sleepy hollow 2x05: the weeping lady
Oct. 22nd, 2014 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaydeefalls
PREVIOUSLY ON SLEEPY HOLLOW: there are no previouslies. Nothing has come before this. We are starting anew.
Or, rather, we are starting with Ichabod getting a fresh stash of colonial threads from his favorite historical reenactor, Caroline. She’s kind of adorable, and she has a massive crush on Ichabod that gets super awkward when she makes clear her intentions to climb him like a tree. “I’m a married man!” Ichabod protests, just as Abbie walks in. Caroline gets all flustered and apologetic with “Mrs. Crane” -- “Who now?” Abbie demands, barely suppressing her giggles. That is a perfectly appropriate reaction to this situation, Abbie. Ichabod trips all over himself trying to explain how not-married he and Abbie are. Weirdly enough, Caroline doesn’t seem to believe him.
Meanwhile, the real Mrs. Crane seems to actually be doing some spellcasting Chez Headless. (Maybe I should stop calling him that, since he appears with head intact whenever we’re in Katrina’s POV -- but no, he will always be Headless in my heart.) Anyway, she magics a raven to be her personal mailman, giving it a note with instructions to deliver it to her love. (Hopefully the raven will be more discerning than USPS.) Headless is getting suspicious of her witchy activities, but Henry assures him that he’s put up anti-magic wards around the house. Um, you might want to double-check those, dude. Also, Headless seems to be developing a very inconvenient conscience. We’ll see how that plays out. In the meantime, Henry sin-eats his mom’s old book, with the requisite cryptic flashbacks that will likely be expanded upon later.
Somewhere out by a river, two teenagers are necking in the front seat of a car, and the girl makes it very clear that nobody’s getting past second base tonight. It’s kind of cool to hear a discussion of boundaries and see a dude actually understand that no means no. But their consent-positive makeouts are interrupting by the sound of crying and then a body smashing against the car windshield.
Abbie and Ichabod are sitting in another car (now with 100% less makeouts, alas) outside Caroline’s house, because Ichabod is determined to apologize to her face-to-face like a gentleman. Abbie points out that most people just text. He could even use emoticons. “Oh, yes,” Ichabod says disdainfully, “a grimacing lemon caricature, that should do the trick.” I have to admit, I share his opinion on emoticons. Apparently I have the soul of a cranky 250-year-old. He mans up and knocks on Caroline’s door, and she emerges (adorably) in a bathrobe cradling an “I ♥ Founding Fathers” mug.
Oh my god, maybe she really is Ichabod’s soulmate! They have a brief, cute conversation, in which they agree to be friends and go to the Battle of Saratoga together next week, and everything is adorable. This being Sleepy Hollow, of course, that lasts for approximately twenty seconds before a creepy crying lady turns up in Caroline’s living room and promptly drowns her. Bye, Caroline.
The police find Caroline’s body on the riverbank the next day, and Ichabod has epic sadface about it. Abbie points out that time of death was right after they’d left her house last night, and how the fuck did she get all the way over here? They find her mug further upstream, and evidence that somebody drove away in a hurry. Abbie mentions that this area is a popular “Lover’s Lane.” Ichabod understands that reference. Abbie figures if they wanna know who was having sexy car makeouts last night, they’ve gotta find the popular kids, so they head over to the local high school spirit club practice, and lo and behold, are quickly directed to the teenaged couple from earlier. Man, Sleepy Hollow’s high school rumor mill is way more accurate than mine ever was. The teens are totally unembarrassed by these weirdo grownups asking about their sex life, and describe their supernatural encounter. The boy mentions the Weeping Lady, which, being the title of this episode, will doubtless be important later.
