This week, we get the coolest cold open of Abbie singing “Crazy” at karaoke. It’s great until the episode devolves into a typical topsy-turvy whodunit, only this time it’s all centered around our favorite awful character, Hawley, who proves to be every bit as interesting as his hair would imply.
The story starts with Hawley joining the gang at karaoke but he gets a text and ditches to go meet up with Mysterious Guys in a Sports Car and a Hot, Vaguely Asian Woman (Jaime Murray, who also played Lila in Dexter) who raised Hawley, apparently. She calls him “Nicky.” She can teleport. And she is a demon. She tells Hawley that they’ve “gotta rob Theodore Knox’s estate.” Coincidentally, as they depart to wherever they’re going, Ichabod, Jenny, and Abbie — who is totally crushin’ on Hawley right now — get an alert that the archives have been breached. They arrive to find Hawley rummaging through and escaping from the place, this demon woman running amok and attacking Jenny.
Luckily! Jenny was able to collect some claw acid or something from this “creature.” Abbie makes a comment about analyzing it already, and Ichabod, in a kind of meta-winky moment, looks into the camera, stunned. “Oh, that was quick.” And then, of course, he realizes she’s an undead being of Hindu law that serves Kali, goddess of death and regeneration.
They split up to go talk to a dude who owns a pawn shop. The owner gives up her name, Carmilla Pines, who is a treasure hunter. “But not like Hawley,” Jenny says. “She’s dangerous. A killer!” Oh, man. They discover that this undead servant — Vitala? — is the criminal monster that raised Hawley, which does not surprise Ichabod. Somehow this leads Ichabod to discover that Hawley is going to steal something from Knox.
Turns out Carmilla has been cursed as a Vitala, and the thing in Knox’s vault will make her human again. She urges Hawley to help her one last time, and of course, because it’s a TV show, Hawley agrees. “One and done,” he says, which is, coincidentally, also what this show’s writers should’ve said when this series was conceived.
They head to Knox’s estate, where some kind of antique fetishist party is going on. There’s some very fast-paced dialogue and sneaking around. Very Mission Impossible. Very confusing. Very in line with this season.
Here, I’m going to write this before it happens, and see if it’s right: Hawley rummages around. He finds what he needs. As he finds it, Ichabod, who is also at the fetishist party, stumbles upon him. He confronts him. Abbie joins, they yell. Carmilla interrupts and Hawley escapes. That basically happened, except Jenny finds Hawley while Ichabod and Abbie confront Carmilla. Whatever, just switch the players around. Does it really matter?
Hawley finds them all, and convinces Carmilla to let Ichabod and Abbie live. They trap Ichabod and Abbie in the vault, while Hawley and Carmilla run away, leaving the two detectives to bicker about their failure to communicate, as well as everything else that’s come between their relationship lately. Anyway, Ichabod figures out how to get out of the vault through pressing alchemic symbols. At first, he presses the wrong button, and they almost die. And, to be honest, I kind of wanted them to die — but, of course they don’t.
They take Hawley’s car to a random warehouse that happens to be where Hawley is being held. He’s been stripped naked and drugged by Carmilla, who is using him in the ceremony to change her back to a human, maybe. This involves the antique that was stolen from Knox, which was basically just a dollar-store statue of the six-armed Hindu god, Kali. The little statue’s eyes glow and its hands move and its so cute while it tortures Hawley, but whatever. They have a pretty dope fight with a bunch of demons with acid nails. Carmilla escapes, screaming, into the cold, harsh environs. Hawley, hirsute and disrobed, stares into the violet sky of the night, wondering where he went wrong. Later, he heads back to the archives and returns Knox’s blueprints. Jenny’s there; she tells him they’re family. They almost make out, but then they don’t, because family members don’t make out on network television. Instead, they kiss, and Hawley, too, escapes into the shadows outside of Sleepy Hollow, perhaps never to return.
There’s a whole side thing about Ichabod and Katrina. They discuss Mary Poppins. They’re apparently trying to rekindle their relationship, but they only spend three minutes together on camera, so they must be rebuilding their relationship off-screen or they aren’t even trying.
Oh, right: There’s that mysterious evidence that exonerates Captain Irving from all of his crimes, whatever those were. His wife is oddly skeptical about the whole situation, pulls that whole “what the fuck?” face while hugging your husband thing. She’s kind of weirded out because he was dead, which is totally unreasonable. “I just need to know if it’s really you,” she says, unfairly. “I need to know for sure,” she adds, referring to the Katrina tests Abbie tossed off last week.
Irving and his wife relocate to Katrina and Ichabod’s cabin, where the ceremony is conducted. It’s pretty witchy, which is cool. Katrina sees these dope flashbacks of Irving killing people, and then comes to the conclusion that the magic that tied him to Henry is no longer in effect. Is she lying? Is she just conniving to get her son back? Who knows! Oh, wait: We do, because HIS REFLECTION DOESN’T SHOW UP IN THE WINDOW WHEN HE HUGS HIS WIFE. Whoa, this is crazy. Hopefully next week they will develop this storyline for five more minutes, because it’s kind of interesting. That’s a sentiment I don’t think I’ve ever expressed before, which just goes to show that the writing on this show is all over the place.