The Breakdown
Big news! Ichabod is finally getting the hang of text messaging! In other news, Andy Brooks (played by John Cho) shows up in Abbie’s kitchen. He tries to convince Abbie to give him the Bible and become a high rank on Moloch’s side. She refuses of course. He tells her the Bible leads to a map. He reminds her of the prophecy that Ichabod will give her soul to Moloch. He tells her no one loves her like he does. She has him cuffed but when she turns her back he breaks his undead hand to escape.
Abbie goes to see Ichabod. She tells him about Andy and he tells her about his findings. Ichabod recalled Washington referencing the story of Lazarus. He looked it up in Washington’s bible and discovered that it was ten verses longer than it should be. He figures those ten extra verses have a secret message. He runs the brush with his concoction across the pages and a message is revealed. It is written to Ichabod specifically and the two are surprised to read that Washington already knew Ichabod was one of the two witnesses. It tells how he died four days prior but was resurrected by supernatural forces. Abbie comments on the bizarre idea of a Zombie George Washington. Washington’s message goes on to say that he requested his resurrection so he could bring back information learned once dead to draw a map for them to purgatory.
Ichabod immediately realizes this is a way he could free his wife Katrina. Abbie asks Ichabod not to let that cloud his judgment and he responds by asking that she not let the prophecy of him turning her soul over to Moloch cloud hers. They both agree and shake on it. Ichabod looks at the bottom of Washington’s message and see’s that Alfred Knapp was present at the resurrection. He is the priest we met at the very beginning of the series. He was there when Katrina performed the spell on Ichabod and he was at the church in present time fighting Headless as he had been the guardian of the skull for two hundred years. The two talk it through realizing that the prayer beads that were used in the resurrection belonged to Knapp and were cursed and full of sin. This means they need to call on our old friend, the Sin Eater, Henry Parrish (played by John Noble).
At the police station, Captain Irving is being questioned about moving his family to a safe house and it ending up with a murder to a cop and a priest. He insists to his interrogators that it was not Morales’s doing. They want answers about all the crazy goings ons in Sleepy Hollow, including the beheadings. All he can respond is that it was evil. He gets the same look from his boss that he used to give Abbie and Ichabod.
Meanwhile, Andy is in the tunnels talking to a deep and dark voice that must be Moloch. He’s asking to be made a weapon and feeling guilty for being weak and failing him. He is told to find the map and little flying creatures come out and entwine him in a type of cocoon.
Henry meets Abbie and Ichabod at Knapp’s grave. He apparently requested to be entombed with his prayer beads around his neck (with his head attached back to his body). They notice that his body is well preserved, figuring it’s due to him being a warlock. Henry holds his hand over the beads and can tell they are full of sin, but they also apparently have some type of hex on them that affect him and start to split the skin on his hand.
They realize the beads are heavily guarded and tell Henry they will find another way but he convinces them it’s too important and that he is still willing to help. He grabs the beads despite the obvious pain they present him and manages to get some visions before ending up on his back on the ground. He sees a vision of the resurrection and a vision of Knapp on a boat. Seeing the pain he is in, Abbie and Ichabod argue about going forward with finding the map.
She wants to rethink it all after what she just witnessed; realizing Henry could have been killed. She asks Ichabod what he’s willing to do to keep everyone safe, even if it means sacrificing the idea of freeing Katrina. While they talk, we go back to Henry, seeing that his hand is healing. Right then, several minions pop in and attack the three. Ichabod concedes to Abbie that it’s all more dangerous than probably Washington imagined. He follows that by saying they must find the map or all may be lost.
The three put their heads together to figure out where Knapp may have hid the map. They figure the hex was put there to stop Moloch from gaining useful information. They decide the map must be near Washington’s grave. The Sin Eater recalls from his vision that Knapp was transporting a body in a boat, which they figure is Washington. They hope if they find Washington’s grave then they’ll find the map.
Meanwhile, Andy busts out of his cocoon in his new minion-like form. He yells “I am your servant!” and then a thick, dark voice comes out of his mouth saying, “Moloch shall rise and all his enemies shall fall”.