Or right away! Turns out the Weeping Lady is local legend that Abbie’s heard of, so they head over to the library to check out some folklore. Aw, people still use the library, how quaint. That’s where Katrina’s raven finally finds Ichabod. (It’s been carrying that note for at least twelve hours now and Sleepy Hollow is not that big a town, this is why Katrina should be more specific with her address labels -- did the poor raven have to examine every dude it flew past to try to suss out which one Katrina could conceivably be in love with?) Ichabod gives the bird some serious side-eye, but he accepts the message -- which tells him that 1. Katrina is still alive and loves him and 2. FUCK ALL ELSE. Come on, Katrina, the whole reason you’re sticking with Headless is to spy on him, do you seriously have no useful intel to pass along? Worst spy ever. Meanwhile, Hawley turns up to mack on Abbie, and I still kind of hate his scruffy face. She shuts him down pretty fast. He offers to help out anyway. Great, more Hawley, just what I’ve always wanted. Then Abbie hears crying from within the stacks, and there’s more dripping and black lace and Abbie, bless her heart, tries to shoot the Weeping Lady. That ends about as well as you might expect. The Lady drags Abbie underwater -- because the floor is suddenly an ocean, as per -- and watching Abbie drown is legitimately creepy. Ichabod manages to reach into the floor-puddle-ocean and grab her hand, but she’s not breathing when he pulls her out. You can tell shit just got real because he actually calls her “Abbie.” While he panics, Hawley swoops conveniently in to give her mouth-to-mouth -- and unlike in most TV shows, he actually seems to be following proper CPR procedure, and it only takes a believable two reps before she coughs up all the river water.
Medics arrive following the commercial break, and no one seems to care about the huge puddle on the floor, or to ask how the hell a woman nearly drowned in the middle of a fucking library. It’s like being back in Sunnydale all over again. Anyway, Abbie’s fine, Hawley fucks off, and Ichabod uncovers some exposition about the Weeping Lady and is exceedingly disgruntled that this ghost seems to be targeting all the hot girls he’s friends with, when up ‘till now she’s always been a passively depressed spirit with no interest in actually harming anyone. Abbie shows off her spoils of drowning -- she managed to rip off some of the Weeping Lady’s black lace -- and Ichabod, of course, instantly recognizes this scrap of fabric from a woman he knew 250 years ago.
Chicks dig dudes who know their embroidery, is all I’m saying.
So! The Weeping Lady is apparently Ichabod’s ex-fiancee, because everyone in the 18th century had a crazy ex. We flashback to Ichabod’s teasingly open shirt as he flirts with Katrina over, like, wheelwrighting or something, and then an obnoxiously fluttery woman turns up and ruins everything by claiming to be his betrothed. Her name is Mary, and back home in jolly old England, they’d been “intended for each other” from childhood, and now she’s come to rescue him from the colonies. Ichabod is less than thrilled. He reveals that actually, they’d broken off their engagement before he left for America, and he only loves her as a sister. This is the definition of an “it’s complicated” facebook relationship. Mary does not handle the rejection well, and swiftly transforms into a caricature of a jealous harpy, accusing Katrina of bewitching him. She is not exactly the most three dimensional character ever. Anyway, she goes off in a huff, instructing him to pick her up at her inn at dawn ready to return to England, but that’s the last he ever saw of her -- he received a letter from her the next morning full of apologies, stating that she was going home and wouldn’t bother him again. So that happened. Back in the present, Abbie looks way too amused by all this melodrama. But then Ichabod realizes he’s lost Katrina’s note, and we discover the real purpose of Katrina’s useless letter to Ichabod: to be found by the jealous Weeping Lady. He dropped it in the black vortex of drowning while trying to save Abbie, and of course Mary found it in the water, and is now gonna target Katrina.
They inexplicably go to Hawley for help, and he provides them with some kind of magical crossbow that should be able to stop the Weeping Lady. In exchange, he just wants to find out if it actually works. Well, that’s reassuring, thanks dude.
That night, they wait until Headless rides off for his usual evening’s reign of terror, but then there’s a scream from inside and they rush in to find that Katrina’s gone missing, leaving only the drippy note behind. But not to worry -- Mary magically drags her victims into the river to drown them, so there’s still time to save her! Um, I’m not sure how long it takes to drown someone, but I’m guessing the answer is longer than it takes to get back in your car, haul over to the riverbank, and go hunting for a drowning person. But Ichabod seems fairly calm and confident in their chances. This is in stark contrast to his blind panic approximately five seconds after Abbie had been dragged underwater, FYI.
