This week’s Sleepy Hollow episode, titled The Midnight Ride, was a solid episode with lots of forward movement. We’re just over halfway through the season and they’ve already caught the Horseman. I know there are three more horsemen on the way, but it makes me wonder where they can go the rest of the season. I’m anxious with anticipation!
Sleepy Hollow does a really great job of giving us American History as well as letting Ichabod comment on how far we have come from his days (or as he put it, “defiled this earth…”). We start the episode with Paul Revere’s ride (which apparently happened a bit different than history tells us), which is interrupted by the Headless Horseman. Back in the present, Abbie and Ichabod prepare to meet with the masons, but when Ichabod arrives, they have been beheaded and their heads stolen. Captain Irving tries not to believe it’s the Horseman, but puts his trust in Abbie to investigate the crime with the supernatural angle.
Abbie and Ichabod decide they need to destroy the Horseman’s head. Captain Irving goes to get it and is confronted with his non-belief. The Horseman arrives looking for his head and the two face off in an awesome, Matrix-y shoot out. Captain Irving is completely thrown by the experience. Abbie and Ichabod try to destroy the head, but it belongs to Death and “You can’t kill Death.” (Someone on Twitter suggested it needs to be thrown into Mount Doom. I second the suggestion. Where’s Frodo when you need him to destroy something?)
In the midst of trying to find a way to destroy the head, they find the heads of the masons killed in the beginning of the episode, hanging as lanterns in above the town. “We’re tampering with his head and he’s responding in kind.” The two begin looking for a manuscript that will help them, finding it in the Tarrytown Museum of Colonial History. After a hilarious scene with Ichabod and a (poor) museum tour guide and a side splitting scene featuring Ichabod using the internet and coming a across a porn site (if you’re not watching Sleepy Hollow, these are the amazing things you’re missing), the manuscript comes in handy. Ichabod finds a clue in the Horseman’s teeth.
Ichabod informs Abbie that if they can transform the moon into the Sun, they can trap the Horseman. Abbie says they ain’t got no time for no witch, but they do have science! They lure the Horseman with an intense horse-chase into their favorite tunnel and use UV lights to trick his body into thinking it is daylight. Team No Apocalypse has gained 1 Horseman out of 4! Next week sees the interrogation of a headless being. Can’t exactly look for micro-expressions of guilt in his eyes, now can they?
Other Plot Points
John Cho returns as Dead-tective Andy Brooks, who died in the pilot. He claims he is the only one who can protect Abbie from his boss, the Headless Horseman. I think he’s just got a crush that’s accelerated in death.
This episode dealt with Paul Revere’s ride; all have dealt with the Revolutionary Era. What episodes of American History would you like to see featured on Sleepy Hollow? If they could go to any time? What incidents in history lend best to this show’s themes?
Connie (@ConStar24, ConStar Studies TV) loves television more than most things and aspires be a TV writer. You can find her in the Hufflepuff basement watching Disney movies and getting lost on the internet well into the night.
