The SuperSleepy Dispatch

Recap and Review: Sleepy Hollow 2:11 “The Akeda”

By P.S Griffin

This is the way the world ends:This is the way the world ends: This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but a whimper. – T.S. Eliot (“The Hollow Men”)

This episode picks up where we left off.  The shofar has sounded the beginning of the End of Days.  Moloch is busy bringing about Hell on Earth.   Abbie and Ichabod  chat, reminding themselves of what they must do as they speed along to Frederick’s Manor by car with Methuselah’s. Sword in hand.  Lightening strikes, knocking out the car’s electrical system,  and later the gas station’s phones.  They commandeer a good old fashioned motorcycle; with Abbie driving and Ichabod holding on for dear life, they arrive at Frederick’s Manor.  Ichabod sooo wants one of those.  Tom Mison soooo sells Ichabod’s untimely enthusiasm.  It’s sooooo cute but shouldn’t he be focused on serious matters like stopping the Apocalypse?

The manor is empty.  They find Henry’s precise scale model of Sleepy Hollow with little flags at the locations of all of his evil works.  They string a thread along the flags to delineate a pentagram star over Sleepy Hollow.   Abbie swears then realizes the town is ripe to become Hell on Earth.   Cue the screams of a terminal damsel in distress.  Yawn.

Sure enough,  Katrina is tied up out back with Abraham preparing to decapitate her.  Moloch and Henry have left the area.  Ichabod pulls out his new fancy toy and quickly dispatches Abraham by slicing his broadaxe in two.  Abbie looks like she’s in LOVE, then gathers herself and frees silly, stupid Katrina.

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Katrina does some magic that actually works to extend the enchantment on the amulet so that they all can see and hear Abraham.   He’s still not talking but he’s willing to scowl.   Ichabod wants to kill him but Abraham taunts that he will die too if he uses his precious sword.  Katrina stops Ichabod to save him (and Abraham!).  They take him to the Masonic cell and let Katrina chain him up, her spells (still working!) make the chains’ hold over him stronger than before.

Ichabod doesn’t like his wife’s intimacy with Abraham and admits to Abbie that their marriage is strained.  Duh.  Later on after watching her flirt with Abraham he hashes things out with her.  He doesn’t understand her actions though he’s trying.   She tries to tell him that she’s being a good operative.  He points out that she failed (miserably).  The marriage is on hold because Ichabod no longer trusts her.

The Witnesses meet Jenny in the Archives and learn that the sword will consume your soul in fire when you use it.   That is a life changing side effect.

All is lost until Jenny points out that Frank Irving doesn’t have a soul to lose.  It’s a neat trick however I was jonesing for the Kindred to make a reappearance.   Memories run short on this show.

Frank Irving has left a voice message for Jenny with a coded clue to his location.   Yada, yada, yada… of course he’s in the underground tunnels.  Where else would he be?  They find him without getting shot.  Frank the Uber hero with glowing sword is born.  I love this guy.

Frank wipes the arrogant smile off of Abraham’s face and forces him to tell Moloch’s plan.  It’s a doozy.  He and Henry are off burning the four white trees.  There is some mumbling on Moloch’s part which sounds like he’s quoting “Revelation”. 

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Henry is overcome with emotion at the sight of the Burning tree.  He’s being pretty lovey dovey with his demon father as well.   Anyhow,  when the second tree burns there’s  blood, and after the third tree burns Moloch’s demon army breaks free.  I forget what the fourth tree does?  It doesn’t really matter does it? Meh humbug.

Demonic army you say?  We’d better weapon up.  Jenny and Ichabod go look for Hawley who hasn’t yet earned first name basis.  Hawley is partying it up at a bar.at. He’s delighted to see them until he realizes it’s business as usual for Team Witness.

He’s dubious that it’s really the Apocalypse until it hails blood.  Sure he has loads of weapons.  He ogles Katrina openly as she spells the weapons to strengthen their magic.  He openly ogles the Headless Horseman as well, since he’s left to babysit the shop and fend off stray demons.  Hawley may as well be off on the beach with a margarita; the guy is that chill.

So it’s on!  Team Witness walks into battle across the lawn.  There’s the two very badass Mills sisters, the hyper badass FRANK and the emotional Cranes.  Guess which two get derailed immediately?  Crackerjack shot Abbie gets a bullet to the shoulder and crackerjack shot Jenny escorts her to safety.  Ugh.

Crane shoots,  Katrina magicks but cannot  magicks kill (yawn) and Frank kills one demon dude after another.   Moloch is starting to get worried about the sword and he  sends the personification of War to fight.  Henry’s eyes go black as the infernal armored Horseman rides into battle.   Yowza!  It’s FRANK versus War.  FRANK is awesome.   He defeats War who melts and then he dies because the stupid witch cannot save him.  (Eye roll preceeding yawn).