Underwater, Katrina is free of the magical wards around Headless’s house, so she uses her witchy powers to burst free of the Weeping Lady’s clutches. It’s always nice to be reassured that the character who’s supposed to be a super powerful witch can, in fact, use magic on occasion. She pulls herself onto the riverbank and runs through the woods, very conveniently stumbling right across Ichabod and Abbie. Ichabod hastily explains who the Weeping Lady is, and Katrina deduces that Henry’s the one responsible for all this nonsense. Fortunately, Katrina can work some dark magic mojo of her own to stop Mary -- she just needs another witch to help. Abbie volunteers as tribute, because there aren’t any witches handy so a Witness will have to do, and Katrina agrees immediately. I’m starting to wonder if Abbie’s gonna develop her own witchy powers this season. While the women are chanting together, Ichabod goes hunting for Mary to attempt to distract her with empathy, and also his crossbow. Neither of these tactics work. Hawley’s magic arrow goes all green and flamey, but is otherwise a total dud, much like his character. Instead, Mary gets all pissy and splashes right through Ichabod to get at Katrina and/or Abbie (it’s not clear who she’s targeting at this point; Ichabod panics and starts shouting “Abbie!” again, so it’s clear who HE thinks she’s after). But she bounces off Katrina’s magical shield and crumples to the ground. Ichabod goes right to Mary’s side, asking her how she’s even still here when she was supposed to have left for England, and Mary points at Katrina and then promptly dies.
It’s very awkward for everyone.
Ichabod looks up at Katrina with betrayal in his eyes. “You’re hiding something!” he accuses. NEWSFLASH: KATRINA DOESN’T TELL YOU SHIT. After hemming and hawing a bit, Katrina shares her own flashback: Mary had confronted Katrina right here in these very words, accusing her of seducing her man away. In her jealous rage, she tripped over a tree root, fell off the side of the slope, and banged her head on something; by the time Katrina got to her, she was dead. I’m sort of inclined to believe Katrina on the whole accidental manslaughter thing, but she’s not exactly the most reliable narrator. Especially given that she then forged the letter from “Mary” to send Ichabod, and covered up Mary’s death, all because she didn’t want Ichabod to go back to Mary’s family in England. Let’s be clear: this was back when she was still engaged to Abraham, before any of the apocalyptic shit started happening, but she already knew Ichabod was a Witness and needed to stay in Sleepy Hollow. This is ever so slightly manipulative and creepy. Ichabod is...not pleased. Before they can really rip into it, Headless rides up and does his level best to, y’know, behead Ichabod, but Katrina stops him and begs him to take her home. They leave together. Ichabod continues to not be pleased. Abbie, wisely, has been keeping the hell out of all the Crane family drama.
Daylight returns to Sleepy Hollow. Jenny turns up in Hawley’s boat, because we haven’t seen her for the better part of two episodes, and flirts a lot before giving him a good snog and sauntering off. Apparently the two of them used to have much sexytimes. I really, really don’t want this to set up an awkward love triangle between Hawley and the two Mills sisters, but there’s nothing I can do but sit back and let it happen. Meanwhile, Caroline is given a proper colonial send-off, and I already miss her adorable face. Oh, Caroline, we hardly knew you. Ichabod gets maudlin over alcohol. “This is another Katrina thing, isn’t it?” Abbie asks. “Marriage is difficult on the best days,” Ichabod admits. He then talks sadly about how hard it is to be a partner to someone you don’t trust, and he and Abbie, like, toast the inevitable Crane divorce, or something. Back Chez Headless, Abraham is slightly less of a dick than usual, and Katrina displays some vaguely Stockholm Syndrome-esque behavior. And over in Purgatory, Moloch is kicking the crap out of Henry for having put Mommy Dearest in danger. Um, you know it’s not a good sign when the devil wants you alive and safe. Moloch ominously claims that Katrina is “one of the Hellfire Shards.” And after Moloch’s done laying down the law, Henry sits there and cries like a little child. Wacky fun.
