Sleepy Hollow - S2E14 - Kali Yuga

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Previously on Sleepy Hollow, ‘Pittura Infamante’

With more monster-free time on their hands, the Witnesses and gang take to Sleepy Hollow’s local karaoke joint to while away their time. While Abbie runs down a little Gnarls Barkley, Jenny interrogates Ichie on him and Abbie. Are they okay? Things seem weird. Are they weird? He assures Miss Mills that they are over that whole Orion thing, and then it’s his turn to sing. His old-timey song is a real room killer, but it gives Jenny time to give Abbie the same line of questioning. Abbie also admits things were weird, but now they’re fine. Promise! During all of this Henley received a mysterious text and, after a little flirty-flirty with Jenny, makes his Irish Goodbye to go do a little shady stolen-artifacts bidness.

His office? The Sleepy Hollow Shady Junkyard. A tall shadowed woman gets out the car that meets him there, and Henley is only slightly more shocked than we are to meet Carmilla, the woman who raised him after his parents died. “Raised” is a broad use of the term, since they died when he was 12. The woman who legally kept him from being an orphan for 6 years. They have a conversation full of secrets-he’s been avoiding her for a decade! She’s a murderer! But she needs his help or she’ll die!-and when she flashes into pointy teeth demon lady, she convinces him to help her break into the Knox estate.

The Witnesses plus Jenny leave their karaoke fun to check on the silent alarm that has been triggered at the archives. When they arrive, the place has been turned upside down, but there’s no indication of a person until Jenny sees something out of the corner of her eye. She runs through to the catacombs and catches up with Henley, that sneaky bastard. He broke into the archives! He tries to beg her off from following him by running away, but when Jenny follows she runs into demon Carmilla. Henley could have at least warned her that there was a demon in the dungeon, no? Ichabod saves Jenny from near-death, and even though Carmilla escapes she leaves a pool of acid blood on the floor. Ooh, I bet that’s going to be a clue!

It’s court date for Cap’n and he’s chosen the Mrs. Cap’n as his defense attorney. The judge is being unnecessarily stern towards this man who might have killed two cops, escaped a mental facility, and has been on the lam for 6 weeks when the state isn’t even pursuing any charges. With NO DETAILS WHATSOEVER, the Cap’n is exonerated of all of the charges against him. Finally, the Cap’n and his ace attorney wife who left him years ago can go home for some peace.

That acid blood? Totally a clue. Not blood, though. It’s venom! It came from Carmilla’s venomous claws, which means all signs point to her being a vetala. The Mills sisters are going to interrogate one of Henley’s business associates while Ichabod and his “witch wife” look for Henley. Playing good cop/not a cop, the Mills sisters suss out that Henley’s guardian monster is Carmilla Pines, the killer antiques thief. Since the Cranes (mostly Ichabod) figured out that Henley took the Knox blueprints, it must mean that Henley and Carmilla are going to break into the Knox estate.

Henley confirms what the gang has discovered as he and Carmilla go over the blueprints. In a noble-ish effort to guide her interest away from his friends, they talk about his painful past. After Henley saw Carmilla murder someone, he ran away, and she was caught by a Mumbai Death cult (which needs to be Henley’s new band name)-they’re the ones who turned her into a vetala. Knox, who was once known to be a collector of mystical artifacts, has an object in his vault that will make her human again, and his upcoming party will be the perfect time to steal it.

The theme of Knox’s black market party is fancy/arabian, and the gang arrives just in time to see Henley and Carmilla make their way inside. They must have split up, because Henley has found the first of Knox’s vault puzzles, a wicked lock with a dozen levers and roman numerals. He gets the door to swing open (wherever it is) and Carmilla walks in, but Jenny catches him in the act. She tries to convince him to come with her, and to stop helping this monster, and Henley agrees to…oh, spin move! He tricks Jenny by shoving her into a closet and locking her in-she won’t be much good to anyone in there, but at least she’ll be safe. See how Henley’s just looking out for her?

Abbie is using her cop-sneak to get the take on Carmilla, who is window shopping in the vault. She finds the statue of Kali, then with supernatural senses ducks out of the way of the shot Abbie takes at her. Ichabod, who has her back, aims his crossbow at Carmilla just as she puts her poison talons to Abbie’s neck.

Henley rushes in to save her, exchanging himself for Abbie. Ichabod is not a fan of this plan, and he doesn’t seem to think locking the two of them in the vault counts as “saving” Abbie as Henley and Carmilla get away. Carmilla commends Henley on saving his friends, but his celebratory drink has been poisoned. If she kills him and brings him back as a vetala, he won’t be able to leave her ever again!

Ichie finally recognizes the statue Carmilla stole as one that will turn humans into vetala, and as they search for a way out of the vault they get in an argument about not being on the same Witness Wavelength. He finds a series of “Sons of Liberty” alchemically symboled knobs: push the right one, and the door opens; push the wrong one and they probably don’t leave alive. But instead of pushing buttons, they have a whole ‘nother serious talk about trust and actions and whether or not they’re good together as partners. Ichabod gets a flash of inspiration and picks a button…and they start getting compressed like the trash compactor in Star Wars (in fairness, I wrote that before the commercial break).

With spiked walls closing in on them, Abbie tries to get Icchie to reasonably pick another button, and he picks the right one, saving the day. They escape back out to the party only to run into Jenny. Luckily Henley stole her cell phone when he locked her in the closet, so they GPS it and end up in Sleepy Hollow’s Warehouse District. Going over what they know about Kali and about the statue, they figure out that they can kill Carmilla with iron and fire. They better hurry, though, because she’s got Henley all Red Room of Pain and ready to go.

No sneaking in this time: Ichie rushes in and he and Abbie deal with the lesser thugs while Jenny takes on Carmilla. The levitating statue starts to move it’s arms and drop acid blood on Henley’s chest; Jenny whacks her on the back, stopping the ritual but invoking her ire. She attacks Jenny, and Henley stabs her in the back to distract her from finishing Jenny off. He’s about to administer the death knell when Carmilla runs off with her super demon speed. Now that that problem has taken care of itself, they can all go home.

Henley tries to break back into the vault, but Jenny won’t be snuck up upon. He’s just returning the plans that he stole earlier. He apologizes for “keeping his distance”, but now he’s got to leave because he put her in danger and betrayed her trust. Also because he has to go hunt his demon god mother. They kiss, and he walks out the door.

Ichabod and Abbie are also making up, sharing a drink and deciding that everything between them is square. She signed them up for karaoke, but instead of learning the one awful song that he knows, she signed him up for a song he’s never heard. Commence adorable/terrible duet exemplifying partnership.

Cap’n’s wife was a little weirded out that her estranged husband lost his soul and came back from the dead and convinces him to go to Katrina for a magical physical. The witch agrees, and the ritual begins, but she seems to have an ulterior interest in Henry. Cap’n drinks Katrina’s magic sake and relives his soulless Rambo memories. But whatever magic bound him to the horseman of war is gone; Katrina declares there is no sign of the Horseman of Death on him. Does Cap’n have his soul back? Or is Katrina backing away with that shady look on her face for a reason? Cap’n hugs his wife in celebration, but shows shock in his eyes when he realizes he can’t see his reflection in the window.