Sleepy Hollow S02E07 – “Deliverance”

Sleepy Hollow “Deliverance”
Written by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves
Directed by Nick Copus

Every science fiction series seems to do a demon baby episode, to the point where it’s more interesting when the pregnancies produce normal babies with no real problems. On that note, Sleepy Hollow‘s demon baby episode was surprisingly sound, because it was less about the demon baby and more about everything else. With the End of Days/Book of Revelation texts that Sleepy Hollow is cribbing off of already featuring birth sections, it’s only natural that one of the ways the demon Molloch would try to enter into the world would be out of a woman’s vagina. But Molloch must learn the way of the modern day society, which is a woman’s body is her business, and no demon who mysteriously has the same opinion as conservative Republicans has the right to intrude on anyone’s uterus.

Aside from the demon baby story, Deliverance follows the threads from prior episodes of Ichabod and Katrina having relationship issues because her entire life is one gigantic lie of things she hasn’t informed Ichabod of. There’s the dealing with the new Sheriff and her dislike for Abbie, and we find out exactly what the mysterious jincan poison is being used for. Though despite Ichabod’s declaration just last week that he’s not going to give up on his son (it’s even included in the recap!), he still needs further pushing by Katrina.

But enough of that plot stuff, it’s time for the fun! We start out with Ichabod delivering a hilarious rant about the abysmal voting rates, followed by Abbie owning him by pointing out that as a Black woman, it took two Constitutional Amendments for her to be able to vote. Ichabod also concedes that since she doesn’t own large tracts of land, she’d be turned away for that back in colonial times. And there’s a hilarious “Shush!”ing of Ichabod as he tries to give Abbie suggestions on what to vote for inside the polling place.

Katrina opens by dreaming of being in bed with Ichabod just before he left for war the last time. They speak of what their children will be like, sort of ironic because soon after she has Jeremy, who becomes Henry Parrish, Horseman of the Apocalypse. And she’ll get preggers in this episode, with demon baby Molloch, though not by any natural means. Her dream becomes a spider-spitting face-ripping-off nightmare before she awakens.

Once again, Abraham van Brunt/Headless Horseman is made to look like a chump by his fellow Horseman Henry Parrish, who marches in with some goons to take Katrina away, declaring it’s Molloch’s bidding. In fact, this time it actually is Molloch’s plan, and not Henry making him look like a dolt for fun. But the Headless Horseman has had enough, and begins fighting back. Henry uses his powers to open windows, and if you recall from last season that sunlight weakens the Horseman, you’ll understand why he gets all weak and smokey. But he does manage to kill one of the goons and let’s Katrina escape, who ends up in the hospital and soon with Abbie and Ichabod. She also gets dressed in some drunk goth girl clothes found in the lost and found as they escape from the goons who were sent to the hospital to go get her.

Thanks to the magic of remembering, they determine the goons are from the Hellfire Club, which Franklin infiltrated, and has notes of a woman with a similar illness to Katrina’s, except he doesn’t mention if she lived or died or anything else, really. Ichabod starts acting all jealous when he discovers Katrina can talk to Abraham. Abbie followed the hospital goons to their hideout and cameraphones everything, and ganks a notebook that gives them a countdown to when it is too late, which is by sundown.

They later hide in the St. Henry’s Parrish (where Jeremy took his new name) as Ichabod goes to talk to Henry to ask him to cure her. Which leads to the very very brief Orlando Jones appearance for the episode. Why is he getting so shortchanged this year? GAH!!! Despite the battle of wills between Ichabod and Henry, Henry refuses to help his mom and chooses Molloch.

Things seem bleak, if only there was a magic solution using something one of the Founding Fathers did…. Oh, wait, there is! It turns out that a stone instructional tablet Abbie took a photo of has an eerie glow, a glow that looks like the Aurora Borealis. The same Aurora Borealis that Ben Franklin wrote a paper about claiming it could kill demons. The same paper that has an easily broken code that explains that Ben Franklin made an Aurora Borealis prism that he hid inside the tablet to use to kill the demon before it is born. Thus all they need to do now is to storm the heavily guarded hideout and retrieve the tablet.

Thus the talking to the new Sheriff, Leena Reyes, and convincing her that an armed doomsday cult with illegal weapons are present. Which is all true, thus the cops raid the place, and Abbie and Ichabod can get the tablet, Abbie can shoot some bad guys, and Sheriff Reyes can decide maybe Abbie and Ichabod are useful after all. Thus it’s a race against time to get back to the church and do a demon abortion via magic crystal. Obviously things work out in the end, because we aren’t at the season finale.

Though we don’t get something as awesome as “double jugs”, we do have Ichabod say: “I must internet. Immediately!”

Overall, things were pretty cool, because the demon baby was more of background setting to unite Ichabod and Katrina and solve some of the wedge issues happening this season. Assuming things just don’t reset next week, the season might be looking up. Some episodes have good Mills sister interaction drama, but we’ve been sorely lacking Ichabod/Katrina or Ichabod/Henry drama, and we finally get both, and as part of ongoing plot lines. A solid little episode despite the well-tread premise, and here’s hoping they keep up their little streak!

And have more Orlando Jones!

Next week: Succubus!