sleepy hollow 2x04: go where i send thee
Oct. 15th, 2014 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaydeefalls
PREVIOUSLY ON SLEEPY HOLLOW: the flashbacks led me to believe this might actually be an Irving-centric episode, but then NOPE. Also, Mercenary McScruffy is back. Oh, joy.
We start off with a typical monster-of-the-week cold open, with a creepy little girl sleepwalking right out of her stately family home, and then cut to Ichabod learning how to drive. AWW YISSS. This is everything I have ever wanted. And is also probably how Moloch’s forces will win, because in a fit of madness Abbie will toss Ichabod the car keys, and then the foretold Witnesses will die in an unexpected arboreal collision. At least the End Times will be hilarious. Anyway, Ichabod unleashes his inner Vin Diesel and fasts and furiouses his way around the parking lot while Abbie giggles like she’s having the time of her life. I notice she does not allow him on an actual road, though. Everything takes an unexpectedly solemn turn when Ichabod remarks that she’s only teaching him so that he’ll be able to fend for himself if “something happens” to her. But fear not, gentle lady, they’re Team Witness, they’re either gonna die together or not at all! That’s super platonic, dude. Also Abbie’s full name is apparently “Grace Abigail Mills”, in case you were wondering.
Amber alert! Creepy sleepwalking child is missing! Abbie heads off to conduct an extremely unhumorous interview with Sarah’s devastated parents. The mom was Abbie and Jenny’s caseworker when they first became wards of the state, so Abbie is particularly invested in this one. Mom blames herself, claiming that her family is cursed. No one gives this statement the attention it probably deserves. Meanwhile, Ichabod is lurking in the shrubbery searching for clues and someone to namedrop. Unsurprisingly, he is successful in this endeavor: the mom is the distant great-granddaughter of Daniel Lancaster, who was an asshole during the Revolutionary War. According to my extremely thorough twenty-second Google search, Lancaster was not a real person. Shame on you, show. Have you run out of Founding Fathers so soon?
Abbie sternly orders Ichabod to get out of the bushes (seriously, that is the line she uses), and they go frolicking about in the woods in search of more clues. They find a trail of blood. Yay, clues! Also a bone flute. Which is convenient, because Ichabod is a skilled flautist. It’s fun how I don’t even questions these things. He plays a jaunty tune on the bone -- there’s a fellatio joke in here somewhere -- and accidentally sends Abbie into a trance. Oops! Thus we discover that this week’s villain is, of course, the Pied Piper.
For the record, Hamelin is never once mentioned in this episode, and nor is there ever any discussion of drowning rats. So we have a medieval German legend playing an ancient Chinese bone flute wreaking havoc in the American Revolutionary War. At this point, I’m pretty sure the writers are just pulling random phrases out of a hat every week and then stitching them together.
Back in Apocalypse HQ, Ichabod is still sneaking around out of fear of Sheriff Reyes. It reminds him of that time he hid in a broom closet to get away from amorous seamstresses. (Namedropped in this scene: Betsy Ross, John Adams, the Second Continental Congress.) Abbie assures him that he was totally the “cutest continental courier.” They continue to be very platonic friends. Anyway, Ichabod shares his Pied Piper of the Revolution flashback, because the dude lured out and massacred an entire garrison that was quartered at old man Lancaster’s joint this one time. “It stands to reason,” Ichabod concludes, “that the same assassin who lured these men to their deaths may have taken Miss Sarah as well.” Abbie points out that in no way, shape, or form is that a reasonable assumption to make. Thank you, Abbie. Of course, we know Ichabod will wind up being right, but it soothes my troubled soul that someone is trying to make the case for logic.
Since tooting the flute makes Abbie sleepwalk, she volunteers to act as bait in order to track down the Piper. Ichabod has figured out the voice memo app on his phone, so he records a loop of eerie piping and passes her the headphones (so as not to accidentally entrance random passersby, or possibly himself). I have to admit, by this show’s standards, that’s actually not a bad plan. She warns him not to lose sight of her. He assures her that’s not likely, as he’s like seven feet tall and can see for miles at a stretch. He refers to himself as a
gilly-gaupus, a word which should be reinstated into the common lexicon immediately. So anyway, she presses play on the iPod of mystical wanderings, and they meander through the woods until they stumble across that asshole Hawley again.
