Last week was a low blow for our heroes. Captain Irving is still struggling to maintain his sanity without his soul and the gang accidentally acquired a super rare poison for Henry aka the Horseman of War. He used that nefarious, suspiciously blood-like mixture to create a FREAKIN” SPIDER that crawled into Katrina”s mouth.
No. God, no. Please…no. Ugh. With Moloch”s minions having the upper hand, will the Scooby gang rack up a win this week in “Deliverance?”
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We open on Ichabod and Katrina in bed, bathed in blue light and gossamer sheets. So this is either a memory or a dream. The couple share some platitudes about the grueling schedule of the Revolutionary War interfering with them getting it on like rabbits. Ichabod shares his hopes for their future children, which is sweet. He then flips Katrina over and chokes her out while spitting spiders into her mouth, which is not so sweet.
So, dream sequence then.
Katrina wakes up in a pool of sweat. She doesn”t look too good, but neither would you if a blood spider made entirely of poison just crawled into your stomach.
Unaware of his wife”s predicament, Crane has followed Abbie to the voting polls. Of course, Ichabod is incensed that voter turnout for mid-term elections is a paltry 40%. Back in his day, everyone voted and gladly, at that. Abbie is like “Oh really? You know, except for black people…and women…and anyone who wasn”t a white dude.”
You need some ice for that burn, Crane? No? You”re gonna add to your own flagellation by pointing out the white dudes also had to own huge tracts of land, and thus be rich? Well, good for you, seeing your privilege and being like “Okay yeah, I just said a stupid thing.”
Back in the Carriage House, Katrina looks like garbage. Abraham – otherwise known as the Horseman of Death – is worried about her. If their relationship wasn”t seven kinds of messed up, it would be kind of cute. Instead, it”s just disconcerting. Katrina blames her illness on supernatural forces and passive-aggressively blames Death for her condition.
Suddenly, Henry bursts in aggressive-aggressively and has his goons apprehend Katrina. Did War shop for minions on Mafia Discount Day at Red Shirt Emporium? Because these guys are dapper as hell.
Whatever is going on with Mrs. Crane, it is going exactly according to plan. But who”s plan? Henry says he”s here on Moloch”s behalf and their commander has changed his mind about Hell”s plan for Katrina Crane. Both Abraham and myself call bullshit. But War has a better grip on his Horseman powers – or he just has cooler abilities – and opens a window with telekinesis to let the sunlight trap Abraham while his goons whisk Katrina away.
Dissension in the ranks of Hell is getting serious, y”all. This is some straight up Mario/Bowser nonsense.
No one moves Abraham”s princess to another castle! Death rallies against the evils of natural light and puts an axe right in a goon”s back. I hope Henry kept his receipt. That guy still had “new minion” smell.
Seeing an opening, Katrina kicks her captor straight in the nads and makes a break for it. Despite suffering from supernatural consumption, she manages to make it to the nearest gas station – and help – before passing right the hell out.
Back in town, Ichabod is still railing against modern democracy until Abbie soothes him with an “I Voted” sticker. You guys, these two dorks are adorable. Right as our heroes are about to leave, Sheriff Reyes shows up with her posse. Crane laments Abbie”s removal from The Plastics…I mean the police inner circle. But one of the cool kids throws us a bone. A call just came in about some crazy red-headed Jane Doe in Revolutionary clothing passing out in the street and being taken to the hospital.
Say no more, minor recurring character.
At said hospital, Katrina is unconscious and still has the sickly sheen of someone suffering from blood spider poisoning. A doctor shows up to be indignant and spit out crucial information. The patient has a fever of 105 and an infection in her abdominal wall, says the doctor before disappearing, because clearly these people know the Jane Doe and shouldn”t have to provide proof or anything. Katrina wakes up just in time to be completely conscious for the emergence of painful black lines that signal blood poisoning.
Um, did Henry start a metamorphosis that will turn Katrina in the Horseman of Pestilence? Because that would be ONE way to stay closer to Mommy while sticking it to Dad.
Always the voice of reason, Abbie suggests they should vamoose before the Goons of War show up to re-kidnap Katrina. The only problem is the hospital took her clothes. So Mrs. Crane ends up in a drunk goth”s rejects: skinny jeans and a corset. Ichabod is conflicted about the state of dress – or undress – of his wife in public. But there”s no time to waste because the goons have arrived. Abbie shuffles the Cranes out of the hospital so she – you know, the cop – can tail these minions back to their lair.
