The Breakdown
A Dead Guy, a Mental Patient, a Time Traveler from the Revolution, and a small-town cop…..what a team.
To celebrate the capture of Headless, Abbie teaches Ichabod to fist pump. As Headless is still tied up and trapped in the chamber Thomas Jefferson built, Captain Irving, Abbie, and Ichabod discuss what to do next. The Captain is tempted to just get a nuke down there and be done with it so Abbie and Ichabod fill him in on why that will not work. Aside from the fact that Ichabod already cut off his head and shot him and the fact that he’s trapped in a weakened state due to the UV lights and the supernatural chamber, Death just cannot be killed.
They also fill him in about Andy Brooks’s help due to his regret of choices he has made (like selling his soul). Ichabod adds that he is probably also helping because he has feelings for Abbie. Abbie changes the subject and asks Captain Irving to contact her sister because she could be useful and deserves to know. The Captain breaks it down to what it is: a team made up of a dead guy, a mental patient, and a time traveler from the revolution.
Meanwhile, some hunters come across Headless’s red-eyed, white horse. One guy picks up his phone and speaks in another language, “Something’s happened to the Rider. We need to gather team three.” The other guy asks if that was German he was speaking. He shoots that guy and we see that he has the Hessian tattoo that Headless had on his head (when he had a head).
Jenny Mills walks into the police station and is not happy about being brought there. Captain Irving explains that she was not answering her phone so he had no choice. She is still trying to go off and wonders why her sister is not around. He explains that they caught the horseman and Abbie said she would be valuable. They get interrupted as the Captain gets called to robbery at Adam’s shop. Jenny used to do some work related to acquisitions for the place but won’t say much more than that. She keeps giving him a lot of attitude so he breaks it down for her. He says he is new at this and she has been thinking about demons rising for 12 years so he wants to know right now if she’s in or out. Of course she can’t say no to that so she follows him to the scene.
Abbie and Ichabod find where Andy has been “living” in the tunnels. Ichabod finds ancient Egyptian symbols on a slab of hardened clay that are used for communicating with the dead. Andy tells them you don’t break the horseman, you just leave him be in the trap. Ichabod says Andy can communicate with him through the symbols. He realizes that Andy is the voice of the horseman, his necromancer (an appointed one who has the power to speak for the dead). Andy admits to it and Ichabod tells him this is his chance for redemption. Abbie puts her hand on his half-rotted arm and asks him to help. Andy tries to talk them out of bringing him to Headless. His soul is no longer his so he can only help at certain times. He has to do what Moloch says. They still take him to Headless.
The Captain and Jenny get to Adams’s shop to find it looks like a fake robbery. The money and major jewels are still there. She shows him the secret room Adams keeps his valuables and they find him in there shot in the leg. He has Captain Irving bring him a box to see if anything was stolen. There was an ancient Thracian relic allegedly protected by warlocks that was taken. Jenny says you would only want it if you wanted to break a hex spell which is what is protecting the cell the horseman is trapped in. Adams says German speaking men took it. Jenny realizes it was the Hessians that we saw back in Episode 4.
Abbie pats Andy down and he warns Ichabod one last time before they go into the chamber. Ichabod tries to talk to Headless through Andy. Andy says he’s not feeling too chatty. Ichabod keeps talking as he walks toward Headless telling him he was defeated. He pushes Headless and a necklace falls to the floor. Andy’s eyes turn black and a dark voice starts to come out of his mouth. He says the necklace belonged to Katrina. Ichabod tells Abbie the necklace was given to her by his best friend who was once betrothed to her. We go back in time when Ichabod helps his friend pick out the necklace. After his friend, Abraham, gives the necklace to Katrina, she tells Ichabod she knows he helped pick it out. She also says she is going to break off the arranged marriage with Abraham because she doesn’t love him and her heart belongs to another. Ichabod tells her he couldn’t betray his friend that way and she says it’s not just about him. The marriage isn’t right for her both because she doesn’t love him and because after all their fighting for freedom, she doesn’t want to end up stuck with a dictator husband. Hearing the story, Abbie tells Ichabod he has game because Katrina dumped his friend for him. Not exactly in a laughing mood, he says he didn’t invite nor did he want “game” and that he needs to find out how the horseman got the necklace. He also wants to know if Headless knows why Moloch has Katrina captive.