The trio is headed over the water to Bannerman’s Island which Washington used as a penal colony. While searching, Abbie asks the Sin Eater about a witness turning on the other. He tells her of a prophecy that was rejected from the Old Testament that says when the beast rises, one witness will surrender the other and neither will survive. He also warns her that prophecies have a nasty way of fulfilling themselves if you let them happen. Ichabod finds a large stone in the ground and Abbie helps him twist it a certain direction. After several suspenseful seconds pass, a piece of the ground shifts open, revealing stairs. The three walk down into the ground believing this to be Washington’s secret grave.
They are in an underground tomb and see a pyramid which looks too obvious to be Washington’s grave. Abbie reaches for a lever to open it but Ichabod stops her, assuming that the place is booby-trapped. He sees something that says “Cincinnatus”, a Roman aristocrat who was Washington’s hero. Ichabod opens it and out comes Washington’s coffin. They open it and we see Washington’s skeleton clutching the map. Ichabod is overwhelmed with emotion as he opens it, realizing it means he can free Katrina.
Just then, someone comes partially down the stairs and then jumps to the ground. He looks up and Abbie recognizes Andy’s face. She points a gun toward him but he runs over to her incredibly fast and grabs it. Ichabod approaches and with a speedy swing of his arm Andy knocks him to the ground. He grabs Abbie’s neck and is choking her asking for the map as she tries to talk him down, saying she knows the real Andy is in there somewhere, the man that protected her and loved her.
Right then, Henry puts his hand on Andy’s arm and flashes of Andy’s life temporarily disarm him. He goes to his knees and his voice goes back to normal. He tells Abbie to destroy the map because Moloch needs it to win the war. He begs her to release him if she ever felt anything and suddenly he yells as if the evil is creeping back in. It’s obvious that he can’t maintain control so Abbie stabs a tool through his head, making him fall to the ground. The three realize they are sealed inside and go further into the crypt to find a way out. Ichabod finds a Masonic symbol of ascension on a wall and pulls it out and pushes it into an empty slot. The wall starts to lift up but so does Andy.
Abbie shoots the pyramid lever to trigger the booby trap. The whole place starts to crumble and they climb out as Andy gets knocked down and pummeled by falling pieces of ceiling. When they get out, Abbie mentions what Andy said about the map being used by Moloch to win the war. Ichabod says he keeps asking what he would do if Katrina weren’t involved. He decides to burn the map against his emotional pain and Abbie promises they will free Katrina.
Captain Irving’s daughter gets finger printed because her DNA was found on the reverend’s neck. It was made clear that “evil did it” was not going to suffice so Captain Irving confessed to killing both men.
Ichabod is feeling remorse as he relives memories of Katrina asking him to free her. He recreates the map from memory. He goes outside and believes that he is in a dream but it turns out he has come across some reenactment games. He buys another outfit just like his from the vendor selling uniforms. A little later, Henry Parrish comes in and tells Ichabod, Abbie, and Jenny about his dream of four white trees and Moloch raising creatures from out of the ground. He also saw a rider on a horse with a flaming sword riding towards a solar eclipse. They realize this is the War horseman. Henry says the calendar confirms there will be a solar eclipse on this day and Jenny chimes in that it’s been 13 years to the day since she and Abbie had their experience with Moloch. Henry says out loud what they all fear to be true, that war is coming to Sleepy Hollow today.
Abbie goes to the police station for the Captain’s hearing and finds out that he’s already been transferred upstate. An officer hands her an envelope he left behind for her. It looks to be logs of meetings between Knapp and Corbin. Abbie believes these could help them with finding the Saint’s name, another part of Moloch’s riddle. Abbie assigns Jenny to dig through the tapes to find something. Ichabod finds secret messages in Washington’ bible that indicate there is a binding spell that can keep the second horseman from entering the realm. They would need a witch and all the ones they’ve encountered are dead, which means they need Katrina. This is when he tells her of redrawing the map from his eidetic memory. She is not happy but realizes it can help them. He tells her he had no intention of using the map without her consent.
After hearing the plan for Abbie to use the map and purposely walk into purgatory for Ichabod’s wife, Jenny pulls her aside. They have a heart-to-heart and she tells Abbie she doesn’t want to lose her again (having lost her after they parted ways for so many years). Abbie tells her she’s tired of being scared and running. She wants to face Moloch. Abbie tells her to have faith. Jenny says she has more than faith, being a mental patient with a gun, and that she will hunt her down if she’s not back by sunset.
