a pretty awesome thing) to find a connection between Lena’s historical roots and the landowners of Sleepy Hollow from the 1800s. It’s a long shot, but…wait! They surprisingly found something! Crane sure knows how to string together a google search. Turns out Lena is a direct descendent of Lachlan Fredericks, one of Crane’s old wartime buddies. And with that information, Crane knows exactly where Lena went.
They pull up to the same creepy house—it seems to have a growing crow infestation—to find Lena’s town car sitting out front. Crane is so surprised at the state of the grounds; this estate used to be lush and beautiful, a sanctuary to all who lived and worked there. And all that lived and worked there, white and black, were free people, under the protection of Frederick.
As they enter the house, it is clear that no one has lived there in quite some time, but as they work through the rooms they come up behind a man sitting in a chair. Abbie pulls her gun and commands him to raise his hands, but as it’s Lena’s bodyguard and he is quite dead, he won’t be complying.
His face and arms are covered in scratches and clawmarks, and behind him are two fresh bloody handprints dragged across the wood floor. Lena might still be alive! Abbie calls in for backup but can only get static, like she can’t get radio service in the house. She starts to step outside for better reception but the door slams in her face, locking shut. Now it’s like the house doesn’t want her to leave—they’re in a damn haunted house!
As they systematically try all the doors and windows, Crane deduces that the house must have a reason for keeping them and Lena Gilbert inside. Abbie, who normally handles all of this scary supernatural phenomenon like a champ, appears to really not be a fan of haunted houses. Maybe she’s claustrophobic? That could explain the ghost in the bonnet that she just saw walk by.
Crane, shuffling through the debris on the floor, finds a copy of Gulliver’s Travels, Katrina’s favorite book. Actually, it appears that that is Katrina’s book; he finds a note that he left for her should he have fallen in battle (which he did). It’s almost as if Katrina came back to the house after Crane was buried and left the book there for him to find…
In a flashback, Crane gives Abbie the skinny on the Frederick House. Lachlan Frederick and Grace Dixon, the free black woman acting as the house matron, provided a physical sanctuary to freed slaves, but the house was also a sanctuary from supernatural threats. But protecting others from ghosties and demons drew attacks on the house, turning it into a prison.
Abbie and Crane find more traces of Lena Gilbert, which naturally lead to the creepy basement. They practically have to push each other down the stairs, but once they get there they open a closet and find it full of vines. And Lena! It’s full of Lena, thankfully still alive and ready to join Crane and Mills in the great escape. They hack her out of the shrubbery, each branch bleeding as they cut through it.
As they cut her out of the closet, something stirs outside in the dry, dead garden. A bundle of vines starts to shake and move, then rise up from the ground. This bundle of vines is some sort of tree-man, like a tiny Ent. They’re cutting into the closet vines seems to have woken him up, and he looks pretty pissed; as pissed as an Ent with no face can look. Really he’s just walking like he’s angry, but he IS walking—straight for the house!
Across town at the precinct, Cap’n is left to deal with Jenny Mills since Abbie is stuck in a haunted house. Jenny accidentally “borrowed” a gun after last weeks’ firefight with the Headless Horseman, and sort of forgot to return it. Or them, it seems; she forgot to return multiple guns. Cap’n is over Jenny and all but kicks her out of his office until she turns and invites him for Thanksgiving dinner. It’ll be a gay old time with him and her and Abbie and Ichabod (except they’re stuck in a house and no one has heard from them or knows they’re effectively missing), with all the tradition and trimmings of a normal dinner. As they laugh over the idea of normalcy after week upon week of weird supernatural throwdowns, they’re caught mid-shared-smile by the Cap’n’s wife. Uh oh, the missus!
The now threesome of house guests is still looking for a way out—or rather, Abbie is looking for a way out while Crane interrogates Lena Gilbert about her “Katrina C.” note. According to the house records, Katrina was the last person to sign in for sanctuary before the house was abandoned. There was a legend that Lachlan was not only an abolitionist but also a great warlock who used his magic to protect the house and its inhabitants. He knew Katrina not from her visit with Crane, but because they were in the same coven.
Story time is cut short when a roar and rumble comes from down the hall; there is something coming after our musketeers, and it is large and stompy. They find a secret set of passages between the walls, slip through, and immediately get separated. Crane and Lena, trying to escape the screeching noises following them, punch their way through broken plaster into a new room. They reach in, thinking Abbie has found them and they will save her, but THAT’S NOT ABBIE! They’ve just helped Treebeard into the room!!
