Season 2, Episode 4: Go Where I Send Thee…
Posted by Sage
I fully expect that this recap will be colored by the fact that I watched the first half of this episode with 5,000 other Sleepyheads on a massive screen at New York Comic Con. And you know what? It read well up there. “Go Where I Send Thee…” is one of Sleepy‘s more cinematic episodes, though maybe they’d all feel that way if we got to experience the entire series like this. Next on our Kickstarter list: #SleepyHollywood, an all-Sleepy Hollow movie theater where we can get together once a week to scream at a bigger TV, together. The perk for the most supportive backers? Tom Mison picks you up and drives you to the theater. In character. Hold onto your butts.
#CreepyHollow
The episode opens with the camera following a little girl padding through a dark house. She walks out the front door and continues to an unknown destination, eyes unfocused all the while. There’s creepy flute music. Somethin’ ain’t right.
Hence, Ichabod learns what an Amber Alert is (another opportunity to seduce me by being a selfless man of action) and Abbie goes off to take the case. (Sidenote: where were the other cops? Does Sheriff Reyes have them running drills? There’s a kid missing, people. Look alive.) It’s a small town, that Sleepy Hollow, so it’s not a shock to learn that Abbie has a connection with the mother of the missing girl. Beth Lancaster was her caseworker when she was a kid, a hand to hold while her world crumbled around her. And Abbie is determined to keep Beth’s family whole just like Beth tried to do for her. Into the woods!
Doing the job of the massive search party who should be out there whacking bushes with sticks, Ichabod and Abbie come upon the clear site of a struggle. There’s blood here, blood there, and a hollowed out bone on the ground. Ichabod recognizes its design as one of the oldest known Chinese instruments and then starts to play it. Yes, Ichabod plays the bone flute. Have a giggle. Write it into your Crane/Hawley fan fic. I’ll wait.
The music immediately puts Abbie into a trance, one that’s filmed exactly like every movie drug trip you’ve ever seen. She starts walking purposefully but remains blind and deaf to anything happening outside her mind. It’s clear then why there were no signs of forced entry at the Lancaster house. Someone coaxed Sarah out of her home and into the wilderness, and Ichabod has a good idea who.
Like most fairy tales we tell little tiny babies, the one about the Pied Piper of Hamelin is fucked up. It’s the terrifying tale of a man who mass-abducts children via music to punish their parents for being shitty tippers, or something. The Pied Piper of Sleepy Hollow is – ding ding ding! – a demon. And he’s punishing a parent too. In fact, he’s punishing all the parents of the Lancaster family to continue forever avenging his own betrayal and death at the hands of Daniel Lancaster, another colonial personage outed by Ichabod Crane as a scoundrel. And while we never do find out what Hamelin’s Piper did to the children he ran away with (creepy), we know that Sleepy Hollow’s version lets them die of exposure and then fashions instruments out of their bones. (Creepier.) That’s right – Crane was blowing into the femur of a long-dead 10-year-old. Still not as shocking as how good he was at it.
The flute leaves the witnesses with a foolproof method of finding Sarah. Despite Crane’s reluctance to use Abbie “as bait” (*coughbecausehewantstomakebabieswithhercough*), Lt. Mills isn’t going to let a little girl die without doing everything she can to save her. So Crane puts a 30 second loop of his playing onto Abbie’s phone to dilute the effect (“Maybe we’ll cut an album together when this is all done.” “One achievement at a time, Lieutenant.”) and follows half a step behind her as they reenter the woods. (“I will be with you at every moment.”) On the way, they pick up Hawley, our very own early-Episode 4 Han Solo. More on him when we get to #Sassy, ’cause, you know.
The Piper is still at home when they get to his crib, because Sarah’s not dead yet. He watches them from behind walls, making clicking noises like the aliens in Signs. There are human and animal carcasses and bones strung up all over the place. And when he shows himself, there’s almost no evidence that he was ever human. In the wise words of the sexiest hippie-privateer in upstate New York, “Aw, damn.”
For kid-stealing demons and woodwind instruments made from skeletons, I’m bestowing 8/10 Sandmen on this one.
#ShippyHollow
I’d apologize for continuing to do the Mulder/Scully comparison thing if it wasn’t so apt. There is no ego in this partnership. When they face the piper for the second time, Crane goes down. His noise-canceling ear buds are dislodged, and the whistling of the demon’s bone staff has him unable to defend himself. Abbie catches up to them, takes the piper out. (“No more kids.”) “I had him,” Ichabod jokes weakly. And then they smile at each other like they just got elected to the prom court, because any time is flirting time for these two. But for reals, Crane isn’t ashamed that he was saved by a girl – he’s feeling pretty damn lucky that this is the person who has his back. And he’ll get hers next time. Nobody’s keeping score.
There is something that’s been weighing on Abbie’s mind though and all it takes for Crane to deduce the problem is an innocent driving lesson. The Ichabod vs. modern inventions battle continues, but we can safely say that Crane won this round. He plays dumb, trying not to give away the secret driving lessons that Miss Jenny had been giving him. (She’s not letting that ambulance nonsense happen twice.) But Abbie figures it out via the odometer (Frankliiiin! *shakes fist*) and there’s just no point in Crane pretending anymore. He floors it, and delights in the way his stunt driving terrifies Abbie. (You know it was killing him to not be able to showboat before.) According to every commercial ever, what and how you drive reflects directly on your sexual prowess. If that’s true, we can rest easy (or never sleep again) knowing that Crane can make “the power of 300 horses” his bitch without breaking a sweat. Jinba ittai, my friends. It means “sexy car foreplay” in Japanese, if I remember correctly.