Ichabod, Abbie, and Henry walk through the woods and discuss what to do when they get to where they are going. Ichabod tells Abbie how Katrina visits the echo of Abbie’s ancestors’ church (every day to pray for their son’s soul), something she told him when he ended up there in The Golem episode. Henry warns the two that they will be offered temptations (like food or drink) and if they take any they will be stuck there forever.
He tells them to remember their links to each other because purgatory will try to make them forget. He has grown to care about both of them. His last words before they read Washington’s words to open the gateway are that he looks forward to meeting Ichabod’s wife. The gateway bursts open as if glass were shattering. The two hold hands and walk through the revealed tunnel toward a bright light at the end (hmm…symbolism maybe?).
Abbie wakes up in Corbin’s cabin with a bandage on her head. Sheriff Corbin and Andy, both in their uniforms, come in and tell her she was injured during her training at Quantico and they are urging her to rest. They tell her how well she is doing in her training. She tries to resist at first, telling them they are dead, but she gets overwhelmed for her yearning of the sheriff and hugs him, telling him she missed him. She says as an afterthought that she was supposed to remember something. We shoot over to Ichabod who wakes up in his original time (quite obvious by his clothing).
He yells for Abbie and after not seeing her, follows the music he hears. He goes inside a door and gets a welcoming applause. His father stands up and welcomes him back, telling him he’s returned a hero after years of service in his majesty’s army. The British won and Ichabod has been granted full professorship. With tears coming to his eyes, he walks up to his father and mentions that when he turned his back against England, his father swore never to talk to him again. His father tells him he will always be a child after his own heart and they embrace. To celebrate, drinks are brought out.
Back in Abbie’s temptation, Corbin is still laying it on thick, telling her how proud he is and she and Andy are laughing and teasing each other. Corbin says, “Just like old times,” and it triggers a real memory (of her telling Ichabod she wishes she could go back) right before she puts a piece of pie in her mouth. She realizes that the scene she is in right now is not real. She tries to leave but the door will not open. Andy begs her not to let his soul be taken and his head is upside down and hanging at his back like it was when he was killed. Corbin is holding his head in his hands and begs her not to leave him there. The door opens and sucks her out into a bright light.
Back with Ichabod and his father, he is about to drink as his father toasts and praises him. He puts the glass to his lips but before the liquid touches his mouth, he flashes a memory of him telling Abbie how he used to imagine he would be a professor in his own right but upheld by his father’s pride for him. He realizes he’s in a dream and suddenly his faux-father starts disowning him again as his eyes turn black. He tells his father he’s already been shunned and refuses to do what he says. He throws his drink into the fire and his faux-father starts eating his glass and yelling with blood coming out of his mouth (ick). Ichabod runs out the door and disappears into a bright light.
Jenny is listening to Corbin’s tapes. In one, he mentions the Trinity Church and thinking that some answers are in the ruins of it.
Ichabod is in a dark and strange place. A woman is sitting on a chair huddled up and crying. When he confronts her, she looks up at him and has no face. He keeps walking and sees a body on the ground, face down, that looks like Abbie. When he touches her back, she flips over startled. They are both suspicious that the other one is not real. She quizzes him, asking what she taught him after they trapped Headless. He gives her a pound on the knuckles and they are both satisfied that the other is real. They tell each other how when they remembered the other, they were able to pull themselves out of their temptations. They look around at all the disgusting, strange goings ons and decide to go look for Katrina, realizing they are in purgatory. They find the church and Katrina is inside.
He fills Katrina in on the second horseman and needing her to help stop him. She says that her soul can’t leave without forgiveness because it will break down the walls of purgatory. She says the only other way for her to leave is if another soul stays. Ichabod decides it should be him until Abbie insists that she stays. He tries to argue, saying that would be fulfilling the prophecy, but she says she needs to do this and she is tired of running. She has to face Moloch. Sensing that they are running out of time, Katrina puts a protective amulet around Abbie’s neck and tells her she will come back to set her free. Ichabod and Abbie squeeze tightly as he vows to come back for her and she assure her faith that he will as tears fall from her eyes. Ichabod reminds her to remember their bond. We see Moloch’s silhouette through the church glass windows and Katrina and Ichabod quickly say the appropriate words to open the gate and leave.