He is not my favorite character, in case you couldn’t tell. Mostly because he’s...not terribly interesting? He’s mostly just a whitebread-attractive Han Solo knockoff with convenient if implausible exposition. Anyway, he tells Ichabod off for playing with his stash of grenades, and reveals that he’s been hired to hunt down the bone flute. Also he’s got all the dirt on the Lancaster family curse, because God knows someone had to or this plot would go nowhere in a hurry. So back in the day, Daniel Lancaster hired the Piper to kill all the redcoats crashing at his house. The Piper has made some kind of demonic deal that makes him Quicksilver-fast and really hard to kill, plus the whole mystical music shit. But Lancaster...didn’t pay him? Or didn’t read the fine print on the agreement? Something like that. So every generation, the Piper comes back for the firstborn Lancaster daughter on her tenth birthday, because ten-year-old girls apparently have the best bones for evil flutes. So that’s happening. Ichabod gets really suspicious of Hawley -- rightfully so, I feel -- but as in last week’s episode, Abbie decides they need his help anyway. Also, she’s practically eye level with Ichabod in this scene. Is there a hill? Does Nicole Beharie have her very own Scully box now? Anyway, they cut a deal that Hawley will help them save Sarah in exchange for the bone flute.
Over in the loony bin, Irving is checking out all the library books about the End of Days, having intense flash-forwards to a war zone in which he is exceptionally fit and badass (and is fighting on the side of evil -- oops?), and then his book bursts into flames. Just business as usual here at Sleepy Hollow Psychiatric.
Back in the woods, Abbie presses play on the flute loop again and continues meandering creepily forward. Hawley is strangely skeptical for a dude who deals in mystical artifacts, and claims to have seen better magic acts in Vegas. Yeah, well, they have actual production values in Vegas, buddy. Stop judging. Anyway, they stumble upon the Underground Railroad or some shit, where the Piper has been hiding out. (Actually, that would be kind of awesome. Could we have a case where all the important flashbacks are to the Civil War and Ichabod is useless and grumpy because he’s never heard of Abraham Lincoln?) So in the house that Piper built, they find little Sarah in chains, and also a bunch of skinned animals that I guess are just there for atmosphere since they don’t further the plot in any way. The Piper shows and wrassles with Hawley for a bit while Abbie gets Sarah the fuck out of there. If I am very, very lucky Hawley will die heroically in this skirmish. The Piper fights like a samurai on speed, and he does this thing where he creates some kind of freaky sonic disturbance with his sword that makes your ears bleed.
I am not lucky. Hawley survives and tosses a grenade in the Piper’s general direction, blowing up the underground cabin. Outside, Abbie attempts to comfort the kid while Ichabod attempts to appeal to Hawley’s nonexistent better nature. Hawley wants nothing to do with their suicidal shit. He just wants the damn flute. I would like to point out, here, that they’re all having an extensive, graphic discussion about the Apocalypse and murderous demons and psychopathic flautists in front of an already traumatized ten-year-old. Seriously? Anyway, they fail to convince Hawley to come back with them to take down the Piper, and Abbie breaks the magic flute in half before handing it over. Given how freaked he was about maintaining the structural integrity of his bounty earlier, Hawley seems strangely unbothered by this. He’s probably just relieved to get away from the crazies at long last.
Abbie and Ichabod return Sarah to her family (mom, dad, and four older, racially mixed adopted brothers -- Sarah was a late-in-life “accident”). “It’s over,” Dad says in relief. “Like hell it is,” I reply, “there are still fifteen minutes left of this episode.” Also, Mom is strangely unhappy at her prodigal daughter’s return.
Back in Apocalypse HQ, Abbie somehow has noise-canceling earbuds stashed away in a rusty old chest of assorted weaponry. They look newly purchased. Someone’s been online shopping! Ichabod is skeptical at first, but the wonder on his face when he tries them is truly a joy to behold. Then he decides to Google the Lancasters: “Leftenant! If you would perform the login ceremony.” They research the family in old police records, and discover that yes indeed, a ten-year-old girl has gone missing from the family every generation -- including Mama Lancaster’s older sister. No wonder she adopted all boys! Anyway, the one time a generation’s girl was found alive, all her siblings died of a mysterious fever shortly thereafter. Aw, fuck. They rush back to Casa Lancaster to find ambulances taking all of Sarah’s brothers away, and Mom and Sarah have disappeared into the woods. Abbie yanks out her cell phone and tosses Ichabod the car keys. I cringe in anticipation of fiery roadside death, but no, Ichabod’s driving lessons took.
