This week, Sleepy Hollow investigates the cause of the alarming exploding manholes in New York City. Abbie and Ichabod, our intrepid Witnesses, find that the cause of the terror is just displaced millennials, forced to move underground due to the ever-increasing rent in Bushwick.
No, not really.
The truth of the matter is that there are demons living below the ground in a beautiful chamber built and designed by master architect Thomas Jefferson (played here by Steven Weber, of Wings fame). (You recall from your elementary school history class that Jefferson also designed Monticello, right?) These demons abduct a few workers who were mapping the underground area, and one of the men happens to be the brother of a renowned journalist, Calvin Riggs, a man of action to whom Abbie feels drawn.
When Abbie and Ichabod go underground, they come upon a swarm of these demon-things. They retreat, and Calvin is there, snapping photos and scaring the apparently light-averse demons (called Reavers!) back to the depths of the sewers. This leads to Calvin asking too many questions about demons and stuff, though he’s motivated by his now-fatherless four-year-old niece.
They do a little bit of useless research and dive back into the sewer, using the flash of Calvin’s camera to blind them before engaging in a Walking Dead-esque mowing down of flesh. They find their way to the underground building and find that Thomas Jefferson is still alive. Well, not actually alive. It’s his hologram, which shares his original memories and feelings and personality. How? Magic and technology. (Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson notes, was super jealous.)
Jefferson’s hologram is surrounded by books, information he thinks eclipses the lives of the few men who had been abducted. That’s because the books contain information about the Witnesses — Abbie and Ichabod — about whom Jefferson knows everything. There’s even a whole chest full of the names of people who must mentor the Witnesses. A literal treasure trove of information, here.
There’s a long discussion about all of this, after which Abbie advocates for the men who are waiting to die in the Reaver nest. Ichabod, as always, realizes Abbie is in the right and so they go hunting for Reavers, who, because this show does on-the-nose so well, are in literal birds’ nests. They release the abductees, which would be a non-event if this weren’t the first time an endangered civilian were actually rescued from something supernatural, risking the revelation of the Witnesses and the Scooby Doo game they’ve had going on for quite some time.
Abbie, Calvin, and his rescued brother run away while Ichabod descends to kill the demons and discuss with Jefferson’s Hologram the destruction of this sacred chamber of knowledge. Jefferson calls Ichabod a true “founder of the country,” and upon realizing the truth of his own words, points Ichabod to the best spots to blow the hell out of the Reavers and destroy this one-of-a-kind ancient library, along with Thomas Jefferson’s Hologram. Another happy ending.
Abbie and Calvin have a little talk, and they smile coyly at each other a lot. Abbie tells him to stop digging. He says he will. She gives him this look that says, “No, sir.” Abbie Mills.
Meanwhile, Irving, who is definitely a bad guy, meets up with Jenny to retrieve some of his belongings that are still stuck in the evidence room. Jenny becomes suspicious when she notes an archaic-looking tattoo on his forearm, which signifies membership to the Hellfire Club, a cult we’ve seen before. She gets him access to the evidence he needs, and then pulls a gun on him.
They chase each other around for a while, and then they have a conversation revealing that Irving had found a magic rune that protects him from whatever soul-stealing curse Parrish had put upon him. Only, that rune is expiring, and Irving is going to be taken over by the dark side. So he needs Jenny’s help. (There was probably more to that story, but it was yet another shining example of the Sleepy Hollow team overwriting something that could exist simply.)
Mercilessly, we also see what Parrish and Katrina are up to, which isn’t much. Parrish says he killed Moloch (in the midseason premiere) to save her. He squeezes a thorny rose into her hands. She wakes: this is all a dream, of course, from which Katrina awakens with physical wounds. Was it real? Was Parrish really there? Who cares.
Katrina is the worst part of this show, and her presence in the last minute of “What Lies Beneath” pulls down an already middling episode. If this show continues — and with only two episodes left and no news of a renewal, it very well may not — Katrina needs to go. She might as well already be dead, as she only shows up sporadically anyway. She’s become an obvious chore for the writers, and their taking care of her makes for a pretty painstaking viewing experience.
What’s more, this show continues to suffer from being overly complicated, and not in any interesting way. Abbie and Ichabod’s knowledge of history is impressive. It’s an intriguing aspect of the show. But the writers’ insistence on crimes that have a dozen developments in the course of a conversation is not intriguing television; it is frustrating television. Imagine an episode of Law and Order: SVU in which Olivia Benson, investigating a rape, walks into a room full of characters, all apparent strangers. Only, the first stranger reveals clues that lead to the second, the second reveals clues that lead to the third, etc., etc., 20 times, ending at the final suspect, who is the truly guilty man. That sounds enthralling, right? Well, that’s essentially what Sleepy Hollow has become, only Abbie and Ichabod have rabid conversations, mostly with themselves, the two of them making for a combined knowledge of the universe. Which is to say: not very good.