Episode Report Card Kelsea Stahler: A+ | 167 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Secret Secrets Hurt Everyone
By Kelsea Stahler | Season 1 | Episode 13 | Aired on 01.20.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.With Irving out of the game, our heroes are facing an uphill battle in the season finale of Sleepy Hollow.
Ichabod, Abbie, and Jenny convene for news from Henry only to find that he's brought the worst possible news. He had a premonition that the second horseman, War, was about to rise. And despite their desire to think it's just a dream, this vision also occurred on the 13th anniversary of Abbie and Jenny seeing the white trees in the forest. Whether they like it or not, War is on its way to Sleepy Hollow.
In order to stop it, Ichabod realizes that they can bind the soil over the horseman's resting place, but to do that they need Katrina. This is where he decides to whip out his handy deception: his photographic memory captured the map, so he redrew it (though it stands to reason he could have left it as a handy "photo" memory in his head instead of making it a physical thing that Moloch can take). Abbie is furious, but they have few other options so she agrees they need to use it.
Jenny is worried she'll lose her sister again, but Abbie is determined to face Moloch so they can end their torment (but this is a TV series, so this won't work because we need more episodes).
Ichabod and Abbie use the map to find the entrance to purgatory and recite the incantation to enter, but not before Henry warns them not to eat or drink anything on pain of being stuck in purgatory forever. They enter and are immediately separated into separate visions that are meant to trick them into eating or drinking.
Abbie sees Corbin and Brooks, who tell her she made it into the FBI and offer her apple pie before she refuses and escapes, realizing it's all a dream. Ichabod sees his father (guest star Victor Garber), who offers him congratulations on the British winning the Revolutionary War and gives him a professorship along with some celebratory "libations." Ichabod also sees this as false, escapes and finds his way to Abbie, who he identifies with their old fist bump ritual. (The last piece of cute we'll see all season.) Next, the find the church where Ichabod last visited Katrina and attempt to convince Katrina to leave with them.
And here's where the prophecy has to fulfill itself: Katrina can only leave purgatory if another soul stays in her place. Ichabod offers himself up, but Abbie realizes it's her duty to stay and forces them to leave her. Ichabod says a tearful farewell and promises to come back for her while Katrina leaves her with an amulet to protect her from Moloch and the reunited couple leaves for the living world together.
In purgatory, Abbie manages to escape Moloch's clutches and falls into a giant version of her childhood dollhouse, which she told Jenny was their safe place. Inside lives her and Jenny's memories, who reveal the piece of that fateful day 13 years ago that Moloch made sure the sisters never remembered: on that day, Moloch resurrected the second horseman. He's already roaming the Earth.
Back in the living world, Ichabod and Katrina learn of this from the second horseman himself, Henry Parish—or, more accurately, Jeremy Crane. For reasons we're supposed to just accept, his blood kept him alive in the grave the witches dropped him into and he was awakened by Moloch, who he calls his real father. He says that God sent a witness, but that they defeated her then (took her memory) and they defeated her now (her memory says the doll house is now her home). He blames Ichabod and Katrina for his abandonment and thus wreaks vengeance on them before beginning the war. He gives Katrina to Abraham, a.k.a. the headless horseman, and traps Ichabod in the same vine-riddled grave the witches once dropped him into.
Finally, Jeremy literally breaks the evil seal over Ichabod's new grave and declares that war has begun as he buries his father the rest of the way, and that, sadly, is the end of season one. Everything is up in the air, and "Sympathy for the Devil" is playing over our shock and sorrow.
Sure, it will make the waiting somewhat unbearable, but just think of all the cheesy, unrealistic answers to this impossible conundrum that await us on the other side.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The season finale of Sleepy Hollow is finally upon us and deception is the name of the game. We open with Ichabod finding himself in the middle of a Revolutionary War reenactment, and while he's perplexed when he realizes it's all fake, he buys one of the costumes so that he may update his 1700s wardrobe properly before convening with Abbie and Jenny to await Henry's arrival.
Henry gathered them around to tell them about his premonition in which Moloch resurrects the second horseman of the apocalypse: War. They suppose it's a dream, but Henry knows it's not. He saw a solar eclipse in the dream and one is scheduled for today. Jenny adds that it's also the anniversary of she and Abbie seeing Moloch in the forest. There's no way around it: War is coming to Sleepy Hollow.
The gang reconvenes at the rectory, where Ichabod says he found out that a binding spell over the soil where the second horseman is buried will keep him from emerging. They have no witches left, so they need Katrina – and despite the difficulty of this endeavor, Ichabod's joy cannot be contained. He admits that he used his photographic memory to redraw the map. Abbie is furious that he lied, but she knows they need it so she allows the plan to continue. Now they just need to figure out how to use the damn near incomprehensible scribble.
Abbie brings a gift from Irving to the table: a day planner that shows Corbin met many times with the reverend. Jenny's task is to sift through the tapes and find something useful in what amounts to hours of audio. But it's not the prospect of a pointless job that makes Jenny angry; she pulls Abbie aside to tell her that she can't lose her again. But Abbie is determined to face Moloch herself and be done with the ordeal. She refuses to be a victim and she promises that she will return.
Once Abbie and Jenny resolve that the journey is something Abbie must do, Ichabod looks just a little too eager considering they're probably going to their deaths. (Though, if Ichabod could use that map stored in his photographic memory as a freaking photo in his memory, perhaps this journey wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as carrying a paper copy.)
With a hop skip and a jump to the supposedly hard to find location (so hard to find that George Washington had to take the location to his secret grave) and Henry says if they are offered food or drink in purgatory, they must refuse it because if they ingest it, they will be trapped there forever. Ichabod and Abbie recite the doorway incantation to open the gate to purgatory as Henry assures them nothing can break the bond they've created. He fills them up with this strength as they hold hands and enter the crystalline walkway together.