Guessing that the Hessians would try to turn off the power and the UV light, Jenny and the Captain are at the Sleepy Hollow Power West Grid in their all black getup. After seeing some of the workers with fire arms, the Captain tells Jenny to wait there as he keeps investigating. He obviously doesn’t know her well yet. Of course she didn’t wait and by the time he got through beating off a guy who snuck up on him, she was tying down two men. More men in the construction worker looking getup with German accents walk up and one said the Captain and Jenny were outnumbered. The Captain says “check your math Adolf” and a swarm of heavy duty police enforcement surround them.
It is weird looking at Headless up close. We can see the cauterized looking effect of his headless wound. Headless tells Ichabod he knows Katrina’s destiny but will not tell him yet. He says he will know before he dies though. Ichabod taunts him, telling him how he bested him in battle, he has to use a puppet to speak, and now he’s caged like a beast all because Ichabod took his head. The horseman angrily answers back (through Andy) saying that he killed Ichabod, the Masons, and Abbie’s partner, as if to say, “Yea, I did a few things to you too!” He vows that he will kill Ichabod too. Ichabod asks why he lingered if his mission was to massacre the Masons, figuring it was for him. He says that was his down fall, that something blinded his judgment and made him careless. Headless bursts Ichabod’s bubble, telling him that he (Ichabod), Washington’s prized soldier, was his mission; then and now. While Ichabod was on the battlefield searching for Headless, he was searching for him too. He says he is still there to finish what he started. Headless was supposed to avenge the death of Ichabod’s partner, Abraham. He asks if Abbie knows that he betrayed and killed his former partner. Seeing that Headless is starting to get under Ichabod’s skin, Abbie dashes into the room to intervene.
Back at the power grid the Captain starts to yell at Jenny for not waiting and she cuts him off saying something was in a bag she was looking through and now it is somewhere out there on the ground. He immediately gets on the radio and they start to search for it. Jenny finds what looks like the back piece of a cell phone and some wires. As the Captain gets on the radio to all teams, something explodes and the power goes out throughout the city, including in the chamber where the horseman is.
Abbie finds out from the Captain what went down at the Power Grid and that it will be at least two hours before the power gets back on. Ichabod wants to continue the interrogation. She tells him to wait and that clearly Headless struck a nerve. She wants to know what he was talking about. He tells the story of the day after Katrina broke it off with Abraham. He and Abraham were on a mission to deliver the Declaration of Resolves which was a precursor to the Declaration of Independence. We go back in time to Pennsylvania 1774 as he tells the story. Abraham was devastated and his mind was elsewhere. They had to go through enemy territory. For some reason, Ichabod decided to bring up that Katrina confessed her love to him. That hardly seemed like a good idea. Maybe he thought it would calm Abraham down? Abraham flipped out, thinking Ichabod had been wooing Katrina. He draws his sword and wants to fight. Ichabod tries to yield but Abraham does not accept. Once he gets Ichabod on the ground, Abraham somehow gets shot! They look up to see a redcoat Hessian. Ichabod grabs Abraham’s sword and takes the guy down. Another one comes at him and he takes him down too. He goes back to tend to Abraham but more redcoats come. Abraham yells for him to leave him and Ichabod listens because it is crucial they deliver the Declaration.
