sleepy hollow recap 2x08: heartless

[kaydeefalls]

We begin with Ichabod and Katrina having an intense debate on the nature of love, trust, and The Bachelor. Katrina’s been able to enjoy the dubious pleasures of the 21st century for all of a week, and Ichabod’s already inflicting reality television on her? Worst husband ever. Thankfully, Abbie shows up with work to be done, because she’s actually been investigating Henry while the Cranes bicker over which vapid hopeful deserves the rose this week. Speaking of Henry, he’s adding some new crockery to his collection (which prominently features the lightning jar from last week), and this one’s got a bloodless beating heart in it. Awesome. He uses the heart to summon a naked chick, like you do. She’s almost as smug and smirky as Henry. It must be true love.

In Sleepy Hollow’s only dance club, the newly summoned she-demon has found some clothing and a target: a dorky dude hanging out with his less-dorky friends, who is totally failing to chat up the cute-dorky object of his affections. The she-demon, who has now transformed herself to look eerily similar to the dork’s lady love, steals his drink and convinces him to move the party elsewhere. Like to the back seat of his car. Hubba hubba. They start sucking face, and then she, you know, sucks all the life out of his body. If I know my X-Files -- and I do -- I’m guessing this is a succubus.

The dead body must be discovered remarkably quickly, because Abbie and Ichabod are on the scene minutes later. Abbie explains clubbing, and Ichabod brags about his, uh, dancing prowess. Because that’s not a metaphor for anything. Then they get icked out about the body and immediately assume Henry is at fault -- which, okay, valid assumption, but I would like to remind them that they’ve already witnessed a whole season’s worth of supernatural bullshit that wasn’t Henry’s fault, and sooner or later they’re gonna discover what happens when you assume. Anyway, this leads to another tired rehash of the “can Henry be redeemed?” argument, which I stopped caring about like five episodes ago. Henry himself is mirror-Skyping with our old buddy Abraham, who’s still miffed about losing Katrina, and then the succubus returns to vomit glowy life force into Henry’s lightning jar.

I would like to take a moment to point out that Orlando Jones and Lyndie Greenwood continue to make an appearance in the opening credits sequence and at no other point in the episode. Come on, show, remember when you had a diverse and interesting cast of characters that you actually utilized? Because that wasn’t all that long ago. Bring them back, please.

Anyway, Team Witness + Witch are having their standard early episode research session at Apocalypse HQ. Katrina takes one look at the photo of the victim and immediately susses out that someone sucked the life force out of him, but before she runs the risk of being too helpful, she has a flashback-y fainting spell with visions of Henry and a creepy baby. Ichabod goes all paternalistic and protective and carries her off to rest, while Abbie is left to console herself with a pizza for one.

Meanwhile, back in normal people world, some dude and his girlfriend flirt while his platonic female friend looks on, and then the girlfriend heads off to place their order while the guy has an awkward conversation with the platonic friend (Becky) about how her crush on him is cute and all, but he and the girlfriend have a forever love. Becky gets flustered and runs out, only to find herself cornered by the succubus -- who now looks an awful lot like that guy’s girlfriend, and knows who Becky’s really crushing on. I’d like to get excited about the show’s first confirmed lesbian, but of course she promptly gets the life sucked out of her. Sigh.

With the second demon-related death of the night, Abbie decides it’s time to call in an expert. Someday I will resign myself to Hawley’s continued presence on this show. Today is not that day. Anyway, Abbie meets him at a bar, he assumes it’s a date, she shoots him down yet again and shows him some super gross photos of the dead lesbian to kill the mood further. He is utterly lacking in relevant expertise and, since no Mills sister nookie is forthcoming, moves on to easier targets. I really hope the succubus gets to nom on his soul later.

Back with the Cranes, Abbie realizes that finding the first victim in the back seat of his car means that he probably died in pursuit of getting lucky. “Ah,” Ichabod says, catching on, “he was macking on a lady.” Katrina is the first person in the episode to mention the word “succubus,” FINALLY, confirming my theory. Meanwhile, said succubus is now macking on Hawley, while looking suspiciously like Abbie. You go on and suck his life out, sister. Katrina reminds casual viewers that she is in fact a powerful witch by doing some kind of energy-locating spell on a map of the town, tracing the succubus right to Hawley’s boat. For once, I would like Abbie and Ichabod to arrive just a few minutes too late.

No dice, obviously. The succubus reveals her inner demon and goes all sucky, as per, but Hawley manages to fend her off with a self-defense crystal of some kind. (Given Hawley’s line of work, I’m grudgingly willing to buy this plot device -- it makes sense that he’d carry around any form of mystical protection he could find.) Ichabod whacks the succubus with a pipe or something, and Abbie shoots her a few times, but it doesn’t hurt the demon, just scares her off. While Abbie steps out to call Katrina for more intel, Ichabod explains to Hawley that the succubus is “drawn to those who hide desire in their heart” -- and then does an affronted double-take as he puts two and two together re: Hawley’s crush on Abbie. Since Hawley’s safe, Team Witness ditch his ass. In the car, they speculate as to Henry’s plans, and Ichabod admits to having been rather distracted from their work of late, what with the Katrina reunion and all. He’s worried that he and Katrina have grown too far apart, and Abbie gives him relationship advice. In thanks, Ichabod offers his stilted support of a theoretical future Abbie/Hawley romance. It’s all very awkward.

