SLEEPY HOLLOW Recap: ‘Deliverance’

SLEEPY HOLLOW fans, is anyone else ready for Henry to have other parents? For all of the poison spiders, blood contracts, and malicious sweaters, maybe the most dangerous thing about Henry Parish is something he has no control over. Being Ichabod and Katrina’s son is his permanent trump card, and he knows how to hold it against them, playing up his last shred of humanity in order to earn their sympathy. At some point, they’ll have to draw the line.

The War  

Still in voluntary captivity at Frederick’s Manor, Katrina wakes from a nightmare in which Ichabod accuses her of being an enchantress and then drops a spider from his mouth into hers. She’s worried that her husband can’t trust her after everything she kept from him. She’s also worried about spiders. Given that Henry sent a poison spider crawling up her mouth last week, I’d say both are reasonable fears.

Katrina is feeling ill, and she can tell that whatever is wrong with her is not natural. While Abraham claims ignorance, Henry barges in with two men in suits, who grab Katrina, examine her eyes, and announce that the plan is on schedule. Henry says that Moloch has a new purpose for Katrina. His men drag her from the room, but Abraham throws an axe into one of their backs, and Katrina escapes into the woods. She stumbles across the street to a gas station.

Across town, Abbie is exercising her right to vote while Ichabod exercises his right to complain about modern society. He can’t understand why only 40% of the population will show up for this, but everyone has time for “American Idolatry.” (“I know its name.”) Abbie calls him out for idealizing a past that wouldn’t have even allowed her to vote in the first place. As they’re leaving, Sheriff Reyes shows up with a few cops. One of the men tells Abbie and Ichabod that he has a case up their alley: a redheaded Jane Doe was admitted to the hospital in full colonial dress.

A nurse tells Abbie and Ichabod that Katrina has a high fever and an abdominal infection, but Katrina says that Henry is to blame. As Ichabod holds her hand, the veins in her stomach run blue. Katrina’s incantations have not helped, but since modern medicine also doesn’t hold the key, they borrow some clothes from the hospital’s lost and found bin and bust her out. When Henry’s men show up, Abbie decides to tail them while Ichabod takes Katrina to the archives.

Katrina tells Ichabod about an image on the doctor’s journal, which matches a known symbol of the Hellfire Club. Ben Franklin, who infiltrated the club, wrote about a woman infected with an illness that seems to match Katrina’s, but he never said what happened to her. This doesn’t look good. Meanwhile, Abbie follows Henry’s men to a warehouse that seems to double as a makeshift hospital. She has a close encounter with a blue-veined corpse, but she manages to escape with the doctor’s journal, along with a few photos of the scene.

The journal details Katrina’s “successful inception”  and sets her “delivery” in about 10-12 hours, followed by her death. Katrina is pregnant. Ichabod, who has only just learned that Katrina can see Abraham’s human form, suspects an affair, but Katrina insists that this is no man’s baby. Jincan has been used for centuries to grow demons; Henry is growing a demon inside her.

A warning hex that Katrina placed on the door catches fire, so the three escape through the tunnels to St. Henry’s Parish. Ichabod and Katrina hold on to the hope that Henry either cannot enter a consecrated place or would not want to destroy the building where he chose his new name. It seems like those are two completely opposite hopes; one presumes he is too evil, while the other presumes that he is still good. The Cranes really need to make up their minds on their son. Katrina believes that Henry, as a sin-eater, can save her, which Abbie thinks is absurd. Ichabod shares Abbie’s reluctance, but he has some hope that his son might be redeemed, and he doesn’t believe that they have any other options.

Democracy is not on Abbie’s side here, so Irving sets up a meeting with Henry at Tarrytown, then leaves Henry and Ichabod to quote Shakespeare at each other. Ichabod tries to bond over their love of words. Henry resists. He doesn’t believe that his parents have suffered for love of him, so Ichabod offers to let Henry read his sin. “You will not touch me,” he says, “because you fear you will witness the depth of my suffering.” Henry does look vulnerable. It’s a gorgeous scene, but it’s still no surprise when he chooses Moloch. As he leaves, Ichabod grabs his hand and sees a vision of a young Jeremy running through the woods, crying out for help.

Back at the Parish, Katrina tells Ichabod never to give up on their son. Is denial a demon? That would make sense, but the actual demon inside Katrina is Moloch himself, and she’s running out of time. Their only hope is a strange glow in one of Abbie’s photos; it surrounds a mysterious tablet, and it looks like the aurora borealis. Ben Franklin had a theory that the aurora could cast out demons, so Ichabod tracks down one of his papers online. (“I must internet. Immediately.”) Encoded in the document is confirmation that Franklin built an “aurora prism” to banish demons. He hid it inside the tablet.

To get back-up before they raid the warehouse, Abbie tells Sheriff Reyes only what she needs to know: a doomsday cult on the edge of town is torturing people and stockpiling weapons. Reyes puts together a team, and they recover the tablet. She praises both Abbie and Ichabod, but their work isn’t done; Moloch’s creepy demon hands are pushing at Katrina’s stomach. While Abbie holds her, Ichabod breaks the tablet, tears the boards from the windows, and holds the prism to the light. Moloch is banished before he is born, but across town, a lightning rod sends the same red light shooting into a jar. Henry looks on with pleasure.

The Key Players

I want to like Katrina. I don’t like her with Ichabod, but I want to like her on her own. If she could just stand on her own two feet, she could be a real force, especially given her powers. The fact that she was willing to sacrifice herself for the world was a good start, as was Abbie’s refusal to let her die. But Katrina continues to have so little agency: her entire role here was as a vessel for something else, and she keeps letting her motherhood cloud her judgment. This really should have been the last straw with Henry.

Katrina is also entirely dependent on her husband, who does not and should not trust her, given what she’s done to him. There’s no way that this will end amicably. The gradual severing of trust isn’t a bad way to break up — it affirms that Abbie is Ichabod’s first priority but still leaves room for Katrina to redeem herself on her own — but it’s been inconsistent. Last week, Ichabod was hurting; now he’s promising Katrina a life together when this war is over. Where is his anger?

The Witnesses

I want it on record that Ichabod learned CPR immediately after he almost watched Abbie die. He might have applied it to Katrina, but he learned mouth-to-mouth for Abbie. Before this business with Katrina went down, our witnesses were awfully flirty with each other at the polling place. She even grabbed his lapel at one point. Abbie also took just the right amount of pleasure in stirring the pot with Katrina’s pregnancy (“You two haven’t been alone together for a while”), but she was still sincere in her desire to save Katrina’s life. Abbie’s jealousy is always measured well.

Abbie challenges Ichabod’s belief that Henry can be redeemed, as she should. He at least resists more than Katrina, but he really should have learned by now that Henry uses his own vulnerability like a weapon. Still, Abbie doesn’t hold it against him, and they know how to celebrate the everyday victories with a fist bump. (Stopping Moloch is an everyday thing now.) One day at a time for these two.

What did you think of this episode?

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