Using Washington’s Bible as a guide, the fight to defend Sleepy Hollow from evil takes numerous unexpected turns as Ichabod and Abbie battle Andy Brooks, Moloch, and another Horseman. Here is a recap and review of the season one finale.
Andy Brooks orders Abbie to turn the Bible over to Moloch so the Witnesses can’t use the map it leads to, but she refuses. Ichabod finds ten extra verses in Washington’s version of the Lazarus story. They hide a secret message that indicates Washington was temporarily resurrected to pass information between the worlds of the living and the dead and there’s a map to purgatory buried with his body. Since they don’t know the true location of Washington’s grave, Abbie and Ichabod recruit the Sin Eater to extract knowledge from the prayer beads buried with the priest involved in Washington’s resurrection.
The hex on the beads proves a painful challenge, and Henry doesn’t manage to gain more than flashes. Then Moloch’s minions attack. The three make it out unscathed. A compilation of Henry’s flashes brings the team to an island along the Hudson. Inside Washington’s booby-trapped catacomb, they succeed in finding the map, but Andy Brooks, having undergone an ugly cocoon transformation into a demon, attacks before they can leave. In a brief period of the true Andy shining through, he asks Abbie to release him – she shoves a rod through his brain, but he rises soon after. Ichabod leads them deeper into the catacomb to escape another way, using the booby-traps to stop Andy. Although Abbie’s adamant about destroying the map, she tells Ichabod it’s his call – he agrees with her.
Irving is questioned about the deaths at the safe house and when agents take a DNA sample from Macey, he confesses to killing the priest and Jones. He’s arrested.
Henry calls Ichabod and the Mills sisters together – Hell is coming today, on the anniversary of Abbie and Jenny seeing Moloch in the forest. There was an eclipse then, and there’s one now. Ichabod suggests a binding spell to keep the Horseman from rising, so they’ll need a witch. Luckily his photographic memory allowed him to reproduce the map to purgatory. They summon the doorway, and once inside, must remember not to accept food or drink or they’ll be stuck there forever.
Abbie awakes in Corbin’s cabin, bandaged and confused. Corbin and Andy sit around like it’s all normal and she just got back with a concussion from Quantico. Corbin offers her pie a la mode, but she remembers her bond with Ichabod and refuses to eat it. Meanwhile, Ichabod finds himself at an old university where papa Crane congratulates him on the British success in war, additionally shocking since Ichabod remembers that his father disowned him when he defected. Papa Crane starts a toast, and Ichabod realizes it’s a trap just in time. They defeat these realities to find themselves amongst numerous souls near the church Katrina visits. Inside, Katrina says she can only leave if another soul temporarily takes her place. Abbie volunteers, needing to confront Moloch for herself.
After a tussle with Moloch, Abbie falls into a replica of the playhouse she and Jenny had as a kid – a representation of safety for the young Mills sisters. Teen versions of Abbie and Jenny explain that that day in the forest, Moloch stole their memory, and it still resides here.
On research duty, Jenny finds that the ruins of Trinity Church may contain answers, and while there, sees an old sign that holds shocking information. On the drive back, Headless opens fire and Jenny’s car flips, leaving her unconscious.
Katrina and Ichabod emerge where Henry is. With the eclipse coming, Katrina attempts to magically locate the place the Horseman will arise, but her powers are weak. She finally finds the site of the four white trees, but feels nothing in the ground. He’s already risen. Just then, Henry pins them both to a tree. Henry reveals that Abbie and Jenny saw the Horseman rise that day in the forest. It was him, and he’s Jeremy. After two centuries of being underground, Moloch offered him a way out. Upon his resurrection, he saw the church’s sign – the same sign that sits in Jenny’s crashed car – that read St. Henry’s Parish, so he took the name of the place where his parents abandoned him. Ichabod defends Katrina, but Headless rides up and takes her away. Henry then buries Ichabod in a box, leaving him with the parting words, “It begins.”
Review:
The Sleepy Hollow finale excelled at rounding out the season in a way that paid off both for many of the numerous lingering questions posed in the previous episodes and as a set up for season two. Filled with the surprises, heartfelt moments, and wacky ideas that we’ve all come to expect and love from Sleepy Hollow, “The Indispensible Man” and “Bad Blood” were no disappointment, although there’s still room for constrictive criticism.
The first reaction I had to the Sleepy Hollow finale, and this may not be a widely shared opinion, was that it was not what I expected, but it was what I enjoy about the series, and this unexpected nature makes the show an intriguing watch. Although Headless and Moloch made appearances, their importance in the story did not match up with their screen time, which caused these two episodes to take on a “treasure hunt” vibe instead of a familiar “battle” one.