They’re thrown out of the gate where Henry is waiting. Abbie gets her wish as Moloch approaches. She swings a stick at him and he lifts her up by her throat. She jabs the amulet into his skin and it singes as he roars and yells as she runs away. On the outside, Katrina celebrates being out and Henry humbly introduces himself to her. She immediately realizes he is the Sin Eater. Katrina’s powers are weak but she performs a path finding spell to figure out where they need to go. Reality dawns on Ichabod and he exclaims, “I married a witch, how cool!” Katrina looks at him, puzzled by the expression “how cool”.
He explains it to be a figure of speech as they rush off trying to beat the eclipse. Jenny drives up to the church, still following Corbin’s clues from his tapes. She grabs something she finds on the ground with a hole in the shape of a cross. She gets back in the car and rushes down the street trying to contact Abbie. She is leaving a voicemail telling her that the Saint’s name was a sign and that Moloch’s riddle was literal. She starts to say “whatever you do don’t…..” but is interrupted by shots at her car. She looks up to find Headless shooting at her. He shoots a few more times and her car flips over. He rides off as she lays unconscious and upside down in the turned over car.
Abbie is still running from Moloch and suddenly falls through the ground and lands against a wall inside of a building. The wall says “DON’T GET SCARED” in large letters scribbled on the wall. She walks into another room and sees the young teen versions of her and her sister. Young Abbie tells her they are the memory that Moloch took from their heads thirteen years ago. They are in the place they always felt safe, their dollhouse.
The eclipse is almost complete but Katrina’s binding spell is not working. She can’t feel anything beneath the ground and thinks the second horseman must be gone. Henry chimes in with a dark tone, saying that it’s here. He asks Ichabod if he knows the etymology of the word “apocalypse”. Ichabod replies, “To disclose or reveal.” Henry says, “That time has come” and with a brisk movement of his head, Ichabod and Katrina fly up and get pinned to the trees behind them.
He tells Katrina his power is stronger than hers as the branches surrounding them squeeze tighter. He laughs at their idea of faith, saying he gave it to them with their desire to be reunited and Abbie’s desperation to believe that there is a purpose for her pain. He tells them about how he played them all this time, giving them cryptic clues about things being right in front of them. Katrina asks who he is and he says her binding spell had no effect because there was nothing to bind. The second horseman was released over a decade ago on this day.
At this time, Young Abbie puts her hand to Abbie’s head to reveal the memory Moloch stripped from her. It is of him raising the creature, Henry, out of the ground.
Katrina realizes he is the second horseman, just like Abraham was mortal before becoming Death. He corrects her saying half-mortal because he is what she made him. And then he calls her Mother and Ichabod Father (wait…what?!!??!?!). They painfully realize he is Jeremy, their son. His anger grows as he says he was murdered by his own mother’s coven. He cuts himself and let’s his blood drip on the ground as he says that their blood was strong enough to breathe life back into his lungs. When the blood hits the ground, it opens up where he was buried. We see flashes of him being buried in it when he was younger and of him urging Ichabod to kill his golem. He tells about laying down there for two centuries, crying out, and finally his true father Moloch took him out of the earth. He tells that God sent a witness to stop them but she was not yet strong enough and they defeated her.
Meanwhile, Abbie is trying to get out, telling her young self that she has to find a way home. Abbie looks out the window seeing the woods where her dollhouse is. Henry continues his story, that once resurrected, the first place he saw was the Trinity Church where Katrina abandoned him (as he tells it) and a sign that said “St. Henry’s Parish” so he took the name just to spite the saint. We briefly flash to the banged up sign in the back of Jenny’s car still turned over. He tells his parents that now that the witnesses are separated they can break the second seal and fulfill a promise to an old friend (Headless). Headless rides up, gives the seal to Henry, and takes Katrina away. Henry uses his power to bind Ichabod in his old grave in the ground and he breaks the second seal where Ichabod can watch, helpless. He tells Ichabod that war has been in Sleepy Hollow waiting and now it begins. He says, “Goodnight Father,” and closes the coffin.
The Analysis
How do I feel about this finale? Fan-freaking-tastic is what I say! I have to admit, that was a pretty good one. In hindsight, I recall how eager Henry was to unveil clues despite the danger to him with the hex on the prayer beads. And he also made a point to say he looked forward to meeting Katrina, his Mother! Man, they were all totally played. I’m already excited about Season 2.