Episode Report Card Kelsea Stahler: B+ | 72 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Not a Creature Was Stirring… Unless You Count The Golem
By Kelsea Stahler | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.09.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.With only one episode left before Sleepy Hollow's holiday break, it's understandable that the writers would work to squeeze in as much detail as possible. Enter "The Golem" where the information came so rapid-fire it's starting to feel like we're all about to fail a pop quiz in the morning.
So, in a very bloated nutshell, here's what went down: It's Christmas time in Sleepy Hollow, and despite the tranquil beauty of twinkle lights on every corner, Ichabod is in a huff. He wants to know what happens to his son and explains that they need it as part of his Moloch offensive (even though he could have just said he wanted an answer about his son and we'd have accepted it). He's called in Henry (John Noble) the sin-eater to help him take a little vacation to purgatory. Henry balks, then strangles Ichabod so he can get close to death and thus jump to purgatory and find Katrina. Sure, no problem.
Once there, Katrina tells Ichabod that she left Jeremy with Grace (Abbie's ancestor) because her coven was hunting her down for saving Ichabod. Just then, a stitch-mouthed demon comes after them and Ichabod retreats back to the real world, where he leads Henry and Abbie on a journey to find his son, who he's just learned is named Jeremy.
At the library, they find records that place Jeremy as a baby who conjured fire by crying and killed Grace and her husband. The records end there, but Henry notes that he can sense the sin (lying) on the librarian and they seek her out only to find that something (that stitch-mouthed creature) already killed her. Naturally, they take all of her stuff and rifle through it.
They find signs that the librarian was part of Katrina's coven and probably knew who Ichabod was. Then they find a small journal with a drawing of a doll Katrina gave Jeremy as a baby; Henry feels pain connected to it and jumps into a vision. There, he sees Jeremy being whipped by a priest until his rage manifests itself in magic and a drop of his blood turns that doll unto a Golem. The Golem is marked by its creator's greatest passions, and in this case, protects the creator from his fears. The Golem killed the priest back then and in 2013, he killed the woman from Katrina's old coven.
They assess, by looking at the dead librarian's things, that the Four Who Speak As One (the witches who trapped Katrina in purgatory) are in town and that the Golem is probably going after them since they hurt Jeremy's mother. Ichabod (with the excruciatingly slow assistance of Henry and Abbie) figures out that these four other witches could probably free Katrina, so he might want to save them. When he gets there, they won't free Katrina and they confess they killed his son, so he leaves them to be crushed by the Golem's cartoonish clobbering hands.
While the Golem stalks around the carnival where they found the witches, Henry helps Ichabod decipher the witches' clue: Jeremy's blood kills the Golem and since Ichabod fathered Jeremy, his blood will do it too. Ichabod gives the Golem a chance to understand human emotions (because that seemed so likely) and then stabs him, only to lay by his side and say farewell as if the Golem was actually his slain son. Grief is a funny thing.
When everything seems as if it's wrapped up in a nice bow (including Henry's declaration that they're destined to work together and Abbie's gift of an embroidered Christmas stocking—er, hosiery item for Ichabod), but Moloch has one last life-ruiner. He appears to Ichabod in a vision and tells him that not only is Katrina part of his torment plan, he's also going to kill both Ichabod and Abbie. The twist? He says Ichabod will deliver Abbie's soul to him before his evil work is done. Oh come on, we know this can't be true. Right? Right? Someone hold me. I'm scared.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The final episode before Sleepy Hollow’s holiday break was full of fast-paced information. Unfortunately, it didn’t leave room for much else.
We open with our weekly lesson in the differences between Revolutionary War America and contemporary America. This time, Ichabod explains the difference between "egg and grog" and "egg nog." I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say, the creamy rum drink we know and love today sounds a lot better. When Ichabod’s done explaining history, we’re treated with a vision of him chopping wood (I like his brain, too, I promise), exerting his frustration over not knowing the whereabouts of his son. Now that he’s learned he had a son, he’s sure that Moloch chased him down as a means of finding Ichabod and this is why they need to find Katrina. You know, "I love my wife and I’m curious about what happened to my son" would have been a totally legitimate reason, too.
To do so Ichabod calls in Henry Parrish (John Noble), the sin-eater, to connect Ichabod to purgatory so he can speak with Katrina. Henry puts up a mild fight (there’s no time for a real one on a fast-paced episode like this) then agrees to help. But in order to connect Ichabod to purgatory, he needs to get him as close to death as possible. Naturally (or a word that means the opposite of that), he lunges forward and chokes Ichabod while asking him to think of Katrina as his destination. Abbie’s only mildly confused by this and lets it continue, though you have to wonder about an old man’s touch being a little less than exact, so it was mildly terrifying to watch.
Once in purgatory, Ichabod finds Katrina in a church with the same creepy black doll Abbie saw when she visited Katrina. Katrina is upset that he’s there because Moloch will surely find him, but he demands answers about his son. She says that she didn’t know about the pregnancy until after Ichabod died and that every time they’ve met in purgatory or dreams, she’s had limited time to get her message across. It seems reasonable enough, so Ichabod continues to listen. She named their son Jeremy and that when she learned she was pregnant she was on the run from her coven, who were hunting her down for saving Ichabod and changing fate. She escaped to the Fredericks’ home (as we saw last week) and had her baby there, but she didn’t keep him. Knowing her coven would never let up, Katrina left Jeremy with Grace (Abbie’s ancestor who helped Katrina escape that gnarly tree beast) and her husband, leaving only the ugly doll that keeps appearing to Abbie and Ichabod for Jeremy to remember her by. Katrina made the doll (good thing she wasn’t a toy maker because that thing is terrifying) and she left it with Jeremy to "protect" him when she couldn’t. "Remember this part, it’s important later," it screams the extreme emphasis placed on this damn doll.