Sleepy Hollow review – 2×06: ‘And the Abyss Gazes Back’

With TV riddled this week with Halloween horror movies, Sleepy Hollow throws its hat in the ring with the Wendigo, a monster that gets its protein from human flesh. Excellent.

Let’s bitch it out…

This episode had me at the first scene, if for nothing else than the shock value of seeing Tom Mison’s Crane in a Henley and some yoga pants! That’s right, he’s trying to downward-dog-face his way into finding peace about Katrina’s deception surrounding Mary’s death and it’s a delightful way to start an episode.

When that doesn’t work, he and Abbie (Nicole Beharie) head to the bar where she runs into Sheriff Corbin’s son, Joe (Zach Appelman). Joe has a bad case of resentment against Abbie for getting his dad killed waaay back in the pilot episode. Plus on top of that, Joe is clearly jealous that Abbie garnered his dad’s favor while Corbin was alive. Things go from bad to worse when Joe’s friends get murdered in the woods; “murdered” being a nice way of saying “get their organs ripped out and consumed.” Joe is the only one left alive, the second such time that this has happened (his whole unit was slaughtered in Afghanistan).

Coincidence? I think not.

The team discovers that Joe is turning into a Wendigo – a cannibalistic big blue monster -thanks to a curse put on him two weeks ago by none other than Henry Parrish (John Noble). So now we know why he was crushing up the Pied Piper’s bones! Unfortunately for our crew, a Wendigo cannot return to human form until it consumes human organs, which presents some challenges considering how easily Joe changes. The curse really takes those “gotta have a Snickers” commercials to a whole new level…

The purpose behind Henry’s curse is eventually revealed to be blackmail. Henry wants Joe to hand over the Jinken, an incredibly powerful poison from China (as all the good powerful poisons are) that Sheriff Corbin hid. Good news: the team is able to remove the curse on Joe before he goes all permanently big, blue carnivore. Bad news: they don’t stop Henry from taking the Jinken, which he uses to…well, make a demon spider that climbs into Katrina’s mouth (gross) and is sure to be the main topic of discussion next week.

Other Observations:

• Meanwhile, Irving (Orlando Jones) now knows that Henry owns his soul. There is one way he can get it back: offer another soul in his place (a fancy way of saying “kill someone”). Conveniently, the man who paralyzed Irving’s daughter is at the psychiatric institute with him. This raises a few points. A) why is this man in a psych ward for a DUI? B) Could the writers have made the driver a little more sympathetic? How are we supposed to think that the decision to kill him is a moral dilemma when this guy is such a dick (“Marcie, Masie, whatever”)?  I catch myself checking my phone during Irving’s scenes so I’m hoping that he rejoins the group soon.
• Kudos on the casting for Joe. At first I thought it might have been the actual son of Clancy Brown, the actor who played Sheriff Corbin. Uncanny.
• Loved Crane’s conversation with Abbie about feeling betrayed by Katrina, and how she prompts him to acknowledge how he is feeling about it.
• Is anyone surprised that Crane was BFFs with Daniel Boone (“the guy with the raccoon on his head”)?
• With every episode, I get more and more pleased with Hawley’s (Matt Barr) inclusion on the team. Now that we know he’s hooked up with Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) in the past, and he’s making googily eyes at Abbie in the present, his presence should make for some interesting relationship dilemmas among our team. Plus the scenes between Crane and Hawley are becoming some of my favorites.

Best Lines:

• Crane: “Superman is…Peter Parker? No, no that’s the Arachnid fellow”
• Hawley: “Hold up, no one said anything about Wendigo blood.” Crane: “Big Ash and I discussed it at length”

What did you think? Are you ready for the group to rescue Irving or do you want to see him turn evil?  Are you sold on Hawley? What is Henry’s master plan and how does it involve sending insects down Katrina’s throat? Sound off below!

Sleepy Hollow airs Mondays at 9pm EST on FOX