Episode Report Card Kelsea Stahler: B+ | 61 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Sister, Sister
By Kelsea Stahler | Season 1 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.13.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Despite Moloch's threats at the end of the last episode of Sleepy Hollow, Abbie's soul is still intact when we find ourselves back in the small town horror story. In fact, she's feeling well enough to hold Ichabod to his New Year's resolution she chose for him, which apparently involves wearing skinny jeans. And while she's safe, Irving's daughter Macy is the one in grave danger.
Irving is reviewing the tape of a police interview with the hot chocolate salesman he threatened in the park. The man says he has no recollection of speaking ominously about Macy (because he was possessed by a demon when he said it), so Morales and Devon bring in the woman the vendor bumped into directly after the vendor spoke to Irving. Unfortunately, before they can speak to the woman, she bumps into one of the Sleepy Hollow PD officers and transfers the demon to him. Irving gets a call from the police department and on the other end is a demonic voice demanding George Washington's Bible on pain of Irving losing Macy. And just as Irving figures out which officer is possessed, the demon hops into Devon's body before he can take notice.
Naturally, Irving takes this problem to Ichabod and Abbie, who he hopes can sift through the Bible for spells or tricks they can use against the demon, but of course it can't be that simple. They search through their supernatural library to find that Corbin once dealt with demon possession and because this series exists in an impossibly small world, it turns out the vessel for that demon was Jenny, Abbie's sister.
That brings Jenny back onto the team, where she watches the video of her possession and then refuses to help Abbie and Ichabod figure out how this whole thing works. Ichabod, being the sensitive guy he is, follows Jenny to get more of the story and as it turns out, Jenny was tormented by this demon for a while before finding out she was "marked" as its vessel. The biggest problem for Jenny, however, is that the demon planted the thought that she wanted to kill her sister Abbie. This is apparently why she acts out and gets busted so often: she thought if she was locked up, she wouldn't be able to act on her anti-Abbie thoughts.
Later, they review the footage again and Ichabod realizes there's a salt line keeping the demon trapped, but they have no idea how to expel the demon. This leads the gang to go all overprotective 1980s parent and claim demons love to speak backwards: they play the tape of Demon Jenny backwards to find the message "Ansitif cannot be defeated." A little studying tells them Ansitif is the body-hopping demon (and Moloch's assistant) they're dealing with and that he can be defeated with a French lamp once owned by Benjamin Franklin. Jenny knows where to get one: they should definitely steal it from fanatical, heavily-armed "Believers" because there simply aren't enough ways to potentially get shot on this show right now.
Meanwhile, Irving has taken his family to the safe house with Morales and the still-possessed Devon and to keep Irving from catching on, Devon transfers the demon to Morales—the more trusted of his two de facto sidekicks—and Irving Is none the wiser. Later, he leaves Macy with Morales only to come back to find that the possessed officer transferred the demon into Macy. She becomes contorted and kills Irving's pastor before threatening his ex-wife too as an incentive to retrieve George Washington's Bible, which Irving left with Ichabod and Abbie.
Irving calls them, knowing that if he says he's coming for the Bible, they'll be forced to find a solution that stops the demon from possessing it. And since Ichabod and Abbie don't fail, that's exactly what they do, stolen Ben Franklin lamp and all. They trick the demon into a salt circle before extracting him with the lamp and rubbing the strength of their familial bond despite the demon's great attempts to break them apart.
Sure, it's another case that's open and shut rather simply and quickly, but how much longer could most of us have endured poor little Macy gone all demonic?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Despite Moloch’s threats at the end of the last episode of Sleepy Hollow, Abbie’s soul is still intact when we find ourselves back in the small town horror story. In fact, she’s feeling well enough to hold Ichabod to his New Year’s resolution she chose for him, which apparently involves wearing skinny jeans -- Ichabod’s least favorite "sign of the impending apocalypse." And while Abbie’s safe despite Moloch instilling fear in Ichabod that he’s "never known," Irving’s daughter Macy is in grave danger.
At the station, Irving is watching interview tapes of the hot chocolate salesman who threatened his daughter. The man has no knowledge of the incident because he was possessed by a demon who jumped bodies immediately after the incident with the captain. Because Irving is so determined, Devon and Morales offer to bring in the woman they saw the man bump into in the impossibly crisp park surveillance video. I’m sorry, but what sort of public park has its own video surveillance? Anyway, they pull in the second possessed person, only to have her transfer the demon to one of Irving’s officers' moments before her interview.
The officer calls Irving almost immediately from a phone in the station and threatens to harm Macy unless Irving gets him the Bible of George Washington. Naturally, the demon also reiterates this demand with CGI blood from the 90s on the department ceiling, as you do. But because Irving has been around the block a few times, so he skedaddles into the main room, where he figures out that, duh, the guy with the evil glare is the one calling him. He tackles the cop, but not before the demon hops to another host: Irving’s buddy Devon. Irving misses this and winds up practically struggling an innocent, no longer possessed man.
Armed with reignited anger, Irving calls up his pastor friend who basically says, "Yeah, that thing that looks like demon possession is probably demon possession." For his next trick, Irving decides to defy the demon and instead seek anti-demon magic through the coveted Bible. He’s not brave enough to risk a migraine figuring it out though, so he has Ichabod and Abbie do it for him.
As part of their research, they find a tape Corbin recorded with evidence of demon possession. Unfortunately for Abbie, the possessed woman in the video turns out to be her baby sister Jenny. It’s a little convenient, but the video forces Ichabod and Abbie to bring Jenny back into the fold where they make her watch the video of her possession and then, hopefully, help them figure out how to banish the demon.