We’re moving too fast! I want 22 episodes!! The good news is nearly everybody who got sucked into the Vortex of the Bod before the baseball hiatus came back afterward. The better news is that it was a really, really strong episode with loads of backstory.
We begin with a wink, nudge to the World Series that bumped it as Abbie and the Bod watch a baseball game and Abbie yells at the umpire. The Bod asks her to explain the need to do that and she tells him essentially that baseball = life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because it’s always the same and it doesn’t discriminate. So he stands up and yells at the ump, too.
He tells her he almost feels at home and she reminds him again that he is home, and then he takes his leave of her with a darling (and hot) flourish. Then he goes to sit in the graveyard with Katrina (and impeccably masters sitting cross-legged in knee-high boots) when he’s tranqued and drops to the ground (rude!).
Abbie’s driving home when she lapses into Katrinavision and Katrina tells her the Horseman is coming that night and a Sin Eater can separate The Bod from the Horseman so they can defeat him, except that The Bod has been kidnapped and she can’t see by whom. Then Abbie comes to, and relays her info to a bemused Irving. He gives her papers to get Jenny out and Jenny’s not interested until Abbie says Sin Eater and then she agrees time’s a wasting.
While they pore over visitor logs of death row inmates, where the Sin Eater was often seen until he dropped out of sight, we find out that The Bod has been kidnapped by a group of Masons, led by James Frain, who test him on whether he’s truly that Ichabod Crane.
The test involves verifying an account where “Ordo Ab Chao” was first invoked and The Bod passes the test as he recalls interrogating a former slave who was publishing paraphernalia under the pen name of Cicero. Around this time, he also met a young Quaker woman, Katrina. Between Cicero and Katrina, The Bod had his eyes opened to the demons living among them, and he let Cicero live only to see his commander-slash-demon gun him down anyway.
Once he’s proven himself, the Masons tell him they need his suicide before nightfall to defeat the Horseman and he’s willing to go along with it.
Meanwhile, Abbie and Jenny track down the Sin Eater (Fringe’s John Noble in a blink-and-miss-it scene), who tells them he’s out of the game but he gets enough of a bead off Abbie to tell her that the Masons have The Bod and they soon catch up to him. Abbie has a tearful conversation with him where she tells him his death isn’t an acceptable solution to anything. He calls her Abbie and she tears up. They clasp hands as he marvels that they found each other centuries apart. He tells her she should go and she says she won’t, not after losing so many people without a goodbye. He tells her he’s sorry and then he drinks the elixir that’s supposed to kill him.
In a confusing edit that had me thinking my affiliate had jumped the feed, The Bod starts to hallucinate and then we hear the Sin Eater tell the Masons there’s still a way to save him. He dives in and tells The Bod to confess his wrong and he tells them about Cicero’s death. Then he bleeds The Bod and dips bread in it and eats it, and tells The Bod he’s sanctified. The Bod recovers and Abbie leaps at hm and tells him not to do that again and he says he won’t.
So now he’s separated from the Horseman, and the Horseman is ready to rise.
I loved that Abbie was so hellbent to save The Bod, and I love that she confirmed to Jenny w hat I’d thought last week–that the bond she’d lost with Corbin sort of transferred over to The Bod and she wasn’t alone when Corbin died. And Jenny gets it, without making it a sister vs. sister argument about their own fractious bond.
And I loved that Katrian came to her as the friend she is. The chemistry is off the charts but I think of Abbie and The Bod as family to each other and not crossing a line. I loved the backstory that keeps Katrina in play, and that she was there at the beginning of his awakening but she still never confessed herself as a witch. I hope we find out why. I’m so not ready to be halfway through this season.
Here’s a sneak peek of our next new episode, “Midnight Ride,” airing Monday at 9 e/8c on FOX and Global TV.