They track down Mommy Lancaster, who is (understandably) freaking the fuck out over her own personal Sophie’s Choice, and she pulls a gun on Abbie. Ichabod manages to talk sense into her with the mystical powers of antiquated courtesy. Then the Piper shows, predictably, and Abbie shoots at him a bit until he scampers off with Ichabod in hot pursuit. He follows the Piper down a chimney into yet another underground cabin (or maybe it’s the same one? But didn’t that one blow up? Whatever!) and pops in his earbuds. The following silent fight sequence is actually pretty cool. But he inevitably loses the earbuds, the Piper does that hideous sonic thing with his sword, Ichabod starts bleeding out from his ears, and then Abbie shows up out of freaking nowhere and impales the Piper. Like a BOSS.
Still in psychiatric care, Irving has a candid conversation with his lawyer, Henry, in which he spills every fucking detail he knows about Henry being evil. I kind of admire how none of the heroes in this show are capable of keeping information private for more than five minutes. I mean, it’s occasionally incredibly dumb, but at least this show has never relied upon the Wacky Misunderstanding Trope. Everyone says exactly what they’re thinking and feeling at all times. Except for Katrina, who is AWOL for this episode, so whatever. Anyway, Henry counters by threatening to cut off Irving’s daughter’s health insurance, and Irving is somehow shocked and appalled that the friggin’ Horseman of War would personally threaten his family. Dude, in what universe did you think you were gonna be able to back out of this deal easily? Remember how you signed the contract in your own blood?
Team Witness celebrate their minor victory over evil with expensive coffee. Ichabod bitches about the price and frothiness of his cappuccino until he makes the mistake of actually tasting it, at which point he sells his soul to Starbucks like everyone else. Also, he gets foam all over his face. It’s adorable. Abby helps him wipe the frothy goodness off his nose in a very platonic fashion, and they head back to work.
Meanwhile, Hawley sells the broken bone flute to some kind of middleman. Who has the Hessian tattoo on his neck. Gee, I wonder who -- oh, hey, look, Henry’s the one who hired you. Color me whatever color expresses the opposite of surprise. Apparently Hawley really didn’t need to worry about breaking his bone, because Henry proceeds to smash the fuck out of it, and then sucks the sin out of the fragments.
Like you do.
We start off with a typical monster-of-the-week cold open, with a creepy little girl sleepwalking right out of her stately family home, and then cut to Ichabod learning how to drive. AWW YISSS. This is everything I have ever wanted. And is also probably how Moloch’s forces will win, because in a fit of madness Abbie will toss Ichabod the car keys, and then the foretold Witnesses will die in an unexpected arboreal collision. At least the End Times will be hilarious. Anyway, Ichabod unleashes his inner Vin Diesel and fasts and furiouses his way around the parking lot while Abbie giggles like she’s having the time of her life. I notice she does not allow him on an actual road, though. Everything takes an unexpectedly solemn turn when Ichabod remarks that she’s only teaching him so that he’ll be able to fend for himself if “something happens” to her. But fear not, gentle lady, they’re Team Witness, they’re either gonna die together or not at all! That’s super platonic, dude. Also Abbie’s full name is apparently “Grace Abigail Mills”, in case you were wondering.
Amber alert! Creepy sleepwalking child is missing! Abbie heads off to conduct an extremely unhumorous interview with Sarah’s devastated parents. The mom was Abbie and Jenny’s caseworker when they first became wards of the state, so Abbie is particularly invested in this one. Mom blames herself, claiming that her family is cursed. No one gives this statement the attention it probably deserves. Meanwhile, Ichabod is lurking in the shrubbery searching for clues and someone to namedrop. Unsurprisingly, he is successful in this endeavor: the mom is the distant great-granddaughter of Daniel Lancaster, who was an asshole during the Revolutionary War. According to my extremely thorough twenty-second Google search, Lancaster was not a real person. Shame on you, show. Have you run out of Founding Fathers so soon?
Abbie sternly orders Ichabod to get out of the bushes (seriously, that is the line she uses), and they go frolicking about in the woods in search of more clues. They find a trail of blood. Yay, clues! Also a bone flute. Which is convenient, because Ichabod is a skilled flautist. It’s fun how I don’t even questions these things. He plays a jaunty tune on the bone -- there’s a fellatio joke in here somewhere -- and accidentally sends Abbie into a trance. Oops! Thus we discover that this week’s villain is, of course, the Pied Piper.
