[Content Note: Gun violence, poisoning, fire, torture, beheading, self-mutilation, ethnic stereotype (German), child abuse. This also contains extensive spoilers for episode 4.]
Our story opens in Boston Harbor, December 16 1773. Blah blah, men in tights destroying the heck out of crates. Other men, including Ichabod, are stealthily stealing into a building via mega-stealth. The leader informs Ichabod that “Colonel Washington’s orders were clear! Bring back the crate… and you!” (Now, if you are wondering what George Washington is doing ordering around anyone before he’s even had time to get mad about the not-yet passed Intolerable Acts, well, that WILL BE EXPLAINED!)
They surprise a red-coated soldier. The stealthy commander steps forward and says “IN THE NAME OF THE VIRGINIA MILITIA! We claim this cargo!”( Now, if you are wondering what the Virginia militia are doing in Massachusetts, and considering looking it up in your college history text, well, that WILL BE EXPLAINED!)
The officer responds: Praying in German! To somebody evil in German! (Now, if you are thinking, “But didn’t the Hessians arrive in 1776?” and pondering writing a sternly worded letter to your former history professor, well, THAT WILL BE EXPLAINED! –ish.)
There is a big explosion, which segues to Ichabod, in the present, sitting in a car talking about his wife and true love. A female voice thanks his for putting it all into perspective. Ho ho ho! Ichabod is not just remembering his wife, he is counseling the OnStar person! LOL forever briefly!
Abbie and Captain Orlando “Grumpy” Jones are discussing Jenny’s escape. Abbie asks for more time to investigate. Captain “Grumpy” is wondering what Ichabod said to set Jenny off.
Ichabod: I merely informed her of a bunch of gruesome, possibly paranormal shit. PS She’s actually totally sane.
Captain Grumpy: “You’re the last person I want vouching for sanity.”
Abbie: BACK TO THE POINT—I can catch my sister.
Captain Grumpy is grumpy, but gives them 12 hours. Switch to Jenny at a bar. Bartender has been keeping something for her. They converse. Jenny: Something something, remember when I told you I’d go straight to hell? Switch to a piano lesson (whut.) A blond white man is supervising a student. He gets a call from a deep voiced person. They converse. Deep Voice: Something something, she has escaped, find her, something something thirty-sevens. Switch to the bar. Piano Guy shows up with bonus blond Menacing Dudes. The Bartender is there. They converse.
Piano Guy: Jennifer Mills?
Bartender (totally lying): Nope!
Piano Guy: You are totally lying.
Bartender: *whips out +4 Stereotypical Bartender Shotgun of Intimidation *
Piano Guy/Menacing Dudes: *pin Bartender to billiard table, evoke confession, commit grotesque murder.* “Hell will come to us.”
Switch to Abbie and Ichabod. They are trying to find Jenny and quarreling. Abbie reveals that her father left when she and Jenny were young, their mother had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized, she and Jenny were put in foster care. Ichabod suggests they go see Jenny’s last foster parents. Switch to Jenny in the +6 Stereotypical Washroom of Spectacular Ick, rummaging through a bag. She pulls out some documents, and newspaper article about Abbie, and a gun. (This, btw, is exactly how I pack.) She heads to the bar but whoooops! The police are there investigating the bartender’s murder. His body has been pinned to the wall, while his head is on the Billiard table. Captain Orlando “Grumpy” Jones is discussing the murder with Abbie’s ex, Detective “Vaguely Douchey” Nicholas Gonzales.
Detective Vaguely Douchey: We have this solved. Smirk. Head chopped off, must be the same as the murder of Sherriff Kindly. Smirk smirk.
Captain Grumpy: Here are your obvious mistakes. Here are all the ways these killings differ. Here is your ass on a platter.
Detective Vaguely Douchey: Where did my smirk go?
Switch to: Jennie and Ichabod visit Jenny’s former foster mom.
