Sleepy Hollow returns to continue its second season and it begins with the death of Moloch, though there is a possibility that the head honcho of Hell will be back; but the idea of bringing Moloch back from the dead, so to speak, will have to remain stuck in Purgatory for the time being. The title of the episode intrigues me because it seems to be paying an homage to “Paradise Lost”, the epic poem written in blank verse by John Milton as well as playing at the concept of ridding the world of all evil and turning it into a paradise.
The episode begins with the aftermath of Henry (John Noble) killing Moloch and Ichabod (Tom Mison) slowly regaining consciousness. I was channeling my inner fangirl when he said Katrina’s name, which gives me hope that perhaps his and Katrina’s marriage will one day work itself out and that he and Abbie (Nicole Beharie) will remain best friends. I was also relieved to see that Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) and Katrina (Katia Winter) are alright but Henry has disappeared. Somehow I think that he is going to retreat and regroup but it’s only a theory. Let’s hope I’m wrong.
We then see the events as they happened six weeks after the defeat of Moloch. Abbie and Ichabod are browsing at a farmer’s market and wondered where Henry has disappeared off to and the unexplainable encounters that they’ve had in the last month and a half. There was some slight amusement courtesy of Ichabod when he mistakes the name of a hybrid fruit, grapple, for the verb. Our resident time-traveler also noticed a brimstone-smeared apple (if there is such a thing) filled with worms and theorized that it’s evidence that “something supernatural is gestating.” Oh, Ichabod Crane, you never cease to amuse us with your misunderstandings of the modern society.
Abbie Mills, however, wanted to talk about what their lives would be like if they didn’t have to fight all those evil demons trying to take over the world of the living, saying that they have to reinvent themselves; however, Ichabod has apparently gotten a bit of a head start because he’s already reinvented himself as a husband who’s had it up to here with his wife’s lies, secrets and excuses which resulted in a much needed time-out from their marriage with Mr. Crane sleeping at the archives and Mrs. Crane staying at the cabin. Abbie then agreed to accompany Ichabod to a farm, where something strange might occur, like in every episode of Sleepy Hollow, to take his mind off from his marriage issues. “Marriage Ref” anyone?
It was refreshing to see the two Witnesses spend time together and talk about their duty without being interrupted by a demon or disagreements but all good things must come to an end when they encountered robed evil demons chanting a spell, and just as the Witnesses were about to confront the demons, a black-winged angel swoops in and starts taking care of business with a glowing circular boomerang. The angel introduces himself as Orion, which made me think of the hunter from Greek mythology, and he asked our demon-fighting duo if they’re friend or foe. After the getting to know you part of the conversation, the angel told Ichabod and Abbie that he was a prisoner in Purgatory until the night of Moloch’s death, and he’s now on the hunt for those who want to harness the power to bring about the end of the world. Yay, more end of the world chaos! (#Sarcasm.)
Meanwhile, Katrina is babysitting a chained-up Abraham in the Masons’ cell. She summons Ichabod to the cell via text message and asks him to help her separate Abraham’s humanity from the Horseman of Death. She says that the Witnesses owe her, which confused me because although Ichabod is her husband and Abbie is an unfortunate soul who got dragged into this mess, they don’t really owe her anything. I mean, she tried and failed to kill Moloch while he was still a demon child working as a double agent inside the enemy camp and those spells of hers don’t seem to have any long-lasting effects and now she’s telling them that they owe her? That’s not right. Katrina then went on to say that her and Ichabod’s love drove Abraham to side with evil in a fit of jealousy and she believes that their love will bring him back to the person he once was. Ichabod is hesitant at first but agrees to consider it.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Orion says that he’s going for the Headless Horseman first, to which Abbie replied that they will lead him straight to the Horseman. Orion was pleased and gives her a charm and whenever she’s in need, she can hold out the charm and think of him and he will find her. The scene then shifts to Jenny at the bar, she flirts with the bartender but was immediately switched to research mode when she gets a call from her sister which led her to call Hawley, who shows up with a fossilized egg with weird markings on it. The egg was later cracked open and the two found out that the demons are meeting up at Headless’ carriage house when Hawley looked through the small metal ball that revealed events before they happened.
I was shocked to see Katrina set Abraham free after all he had done, but she made him promise to not kill anyone which I do not think the Horseman of Death is going to keep but we will see how this develops. Ichabod was enraged by what his wife had done and went back to the archives to do some research on Orion, who met up with Abbie after she summons him with the charm. The angel went on and on about how he wants to cleanse the human world of all it’s evil and that he will stop at nothing to make it happen. I personally think that Orion is unlocking a new level of zealotry because Ichabod called and warned Abbie that in the historic and ancient past, Orion had shown up before bad things start to happen. Feeling suspicious after Ichabod’s warning, Abbie brings the angel to the carriage house, where he immediately does battle with the Headless Horseman.
During the battle, Orion swung his discus blade into Headless’ back, the Witnesses then realized that the angel is not on their side and they have to save Abraham to stop Orion from obtaining the power of the Headless Horseman to be used for his own zealot purposes. So Ichabod removed the weapon from between the Horseman’s shoulders with the axe that Headless carries with him and destroyed the circular blade. I was shocked to see Ichabod hand the axe back to the Horseman, but I guess it’s for the best since he did agree to let his wife try to separate the Horseman from Abraham.
Orion took off in anger after seeing that the Witnesses are now siding with the Horseman, Ichabod reminds Abraham that if he so much as harm anyone while Katrina’s looking into restoring his humanity, there will be hell to pay. The Horseman of Death agrees to Ichabod’s terms but yells that he won’t be a prisoner again.
After suggesting that he and Katrina “redefine” their marriage, Ichabod processes the day’s events with Abbie at the precinct. She said that it was good that they kept each other in check, and Ichabod agrees with her as he said, “No matter what obstacles we face or how many disagreements we have, our bond cannot be broken,” and then added “Witness represent!” as he walked away which was very amusing. Way to channel your inner gangster, Mr. Crane!
The end of the episode ends like every other: with a small cliffhanger/shocker to set the viewers up for the next episode. We see a barefooted man stumble into a convenience store, take a carton of milk right out of the refrigerator and starts chugging it down. The man turns out to be none other than former Captain Frank Irving, who is apparently back from the dead since he was killed in the mid-season finale. After his thirst was quenched, the ex-Captain asked the cashier if he was in Heaven or Hell to which the teenage kid replied, “Neither, man. It’s Sleepy Hollow.”
I wonder what’s in store for our Witnesses if they were to know that the good Captain is alive and well. Would Katrina succeed in separating Abraham from the Horseman of Death? How would she do it? Where is Henry and most importantly, is Moloch really dead? Tune in to Sleepy Hollow Mondays at 9 PM to find out!
[Photo via FOX]
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