SLEEPY HOLLOW Recap: 1.10 The Golem

We start tonight’s episode with…Ichabod splitting wood.  Abbie asks if he’s chopping a Christmas tree and he goes on about how Christmas trees are pointless and details the history of eggnog.  Abbie over explains Ichabod’s emotional state, reminding us that this is a network show, and Ichabod launches into a speech about how he wonders about his son and wants to contact Katrina.  This would involve moving “freaky mountains.”  Right on cue, Henry Parrish, the Sin-Eater, shows up.

Parrish isn’t sure that he can help since he’s never used his gift to cross into Purgatory, but Ichabod urges him to do it.  He does so, even though it will endanger Ichabod’s life, and Ichabod ends up in a section of Purgatory that looks like a church, where he stops a baby carriage/stroller/perambulator from rolling away.  He looks into the pram and finds a hardened-looking homemade doll, the one Abbie saw in her vision-visit from Katrina in “Sin-Eater.”  Katrina appears and lights a candle.  She doesn’t want Ichabod there because it’s so dangerous, but she tells him that their son’s name was Jeremy.  She didn’t realize she was pregnant until after she buried Ichabod and went to Europe to search for a spell that would resurrect him.  When she returned to America, her coven, the Sisters of the Radiant Heart, pursued her so that they could punish her for protecting Ichabod and subverting his death.  She sought refuge at Fredericks Manor, and gave Jeremy to Grace Dixon, Abbie’s ancestor.  She gave Jeremy the doll, gave Jeremy to Grace, and that was the last she saw or heard of him.  Then some members of her coven, the Four Who Speak as One, trapped her in Purgatory.  At this point, a brown creature with a sewn face bursts into the church and Ichabod wakes up.

Meanwhile, in the woods, the sewn-faced creature rears his head, much like Moloch did in Abbie’s past.

Back at Corbin’s cabin, Abbie and Ichabod discuss the possibility of his descendants, which could be up to 6,000 potential Ichabods.  Yikes.  Is the world ready for that?  After that illuminating conversation, Parrish wants to leave to catch his train, but Abbie mentions how he lost his mother when he was young and now has lost his still-living father to Alzheimer’s, so he should help because all three of them are short on family.  Parrish resists at first, but eventually agrees to stay with a promise from Abbie that he’ll catch the next train.

In the side plot, Irving returns to church and talks to a priest who says that “Witness” means “Martyr,” which means that Ichabod and Abbie will have to die to complete their mission.  The priest also mentions that apostles, such as Irving, meet the same fate as the Witnesses do.  Irving muses about his dedication to his role as a public servant, which cost him his marriage; he also mentions that Macy was hit by a car.  Then Irving remembers why he didn’t like church.

Back in the main plot, Abbie takes Ichabod to a Historical Society library, where the librarian insists she has no idea what Ichabod is talking about.  She points him to some general records, and he, Abbie, and Parrish, eventually find some answers: Grace Dixon and her husband, a pastor, died young in a fire; Jeremy started fires when he cried because he inherited Katrina’s magical powers; after Grace’s death, he was sent to an orphanage.  Just as they figure this out, Parrish senses that the librarian was lying.  Then the sewn-faced creature (let’s call him Reginald) attacks her.

Side plot: Irving visits Macy and Cynthia and apologizes for his past actions.  Cynthia says that if he’d said that a year ago, he’d still live with them.  Then Irving takes Macy for a day trip to a park.  Macy explains Vines, and Irving tries to buy hot chocolate, but the vendor is possessed.  He threatens Macy, and Irving freaks out just in time for the vendor to regain his senses.  Irving and Macy skedaddle, but we see the demon possessing a nearby woman.  This demon has frosted eyes like Lilith had in Supernatural—a detail worth noting for the reformed SPN fanatics in the audience.

