Sleepy Hollow: “Blood and Fear” — Oct. 15, 2015
Photo courtesy of Fox
Ichabod Crane and FBI Agent Grace Abigail Mills are living together now, and he is as happy as can be that “evil has returned to Sleepy Hollow” so that he can be with his wife-to-be at home and on the job. There’s a new Big Bad in town, and she makes sure Team Witness has plenty of work on their hands. Let’s go!
First Appearance: Young Ichabod (Andy Pessoa) , Nelson Meyers (Chris Bert) and Sophie Foster (Jessica Camacho)
At Chez Crazypants, Pandora is up to her usual monkeyshines. She talks to herself and conjures a dagger. She also tends to her mystical flowers. Sleepyheads suffer PTSD from feeble flower-magic attempts of Season 2, but none of that is Pandora’s fault. She is a swell sorceress, if Pandora wants to garden, let her garden.
Ichabod continues his quest to have the archives categorized as a historic building. It turns out the city hall clerk is not at all swayed by damn sexy hobos; only citizens can initiate preservation requests. Abbie says she’ll take care of it, but Crane isn’t done. He insists: “I am here to consummate my allegiance to this nation.” Shorter Ichabod: “Let’s get it on.” As Crane sets out to pick up some bubbly and mood candles for his big night of allegiance-consummation, he’s stopped by that extra from the Historical Society. It goes like this:
Extra: I’m trying to make a #Crextra ship happen. I hear you want citizenship.
Crane: Yep. When I propose, I need Abbie to know that I’m completely in love and not just seeking a green-card marriage.
In an elevator, dorky Nelson makes eyes at his aloof co-worker, Emily. Tragically, his overture includes the phrase “off-the-chain.” Nelson probably refers to himself as a “playa” and thinks Emily is “phat.” Stay off Urban Dictionary, Nelson. Emily offers a half-hearted invitation to join a birthday lunch celebration. They are fortunate enough to work at an office where one doesn’t have to scarf down partially frozen Lean Cuisine over a keyboard. Here “lunch” consists of dancing and boozing into the night. Pandora is at the bar with another one of her hot looks, this time her hair is in a blunt-cut bob, and she’s sporting bad-girl smokey eye makeup. Sexy dancing ensues. Nelson, as you would expect, flails about with an unfortunate overbite; he wakes up the next morning with a bedside dagger. In the elevator, Nelson’s co-worker, Matt, brags to another extra that he got Emily’s number and will be “hitting that” tonight. All the men in this company are douches. We don’t have to worry about Matt; Nelson is a murderer now. Slow clap.
Abbie heads to the crime scene; naturally Crane accompanies her. He’s worried that Matt might reanimate and flirt with his Leftenant. Matt’s exsanguinated corpse triggers an Ichabod memory. It goes like this:
Ichabod: This reminds me of Jack the Ripper.
Abbie: That’s ludicrous, the Whitechapel murders occurred a century after your death.
Ichabod: He killed my closest friend at Eton College.
Abbie: Uh, remember that time in “The Indispensable Man,” when you were griping about Facebook and said, “I had only seven close companions… four of them died”? Now you talk about a lot of buddies. Are you making up stories to impress me?
Ichabod: Never mind, our fates entwined.
Daniel wants to “clear the air” over dinner with Abbie. Daniel has a death-wish. When Crane finds out, Agent Reynolds will wind up in the same Jersey landfill as all the other men who looked Abbie’s way. Fortunately for Daniel, Ichabod’s in the archives talking to #Crextra; she can help him become an American, her brother-in-law is a member the Senate subcommittee on immigration. Okay, Miss Corinth, we don’t have to come up with an unflattering hashtag … yet. Ichabod was mildly flirtatious to speed things along. 
Who knew he was so cunning? It’s understandable, he’s in a hurry to put a ring on it. (That phrase is still acceptable because it comes from Beyoncé, who Crane will undoubtedly pretend to know when he lies about being buds with Jay-Z.)
