The Super Sleepy Dispatch
Recap and Review: Sleepy Hollow 2:7 “Deliverance”
This is the one where Ichabod aborts Katrina’s demon baby using the magic of crystals while Abbie mops her brow and Henry smiles in victory as he captures the pretty red light in a bottle.
This episode opens with the Cranes in bed savoring their final moments together before Ichabod must report for duty. In the dream Ichabod moves to tenderly kiss Katrina. Then the dream turns to a horrid nightmare wherein he starts grossly violating her by inseminating her using his distended maw. It is the only time Ichabod has ever disgusted me.
Katrina is disgusted as well it seems. She awakens screaming because Henry’s spider just sat down inside her after crawling down her throat. She’s been violated in the worst way by the worst son ever. Without a doubt it’s a demonic pregnancy. I have a nose for these things. Rosemary had it easy in comparison (Rosemary’s Baby).
Ichabod is having a slightly better morning complaining about low voter turnout, and the fact that he cannot vote despite fighting for us to have that freedom; also because he can’t tell Abbie how to vote or even watch her vote. Ahh… the sound of Ichabod ranting first thing in the morning, it sounds like a typical episode of Sleepy Hollow!
This was a throwaway scene altogether and not much of a good rant really. Boo! Although, at the end they do learn that a screaming redhead in colonial garb was injured and taken to the hospital.
Katrina is complaining that she feels ill as if she’s been poisoned. Abraham is concerned and defensive. Henry barges in with Hessians “at Moloch’s command” to chew scenary and take Katrina away to gestate since “everything is as expected”. Her eyes look pretty awful to me in a supernatural pregnancy sort of way.
Abraham tries to stop Henry and Moloch’s plans for Katrina with heartfelt pleas and then blows from his trusty broad axe. Abraham is strong and powered by love but Henry defeats him with dark magic and sunlight. However his noble melee gives Katrina the chance to run like the wind and scream like a banshee. This stuff writes itself.
So Abbie and Ichabod rush to the hospital where Katrina is burning with fever from an infection of the abdominal wall. There is a tender reunion until she starts screaming and evil dark veining appears on her expanding tummy. This leads to the obvious conclusion that Henry’s black magic is afoot.
They decide to check her out, find her clothes and solve her problem themselves. Abbie finds a tank top, skinny jeans and a Goth corset in the Lost and Found. Katrina looks fabulous wirh every curve highlighted, but seems bemused at today’s fashions. Ichabod seems both horrified and excited that his wife is such a looker. My husband is the same way; both do not want other men looking at their wife as a sex object.
As they leave the hospital the Hessians show up. Ichabod takes Katrina to the Archives whilst Abbie tails the bad guys to their evil lair complete with a similarly veined corpse, ominous gynecological instruments, a birthing bed and a crib. The Hessians are examining a demonic Rosetta stone. Abbie steals the Hessians’ big book of demonic pregnancy before she leaves.
At the Archives, Katrina casts a spell to warn them of intruders. She looks unwell. Katrina describes the symbol on the book the Hessian doctor consulted. Ichabod recognizes it as belonging to the Hellfire Club. Benjamin Franklin’s journal mentions seeing a woman with similar symptoms but nothing else. It’s really time to worry if its Hellfire Club hijinks.
Ichabod is jealous of the time Katrina spends with Abraham and their budding relationship. Abraham is a great guy for being the Headless Horseman of Death! He flips when Abbie returns from her recent reconnoiter because he realizes that she is pregnant and immediately assumes Abraham inseminating her. There is the hint of violence in his anger which frightens Abbie, Katrina and me.
He calms down after reading the Hessian book that Abbie stole. It tells of insemination using jinkan, the poison that Henry turned into the spider that sat down inside her, giving poor Katrina such pain.
Katrina knows that jinkan is used by witches to birth demons. Oh no! They also learn that she will give birth and die in a matter of hours.
Before they can do more than feel horror at their discovery, Katrina’s hexed paper bursts into flames. They take off to the tunnels to find a new safe location, none other than the abandoned St. Henry’s Parrish Church which inexplicably still has electricity and dial-up internet.
Katrina fervently believes that Henry will save her from death because he chose Moloch when he had no family to turn to for love. Now he has both of his parents. Sigh. Poppycock!
Abbie is of course a disbeliever. Unfortunately her pragmatism loses this argument. Ichabod foolishly heads off to plead with Henry, the poor little Horseman of War hellbent on bringing Hell’s army to earth, to play nice and save his mommy. So not a good plan.
Ichabod has Captain Irving call Henry to Tarrytown Psychiatric Hospital where he is forced to talk to his father. Henry gives him no quarter and in fact gloats about impregnating his mother with the Horrid King, none other than Moloch. Still Ichabod sees a vision of the small terrified child within Henry as he leaves and accidentally touches him. So even though Henry has done something terrible to him and his every week; things that have caused innocent lives to suffer and die, Ichabod still hopes there is good in his son.
Aargh! So much promise only to be wasted on this throwaway episode!