Ichabod takes Katrina to the Exposition Library because it has every possible book they could ever need to discover what Henry did to her. When the minions of War tried to kidnap her, Katrina remembers seeing a goat in their “medical” book. Using his photographic memory, Crane is able to deduce the symbol belongs to the Hellfire Club within seconds.
Oh man, I hope Emma Frost shows up next week! Wait, wrong universe. In the “Sleepy Hollow” world, the Hellfire Club was infiltrated by Ben Franklin – because of course it was – and as luck would have it, Franklin witnessed them do to another woman the same thing that”s happening to Katrina.
I am side-eying the hell out of this deus ex machina library, y”all.
Unfortunately for our heroes, even absurd coincidences draw the line at literally writing down what ails Katrina. Franklin never gave any clues as to what caused the illness or if the other woman even lived. That bodes well, right? Oh, also during this exchange Katrina lets it slip that she”s wearing an enchanted necklace that allows her to converse with Abraham. Ichabod is not amused.
Away from all this middle school drama, Abbie is making progress. She is on the case…following a minion holding a case. Dude enters an abandoned warehouse and Mills follows. So, is Sleepy Hollow suffering from a manufacturing recession? There is a seriously high number of empty industrial buildings in this tiny town.
In a clean room in the warehouse, one minion is on the phone while the other wrestles with a tablet that is obviously the baby cousin of the Rosetta stone. Abbie snaps photos of everything on her cell phone before stumbling into a gurney with a corpse on it. A corpse with the same black lines that now cover Katrina. Ah, it seems Henry is thorough. You don”t just give unknown blood spiders to your target without running human trials first to work out the bugs.
Get it? Sorry.
The guards are alerted by the noise but studied at the school of “Metal Gear Solid” sentry duty. Abbie not only manages escapes undetected but is able to take more pictures on her way out. Oh look, a crib and a delivery table. Did Henry IMPREGNATE Katrina with Pestilence? Is there really time to raise a Horseman to maturity? It would be a kind of poetic justice though, right? Katrina Crane, Uterus of the Apocalypse.
Abbie meets back up with the Cranes and it doesn”t take long for them to piece two and two together. Although we do pit stop by the land of “jealous husband immediately assumes his wife got knocked up by her headless ex-fiancé” before coming to the much more logical conclusion that the Asian poison knocked Katrina up. Oh, and it”s an accelerated pregnancy because this show has a run time of one hour. Oh, and the demon will definitely kill its host on the way out.
Mrs. Crane blithely states that dark covens have been using this poison for years to grow demons, leading to several questions. The most pressing of which is “WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP THINKING THEY CAN CONTROL DEMONS?”
No time to wonder though, because the Scooby gang has to haul ass into the Sleepy Hollow Underground when Henry”s goons show up to retrieve their demon incubator.
We end up back at the church where Katrina gave Henry up as a baby…and also the church he took his name from when he escaped his coffin prison. Katrina and Ichabod seem to think the sanctified ground will keep them safe, but you guys. There were churches IN TOWN. The only reason you came out here was because the set was already built. Don”t lie to me.
Speaking of lies, Katrina continues to lie to herself about her son”s nature. Or the fever and pain have made her delusional. Either way, she is convinced Henry can remove the baby. Ichabod has to convince War to find his humanity to decide to save his human mother.
Oh honey, no.
Ichabod is swayed by Katrina”s impassioned pleas for reasons unknown, which leaves Abbie to once again be the voice of reason. She”s basically like “Oh hell no. I am surrounded by sentimental idiots. Your son. Is. The Horseman. Of War.” But it”s no good. The Cranes have decided the best course of action is to reason with War rather than, I don”t know, finding a back alley abortionist.
Suddenly, we”re in Terrytown. Captain Irving has called his lawyer – War – with an urgent matter. But haha, just kidding. It was a trap. Irving played Henry at the request of Ichabod. Father and son are going to have a chat.
Or not. While the men wax poetic about the pros and cons of saving Katrina, Abbie has found some more disturbing information about the demon Mrs. Crane is gestating. It”s not Pestilence after all – rats – but a demon called the Horrid King. With dawning horror, it is revealed who the demon baby really is.
