SLEEPY HOLLOW Recap: ‘Pittura Infamante’

At this point, SLEEPY HOLLOW could turn knitting into a nightmare. You thought art restoration was safe? Nothing is safe on this show. Lock up your paintings; there might be a murderer in the brush strokes.

The War

Ichabod and his man bun — which is everything you dreamed it could be — are escorting Katrina to a night at the Historical Society. (Abbie: “Pretty much the opposite of putting the past behind you.”) Abbie doesn’t think that anything can change what Katrina has done to compromise the team, but Ichabod just wants a non-apocalyptic night with his wife, and history is a comfort to her right now. She hasn’t yet figured out that in Sleepy Hollow, whatever you expect to comfort you will probably try to hang you instead.

The event, held in honor of a new collection of items from John and Abigail Adams, brings up the past for Katrina, who was Mrs. Adams’ midwife. She feels a dark presence in the room, and art restorer Grant Hollister is feeling it too. When a painting starts to bleed on him, he goes to his friend Ichabod for guidance, only to get pulled away by the curator. The next time everyone sees him, he’s strung up from the ceiling.

Grant’s murder appears to be ritualistic; his body has been styled in the posture of the Hanged Man, which Katrina knows from studying Tarot and Ichabod knows from also studying Tarot (that’ll teach Katrina to leave her witch-y things out on the table). The card represents a struggle from death to rebirth, and this isn’t the first time it’s landed on someone’s ‘Murder Inspiration’ Pinterest board; in 1781, a series of unsolved murders were staged just like this.

John Adams was the victims’ lawyer, but Katrina learned about the case from Mrs. Adams, who took it upon herself to solve it. Based on the killer’s level of expertise with the human body, she assumed that he must have a medical background. Figuring that Katrina can finish what her friend started, Ichabod and his wife take a closer look at the painting, a self-portrait by a man named James Colby. The artist is holding a blade, which drips with fresh blood. When Katrina and Ichabod turn back a second later, he’s looking at them.

Colby was a promising artist with a serious behavioral problem; after Washington cast him out, he wandered the Hudson Valley offering portraits in exchange for room and board — and, clearly, killing his subjects. The timeline fits, and he would know human anatomy thanks to his artistic training. There’s also the small matter of the fact that his portrait just looked at them. That’s Mrs. Adams’ doing; she figured it all out and called on Katrina’s coven to help her trap Colby in his work. Grant’s restoration activated whatever magic lay dormant in the canvas, and now Colby is using his victims’ blood to paint a hanged man and resurrect himself. And he’s not in the frame.

Colby can access his victims only after they touch the painting, so either Ichabod or the curator must be next. Ichabod tries to protect the curator, but Miller thinks running will make him look guilty, which he probably regrets worrying about after a very bloody Colby pulls him into the canvas. Ichabod is determined to follow before Miller dies and the work is completed; Katrina touches the wet canvas in order to join him, then recites a spell that sends them into the mind of the killer.

In the painting, Colby has already finished the image of the hanged man. Katrina and Ichabod lower Miller, still barely alive, to the ground, and she recites another spell; Colby rises from a pool of blood and comes toward them, but they zap suddenly back to the Historical Society. Just as Ichabod is about to destroy the canvas with paint thinner, Colby emerges, but Abbie saves the day — she got worried when Ichabod didn’t pick up. Firing on Colby does nothing, but when she listens to Ichabod and fires on the canvas, she destroys the artist along with it.

The Key Players

It’s two for one on resurrections tonight, because Frank Irving is back. He doesn’t remember his own death, and he’s looking for a familiar face. He’s looking for Abbie. He walks into the precinct and is promptly arrested, since everyone else sees him as a cop killer, and all Abbie can think of is Andy Brooks. As much as she wants the real Frank, his soul belongs to Henry. She tells him as much. Hurt that she’d call him a danger, Frank asks to see his wife, assuring Abbie that Cynthia will know it’s really him. Abbie can’t take that risk, but she does meet with Cynthia to bring her up to speed. The honesty between them is refreshing; there aren’t a lot of people Abbie can be real with.

The Irvings are good people, which is exactly why Jenny refuses to believe that Frank is just another Andy. Andy made a deal with Moloch, and Frank died fighting on their side. Just in case, Jenny agrees to get a weapon capable of killing him. Hawley’s out of town, but he sends her to retrieve some bullets forged from the gates of hell. He neglects to mention that those bullets are in a dead body. Jenny Mills is literally pulling bullets forged from the gates of hell out of a dead body; welcome to SLEEPY HOLLOW. Removing the last bullet awakens the zombie. As Jenny shoves it back into the body, she yells into the night, “Thanks for telling me to leave one in the body, Hawley!” which is almost enough to make Hawley’s entire presence on this show worth it. But not really.

Frank and Jenny share a moment in the hallway of the precinct as Frank is transferred; he calls her a sight for sore eyes, and she tells him to hang in there. Their chemistry lives again. I am all for it.

The Witnesses

Speaking of chemistry, I’d like to say that Katrina and Ichabod have none, but Tom Mison has chemistry with all people and some inanimate objects. Ichabod and Katrina are united in the grief and confusion of time travel. It’s understandable that he would want to help her through it, which is the one aspect of their relationship that really lands tonight. Beyond that, this story seems as confused as the Cranes themselves. Why did their breakup seem so final a few weeks ago if it really wasn’t? How has Ichabod managed to set aside so much legitimate anger so quickly?

Abbie isn’t even bothering to hide how she feels about Katrina anymore, and she shouldn’t. Someone has to talk some sense into Ichabod. At least the two of them are as cute as ever, bantering about name dropping founding fathers. Unless the writers have been planning this from the start, it’s a coincidence that Abbie shares her name with Abigail Adams, but it works to give Katrina the chance to call Abbie “your own Abigail.” She really is. When Katrina and Ichabod clasp hands before entering the painting, they both promise, “For Abigail.” I think they’re talking about two different people. Ichabod even brags on Abbie to Katrina after Abbie saves them. He seems to know that his relationship with his partner is so much more functional than his relationship with his wife; he just doesn’t know what to do about it.

What did you think of the episode?