This episode contained a lot of set up as we head into the final 3 episodes of the season.
Final three episodes? 18 episode season? WTH? I want my constitutionally mandated 22 episodes of Sleepy Hollow!
Now that that’s out of my system, let’s chat about this week’s events.
Banana squeezing? Muffin grabbing? Surfing the classified ads? House hunting? This week was all about the kinky in Sleepy Hollow!
Yeah, I thought that was gonna be a whole lot sexier too.
A 17th century warlock visits modern day Sleepy Hollow in search of a famous dark magic grimoire. His name is Solomon Kent, a practitioner of blood magic back in good old Salem Massachusetts. It turns out that he and Katrina have a little bad-blood (hmmm?) between them due to him hanging her Grandma in order to continue an elaborate witch hunt he started to cover up the fact that he accidentally stabbed his true love with a new “gift-knife” because she spurned him. (Note to self: remove “gift knife” from V-day wish list.)
Now he’s back, and he’s got the grimoire to use for some nefarious purpose. Is it to reanimate his dead love? Exact revenge on the witches who exiled him to purgatory? Release another Kardashian photo onto the interwebs? Nope, turns out he wants to return to the past to prevent Sarah’s death, and he just might have the cape-shrugging chops to pull it off!
That’s pretty good, but I think I know someone who could school you in showmanship:
Unfortch, Ichabod, Katrina and Abbie realize that him mucking around with the past is going to wreak holy hell with life as we know it, and set off to stop him. First step, preventing him from uniting the 2 halves of the grimoire to access its power. And now it starts to get interesting as the stage is set for the final dramz!
That ole [Black] Magic
Oh how pretty! What sensitive earth magic she performs!
hen BAM! She magic-hurls a rock at a tree and smashes it into a million shards while smiling like a gleeful little imp! Boy, Katrina, you REALLY enjoyed the smashing! I wonder if that might portend something . . .
Fast forward to the confrontation with Kent. Katrina shows some serious magic chops in fighting the warlock, and Kent calls out her dark magic self.
First, she’s all:
then she’s all:
And then she’s all:
Taking advantage of the what-in-the-hellage of Katrina’s revelation, Kent escapes with the complete grimoire while the crew regroups.
He’s baaaack!
Henry is back and he’s clearly up to no good! He’s sitting around a hotel, being nice to single moms, commiserating with fatherless boys, and carving bucolic churches out of . . . wait a minute! That’s not evil at all!! It’s actuallly kind of, well, sweet. Maybe the whole apocalypse thing has lost its appeal, and Henry will just retire to Miami to kick back with a steady diet of Metamucil and some mad games of bridge?
Naw! Henry shows his real self when some ruffians disrespect the lady-hotelier, and he unleashes some Spock-style neck breakings on the lot. That’s the evil I’m talking about! Killing no-good thugs to avenge the honor of a hard-working . . . wait a minute! That also sounds kind of sweet! Will someone please explain what is happening!!
Frankly, he doesn’t give a damn
On a parallel thread, Frank has reached out to Abbie to let her know it’s okay that she doesn’t trust him, really it’s cool. He just saved your life a few times, no biggie. And totally believed your cockamamie story about the apocalypse when no one else would.*
So don’t feel bad or anything.
In an attempt to get people like me off her back, Abbie agrees to have a drink with Frank. (See? Was that so hard?)
Katrina is indisposed after her magical tete-a-tete with Kent – which is pretty lame. I mean, what good is a witch if she has to go into power saver mode after every little battle? It seemed like a somewhat contrived and awkward way to allow Ichabod and Abbie to ride solo again like the good old days. It also gave Abbie the opportunity to express just how much she values Katrina’s input into the operation:
Before Katrina was here we took down all kinds of supernatural threats without magic.
Translation:
Okay, that isn’t even remotely what she meant, but I felt this needed to be included somewhere.
In Jenny’s absence, Abbie invites Frank along to help contain the warlock. After shocking the bejeezus out of him (his magic is susceptible to lighting, natch), Ichabod proceeds to whale on him in a very out-of-character bout of man-rage, until Abbie pulls him off and they retire to a local brewing establishment for the imbibing of some adult beverages. Without Katrina. Ouch.
Now we get to the real reason Richard Sherman made this face during Superbowl XLIX:
Turns out Frank is still in league with Henry! In Ichabod’s and Abbie’s absence, Frank offs Kent and steals the Grimoire. He later meets up with the artist FKA as the Horseman of War, and he and Henry delight in planning the coming mayhem.
Frank noooooooo!
As previously mentioned, I think this was a pretty good episode. I like what they’re doing with Katrina (except for the whole “magic make me sleepy” moment) – it’s the most interesting she’s been all season! I clearly would much rather see her in “me smash rocks” mode rather than “me make the pretty flower spin” mode.
And Frank and Henry? Yasssss. I’m glad the clarity of the divide between good and evil is starting to blur. I think it has the potential to make the show a little more complex and multi-dimensional. Or maybe just into a white-hot mess of crazy! Tune in to find out which way it goes!!!
What’s up with Katrina’s evil streak? Is it a split personality? Evil twin? Will Frank really go through with helping Henry with his evil plans? And what kind of sadistic move will Henry make next? Help an old lady across a busy street? Rescue a kitten from a tree? And don’t you really miss Nick? C’mon, you know you do. Admit it.
* A shout out to ColdWoman for helping me avoid an exhausting Google search by telling me how to spell ‘cockamamie’