Or, rather, we are starting with Ichabod getting a fresh stash of colonial threads from his favorite historical reenactor, Caroline. She’s kind of adorable, and she has a massive crush on Ichabod that gets super awkward when she makes clear her intentions to climb him like a tree. “I’m a married man!” Ichabod protests, just as Abbie walks in. Caroline gets all flustered and apologetic with “Mrs. Crane” -- “Who now?” Abbie demands, barely suppressing her giggles. That is a perfectly appropriate reaction to this situation, Abbie. Ichabod trips all over himself trying to explain how not-married he and Abbie are. Weirdly enough, Caroline doesn’t seem to believe him.
Meanwhile, the real Mrs. Crane seems to actually be doing some spellcasting Chez Headless. (Maybe I should stop calling him that, since he appears with head intact whenever we’re in Katrina’s POV -- but no, he will always be Headless in my heart.) Anyway, she magics a raven to be her personal mailman, giving it a note with instructions to deliver it to her love. (Hopefully the raven will be more discerning than USPS.) Headless is getting suspicious of her witchy activities, but Henry assures him that he’s put up anti-magic wards around the house. Um, you might want to double-check those, dude. Also, Headless seems to be developing a very inconvenient conscience. We’ll see how that plays out. In the meantime, Henry sin-eats his mom’s old book, with the requisite cryptic flashbacks that will likely be expanded upon later.
Somewhere out by a river, two teenagers are necking in the front seat of a car, and the girl makes it very clear that nobody’s getting past second base tonight. It’s kind of cool to hear a discussion of boundaries and see a dude actually understand that no means no. But their consent-positive makeouts are interrupting by the sound of crying and then a body smashing against the car windshield.
Abbie and Ichabod are sitting in another car (now with 100% less makeouts, alas) outside Caroline’s house, because Ichabod is determined to apologize to her face-to-face like a gentleman. Abbie points out that most people just text. He could even use emoticons. “Oh, yes,” Ichabod says disdainfully, “a grimacing lemon caricature, that should do the trick.” I have to admit, I share his opinion on emoticons. Apparently I have the soul of a cranky 250-year-old. He mans up and knocks on Caroline’s door, and she emerges (adorably) in a bathrobe cradling an “I ♥ Founding Fathers” mug.
Oh my god, maybe she really is Ichabod’s soulmate! They have a brief, cute conversation, in which they agree to be friends and go to the Battle of Saratoga together next week, and everything is adorable. This being Sleepy Hollow, of course, that lasts for approximately twenty seconds before a creepy crying lady turns up in Caroline’s living room and promptly drowns her. Bye, Caroline.
The police find Caroline’s body on the riverbank the next day, and Ichabod has epic sadface about it. Abbie points out that time of death was right after they’d left her house last night, and how the fuck did she get all the way over here? They find her mug further upstream, and evidence that somebody drove away in a hurry. Abbie mentions that this area is a popular “Lover’s Lane.” Ichabod understands that reference. Abbie figures if they wanna know who was having sexy car makeouts last night, they’ve gotta find the popular kids, so they head over to the local high school spirit club practice, and lo and behold, are quickly directed to the teenaged couple from earlier. Man, Sleepy Hollow’s high school rumor mill is way more accurate than mine ever was. The teens are totally unembarrassed by these weirdo grownups asking about their sex life, and describe their supernatural encounter. The boy mentions the Weeping Lady, which, being the title of this episode, will doubtless be important later.