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Abbie mourns with the pain of a million viewers.   It’s a thing of beauty.  Then we’re back to business.   Abbie wants to kill Moloch with the sword very badly.  Ichabod says, “No I am Sparticus.”  No really he’s willing to die too and so is Katrina (I call foul because she can’t even lift the sword), and so is Jenny.  Great, now what’s the darn plan.

Meanwhile Moloch doesn’t care that War’s armor is gone.   Moloch doesn’t care that War is vulnerable.   He wants Henry to go get that darn sword.  Off you go.  We actually watch Henry shuffle through the woods.

Abbie pops out of hiding brandishing the sword when Henry shows up.  He wraps both her and her little sister in vines, grabs the sword, and starts to grandstand with evil gusto until Ichabod steps up holding the real sword to his throat.  OMG!  Katrina actually cast an illusion spell.  Good for her.

Then Father and son start to discuss the titular sacrifice of Abraham and both become emotional.  Henry seems to finally understand that his father’s love knows no bounds.  Ichabod is so emotional that Henry easily steals the sword away, his cackle cuts deeply.  Once again, all is lost.

It’s a sad march into the forest then, then and soon Henry has our heroes vine wrapped to trees.  Moloch demands that Henry sacrifice his mother.  Henry protests because she belongs to Abraham.   Moloch doesn’t care.  Apparently this pissed Henry off because he starts up the conversation again about the Akeda and claims that the moral of the story is that Isaac never forgave Abraham.   Amen.  With that he guts Moloch.  Everyone is shocked except for Katrina.  

Additional Thoughts :  “The Akeda” was written by Mark Goffman and directed by Dwight Little.   Kudos to Little for his attempts to electrify the script with mood lighting.   Goffman, my God what hath thou wrought?

Let’s make like Abbie and surveill the ruins of our magical seven year apocalyptic arc.  You know.  The one where the two Witnesses are charged with stopping the Apocalypse.   The one that ties them, the founding of this nation, the Revolutionary War, the Masons and zombie George Washington  to the great fight against EVIL for the good of all mankind.  The grand mytharc that made this show delightful, fresh and unique. 

Well this mytharc was torn asunder for the Crane Family drama,  leaving us with yet another show about two unrelated characters, one cranky, with a heroic lair that get in the car and fight evil; as opposed to the show about two brothers, one cranky, with a heroic lair who get in the IMPALA and fight evil; or the show about one cranky chainsmoker with a heroic lair who gets in a car to fight evil. 

The landscape is pretty dense these days.  The latter two shows have ample backstory and mythology.  Sleepy Hollow created instant backstory with its Mashup of the Apocalypse and American history.   It’s all gone.

Now I suppose the evil Hessians will still try to bring about Hell on earth.  Moloch  looked pretty well destroyed.   I guess another demon can step in.  Our world was melded with Purgatory for a time.  Certainly some baddies are moping about waiting to be dispatched by the heroes.  Henry might have been mad at Moloch but there’s no guarantee he’s going to be a good little boy.  They can bring Undead Irving back and Undead Andy too. 

It could be fun I suppose. I am not saying that there aren’t legs all over the place.  I just don’t understand why.

Last year at this time they had a hit show with a groundbreaking badass cast.  They were comic gold, dramatic hold, action gold.  They sidelined Frank and Jenny and forced us to endure Katrina and Hawley.   Yet they refused to write them as actual characters. 

Katrina is a perpetual damsel in distress, dumb, a terrible spy and unsuccessful witch.  She’s lame, limp and completely lacking in excitement.   I had hopes for her turning into a villain.   At this point she will likely be at odds with Ichabod over Henry and if course their marriage is in the dog house.  After last week’s personal revelations I hope Ichabod questions her and their union and truly becomes his own self made man.

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Hawley I actually like.  They dropped the ball on fleshing him out and he is miscast because he simply begs to be cut from the same bolt of cloth as a snarly Indiana Jones.  That said, an antiquities specialist is a useful long-term investment.  And frankly Ichabod as the font of all knowledge was wearing thin.  Likewise Jenny has been set up to only know about those artifacts that Sheriff Corbin wanted. The best part of Hawley were his fights with Ichabod and his huge crush on Abbie.   it was startling human and real.

I have no idea what they were thinking.   They weren’t thinking about great storytelling because Ichabod’s family situation isn’t even good storytelling.   And as a Witness it should have been moot.  He never should have wasted resources like the Kindred simply to rescue Katrina.  Or at least we should have seen him struggle more to chose between family and noble purpose.  The Mills Family puts him to shame.

If Abbie has her head on straight she should lure Katrina to the Gorgon’s layer and force her to gaze upon the severed head. 

Just friggin give me Abbie and Ichabod!  And Jenny and Frank!   And Undead Andy!  Why can’t Undead Andy kill Katrina?

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