Episode Report Card Kelsea Stahler: A+ | 122 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Paul Revere Was a Terrible Dentist
By Kelsea Stahler | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.11.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Sleepy Hollow continues it re-education crusade with the tale of Paul Revere in an episode that finally delivers a showdown against the Horseman. Abbie and Ichabod are preparing for the onslaught of evil, but Abbie refuses to involve the Masons because she's not too happy about their "no girls allowed" rule. It's unfortunate, because as it turns out, the Masons are one the many keys to this week's big mystery.
The Horseman has also figured this out, and he beats Ichabod and Abbie to the house where they're congregating (Ichabod's old home). Ichabod and Abbie get there just as he's finishing up beheading the four Masons at the house, but don't worry, the Horseman's also managed to ransack the house's most important room: the Library. It's there that Ichabod realizes (thanks to a beheaded portrait of George Washington) that the Horseman is looking for his head. Oh yeah, remember that issue from the first episode of Sleepy Hollow where the Horseman "wouldn't stop" until he got his head, which is the action that will bring his three horseman buddies back to life? That super important piece of knowledge is still super important. Shocker.
But that's not the only problem our duo is facing this week. With yet another headless murder in Sleepy Hollow, Irving's mind-boggling reaction is that he needs proof before he can continue supporting Abbie's supernatural mission. Abbie then brazenly asks him for the Horseman's head, which is now cataloged in the evidence room, so she and Ichabod can destroy it. Proof, be damned. Irving is naturally flabbergasted until he pays the head a visit at the lab, where the Horseman arrives fully armed and ready to kill. The lab tech gets a bullet to the chest while Irving escapes by "blinding" a headless person with an exploding gas pipe. Logic of his escape aside, he's got his proof.
With that out of the way, Abbie is free to spend her time driving around Upstate New York to solve supernatural crime. She and Ichabod go to Tarrytown, where they visit a museum full of historical artifacts, including a manuscript for how to defeat the Horseman that Samuel Adams once gave to Paul Revere. While Abbie finds out that the manuscript is on loan to a London museum, but available online, Ichabod harasses one museum tour guide over his erroneous assertion that Paul Revere was a dentist and who yelled "The British are coming!" (In truth, he said "The regulars are coming!" and was definitely not a silversmith and a dentist.)
Using a computer gives Ichabod more than a few moments of aggravation, but eventually, he's left with a printed copy of the manuscript to decode while Abbie steps out to cancel a date with Luke, her ex-boyfriend. She gets his voicemail because Brooks has returned in all his undead glory and he's scared Luke away from her. Brooks also appears in the tunnels where Abbie is making another impossible underground cell phone call and warns her that the Horseman can't be killed, only trapped. Ichabod figures it out at the same time – apparently Paul Revere put the manuscript's code word on the backs of the Horseman's skull's teeth, which happens to be sitting in Ichabod's study room. (So, if he was a dentist, he's not one anyone would ever want, it seems.)
They need to trap the Horseman in the sun with the help of a witch and while they don't have witches, they do have tanning beds and UV lights. Abbie, Irving, and Ichabod lure the Horseman underground to a Mason prison cell built by Thomas Jefferson with a slew of decoy skulls. He chases Abbie, who has the real skull, into the cell where the UV lights are. The team turns them on, incapacitates the Horseman, and locks him up.
And because that was one hell of an ending, that's exactly where Sleepy Hollow leaves us. The show will worry about giving us answers about Brooks' undead form and how one interrogates a man with no head next week. For now, we enjoy the victory.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Welcome to this week’s edition of So You Think You Know History, where Ichabod Crane takes us on a twisty ride through the truer side of history. This week’s Sleepy Hollow opens during the American Revolution, the night of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride. Instead of telling people "The British are coming!" he and his fellow alarm-sounders are whispering "The regulars are coming," because as Ichabod later explains, "We were all British" so it wouldn’t make much sense to yell the more famous phrase. After that’s cleared up, the soon-to-be Headless Horseman chases down the rebels and beheads everyone except for Paul Revere, because we can’t lose one of our American heroes in the first five minutes of the show. That would just be cruel. Also, Paul Revere was never actually beheaded, so that helps too.
Back in our time, Abbie and Ichabod are preparing "kits" full of water and canned goods. No, they’re not helping out needy families during Thanksgiving, these are survival kits and it’s all part of Abbie’s plan to beat the Horseman. She fills us in on part two of her diabolical plan: a shotgun. Oh yes, that thing that didn’t stop the Horseman the first time he attacked the town. While Ichabod stews over Abbie’s willingness to pay for bottled water (a sentiment I don’t take total issue with), she tells us the real reason she’s determined to use this terrible plan: she refuses to ask the Masons for help because of their "no girls allowed" policy. I’m all for a stand for feminism, but Death incarnate is coming and he’s going to kill everyone if he’s not stopped, Abs.
Abbie is momentarily distracted from her insufficient plan when she runs into her ex, Luke, on her way to the station. He says he still cares about her and flashes a cute, dimply smile, so she agrees to a coffee date… set for the day after the arrival of the Horseman. This date is doomed and Abbie needs a day planner.
But if Abbie’s schedule wasn’t enough of an issue, that night, Brooks (the officer whose neck was snapped backwards in the pilot) is back and fully ready to admit to anyone who’ll listen that he’s undead. He corners Luke in an alley and warns him to stay away from Abbie because Brooks will protect her and only the chosen ones will survive the coming evil. His statements aren’t exactly logical, but when he holds a pistol against Luke’s neck and creates an association between Abbie and certain death, the deal is sealed. Luke is now completely terrified of his ex.