Nelson wants to give up homicide, but Pandora uses hocus-pocus to fuse the dagger to Nelson’s hand. She then struts about in purple heels speaking in riddles. The Witnesses pay Nelson a visit. Seeing that a blade is now attached to Nelson, Little Abbie Oakley starts shooting. How many times has that solved the problem? Well, it’s worked at least twice: she killed Henry and that creepy artist. Tell me if I forgot someone. Her technique has a higher success rate than Ichabod’s strategy of trying to talk it over. When Abbie’s bullet sends Nelson out of the window, we get an Abbie “damn.” When Nelson gets up the meme gods smile upon us with the most adorable “Oh, damn.”
Blah, blah, blah, plot. The killings have gone on for 900 years. Pandora raised a new Ripper. For whatever reason, Pandora accessed Crane’s early memories, which is no bueno. The dagger needs blood, but if a victim has a disease, it drains the knife’s power. Armed with tainted blood, Agent Mills and Crane look for Nelson. Crane won’t give up on his fates entwined rap, pointing out that he and Abbie both witnessed evil at a young age. Funny he never mentioned it before, but let’s just go with it.
Quotable Ichabbie:
Abbie: I thought you were supposed to be hot stuff with a musket.
Ichabod: I was always a little better with a flintlock pistol than a Brown Bess.
Abbie and Ichabod find Nelson with Emily. It’s your basic “I am evil because girls don’t like me scenario.” Take away the mystical dagger and it could be real life. After fisticuffs, Nelson runs the dagger through Ichabod. Crane has injected himself with tainted blood. It defuses the dagger, but also makes Ichabod collapse. Abbie runs to him and takes Crane in her arms. This is the third consecutive episode with physical contact. Yes, I am counting. Notice that she says: “Stay with me. Stay with me, okay?” That is pretty close the words uttered by She Who Shall Not Be Named in the pilot. Pandora sinks up for some trash-talk, taunting: “Tell me. How does that feel? To know that his life is slipping through your fingers. To know that you’re alone now, alone in this fight of yours, alone in this world.” That is not cool, Pandora. This is why you don’t have friends to talk to. Interestingly, she doesn’t say it all villain-y. She may as well be asking, “Have you picked out a place for the wedding yet?” That Pandora is inscrutable. She is so lucky that Abbie is in the middle of a shippable moment because she would have been shot. It wouldn’t have worked, but she’d still take a few bullets.
Presumably, Ichabod is in the ER when Abbie drops by Daniel’s office to decline his dinner offer but accept a drink at his desk. When Mr. and Mrs. Ichabbie are at home, she chides him for injecting himself with malaria. A little malaria does not stop Ichabod from making us swoon with this line: “I am most grateful, Leftenant, that you and I have found one another… once again. ”
Cliffhanger: At Chez Crazypants, Pandora sees a vision of Abbie and her ominous roses continue to blossom.
The Jenny & Joe Show
We get a crossover from the new spinoff. Jenny is looking for Randall, the guy who took off with the Shard of Anubis in the last episode and asks her sister to put a trace on his car. Can that be done remotely? Wouldn’t Abbie need to install a tracking device beforehand? I don’t know how these monitoring systems work and I’ve made enough of a fuss about the long lunch, so let’s just move on. Jenny and Joe encounter a mysterious woman as they track down Randall at a motel; he has been outfoxed, as has Jenny. The woman cuffed him to the shower railing and escaped with his car and the shard. Jenny, of course, quickly tracks down the stranger and the shard. Oddly enough, the mystery woman uses some of the same techniques Sheriff Corbin taught Jenny. There has been fan speculation that she might be a Mills sister. Do we have the energy for that? It’s enough work making sure that Abbie is front and center and Jenny gets screentime. Whoever she is, Jenny and Joe are going to figure it out.
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Sleepy Hollow airs Thursdays at 9/8c on Fox.