At the Archives, Abbie, Ichabod, and Parrish look through the librarian’s effects from her office; Abbie mentions that she also had a safe.  They find a box with the insignia of Katrina’s coven on it and Parrish senses great anger in the box.  When they open the box, he reveals Jeremy dark history, how he was mistreated by the priest at the orphanage (denied food and beaten, that is, not…other things).  Jeremy used his powers to take his doll and create Reginald, a Golem—a creature made of clay from the Bible and the Talmud—Reginald became Jeremy’s violent protector as he wandered through the world.  Then they find a bunch of carnival tickets that the librarian used to see the Four Who Speak as One, the four veiled women Abbie saw in her Katrina vision-visit in “Sin-Eater.”  They realize that the last ticket is from a carnival that is still in town, so they set out to find it.

At the carnival, Ichabod enters the tent of the Four Who Speak as One alone.  The FWSAO are incredibly stereotypical, with Twilight-pale skin; electric blue eyes; and high, cold Lord Voldemort voices (and none of Ralph Fiennes’ charisma to carry it off).  They claim in this obnoxiously nasal, airy unison voice that Ichabod’s life line is disrupted and that his arrival “seals their fate”—they will die now.  Then they detail how they pursued Jeremy, offered him help that he rejected, and then sent Reginald to Purgatory and buried Jeremy alive so they could cast a hex to stop his heart, which worked.  “Death begets death,” they murmur.  Ichabod understandably loses his shit at this confession.  Also, Reginald left Purgatory with Ichabod, and now he’s at the carnival, stomping his way to the FWSAO; only Jeremy’s blood can stop him.  Ichabod meets up with Abbie, looks and back, and sees that Reginald has sealed FWSAO’s fate.

Then Ichabod and Parrish get caught in a tent full of funhouse mirrors and Ichabod wonders “When did irony become a national pastime?”  When David Freese became a Los Angeles Angel of Anaheim.

Parrish helps Ichabod realize that he can stop Reginald, since he is Jeremy’s father.  His hand has been cut on a blade, so he takes the blade and confronts Reginald.  Ichabod gives an impassioned speech about how he couldn’t be there for Jeremy and how he didn’t choose that, so Reginald had to serve as protector and father for his creator.  Then he stabs Reginald and holds his hand as he disintegrates.

Back at the station, Parrish says his farewells and mentions how his own father taught him to handle his gift and how he never thanked him for that when his mind was still intact.  Now Parrish feels blessed to use his gift as to further the journey of the Witnesses and to have Ichabod and Abbie in his life.  And now he must get on his train, which leaves in eighteen minutes.

After he leaves, Abbie gives Ichabod a gift: his very own Christmas stocking, or as he puts it, “You’ve embroidered my name on an oversized piece of hosiery!”

Abbie leaves “to get some comfort food” (what kind?), the mirror across from Ichabod cracks on its own and he lands in Purgatory, where Moloch confronts him from behind some trees.  Moloch gives him a warning: the Saints name will be the first sign, and then he will come for the Second Witness’s soul, which he has already touched, and which Ichabod will deliver to him, signaling the End of Days.  Ichabod wakes up on the floor at the station, where Abbie finds him.  He tells her what Moloch said, and that’s where we leave off as we enter holiday-induced hiatus until the New Year.

*

This episode was fairly good.  It was tied to the larger mythology, mostly concerning Katrina, and it had the consistent theme of fatherhood, even in the side plot.  I like how they’re gradually laying the groundwork for something to happen to Irving and Macy, instead of just expecting us to care about all of that in the span of one episode.  This show is becoming pretty good at arc building, putting pieces together in each episode, though some of them were rushed (the Horseman’s backstory, for instance).  I had expected Jeremy to have more of a destiny; I hope that he gets mentioned again in future episodes, even in passing—unlike, say, Roanoke,  which pretty much never happened, apparently.  I had hoped that the FWSAO would be normal women who happen to have powers, like Katrina, so their overdone, menacingly ethereal appearance was disappointing.  Hopefully, future coven members will be more like people and less like the Weird Sisters.  Overall, this was a piece episode, not a major episode, but it’s a good place to leave things with just three episodes left in the season—things are coming to light and gradually coming together, but they just big enough for a season finale to handle.

*

The Wisdom of Ichabod Crane

“Without books, we would have no past.”

Sleepy Hollow airs on Monday nights on FOX.