Abbie says this is what Andy was warning him about, that Headless knows his darkest secrets and can get under his skin. Ichabod still insists on going back to interrogation to learn Headless’s weaknesses. Abbie reminds him they both know that interrogations don’t work when you’re not in control. He yells at her saying he is in control (yep, we believe you now buddy). Captain Irving and Jenny come in. Abbie is not happy because she only wanted him to tell Jenny about it, not introduce her to Headless. The Captain wants to call for backup but everyone disagrees because they don’t know who they can trust. It is a secret war after all. Captain wants them to all get more weapons and Ichabod stays against Abbie’s wishes. Meanwhile, Andy pulls something out of the side of his stomach (ick). He speaks to it in another language calling to the Druids of Thrace to cast away spells and summon Moloch’s minions. He did say he couldn’t be trusted. Immediately we see them drop behind the Captain out of nowhere. They also attempt to attack Abbie and Jenny. Ichabod can’t help himself and goes to ask more questions. He asks Headless what his unfinished business with him is. He tells Ichabod that now he will learn and he breaks his chains.
Ichabod realizes Andy is holding the relic and the hex has now been removed. Headless throws Ichabod against the wall and grabs two swords. He gives Ichabod one of them. While they are fighting, the scene switches back and forth between this present fight and the one Ichabod had with Abraham with the same moves leaving Ichabod on the ground. Ichabod realizes that it is Abraham. Ichabod is in shock and wants to know how this is possible. Headless/Abraham tells him that as he was dying, Moloch came to him. We watch the other redcoat Hessians put a red coat on him, shave his head, and put that black mask on his face. His eyes open and they are white and glazed with no pupils. They singe the the symbol on his hand and when he stands up we see the Hessian tattoo on the back of his head. We see he has the necklace in his hand which he must have gotten when Katrina broke it off with him. He stands there with the Ax in one hand and the necklace in the other.
During this, we hear Ichabod say “You made a deal with the devil,” and Abraham says he has given him what he always wanted. Ichabod thinks revenge but Abraham says his prize is actually Katrina. Ichabod finally sees why she has been held captive. It was for Abraham. They start to fight again and I can’t help laughing at Ichabod swinging at the head that is no longer there. That’s a move that only works once per lifetime. While they are fighting, the horseman’s hold on Andy breaks and he talks into the relic telling the shadows of darkness to secure the horseman. As Headless gets ahold of Ichabod’s throat, Andy yells “stop, you can’t kill him, the master forbids it”. He then says, “Tell Abbie I’m sorry”. The minions come in and grab both Headless/Abraham and Andy and they all disappear in a poof. A shocked Ichabod picks up the sword and looks around with a stunned look on his face. In the next scene Abbie is trying to convince him he did not cause Abraham to become the horseman.
Ichabod says he violated his honor. Abbie says “that is so 18th century.” She said people make their own decisions. He says he was blinded by his love for Katrina that he created his own nemesis and Abbie tells him that’s his arrogance talking. He says he always found Abraham to be arrogant and wonders if he was a mirror to himself. Ichabod wonders why Moloch didn’t allow Headless to kill him. They decide maybe Katrina’s soul cannot belong to him until the four horsemen ride together. As they keep pondering, they realize that Headless’s weakness is Katrina.
The Analysis
Let’s think about this for a minute. Your best friend gets mad that his fiancé is in love with you and somehow that leads to you chopping off is head and the two of you waking up 250 years later. Wow. Abbie may call it arrogance but there is a certain poetry to what Ichabod said about his blind love for Katrina creating his own nemesis. I mean, suppose he had waited to confess to Abraham until after they delivered the sacred Declaration or if he had waited more than a matter of hours after she had just broken up with him or if he had told him somewhere outside of enemy territory. Would the Hessians and Moloch still have been able to evil him up? Just sayin’.
All and all, I thought it was a great episode. I love these big reveals. Who would have thought that the Headless Horseman / Death was Ichabod’s old best friend whose fiancé fell in love with him. As I’m saying this I realize that it’s probably not that big of a surprise. I am sad to see Cho go again but it was sweet of him to try to help Abbie and Ichabod. Speaking of Abbie, you got to give it to her. She knows how to hold her own and stand her ground with these guys. Between the Captain always yelling and not believing her and Ichabod set in his own particular old school ways plus Andy and her ex-boyfriend; she is a pretty strong willed woman. Now that we know who Headless is, I suppose we will be seeing more ghosts, goblins, and witches again. Can’t wait!
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