Former Mom: Troubled kids need “discipline and order.” I am obviously a neglectful, abusive, shitty person who should never have foster kids. I’m terrible.
Abbie: You’re doing a shitty job and abusing the kids in your care. You had better tell me about my sister’s possible whereabouts.
Former Mom: I’m terrible.
Ichabod: Leftenant!
Abbie: “I will rain legal brimstone down on you until it makes God jealous.”
Former Mom: I’ll help. You’re terrible.
Abbie: You’re still in deep shit.
Former Mom: Cutting remark, because I’m terrible.
Abbie and Ichabod have discovered that Jenny used to go visit a Cabin in the Woods, because Joss Whedon Sherrif Kindly. After a brief flirtation/lockpicking session (Ichabod: “Imagine the delinquency we could perpetrate if we really put our minds together….” = HAWT!) they discover that Sherriff Corbin had a huge painting of General Washington on the wall. Then Jenny appears in a most dramatic fashion!
Jenny: boo! I’ve got a gun!
Abbie: I’ve got a gun!
Ichabod: This is awkward! Let’s go to an ad.
(after the ad)
*continued sisterfight*
Ichabod: “If your familial ties meant so little to you you’d spend far less time provoking fights. Drop your weapons, both of you.”
Jenny: Damn you and your astonishing psychological insights, British Guy.
Jenny explains that she helped Sherriff Kindly obtain rare objects, and that he warned her before he died that something was coming for him; she was supposed to come to the cabin and get something. She then reveals to Abbie and Ichabod the Sherriff’s +4 Filing Cabinet of Secret-Keeping. In it is…something?
Abbie (helpfully): “It’s a sextant, used in sea travel.”
Ichabod: The markings on this leather case look familiar! It is now time for me to EXPLAIN THINGS!
Audience: About fucking time.
Ichabod reveals in a flashback that he saw the markings before the war in Boston. He’d received word that the redcoats had a secret weapon. In a shipping house! So he and the commander of the thirty-seventh regiment of the Virginia Militia went to steal the weapon. (Now, if you’re wondering how this regiment is existing before it existed, and pondering just ripping up your Ph.D. and mailing it to your university with a demand for a refund…uh, fuck, I don’t know, either.)
Ichabod explains that the Destruction of the Tea, aka the Boston Tea Party, was all a distraction organized by the Koch Brothers Samuel Adams, in order that Team Good could get The Box. The soldier guarding it, a Hessian, took his own life to protect the weapon. However, Team Good managed to find a stone chest with markings just like those on the leather. They sent it back to Washington. End of flashback! Back in the present, Ichabod demonstrates that the sextant is actually a magic lantern “projector” that reveals a map of Sleepy Hollow when a light shines through it.
Ichabod: “I believe it pinpoints the whereabouts of our mystery chest.”
Piano Guy and Menacing Dudes burst in. *Gunfire!* It is revealed that Jenny is pretty badass. Our Heroes lose the sextant to the Menacing Dudes, who leave Piano Guy behind. It turns out he is one of the Shadow Warriors!
Ichabod: He’s a Hessian! After two centuries! Something something in German, Piano Guy!
Piano Guy: “Your German is exceptional.” Your Rhine Franconian, however, really sucks.
Ichabod: The Box?
Piano Guy: Book of Revelation!
Jenny: Lesser Key of Solomon!
Abbie: wtf?
Jenny: Explanation (Magic!)
Ichabod: Explanation (more Key of Solomon!)
Jenny: Explanation (Templars!)
Piano Guy: Explanation (We’re everywhere!)
Abbie: Okay, let me try earth logic. Piano Guy, you’re in a sleeper cell. You must have someone at the top. Who is it?
Piano Guy: I sneer at your earth logic! I know your names! He’s INSIDE ME! SOMETHING GERMAN! *cyanide pill* (dies)
Ichabod (helpfully): He said “Moloch shall rise.”