“Why on Earth would I spend this much time and effort on some dumb old demon?” asks Henry. Which is a good point. It”s not a demon. It”s Moloch!
Um, my original question still remains. Do we really have time to raise a leader of the Apocalypse from infancy? Or are demon childhoods also accelerated?
At the church, Katrina tells Abbie to kill her. Moloch can”t be born if his host dies. Abbie is obviously anti-shoot-Ichabod”s-wife. Guys? I bet Katrina would survive a gut shot. Just saying. Instead, the ladies opt to wait and see if Crane can appeal to War”s humanity.
He can”t. To the shock of no one who isn”t Ichabod Crane, his pleas for the Horseman of War to renounce the coming Apocalypse fall on deaf ears. Henry chooses Moloch, and gladly. In a last ditch attempt, Crane grabs his son”s hand…and sees a vision. A vision of a little boy lost in the woods, screaming for help.
Ichabod gets back to the church but the Scooby gang is no closer to saving Katrina from birthing Moloch. I mean, seriously? No one is gonna suggest shooting her in the stomach? Okay, I guess.
As she lay dying, impregnated by her son via poison blood spider surrogate, with a demon destined to bring Hell to Earth, Katrina begs Crane not to give up on their son. I have no words.
But a weird glimmer on the photos Abbie took of the tablet at the warehouse gives Ichabod an idea. The aurora borealis…apparently it can kill demons. Sure, why not? And as luck would have it, Ben Franklin was obsessed with the aurora borealis phenomenon. To the Internet!
Ichabod Crane is unimpressed by dial-up. It”s slow yet functional. Mills pulls up Franklin”s original documents on the borealis and surprise! It”s a code. The Hellfire Club was trying to birth Moloch for centuries, so Franklin created an aurora prism to stop them. And he hid it inside the tablet.
Wait, what? HOW?
Whatever. We”re on a roll now. All our heroes need is an army to storm the goon headquarters. Time to manipulate Sheriff Reyes into giving Mills a tactical team. Armed with her cell phone photos, Abbie tells Sheriff Reyes there”s a doomsday cult in Sleepy Hollow and it”s been experimenting on people. Even the good Sheriff can”t be skeptical of actual photographic evidence and the troops are scrambled.
SWAT breaks into the warehouse and immediately the goons start firing. It”s an old-fashioned shoot out. But Crane and Mills sneak away to break into the case holding the tablet. Mills saves the day by taking down several minions WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT while Ichabod retrieves the MacGuffin. However, before they can escape Reyes shows up with the rest of the cops.
But lo, an early Christmas miracle. Instead of asking Abbie why she”s stealing evidence, the Sheriff is merely impressed with her fighting skills. Reyes even throws a bone of respect to Crane, “criminal profiler.” Have our heroes finally convinced Captain Irving”s replacement that they”re not wasting tax payer dollars? Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, Katrina is writhing in agony on the floor of the church. You know, just in active labor, birthing the Horrid King. No big deal. That warehouse must have been a hop, skip, and a jump from the church because Crane and Mills bust in forthwith.
In dramatic slow-mo, Ichabod shatters the tablet over a pew and retrieves the aurora prism. Again I repeat, HOW!? Whatever. In one bound, Crane climbs up on the pulpit and pulls down the boards keeping the church shrouded in shadow. Holding the prism up to the light, the aurora borealis flows over Katrina”s uterus. Red light emanates from her womb and I swear it looks like the wand fight between Harry Potter and Voldemort.
Obviously, good wins the day and Moloch is banished back to Purgatory. But Katrina is still dead. Ichabod recalls Hawley – who wasn”t in this episode and what the actual hell writers!? – giving Abbie CPR to save her. He applies said knowledge to his dead wife, and it works! Katrina is saved and the couple shares a moment while Abbie excuses herself.
Sometime later, Ichabod goes outside to let Abbie know it”s safe to come back in. And instead they end up fighting over whether or not Henry can be saved. Crane shares with Mills his vision of seeing Henry as a lost and scared little boy. St. Abbie, patron of COMMON GODDAMN SENSE, isn”t buying it and is quite frankly annoyed “save Henry” is even still on the table.
Speak of the devil. At Fredrick”s Manor, red lightning courses into a bottle before coalescing into a heart shape. Henry smiles.
Well, what did y”all think? Can Henry be saved? Did you miss Hawley? Did Moloch want to be born or is War committing a double cross?