Or right away! Turns out the Weeping Lady is local legend that Abbie’s heard of, so they head over to the library to check out some folklore. Aw, people still use the library, how quaint. That’s where Katrina’s raven finally finds Ichabod. (It’s been carrying that note for at least twelve hours now and Sleepy Hollow is not that big a town, this is why Katrina should be more specific with her address labels -- did the poor raven have to examine every dude it flew past to try to suss out which one Katrina could conceivably be in love with?) Ichabod gives the bird some serious side-eye, but he accepts the message -- which tells him that 1. Katrina is still alive and loves him and 2. FUCK ALL ELSE. Come on, Katrina, the whole reason you’re sticking with Headless is to spy on him, do you seriously have no useful intel to pass along? Worst spy ever. Meanwhile, Hawley turns up to mack on Abbie, and I still kind of hate his scruffy face. She shuts him down pretty fast. He offers to help out anyway. Great, more Hawley, just what I’ve always wanted. Then Abbie hears crying from within the stacks, and there’s more dripping and black lace and Abbie, bless her heart, tries to shoot the Weeping Lady. That ends about as well as you might expect. The Lady drags Abbie underwater -- because the floor is suddenly an ocean, as per -- and watching Abbie drown is legitimately creepy. Ichabod manages to reach into the floor-puddle-ocean and grab her hand, but she’s not breathing when he pulls her out. You can tell shit just got real because he actually calls her “Abbie.” While he panics, Hawley swoops conveniently in to give her mouth-to-mouth -- and unlike in most TV shows, he actually seems to be following proper CPR procedure, and it only takes a believable two reps before she coughs up all the river water.
Medics arrive following the commercial break, and no one seems to care about the huge puddle on the floor, or to ask how the hell a woman nearly drowned in the middle of a fucking library. It’s like being back in Sunnydale all over again. Anyway, Abbie’s fine, Hawley fucks off, and Ichabod uncovers some exposition about the Weeping Lady and is exceedingly disgruntled that this ghost seems to be targeting all the hot girls he’s friends with, when up ‘till now she’s always been a passively depressed spirit with no interest in actually harming anyone. Abbie shows off her spoils of drowning -- she managed to rip off some of the Weeping Lady’s black lace -- and Ichabod, of course, instantly recognizes this scrap of fabric from a woman he knew 250 years ago.
Chicks dig dudes who know their embroidery, is all I’m saying.
So! The Weeping Lady is apparently Ichabod’s ex-fiancee, because everyone in the 18th century had a crazy ex. We flashback to Ichabod’s teasingly open shirt as he flirts with Katrina over, like, wheelwrighting or something, and then an obnoxiously fluttery woman turns up and ruins everything by claiming to be his betrothed. Her name is Mary, and back home in jolly old England, they’d been “intended for each other” from childhood, and now she’s come to rescue him from the colonies. Ichabod is less than thrilled. He reveals that actually, they’d broken off their engagement before he left for America, and he only loves her as a sister. This is the definition of an “it’s complicated” facebook relationship. Mary does not handle the rejection well, and swiftly transforms into a caricature of a jealous harpy, accusing Katrina of bewitching him. She is not exactly the most three dimensional character ever. Anyway, she goes off in a huff, instructing him to pick her up at her inn at dawn ready to return to England, but that’s the last he ever saw of her -- he received a letter from her the next morning full of apologies, stating that she was going home and wouldn’t bother him again. So that happened. Back in the present, Abbie looks way too amused by all this melodrama. But then Ichabod realizes he’s lost Katrina’s note, and we discover the real purpose of Katrina’s useless letter to Ichabod: to be found by the jealous Weeping Lady. He dropped it in the black vortex of drowning while trying to save Abbie, and of course Mary found it in the water, and is now gonna target Katrina.
They inexplicably go to Hawley for help, and he provides them with some kind of magical crossbow that should be able to stop the Weeping Lady. In exchange, he just wants to find out if it actually works. Well, that’s reassuring, thanks dude.
That night, they wait until Headless rides off for his usual evening’s reign of terror, but then there’s a scream from inside and they rush in to find that Katrina’s gone missing, leaving only the drippy note behind. But not to worry -- Mary magically drags her victims into the river to drown them, so there’s still time to save her! Um, I’m not sure how long it takes to drown someone, but I’m guessing the answer is longer than it takes to get back in your car, haul over to the riverbank, and go hunting for a drowning person. But Ichabod seems fairly calm and confident in their chances. This is in stark contrast to his blind panic approximately five seconds after Abbie had been dragged underwater, FYI.