For lusty operation of a vehicle, cappuccinos on the Dawson’s Creek pier, and the way Crane’s voice drops an octave when he addresses Abbie by name, this episode gets 9/10 Fist Bumps for Shippiness.
#SassyHollow
Besides hotness, what Matt Barr’s Nick Hawley has brought to this show is an amusing foil for Ichabod. The joy of Sleepy Hollow is that it’s established a world where Crane and Abbie are the established authority – the ones to believe – and Hawley’s skepticism and realist tendencies make him the odd man out. We hold no stock in cynicism in Sleepy Hollow.
He’s useful though, to a point. Crane doesn’t trust him and rather hates having another dashing swashbuckler type around, to be honest. But Abbie sees his value. He can be activated as a witness deputy, so long as they can keep him in line. And I’d put money on Abbie keeping just about anyone in line.
Nick isn’t a bad guy. There’s a heart in there just waiting to be pulled over to fight on the side of the light. He tries to rescue the girl on his own, after all. He claims to the witnesses that he was doing it to retrieve the artifact and get his payday, but he still risked his own life to do it. The more Hawley sees of the darkness enveloping Sleepy Hollow, the harder it will be for him to keep looking the other way. Again: HAN DAMN SOLO. (“Take care of yourself Hawley, I guess that’s what you’re best at.” – Ichabod Skywalker.)
P.S. While the flute-breaking was the Abbie high of the episode, she also gets sass points for calling Crane out on his incessant bragging about Betsy Ross’s crush on him:
Crane: “I haven’t had to do this much sneaking around since the Second Continental Congress.”
Abbie: “Let me guess – this is when Betsy Ross had the hots for you.”
Crane: “That woman was relentless. Once, Adams found me hiding in a broom closet. From her.
Abbie: “I’m sure it was because you were just the cutest continental courier.”
That Betsy Ross had some good taste.
For more dick-measuring among dashing rogue-types and Abbie being a general boss, I shall give 7/10 Donut Holes of Sass.
#WHATTHEDAMNHELLHOLLOW
After receiving the distressing news that his lawyer is Biblically destined to bring about the end of the world, Irving does a little research. I’m not sure why a mental health institution would stock so many books on the end of days, but they’re there, and the requisite Bible. While he reads, Irving has a vision. And in that vision, he’s doing some murdering, full-on Rambo right down to the head band. Fire? Check. Brimstone? Check. Dead, black demon eyes? Check, check, check. This isn’t a nightmare, this is his future. When Henremy comes to call on him again, Irving calls him out on his lie of omission. “You are the Biblical Horseman of War – you didn’t think that was relevant?” Get me the number for the Better Business Bureau. This is not okay.
Irving: “What do you want from me?”
Henremy: “The question is, Captain, what do you want from me? My only objective from day one has been to make things right. And what is war but an instrument of justice? Let me be yours.”
Henremy didn’t stop at the blood contract. He’s also blackmailing Irving by threatening to pull the financial support that’s keeping his family above water. And he’s laying the shade on pretty thick to compel Irving to shift his loyalties away from Abbie and Crane. (“Ask yourself – have they kept your family safe?”) “What have you done to me?” Irving asks, because he can feel that his thoughts are hardly his own anymore. Henremy points him to a passage in scripture: Ezekiel 18:4. “Behold. All souls are mine.” Fuuuuuck.
The demons in Sleepy don’t play fair, that’s for certain. The Pied Piper kidnaps kids, yes, but that’s not the end of it. Crane and Abbie figure out the curse’s failsafe. If the 10-year-old Lancaster daughter doesn’t end up in his clutches, the rest of the family’s children will die. Beth knows this and “forgot” to turn on her house alarm the night of Sarah’s birthday to sacrifice her in order to save her three adopted boys. Making a mother choose between the lives of her children is so not cool, Moloch. Abbie knows Beth – she knows that her feelings are being played. She knows that she’s desperate. “This is not who you are,” Abbie tells her. Then Crane jumps in: “My good lady. A great evil has taken control of your legacy. For your sake and for the sake of all of your children…trust us.” Kim pointed out last week that Moloch’s army is likely to consist of the citizens of Sleepy Hollow, and it’s vicious mind games like these that will turn them to his side.
His loyal foot soldier Henremy is doing his part already, though exactly how remains to be seen. He’s the mysterious buyer behind Hawley’s search for the flute (duh doy), but I never would have guessed what he’d do when he finally received it. No worries that the priceless “artifact” is broken in half; Henremy wastes no time in mashing it up with a mortar and pestle before dipping a finger in and tasting the powder. “Mmm…it’s perfect,” he purrs. Again: fuuuuck.
For demon!Irving and Fun Dip: Little Girl’s Bone Flavor, this episode gets 7/10 Golems.
Other Observations:
- I want to frame this moment:
- “Make it your steed.” Slow your roll, Abbie. This is a family show.
- “Not so fast, Ricky Bobby. I’m driving.”
- Never change:
- A “gillygaupus” is defined as a tall, awkward, foolish person, so yes.
- “End of days. Which version?” The one where the partners with the endearing height difference don’t let it happen.
- I miss Jenny.
- “Sadistic larceny! This is typical of the Italians.”
- “Miss Mills…are you gloating?” He wants her to. She deserves to.
This was a super fun one, yes? Let’s discuss while we impatiently wait for Ichabod meets Karaoke.
Gillian says
LOG-IN CEREMONY.