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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.) , 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.
, Abbie wakes up in bed with a bandage on her head. She looks for Ichabod, but instead she finds Corbin and Andy. They sell on an alternate reality in which she went to FBI training and neither of them died. She has trouble remembering the real situation and instead falls victim to the prospect of her now-shattered dreams.
Ichabod has an easier time realizing he's in a dream, but still comes dangerously close to believing it's real. He walks into a celebratory ceremony hosted by his father (guest star Victor Garber), who says Ichabod helped the British win the Revolutionary War (if you don't know that's not what happened in history, please go back to school) and he's been given a professorship. Ichabod says that his father disowned him when he turned on England, but his father convinces him that was all in his head. They embrace and his father calls for libations – which are of course drinks that could render him a permanent purgatory resident.
Back in Corbin's cabin, Abbie is about to bite into her favorite snack to eat with her old partner – apple pie a la mode – when she remembers that this isn't her real life. Ichabod has his realization about the same time, and they both refuse the food and drink and escape as their trusted confidants turn into grotesque, supernatural versions of themselves.
Ichabod and Abbie find each other in an open field, where Abbie asks them about their secret fist-bump lesson as a means of proving their identities and they're off to find Katrina.
In the world of the living, Jenny finds Corbin's tapes and immediately happens upon clues about a sermon whose purpose might be concealed in an old church. It's the first tape she's listened to, but she follows that seemingly innocuous lead anyway.
Ichabod recognizes the area that he and Abbie approaching as the place he found Katrina last time he visited purgatory. They find her and she says that if she leaves without forgiveness the walls between the worlds will rupture and all hell (or all purgatory, rather) will break loose. She can escape, however, if they leave a soul in her place. As it turns out, Ichabod will have to betray Abbie after all.
But it doesn't quite go down so callously. Ichabod offers to stay in purgatory in order to get Abbie and Katrina out, but Abbie says it needs to be her. Ichabod insists they find another way, but Moloch is approaching and they have no time. There actually is no other way. Ichabod refuses, but Abbie says this is her purpose. Ichabod fights it, but then Katrina gives her an amulet to protect Abbie and he knows they must leave her there so Katrina can seal the second horseman's grave. Ichabod says a truly emotional farewell – is if he could ever really turn on his only best friend other than his wife – and he promises passionately that he'll come back for her – they are bonded together for a reason. Katrina adds her two cents too, saying she will not allow Abbie to stay there for long. With that, Ichabod and Katrina escape and Henry realizes that Moloch's prophecy is actually true, in a sense. And while Katrina heads off to stop the horseman, Abbie evades Moloch armed only with a pendant that burns him long enough for her to get a head start.
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Jenny is still on the seemingly meaningless church trail and we learn that it actually is pretty useless. She finds the church – which looks remarkably like the one in purgatory, but is probably just a means of saving money on production and not an actual clue – and searches for the name of the church, which Corbin says was hidden. He says the name was hidden because "the saint's name" is a clue in this grand, evil mystery. She finds the sign buried under leaves and debris, chucks it in her car, and attempts to leave Abbie a voicemail to warn her whose name she should be wary of. But because this is only a thin storyline meant to up the suspense and not actually give us any nourishment, Jenny is run off the road by the Headless Horseman (who's back, by the way) and her limp body hangs in the accident wreckage.
And even if Jenny did manage to finish her voicemail to Abbie and ruin the rest of the episode's big surprise (wait for it), Abbie wouldn't have received it in purgatory. She's still on the run from Moloch and as she flees, she falls through the ground into a giant dollhouse – presumably the one that she and Jenny called their "safe place" as children due to the "Don't Get Scared" sign scrawled in pen on the walls. She finds pre-teen Jenny as well as her younger self in the living room of the house and they tell her she's safe from Moloch there and that they are her memory, which Moloch took from her so that she couldn't know the truth.
And that truth is that Henry is actually the villain they're after – that's the name on the sign Jenny failed to show us before her accident – and the name of their trusty sin eater. He follows Katrina and Ichabod to the four white trees where the second horseman is supposed to be buried and then reveals his true identity. He rose the morning Abbie saw Moloch in the forest, only Moloch removed that memory so that Henry could remain on earth at that time. Now, he says Moloch has defeated Abbie – or God's witness – once more. Cut to Abbie learning that she is trapped, potentially forever in this creepy live-sized replica of her childhood dollhouse.
But there's more: Henry is not only the second horseman (that would be too easy), he's also Jeremy Crane. Apparently, his Crane blood helped sustain him after the witches buried him in his vine-riddled grave. He ate vines until Moloch eventually rescued him and Jeremy accepted him as his true father – he's furious with his parents, though he clearly has no regard for the fact that Ichabod was largely dead when he was born and that his mother was trying to protect him. Nope, he's already angry. Too late.
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Besides, he's been waiting 13 years to take his true form and now that the witnesses (Abbie and Ichabod) are separated, he can finally do so. In one final swoop of evil he gives Katrina to Abraham (a.k.a. the Headless Horseman), throws Ichabod in the ground, literally breaks a seal over him and says that war isn't coming to Sleepy Hollow, it's been waiting there. That's it. Everyone is captured or possibly dead and this show has the audacity to close with "Sympathy for the Devil." Alright, it was kind of awesome, but how are we supposed to wait until season, Fox?
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