My greatest point of contention with the finale, mainly the first hour, was the fact that there was so much time and effort dedicated to establishing the historical “accuracy” of George Washington’s actions within the world of Sleepy Hollow. While one of my favorite aspects of fantasy fiction series is their ability to create a believable world that differs from ours in whatever ways, and I respect Sleepy Hollow for being able to accomplish this, the explanations that filled the scenes in Washington’s catacomb felt superfluous to the larger story at hand. It was less interesting and necessary to learn why Washington chose a specific general to embellish his tomb than find out information that would help out the heroes. Therefore, this finale would have been optimal as an hour and a half instead of two hours, but unfortunately TV doesn’t work that way.
On to the more glowing part of this review. The building tension between Abbie and Ichabod undoubtedly created the most suspense in this episode as the thought of the prophecy coming true seemed to become more of a reality. To see the two main characters resisting the temptations that they faced for the sake of the greater good and to act as a Witness team was a beautiful strand of storytelling that perfectly fit the overall tone and message of the series. Little is ever accomplished without a few bumps along the way, and these felt genuine and exactly as dramatic as they needed to be. Who couldn’t help but melt when Ichabod refuses to betray Abbie’s trust and says, “I choose to forge my fate with you.” In a surprising development, the fulfillment of the prophecy was shaped into a positive aspect, an exhibition of character strength instead of betrayal. The series’ ability to catch the audience off-guard with subtle moves like this indicates that no twist is off-limit and nothing is what it seems.
And then there are more major surprises, like everything about Henry Parish. Personally, I was not too surprised that Henry was evil due to the lack of circumstances we have seen him in in which he acts exclusively on the behalf of good. Plus, the man literally eats sins – there’s inherently something dark about that. In addition, the fact that Jeremy was a Horseman was also not a blindsiding moment since he’d have just as much reason to become antagonistic towards Katrina and Ichabod as Abraham Van Brunt did. However, the revelation that Henry was Jeremy caught me completely by surprise, and yet looking back, it makes all the sense in the world. John Noble excellently portrayed those last ten minutes with a haunting tinge of childlike innocence (in the way that he blames others for him becoming this way) combined with very real and adult intentions. Henry/Jeremy’s two-fold importance in the story as a force of the apocalypse and as a long-lost son alost solidifies excellent material for him in season two.
On the topic of parents and children, the interaction between Ichabod and his father was exceptional. The contrast between Papa Crane’s lofty attitude and Ichabod’s humble and bright-eyed joy at his acceptance so well matched the relationship Ichabod previously indicated existed between them. There wasn’t much Victor Garber in these episodes so I am certainly looking forward for more to come. Irving turning himself in for murder in order to protect his daughter seemed like an odd fit into the rest of the drama. On the one hand, the cliffhanger it created made his action belong in a season finale, but the minimal scenes dedicated to Irving along with his lack of interaction with other main characters kept this storyline oddly isolated.
Falling in line with one well-known purpose of season finales, this one left every character in a precarious situation that we’re eager to see unfold. Abbie stuck in a playhouse was the furthest thought I had from how her season would end. Although these episodes were light on Jenny and her contribution to the dilemma came too late, she did have a wonderful scene with Abbie about not losing one another again that makes their separation and Jenny’s injuries all the more gloomy. Headless riding off with Katrina dashes any hopes of an immediate happy story for her, but at least she’s out of purgatory. There’s potential for cool scenes of her learning about and interacting with a new world after all that time.
The amount of callbacks this episode had to prior episodes and the new “Ichabod is an anachronism” moments make up an extensive list that at first sounds like it would be too overbearing, but the way in which the recurring ones were so believably and fittingly placed into this finale made them more fun than the first time around. The callback to Yolanda as Ichabod tried to figure out Siri, Abbie ending her voicemail call to Ichabod with “I am most respectfully Leftenant Mills,” and Abbie and Ichabod using the fist bump to recognize that the other is his/her real self are some prime examples.
One thing I’m left wondering about is whether Henry pinning his parents to two of the four white trees was done simply because those trees were the most convenient or as an indication that there are four named forces of good to counterbalance the four horseman. Katrina and Jenny are the most likely candidates if such an extension of the Witness’ circle exists, but I could very well be reading too into this. Because we have to wait until the fall for a new episode, now begins the opportunity for a re-watch to investigate just how much of this story was laid out and covertly hinted at up until this point.