Back in the cabin, Abbie reminds us that this entire episode is happening over the course of one long night, and wonders why a succubus -- who normally only needs to feed like once a month -- would get so damn busy all of a sudden. Meanwhile, Katrina’s been having more creepy baby visions, and they realize that this shit’s not a flashback -- it’s happening right now. So she’s, like, psychically linked to Henry now? When Abbie suggests she actually focus on the details of the vision, Katrina sees that the succubus isn’t feeding for herself: she’s using the life force to sustain some kind of evil baby in Henry’s lightning jar. Oh, hey, it’s the Moloch baby that Katrina didn’t quite give birth to last week. So the fake aurora didn’t burn him out, it just redirected the energy elsewhere. And this is why we don’t use cheap knockoff prism auroras, kids -- you need the genuine Aurora Borealis to get the job done. So now Henry’s got the Moloch baby in a jar of glowy life force, and somehow Katrina still insists that her son’s soul can still be saved. Abbie...disagrees. To put it mildly. Ichabod hastily intervenes in the ensuing philosophical debate, which is good because seriously, do we need to rehash this every single episode? The women go back to their respective research, and Abbie finds their particular succubus on, like, demon wiki. Apparently this bitch is called the Incordata, which means “heartless.” Literally -- she keeps her heart separate from her body, and you’ve got to destroy the heart first before you can kill her. Some 3rd century priest managed this once, and was later canonized as Saint Valentine. There are any number of awful heart puns I could make at this juncture, but I shall refrain. Anyway, the heart would need to be hidden on consecrated ground -- like in a cemetery, and wouldn’t you know, Abbie’s internet stalking of Henry indicates that he recently applied for a permit to access the grounds of a local graveyard. Or something like that. Look, don’t question the convenient plot device, just roll with it. Ichabod insists that Abbie accompany Katrina to the cemetery to protect her (because it’s not like Katrina’s a super powerful witch or anything) while he goes succubus hunting. Except that he has no idea what the Incordata looks like in human form…

...so Ichabod and Hawley go clubbing together. Well, this is gonna be wacky fun. While Ichabod navigates the treacherous strobe lighting and decibel levels of the modern club, he takes a moment to demand to know of Hawley’s intentions toward Abbie. Hawley points out that it’s none of Ichabod’s damn business. Which is fair. Hawley catches a glimpse of the succubus, and Ichabod follows her into a dark storeroom, which will probably not end well. Meanwhile, in the graveyard, Abbie and Katrina have a frank discussion about how sharing blood doesn’t necessarily earn you the right to be considered family. Then they spot a protective hex on the walls of a crypt, and head on inside to find a big earthen jar of maggots. It’s just as disgusting as it sounds. But Katrina sees rats inside instead, which means it must have an illusion on it to gross people out. Abbie proves herself Queen Badass by sticking her hand in the jar anyway. And pulls out the Incordata’s heart. Katrina yoinks out her handy spellbook and starts chanting.

Back in the locked storeroom, the succubus is doing a pretty spot-on impression of Katrina for Ichabod’s benefit. If the succubus’s usual M.O. is to be trusted, then Ichabod is apparently trying to hide his desire for his lawfully wedded wife, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but the Incordata claims that his heart has soured and she can taste his doubt. Maybe that’s where all the yummy repression is coming from. Ichabod snaps out of his daze long enough to knife the succubus, and back in the crypt, Katrina bounces off some kind of protective spell on the jar that knocks her unconscious. Abbie shoots the offending crockery and picks up the spell where Katrina left off, making me wonder why they need a fully-trained witch in the first place if any asshole could recite some latin with the same result. Anyway, the royally pissed Incordata starts sucking Ichabod’s life force, but Hawley jumps into the fray so she targets him again instead. Abbie sets the heart on fire. Ichabod retrieves Hawley’s revolver and finally kills the damn succubus.

Once her body disintegrates, the duo share a manly bonding moment. And back in the cemetery, Abbie and Katrina do some bonding of their own, which is kind of sweet. Since they can at least agree that Henry’s plot needs to be stopped, Katrina volunteers to personally destroy Moloch. Which means she’s heading back to Headless. Her cover story will be that Ichabod has rejected her to build a new life with Abbie, which probably cuts just a wee bit too close to the truth for anyone’s comfort. Also, she’s leaving now, so Abbie’s gonna have to deal with the fallout with Ichabod on her own. Smooth move, Katrina.

Abbie returns to the cabin to find Hawley shirtless outside. She gives in to her baser instincts and helps him, uh, dress his wounds. And also gives him the burned-up dessicated heart, which is not as cute a metaphor as Hawley seems to think. Ichabod emerges with first aid supplies and has an extremely awkward moment, then realizes that Katrina’s gone again. He’s uncharacteristically okay with Katrina’s decision to continue playing house with the Horseman, reminding viewers yet again that she’s a powerful witch and clever spy.

Meanwhile, Katrina turns up on Abraham’s doorstep looking sultry, so of course he immediately takes her back. Henry also looks quite pleased at his mother’s return, especially since she’s still wearing the glowy pendant that shows her Abraham’s head. He invites her over to meet the evil Moloch baby -- and, thanks to the pendant, all she sees is a perfectly normal baby boy. Oh, great.