For the record, Hamelin is never once mentioned in this episode, and nor is there ever any discussion of drowning rats. So we have a medieval German legend playing an ancient Chinese bone flute wreaking havoc in the American Revolutionary War. At this point, I’m pretty sure the writers are just pulling random phrases out of a hat every week and then stitching them together.
Back in Apocalypse HQ, Ichabod is still sneaking around out of fear of Sheriff Reyes. It reminds him of that time he hid in a broom closet to get away from amorous seamstresses. (Namedropped in this scene: Betsy Ross, John Adams, the Second Continental Congress.) Abbie assures him that he was totally the “cutest continental courier.” They continue to be very platonic friends. Anyway, Ichabod shares his Pied Piper of the Revolution flashback, because the dude lured out and massacred an entire garrison that was quartered at old man Lancaster’s joint this one time. “It stands to reason,” Ichabod concludes, “that the same assassin who lured these men to their deaths may have taken Miss Sarah as well.” Abbie points out that in no way, shape, or form is that a reasonable assumption to make. Thank you, Abbie. Of course, we know Ichabod will wind up being right, but it soothes my troubled soul that someone is trying to make the case for logic.
Since tooting the flute makes Abbie sleepwalk, she volunteers to act as bait in order to track down the Piper. Ichabod has figured out the voice memo app on his phone, so he records a loop of eerie piping and passes her the headphones (so as not to accidentally entrance random passersby, or possibly himself). I have to admit, by this show’s standards, that’s actually not a bad plan. She warns him not to lose sight of her. He assures her that’s not likely, as he’s like seven feet tall and can see for miles at a stretch. He refers to himself as a
gilly-gaupus, a word which should be reinstated into the common lexicon immediately. So anyway, she presses play on the iPod of mystical wanderings, and they meander through the woods until they stumble across that asshole Hawley again.
He is not my favorite character, in case you couldn’t tell. Mostly because he’s...not terribly interesting? He’s mostly just a whitebread-attractive Han Solo knockoff with convenient if implausible exposition. Anyway, he tells Ichabod off for playing with his stash of grenades, and reveals that he’s been hired to hunt down the bone flute. Also he’s got all the dirt on the Lancaster family curse, because God knows someone had to or this plot would go nowhere in a hurry. So back in the day, Daniel Lancaster hired the Piper to kill all the redcoats crashing at his house. The Piper has made some kind of demonic deal that makes him Quicksilver-fast and really hard to kill, plus the whole mystical music shit. But Lancaster...didn’t pay him? Or didn’t read the fine print on the agreement? Something like that. So every generation, the Piper comes back for the firstborn Lancaster daughter on her tenth birthday, because ten-year-old girls apparently have the best bones for evil flutes. So that’s happening. Ichabod gets really suspicious of Hawley -- rightfully so, I feel -- but as in last week’s episode, Abbie decides they need his help anyway. Also, she’s practically eye level with Ichabod in this scene. Is there a hill? Does Nicole Beharie have her very own Scully box now? Anyway, they cut a deal that Hawley will help them save Sarah in exchange for the bone flute.
Over in the loony bin, Irving is checking out all the library books about the End of Days, having intense flash-forwards to a war zone in which he is exceptionally fit and badass (and is fighting on the side of evil -- oops?), and then his book bursts into flames. Just business as usual here at Sleepy Hollow Psychiatric.
Back in the woods, Abbie presses play on the flute loop again and continues meandering creepily forward. Hawley is strangely skeptical for a dude who deals in mystical artifacts, and claims to have seen better magic acts in Vegas. Yeah, well, they have actual production values in Vegas, buddy. Stop judging. Anyway, they stumble upon the Underground Railroad or some shit, where the Piper has been hiding out. (Actually, that would be kind of awesome. Could we have a case where all the important flashbacks are to the Civil War and Ichabod is useless and grumpy because he’s never heard of Abraham Lincoln?) So in the house that Piper built, they find little Sarah in chains, and also a bunch of skinned animals that I guess are just there for atmosphere since they don’t further the plot in any way. The Piper shows and wrassles with Hawley for a bit while Abbie gets Sarah the fuck out of there. If I am very, very lucky Hawley will die heroically in this skirmish. The Piper fights like a samurai on speed, and he does this thing where he creates some kind of freaky sonic disturbance with his sword that makes your ears bleed.