Whilst Ichabod wastes time, Abbie is reading the Hessians’ book on demonic pregnancy. She also learns that Katrina is birthing Moloch, the Horrid King. Katrina collapses in pain as her horrid pregnancy progresses. She tells Abbie to kill her to stop Moloch. (Yes please Abbie! Katrina is boring and siphoning Ichabod’s Witness resolve.) Of course Abbie refuses, because she’s the best, and says they will find another way. Things progress quickly.
Kudos to Katrina for being selfless. Somehow Katrina’s desire to sacrifice herself for the greater good feels much more important than Ichabod’s acquiescence to the Masons wish thar he die to dispatch Abraham. I am ready to admit that I was very very wrong about her character. She’s a hero, albeit sometimes misguided and often sidelined.
Ichabod returns with the bad news. Henry don’t play that. Nonetheless, Katrina remains steadfast in her hope for Henry’s redemption.
Ichabod finally looks at Abbie’s photograph of the demonic rosetta stone which shows a colorful interference pattern surrounding it. This reminds Ichabod of the Aurora Borealis, which reminds Ichabod of a paper by Benjamin Franklin.
Suddenly Ichabod is overwhelmed by the need to “internet”. Abbie makes it so, and they discover Franklin’s secret coded message which tells of a secret tool to defeat demonic pregnancies. He made a crystal that recreates the Aurora Borealis. It’s hidden in the tablet. Diffracting sunlight through the crystal will stop Moloch from being born.
Now this is a proper plan. However they need to get their hands on the Hessians’ special stone. Ichabod wishes that he still had an army for backup like in ye olde revolutionary days. This gives Abbie a brilliant idea, and soon she’s the one with formidable backup.
They go to Captain Reyes with news of a Doomsday Cult with historical origins that engages in human torture and firearms violations. According to Abbie’s intel, they are the reason for the weird upswing of violence in Sleepy Hollow. Of course Ichabod was indispensable in uncovering their operations. It’s that easy. They have their SWAT team for infiltration of the evil Hessian lair.
As the police assault the domestic terrorists enough masse, Abbie leads Ichabod to the tablet. Ichabod is disappointed that Abbie cracks the safe ‘ s code which is the terribly obvious “666”. They get the tablet and Reyes’ respect. Priceless.
With little time to spare Ichabod, liberates the hidden crystal, rips the boards off a window and directs sunlight through the crystal and onto Katrina’s stomach. Abbie comforts the agonized Katrina.
It works! Red light emanates from her abdomen and it shrinks visibly. However Katrina does not immediately recover. Ichabod, having learned from Hawley’s resuscitation of Abbie, provides CPR successfully, reviving Katrina. It appears that she and the world are saved.
Again, this proves to be a small victory for Team Witness. Abbie remains at odds with the reunited Cranes on whether Henry can be redeemed.
We see the red light travel to a lightening rod at Frederick’s Manor and into a glass jar. Henry smiles in satisfaction. Clearly the red light is Moloch’s demonic essence. Henry’s work and Moloch’s birth remain right on track.
Additional Thoughts: This episode was written by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves, and directed byNick Copus.
I have to agree with Abbie and her hardass tack on Henry. He’s killing people on a weekly basis. He’s tried to kill them. He’s probably destroyed Irving. He’s raising Moloch and actively engaged in bringing about a most horrid Apocalypse. Saving Henry has already come at too high a price.
Furthermore, he is always a step ahead because they are responding to each subsequent threat rather than decapitating the serpent and source of the evil mayhem in Sleepy Hollow.
The Cranes’ familiar bonds to their horrid little boy is preventing the Witnesses from doing their thing in a big way. Abbie is very right on that score. All you need is LOVE, LOVE LOVE… yada, yada, yada. I think the Witnesses are supposed to sacrifice and make hard choices to save the world, not run after the war mongers of the Apocalypse putting out fires and burying bodies.
Abbie remains my Valkyrie of Awesomeness.
Ichabod remains appealing although strangely flawed because of the Crane family drama.
Katrina was finally not as boring. She was willing to die to defeat Moloch in this one skirmish. She loves fiercely, even though her love has clouded her judgment (for instance the Mary fauxpas). Her scenes with Ichabod finally conveyed mutual passion. I have no idea why the writers have framed her as a damsel in distress again. She’s a hapless vessel in this episode and once again a pawn for her son.
Nonetheless I was primed for this storyline at the onset. The idea of an unwanted violation of one’s body leading to a demonic pregnancy is truly horrific stuff. I was expecting something as great as the classic Rosemary’s Baby or the more recent Devil’s Due. Of course for that to happen the concept would need to have been explored over several episodes instead of a single one. This would have drawn out the impending horror as we and Katrina slowly realized what was happening. It also would have given her more to do over the last several episodes than stand or sit around and fret, as Abraham waits on her hand and foot. At this rate I am sure that little Moloch will be fully grown into a strapping demon king in no time.
I have to call foul on the worst use of Irving in an episode to date! I fail to understand what sidelining Irving and Jenny for most of the season thus far accomplishes. Nor do I get making the show’s go to scary guy, the Headless Horseman, a gallant gentlemanly lovestruck suitor. Although I think the show is darker overall this season than last and still clips along at a freakish pace, the little show that could no longer seems to be that lean, mean, devilish plot churning machine that it once was. Too many chefs perhaps?
