Sleepy Hollow - S3E7 - The Art of War

Previously on Sleepy Hollow, ‘This Red Lady from Caribee’

Abbie takes time out of her busy Saturday morning to beat Crane at a game of chess, and then has to listen to him complain about how hard his week has been, with the red tape of immigration and impending doom of Pandora. But he is at least a polite host, and he runs off to make tea when Danny appears to ask Abbie to hold down the fort for him while he is gone to Washington.

There once was a man from Nantucket

Danny may be on the hunt for Nevins, but Nevins can only focus on the The Shard. Not even Sophie, his top-op, understands what will happen to Nevins when his “boss” finds out he doesn’t have it, so he has no hesitation in inciting the power of Pandora’s Box to help him locate it…via Norse poetry. As someone who deals in historic supernatural antiquities, Nevins should be the one person who knows how dangerous it is to harness evil forces. He at least has the decency to act surprised when he conjures up the Box out of thin air; but when his meat-heads appear, he sets them on the scent of The Shard and Jenny Mills.

Jenny, all around badass and current “Most Fun Mills Sister”, spends a little time flirting/kick-boxing (floxing?) with her puppy, Joe Corbin, but things get a little vicious when her skin starts to glow red and she starts to beat him up for real. When she paralyzes in the ring, she’s really having flashes of fire, a seemingly-ancient writing, and a menacing hooded figure.

It’s just a flesh wound

They have to tell Ichabbie about the red flashes, but that means they have to tell them they’re still on Nevins’ trail, which raises Abbie’s blood pressure a few dozen notches. Ichabod figures out that The Shard was actually a binding stone, which is now residing inside the fun Ms. Mills and eating her from the inside out. While they try to figure out the best way to deal with the problem (whoever brought let’s do nothing to the table must be new to Sleepy Hollow), they’re attacked by the Nevin’s WWE wrestlers. Jenny kicks a little Norse ass, but even when her new mutant powers kick in she can’t make a scratch they have to escape to the emergency Archive-hatch in the woods.

Are the demons after Jenny, or are they just trying to remove Jenny’s skin to get to the power of The Shard? Crane, in an illogical but completely unquestioned leap, determines that Pandora sent the meatheads, so Nevins must be working with Pandora. It actually makes more sense here than when he said it. To the Archives!

We Need to Talk

In all this racing against Pandora’s deadly clock, who doesn’t have the time to stop for a little heart to heart? Abbie and Jenny hash out the immediate future (per Abbie, Jenny is not allowed to die) while Crane gives Joe some manly advice (talk to Jenny, probably before she dies). Crane’s eidetic memory kicks in and he realizes that the meatheaded demons are Berserkers, a legendary tribe of Norse warriors who are hyper-focused on their goal. They get stronger as you beat them and are only susceptible to mistletoe-it sound silly, and gets even more hilarious as Crane defends the mystical properties of the kissing bush. But Jenny’s gone all glowing red again, and she commands everyone to behold her glory, for she is coming.

Is Danny being shady asking his superiors for more time on the Nevins case? It seems straight forward at face value, but they’re having that kind of conversation that purposefully doesn’t say anything specific except that they don’t want to “attract attention” and they have “eyes” on him.

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe

Crane and Joe Corbin go a-Berserker huntin’ but have to make yet another run for their lives when that mistletoe theory doesn’t pan out. Crane needs to know how Nevin’s modified the Berserker spell, and with Abbie’s FBI-issued lock pick set (and her blessing, begrudgingly), he breaks into the cabin to find the info he needs. As a bonus, he has a super-charged meet and greet with Sophie, and whether it was intentional or not, sparks flew. When he gets back to the Archives, he and Abbie suffer through an unnecessary Daniel Boone flashback to determine that the only way to kill the Berserkers will be to make them turn on each other.

They send sweet Joe Corbin to get some Jenny’s blood for their plan, but he certainly gets more than that-Joe totally kisses Jenny, and Jenny kisses him right back!!

I Have Arrived

Abbie and Crane’s wacky plan involves calling the Berserkers, repelling over them, dripping Jenny’s coagulated blood on them, and then letting them tear each other apart. As far as plans go…it’s actually not the worst one they’ve ever had. At least Abbie didn’t think she could just shoot them. The Berserkers are dispatched, but the heroes then get ambushed at gunpoint by Nevins and Sophie, They need Jenny’s location for their boss, who is not only not Pandora, but makes Pandora look like just some nice lady in a fancy dress? Actually, it’s just Nevin’s boss. Sophie reveals that she is a secret FBI-operative (Danny’s “diamond in the rough”, maybe?) and that they need to find Jenny before anyone worse gets to her.

Jenny has escaped her cell and left the room covered in the drawings of her vision. The heroes discover her empty room just as Jenny kneels before Pandora and the creepy hooded man from her visions.