I am not lucky. Hawley survives and tosses a grenade in the Piper’s general direction, blowing up the underground cabin. Outside, Abbie attempts to comfort the kid while Ichabod attempts to appeal to Hawley’s nonexistent better nature. Hawley wants nothing to do with their suicidal shit. He just wants the damn flute. I would like to point out, here, that they’re all having an extensive, graphic discussion about the Apocalypse and murderous demons and psychopathic flautists in front of an already traumatized ten-year-old. Seriously? Anyway, they fail to convince Hawley to come back with them to take down the Piper, and Abbie breaks the magic flute in half before handing it over. Given how freaked he was about maintaining the structural integrity of his bounty earlier, Hawley seems strangely unbothered by this. He’s probably just relieved to get away from the crazies at long last.
Abbie and Ichabod return Sarah to her family (mom, dad, and four older, racially mixed adopted brothers -- Sarah was a late-in-life “accident”). “It’s over,” Dad says in relief. “Like hell it is,” I reply, “there are still fifteen minutes left of this episode.” Also, Mom is strangely unhappy at her prodigal daughter’s return.
Back in Apocalypse HQ, Abbie somehow has noise-canceling earbuds stashed away in a rusty old chest of assorted weaponry. They look newly purchased. Someone’s been online shopping! Ichabod is skeptical at first, but the wonder on his face when he tries them is truly a joy to behold. Then he decides to Google the Lancasters: “Leftenant! If you would perform the login ceremony.” They research the family in old police records, and discover that yes indeed, a ten-year-old girl has gone missing from the family every generation -- including Mama Lancaster’s older sister. No wonder she adopted all boys! Anyway, the one time a generation’s girl was found alive, all her siblings died of a mysterious fever shortly thereafter. Aw, fuck. They rush back to Casa Lancaster to find ambulances taking all of Sarah’s brothers away, and Mom and Sarah have disappeared into the woods. Abbie yanks out her cell phone and tosses Ichabod the car keys. I cringe in anticipation of fiery roadside death, but no, Ichabod’s driving lessons took.
They track down Mommy Lancaster, who is (understandably) freaking the fuck out over her own personal Sophie’s Choice, and she pulls a gun on Abbie. Ichabod manages to talk sense into her with the mystical powers of antiquated courtesy. Then the Piper shows, predictably, and Abbie shoots at him a bit until he scampers off with Ichabod in hot pursuit. He follows the Piper down a chimney into yet another underground cabin (or maybe it’s the same one? But didn’t that one blow up? Whatever!) and pops in his earbuds. The following silent fight sequence is actually pretty cool. But he inevitably loses the earbuds, the Piper does that hideous sonic thing with his sword, Ichabod starts bleeding out from his ears, and then Abbie shows up out of freaking nowhere and impales the Piper. Like a BOSS.
Still in psychiatric care, Irving has a candid conversation with his lawyer, Henry, in which he spills every fucking detail he knows about Henry being evil. I kind of admire how none of the heroes in this show are capable of keeping information private for more than five minutes. I mean, it’s occasionally incredibly dumb, but at least this show has never relied upon the Wacky Misunderstanding Trope. Everyone says exactly what they’re thinking and feeling at all times. Except for Katrina, who is AWOL for this episode, so whatever. Anyway, Henry counters by threatening to cut off Irving’s daughter’s health insurance, and Irving is somehow shocked and appalled that the friggin’ Horseman of War would personally threaten his family. Dude, in what universe did you think you were gonna be able to back out of this deal easily? Remember how you signed the contract in your own blood?
Team Witness celebrate their minor victory over evil with expensive coffee. Ichabod bitches about the price and frothiness of his cappuccino until he makes the mistake of actually tasting it, at which point he sells his soul to Starbucks like everyone else. Also, he gets foam all over his face. It’s adorable. Abby helps him wipe the frothy goodness off his nose in a very platonic fashion, and they head back to work.
Meanwhile, Hawley sells the broken bone flute to some kind of middleman. Who has the Hessian tattoo on his neck. Gee, I wonder who -- oh, hey, look, Henry’s the one who hired you. Color me whatever color expresses the opposite of surprise. Apparently Hawley really didn’t need to worry about breaking his bone, because Henry proceeds to smash the fuck out of it, and then sucks the sin out of the fragments.
Like you do.
