Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Sleepy Hollow 2.16: "What Lies Beneath"

“Have you not asked yourselves why, why you were chosen? The nature of your mission? Everything Washington and I learned about the Witnesses is in this chamber.”
- Thomas Jefferson

It seems our Witnesses are up against a lot of foes these days without really knowing who they are fighting against. As they visit a war memorial, Abbie points out she misses when they knew the endgame and what they were fighting against. At least they’ll be on an interesting case this week. They’ve got some missing engineers (one of whom is the brother of a journalist played by “White Collar” actor Sharif Atkins). The engineers were exploring the tunnels under the town and found a cover to another lower chamber. They manage to get it open and then are dragged down by a creature. Abbie and Ichabod take a look themselves and our 18th century man determines that the chamber below was designed by Mr. Thomas Jefferson. Our Witnesses are trying to figure out what’s being guarded by evil creepy crawlies and Ichabod admits he thought he was friends with Jefferson but one day out of the blue he got “un-friended” by Jefferson for no reason. I’m interested to see where this goes.

Elsewhere, Frank approaches Jenny and asks her hack into police evidence so he can get his wedding ring back. Knowing that he’s in league with Henry now, I can’t help but worry he’s going to set Jenny up and get her arrested and locked away so she can’t help the Witnesses when the time comes. It seems something Henry would concoct and I doubt Frank has much say in the plans these days. He’s just a walking meat puppet. Well I’m not entirely wrong. Frank isn’t looking for his wedding ring. He’s grabbing stuff from the Hellfire Club. Jenny catches him in the lie but he knocks her out and takes off before she can stop him. She chases him down and he explains that after he came back, he was filled with evil but to pass the test Katrina did, he found a rune in one of Henry’s books that bestows temporary salvation. So he’s sort of the old Frank at the moment and his purpose was to steal information on the Hellfire Club and funds Henry sent to them. He wants Jenny to give it to Cynthia so she and Macey can get far away from Sleepy Hollow before Frank reverts back to a soulless servant of Henry.

Down in the tunnels, Abbie and Ichabod encounter the demonic creatures. There are far more of them than they realized and so they start scurrying back up to the surface to get some more firepower when the journalist appears. He is going to get our Witnesses in serious trouble if he’s not careful. After some posturing, Abbie agrees to give him limited access to the investigation. He is told to stay put while our heroes go do a little extra research. The inscription on the seal talks about reavers (not the kind from “Firefly”) and Ichabod explains they weren’t demons but Washington’s private security force and these guys probably had some supernatural juice pumped into them to ensure whatever they were protecting would stay safe. Abbie and Ichabod head back down the tunnel (using the journalist’s camera as a blinding tool to get the reavers away from the hole. Things take a turn for the weird when, as they are fighting off sentries, a door opens and our Witnesses rush in. Who should they find alive and well but Mr. Thomas Jefferson himself.

Well actually, it’s not Jefferson exactly. He did die in 1826 but this is a part scientific part magical spirit version of him. He’s been waiting for the Witnesses to come along so he could impart knowledge on them for their fight against Evil. Ichabod and Abbie try to explain to him that the need to find the engineers is more important at the moment. Abbie even discovers the reaver nest right under the chamber and the two engineers who are still alive. The problem is Jefferson is unwilling to risk destroying the nest because it would destroy the power source of the magic and all of the knowledge he and Washington gathered about the Witnesses would be forever lost. I can see the dilemma. They want to rescue the guys but they need this information in their fight. Ultimately, it’s no real decision at all. They rescue the guys and realize that to keep other people from finding the tunnels and the reavers, they have to destroy the chamber. Ichabod takes care of the deed and gets to share some final parting words with Jefferson’s spirit. Jefferson apologizes for rebuffing Ichabod. It turns out that in order to ensure that Ichabod and Abbie had the knowledge they needed, Ichabod needed to be kept at arms’ length. It was Jefferson’s biggest regret. Ichabod eventually convinces Jefferson that the ideals that built this country can still be honored even today. Jefferson understands and tells Ichabod where to set his charges to make sure everything blows. And Jefferson gives Ichabod some interesting parting words, that he (Ichabod) is as much a founding father of this country as the rest of them.

After the fact, Abbie explains to the journalist that things are still going to be happening and he needs to stop digging for the truth for a little while. After all it’s hard to be a Witness and do what they need to do with cameras going off in their faces. At least he seems to respect that. And it wouldn’t be Sleepy Hollow without something creepy going on with Katrina that no one else knows about. She wakes to find Henry sitting by her bed. He’s got some dead roses and he ends up pricking her hand, claiming he killed Moloch for her and he wants to reunite with her. He’s seriously got mommy issues. But it was a dream or so she initially thinks until she goes to splash some water on her face and her hand starts bleeding. I do hope our Witnesses find out what’s going on with Katrina before the finale in 2 weeks. They can’t be fighting threats from all sides.

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