Sleepy Hollow Episode 7 ‘The Midnight Ride’ Recap: In Over Their Heads

Ichabod and Abbie battle the Headless Horseman while trying to discover a weakness the demon might have to give them an advantage for once…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Last week on Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod was able to break his blood tie to the Headless Horseman courtesy of a man known as the Sin Eater. The only problem is now his life is in even more peril because with the link broken, his death will no longer provide the same for the Horseman.

As they were warned last week, the Horseman will ride again very soon and so our heroes Abbie and Ichabod must prepare for his imminent arrival and whatever evil he’s bringing with him this time around. First up, Ichabod and Abbie have to stock up Corbin’s cabin with supplies so when they need to flee, there’s plenty of food and water.

Ichabod marvels at the fact that we now pay for clean water — a concept that still escapes me to this day as well. After their cabin rendezvous, Abbie and Ichabod part ways as he goes to see his Freemason brethren to plot the downfall of the Horseman while she visits her precinct because women aren’t allowed in the Freemason society.

Abbie has a run in with her ex-boyfriend who invites her out for coffee after an awkward conversation while Ichabod shows up at the Freemason mansion for their meeting. A moment later Abbie notices a voicemail from Ichabod and once again the show prances in the face of a 250 year old man suddenly discovering cell phones as he leaves a funny and overtly honest message almost as if he was writing a letter and ended by saying ‘I am most respectfully Ichabod Crane’. His message was telling Abbie that he’s bucking the system and telling his Freemason brothers that a woman should be allowed in their ranks and that she should join them for the meeting.

The only problem is once they both arrive, it’s already too late as the Horseman got there early and lopped off four Freemason’s heads and took their noggins for safe keeping. As it turns out the Horseman wasn’t there looking for information — he was looking for his head, which in theory the Freemasons would have kept but the head was already found and turned over the police a few episodes ago.

Abbie and Ichabod implore Captain Irving to retrieve the skull and return it to them so they can destroy it once and for all. Irving agrees and goes to the lab where the tech guy says that all the tests they’ve run have returned zero results. So Irving packs up the head when the Horseman arrives in full on Commando mode, blasting up the lab and killing the tech. Irving is able to escape with the head but now he’s seen the Horseman in action and knows he’s for real.

Meanwhile, Ichabod and Abbie’s search for answers at the Freemason’s reveals that John Adams and Paul Revere were keeping a secret journal that contained information about the Crown (England) and it seems the way to conquer the evil forces once and for all. When Paul Revere was making his original ride he and his compatriots were chased down by the Hessian (before he lost his head) and he killed them all except he was never able to capture the most famous rider of all or get his hands on the journal.

Turns out the journal was eventually turned over to a museum and uploaded to the internet, which once again gives up a joyous ride of ‘watch Ichabod struggle with the 21st century’ as he tries to navigate a computer and the internet, and lets just say his first experience ‘accidentally’ discovering internet porn was pretty hilarious. Ichabod is able to get the manuscript pages and decipher Adams’ code to find out the hidden message.

They also run into dead officer Andy Brooks, who is apparently stuck in this world after being killed by Moloch a few episodes back, but now he’s determined to help save Abbie from death. Earlier in the episode he warns away her ex-boyfriend Luke, who was getting to close to her, and he says that eventually everyone will be forced to choose a side. Whether Brooks is still playing on the side of the bad guys is unknown, but he does offer up some useful information — the Headless Horseman can’t be killed, but he can be trapped and that’s where the manuscript comes in handy.

Turns out the secrets in those pages revealed that while the Horseman rides at night, if the moon were to suddenly turn into the sun he would be frozen like a deer in headlights. Luckily in this day and age UV lights are artificial sunlight so Ichabod and Abbie send Brooks back to the Horseman with a message to meet Crane in the graveyard so he can receive his skull. They tried, rather unsuccessfully I might add to destroy the skull but — it just won’t die. Nothing will destroy this thing and in a hilarious number of attempts akin to Wile E. Coyote trying so hard to capture the Roadrunner, they go through their Acme bag of tricks to no avail. The skull just isn’t going away.

So instead of destroying the skull why not use it as bait?

The trap is laid out perfectly as Ichabod and Abbie set up several fake skulls all throughout the tunnels, luring the Horseman to follow their lead like a kid looking for a trail of breadcrumbs. They lead the Horseman into a wide open chamber, flip the switch and as the UV lights blast down upon him he’s frozen immediately. Ichabod places chains on the Horseman, and now they have literally captured death.

What happens next week when Sleepy Hollow returns? It looks as if Ichabod and Abbie are going to try and interrogate a creature with no head. That should be interesting.