Sometimes you have to look past the ridiculousness of the “how” and just revel in the “what.” Tonight’s Sleepy Hollow put Crane and Mills back in the same realm after a mercifully short (sort of) hiatus from each other. Of course that involved more than a few heaping spoonfuls of their special brew of “just go with it, we’re trying something.”
After a MOTW cold open, we start with the scene we had last week, of Abbie waking up to find herself stuck in the catacombs, where time travels at ten times the pace of Sleepy Hollow time, so their month without her has been nearly a year for her. In that time, she’s walked the land, created a wall map that would do Grace Dixon proud, continued to carry on conversations and play chess with Crane in absentia, and discovered that she doesn’t need to sleep or eat. Yet somehow, she’s retained her sanity in the solitude.
Crane builds an astral projection portal inside an oak cabinet Joe astutely compares to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and uses it, with Jenny’s help and a stolen lighter from a surreptitious visit to her dad’s house, to project himself into the ether to find Abbie. Of course it works (except they can’t touch each other). They put their heads together to decipher the wall hieroglyphs that resemble his tablet and he recognize that the sword Abbie found once belonged to Betsy. This will be important later.
The side effect of his trip to see her is that it tips off Pandora how to do the same thing, and she comes calling with a trade offer — bring the Eye back and she’ll show Abbie how to get home. Then she ups the ante by cutting Crane’s tether back to his body. Abbie responds by shattering the Eye. Pandora skitters off and Abbie loses her mind a little bit until she pieces together that Betsy’s sword would only be there if Betsy once was, too, and she follows those clues to drop herself down a well and pop back up in a lake in Sleepy Hollow.
She heads home to the library and reunites with Jenny and Joe and then clasps Crane’s hand and summons him to return to her. The candle flickers and Crane takes a deep breath and is back. They’re all overjoyed. Pandora falls on her sword about losing the Eye and offers her strength to her husband, and he takes it, leaving her spent on the floor.
In the MOTW arc, Sophie pairs with Joe and Jenny to fell an animate gargoyle, and after a few territorial marking kerfuffles and a mild admonishment from Joe, Sophie and Jenny play nice and get the job done.
So, the band is back together and immediately, the innuendo is heavy about their Witness bond and things they haven’t said. At the end, when Crane hesitates before his first words to a tearful Abbie, Jenny and Joe are very obviously expecting something genuine and heartfelt about how much he missed her, searched for her, and was lost without her, and instead he chides her about her chess moves and they walk away laughing. It must be said that there is no hug, other than Abbie’s attempt to hug Astral Crane. Thank goodness we have eight episodes left this season.
I talk a lot about how genre TV is sort of the stepchild of awards recognition, but I take significant consolation that where they fall short in formal accolades, they are wholly embraced by a very staunch fanbase. I’m very glad TPTB at Sleepy Hollow realized Nikkie and Tom are the lifeblood of their series and Crane and Abbie’s story, and that dragging out their reunion served no one. I have no idea were they are going, but as long as they’re together, we’re OK.
Sleepy Hollow airs Fridays at 8e/7c on FOX and 8e/p on CTV two for the rest of the spring.
Photo courtesy of Tina Rowden/FOX