Still at the precinct, where time doesn’t appear to be passing, Jenny tries to duck through the halls unnoticed when she’s accosted by Macy, the Cap’n’s slightly snotty daughter. Macy thinks that Jenny is dating her dad, but when she sets the record straight, they instantly bond over not really liking the Cap’n that much and having hard-ass cops in the family. Macy lives in the city now and doesn’t have to put up with him as much, and she’s being weirdly open with this person that she five seconds ago was angry at for dating her dad. Jenny, playing the orphan card, thinks the Cap’n deserves a little kindness and Macy promises her new best friend that she’ll try.
While the new friends bond, Cap’n and his apparently estranged wife Cynthia find a private room…where she can berate him for neglecting his daughter, having a dead-end job, and threaten him with full custody of Macy. Happy Thanksgiving, Cap’n!
Abbie is unfortunately still wandering through the secret passages, being chased by scrapes and noises, but she also finds some lose boards and kicks her way into a safe room. As she looks around, the ghost of Grace Dixon appears to her, beckoning her to follow. Abbie follows—wouldn’t you?—and is transported to a bright, clean, non-scary birthing room. She hears Ichabod’s name and turns to find Katrina Crane as pregnant as a person can get, mid-push, and being coached by ghost Grace. She howls her way through labor, ignoring the crows ominously slamming themselves into the window, and pops out a baby Crane. It’s a boy! Ichabod has a son??
Out of the ghost world, Abbie wanders down a hallway (a regular one, not a secret one) and is intercepted by Crane hiding in another room. Lena is gone, dragged away by Treebeard, but before they can look for her Abbie has to tell Ichabod that he has a secret son. Katrina came back to this house for sanctuary, to give birth their child and keep it a secret, protected by the hexes on the property. But right after the baby was born, the evil broke through the barrier by planting itself in the ground and growing up on the other side in the form of a tiny Ent-man. The evil was Treebeard! Lachlan helped Grace and Katrina escape, but just as he was about to make it out he was killed by Treebeard.
Just as Abbie is explaining to the pleading Ichabod that she doesn’t know if the baby escaped, a scream erupts from somewhere in the house. Oh yeah, Lena! Well good—if she’s screaming, she’s still alive, and there’s still time to stop standing around telling stories and save her! They follow the sound down to an even creepier basement to a pitch black room, and in a very Blair-Witchian moment their flashlights pan across Lena, standing frozen and not speaking. Crane reaches out to her and she’s jerked backwards into the darkness by Treebeard.
Ichabod stumbles on a knot of tree roots, and jogging his memory to finding Lena in the closet, instructs Abbie to shoot them; the roots erupt in blood, wounding Treebeard and forcing him to release Lena. Not sure of how to escape, Abbie sees the ghost of Grace Dixon walk by—this is how Grace and Katrina escaped so many years ago. Abbie calls to Crane and Lena to follow her following the ghost, and they push their way through to the front yard and back to the cars. Ichabod isn’t quite done yet, though, and pulls an axe from back of the car. Abbie tries to hold Icky back, but that shrubbery came after his son-now pappa’s going to go back in and kick a little tree ass!
Crane fills the basement with lit flares to find that the whole room has been taken over by Treebeard’s roots. Treebeard attacks, and Crane attacks back, his pent up rage at time travelling, losing Katrina, and finding out he had (and lost) a son unleashed with every axe swing. He’s also pretty peeved that Treebeard attacked his family, cripples the Ent through the hip and then deals a deathblow to the top of the head. Give Moloch his regards, indeed!
Time for the batcave wrapup: Jenny is a terrible cook and has made a crappy Thanksgiving dinner, and Abbie thinks that will raise Crane’s spirits. Well, that and the handle of rum she has on her. Ichabod is sad about the son he thinks he’ll never meet, and Abbie unflirtingly reminds him to “embrace what is in front of him.” Embrace it, Ichabod—EMBRACE WHAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU!! Instead of following directions, Crane remembers that box came for Abbie from Lena Gilbert, and it contains all of the research that she had done on the Fredericks house. Crane pulls out the Grace Dixon family tree and hands it over to Abbie, who looks over it in surprise. The last descendent of Grace Dixon was Lori Roberts. That’s Abbie’s mother!
Next week on Sleepy Hollow: another week off. But after that, witches, fog, and John Noble is back!