MulderJenny: TRUST NO ONE. Er, but trust me?
Abbie: No, trust the cops.
*sisterfight*
Ichabod: I’m TRYING TO CONCENTRATE.
…because Icabod’s eidetic memory! He’s redrawing the map! Take that, evil! It turns out The Box was hidden in the Dutch Reform Church (okay). We see the Bonus Menacing Hessian Dudes breaking into the old church, which is dusty and full of statues of saints, because Calvinism. There is a fireplace in the sanctuary, blocked off, which the Hessian dudes break down. Meanwhile, Our Heroes are rushing to the church, with some Exposition 101 about how Jenny became a badass (terrorist training camps, natch) and Ichabod thinks that’s cool. Back at the church, the Hessians of Doom have found The Box! It does not contain cheap, barely drinkable wine! Rather, it contains yet another CREEPY BOOK! (There are many creepy books in this show, perhaps even a Creepy Books Reference Desk, who knows?) Anyway, the dudes cut themselves and drip blood on the book which reveals creepy writing something something Goetia something Moloch.
And then the baptismal font bursts into fire. Evil fire! With demons creeping about. (This Dutch Reform church is definitely more exciting than any I have attended!) Our Heroes break in and fight the Hessianados of Hell. Abbie grabs the book. A Hell-Hessian threatens to kill her sister if she does not turn it over. There is an obligatory “LEFTENANT!” from Ichabod, before Abbie throws the book into the flaming baptismal font. The Hessians are thrown into the fire. The fire rises up, circles, and then it DISAPPEARS, taking demons, Hessians, book, cheap wine, cheese, with it.
Ichabod: "They left without a farewell. How impolite!" I am British!
Cut to Jenny and Abbie sitting at a table, Jenny in handcuffs.
Jenny: “What’s with you and Prince William?” (Because we have definitely not yet made the point enough: Ichabod is British!)
Abbie: Never mind. Remember how mom used to drag us to bible study? It turns out that was vaguely useful, now that I am chasing Revelation-spouting demons and all.
Jenny: Here is a Psalm.
Abbie: Here is an emotional confession of guilt and a plea for sisterly reconciliation. Here is a complicated way for me to spring you from the psych ward.
Jenny: Here is a doubtful statement and a frowny face.
Abbie and Ichabod leave Jenny to ponder her feelings about Abbie. Ichabod reveals to Abbie that Piano Guy’s last words were “Moloch Shall Rise,” and that means they should go read Paradise Lost, because child sacrifice and Katrina.(Now, if at this point you are wondering if your graduate field in Early Modern England is going to be the next victim of this show, I can only respond “Something Something German! Probably!”)
DRAMATIC MUSIC THE END
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Welp, that was quite an episode! There was lots I loved here. Evil books and ancient orders are some of my favorite schlock fodder (as long as I don’t think too much, of course) and we’re starting to get plenty of that. The secret map was a clever touch (and to give credit where it’s due, the engraving did look a lot like an 18th century map). I am actually enjoying Ichabod’s strange knack for getting people’s personalities. It’s helping to give him a personality separate from “British Dude out of Time and Place,” which, as we’ve discussed previously, has some pitfalls. And the developing Abbie-Jenny dynamic is pretty cool. Yes, there were lots of *sisterfights*, but they have Reasons for not getting along, beyond just being female siblings.
Overall, I liked it a good deal better than last week’s racefail episode (although I’m sure the inhabitants of Land Hessen could do without their ethnicity being used as a stand-in for “Ancient Order of Evil," ya know?) The writers at least threw out some hints about their alternate history; this week’s episode looked much less lazy and more like there were Reasons (sometimes, anyway). I also liked the X-Files nod. And I’m much more interested in where they’re going next; it sounds like Ichabod has Something to Reveal about Katrina, and it’s coming soon... I hope!
What did you think, Shakers?
P.S. Something something German John Cho was not in this episode.
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