Underwater, Katrina is free of the magical wards around Headless’s house, so she uses her witchy powers to burst free of the Weeping Lady’s clutches. It’s always nice to be reassured that the character who’s supposed to be a super powerful witch can, in fact, use magic on occasion. She pulls herself onto the riverbank and runs through the woods, very conveniently stumbling right across Ichabod and Abbie. Ichabod hastily explains who the Weeping Lady is, and Katrina deduces that Henry’s the one responsible for all this nonsense. Fortunately, Katrina can work some dark magic mojo of her own to stop Mary -- she just needs another witch to help. Abbie volunteers as tribute, because there aren’t any witches handy so a Witness will have to do, and Katrina agrees immediately. I’m starting to wonder if Abbie’s gonna develop her own witchy powers this season. While the women are chanting together, Ichabod goes hunting for Mary to attempt to distract her with empathy, and also his crossbow. Neither of these tactics work. Hawley’s magic arrow goes all green and flamey, but is otherwise a total dud, much like his character. Instead, Mary gets all pissy and splashes right through Ichabod to get at Katrina and/or Abbie (it’s not clear who she’s targeting at this point; Ichabod panics and starts shouting “Abbie!” again, so it’s clear who HE thinks she’s after). But she bounces off Katrina’s magical shield and crumples to the ground. Ichabod goes right to Mary’s side, asking her how she’s even still here when she was supposed to have left for England, and Mary points at Katrina and then promptly dies.
It’s very awkward for everyone.
Ichabod looks up at Katrina with betrayal in his eyes. “You’re hiding something!” he accuses. NEWSFLASH: KATRINA DOESN’T TELL YOU SHIT. After hemming and hawing a bit, Katrina shares her own flashback: Mary had confronted Katrina right here in these very words, accusing her of seducing her man away. In her jealous rage, she tripped over a tree root, fell off the side of the slope, and banged her head on something; by the time Katrina got to her, she was dead. I’m sort of inclined to believe Katrina on the whole accidental manslaughter thing, but she’s not exactly the most reliable narrator. Especially given that she then forged the letter from “Mary” to send Ichabod, and covered up Mary’s death, all because she didn’t want Ichabod to go back to Mary’s family in England. Let’s be clear: this was back when she was still engaged to Abraham, before any of the apocalyptic shit started happening, but she already knew Ichabod was a Witness and needed to stay in Sleepy Hollow. This is ever so slightly manipulative and creepy. Ichabod is...not pleased. Before they can really rip into it, Headless rides up and does his level best to, y’know, behead Ichabod, but Katrina stops him and begs him to take her home. They leave together. Ichabod continues to not be pleased. Abbie, wisely, has been keeping the hell out of all the Crane family drama.
Daylight returns to Sleepy Hollow. Jenny turns up in Hawley’s boat, because we haven’t seen her for the better part of two episodes, and flirts a lot before giving him a good snog and sauntering off. Apparently the two of them used to have much sexytimes. I really, really don’t want this to set up an awkward love triangle between Hawley and the two Mills sisters, but there’s nothing I can do but sit back and let it happen. Meanwhile, Caroline is given a proper colonial send-off, and I already miss her adorable face. Oh, Caroline, we hardly knew you. Ichabod gets maudlin over alcohol. “This is another Katrina thing, isn’t it?” Abbie asks. “Marriage is difficult on the best days,” Ichabod admits. He then talks sadly about how hard it is to be a partner to someone you don’t trust, and he and Abbie, like, toast the inevitable Crane divorce, or something. Back Chez Headless, Abraham is slightly less of a dick than usual, and Katrina displays some vaguely Stockholm Syndrome-esque behavior. And over in Purgatory, Moloch is kicking the crap out of Henry for having put Mommy Dearest in danger. Um, you know it’s not a good sign when the devil wants you alive and safe. Moloch ominously claims that Katrina is “one of the Hellfire Shards.” And after Moloch’s done laying down the law, Henry sits there and cries like a little child. Wacky fun.
