Sleepy Hollow Recap ‘The Awakening’: The Wickedest Witch of All

In the latest Sleepy Hollow recap, Ichabod and Abbie go up against Henry one more time, but he’s no longer alone in his battle against the witnesses…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

There’s no doubt that amongst ‘Sleepy Hollow’ fans, Katrina Crane had become the Dawn Summers of this universe. She was sparingly used during the first season, but when season two came about Katrina was a full time cast member and she started mucking up the relationship between Ichabod and Abbie and that wasn’t going to sit well with anybody. Her magical spells barely ever worked and her witchcraft if not her common sense were virtually useless as she became more hindrance that help.

But then a strange thing happened two episodes ago where Katrina — in the midst of screwing up another magical spell — finds out from an age-old evil warlock that she’s actually been sputtering in her witchcraft because she’s channeling things from the wrong tap. It seems Katrina was a bad witch trying to play good and if she was willing to finally turn to the dark side, her powers would expand exponentially. So she started to test that theory one dead flower at a time, but this week she finally went full wicked and what resulted was one of the best ‘Sleepy Hollow’ episodes all season long.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The episode opens with Henry Parrish casting a spell from John Dee’s grand grimoire that with a strike of a bell sitting in the center of town, a few people nearby go all white eyed and start lashing out at whoever is around them. Henry is pleased with his latest war on Sleepy Hollow, but what is he doing exactly — stay tuned.

While all of this is happening, Ichabod and Abbie are reconnecting and recommitted to each other after nearly being torn asunder this season. No longer will the witnesses choose anyone else above each other as they battle to save humanity from the apocalypse. The new bond gets put to the test in quick order when the Leftenant is called to the scene in the middle of town where a few people have been injured after some spookiness caused a supernatural occurrence.

When they arrive, Ichabod notices the bell at the center of town because it’s an exact replica of the Liberty Bell that currently sits in Philadelphia. It seems when he was a solider in Washington’s army, he was charged with cracking the original bell that was molded long before the Liberty Bell came to live 100 years later. He was never told why he had to crack the bell, just that it was his mission to do so.

Now with this latest rash of assaults, Ichabod and Abbie put the pieces of the puzzle together from past run ins with demon crazies. It seems this bell like some bells of the past has a magical connection to humanity and whenever the bell rings, supernatural stuff starts happening. Case in point — Henry reading a spell from the grand grimoire that reignites the witch blood inside all of the descendants currently occupying Sleepy Hollow in 2015.

So now Ichabod and Abbie have their latest mission — destroy the bell before it can create thousands of new witches who are all very pissed off that they’ve been forgotten for the last 250 years or so.

Mother and Son

Katrina’s visions about Henry showing up and explaining why he saved her from Moloch finally come true this week as the man formerly known as Jeremy Crane shows up and asks his mother to join forces. It seems Henry’s plan to restart the entire witch race depends on his mother because she’s a pure blood and he’s stuck being being a Halfling thanks to having a muggle for a father.

Katrina is no longer fighting her dark instincts. She joins up with Henry and declares war on humanity and promises to never let her little boy down again. The only problem is while they are having this family reunion, Ichabod and Abbie have taken the bell and they are setting it up with explosives to guarantee there will be no witch awakening this week.

When Henry and Katrina find the witnesses, Ichabod is shocked to see his wife and son together again. He believes Katrina is there under Henry’s influence, but she quickly confirms that’s not the case. Katrina explains that witches have been persecuted for centuries and when her coven was charged with helping Washington to win the war under the agreement that they would be integrated back into society, the former president reneged on his deal once the battle was over. In the end, the witches still lost. She even goes full bitch mode and tells Ichabod that she should have never chosen a mortal man for her life companion before locking him and Abbie behind a stone wall while she takes the bell along with her son.

Ichabod now knows his wife has officially abandoned him and gone to the dark side.

Plan B

With the bell now in Henry and Katrina’s possession, Ichabod and Abbie have to come up with a new plan. Instead of engaging them head on, Ichabod decides to use a little trickery to set up his son and (ex) wife to allow them time to destroy the bell before it can ring and ignite the witch blood inside of thousands.

Ichabod confronts his son outside the town hall where the spell is about to be cast and Abbie tries to run him down with her car, but Katrina shows up and sets the SUV on fire making it look like she just crispy fried one of the witnesses. Ichabod shrieks in terror, but in reality, Abbie rigged the car to go forward while she escaped inside to rig the bell with explosives.

Amidst the chaos of exploding cars, Ichabod notices that a piece of glass struck Henry in the face and he bled from it. Before he can compute what this might mean for the long term battle, Henry gets back inside and catches Abbie before she can light the explosive fuse. Now Ichabod and Abbie are tied up while mother and son get ready to unleash the witch-pocalypse on Sleepy Hollow.

Sympathy for the Devil

Ichabod and Abbie are all tied up but there is a silver lining. Inside his coat pockets he’s hidden two small guns loaded with greek fire bullets. Thanks to some flint and steel Abbie smuggled in her coat in case they needed to start a fire (because the damn lighter didn’t work), they cut through the ropes and time their escape. They know Henry can stop a bullet with his power, but what if one of them takes aim at him while the other takes aim at the bell? He can only stop one, right?

So Ichabod turns and fires first and Henry instinctually stops the bullet while not noticing that Abbie is also taking aim at him. Her bullet finds its mark and Henry goes down in a heap. Katrina is horrified while Ichabod can’t help but be sad that his one and only son is dying. Ichabod sits over Henry’s body alongside his wife as he disintegrates into dust before apologizing for what had to be done.

At that moment Katrina loses her shit.

She sends her husband flying after declaring that she should have never saved him from the Horseman of War back in the 1700’s. So now she’s going to rectify that mistake and hopefully save Henry in the process.

So Katrina whips up a new spell from the grand grimoire, which opens a ‘Monster Squad’ sized vortex in the room. Katrina is whisked away, but Abbie gives chase and soon she’s swept up in the same spell and disappears. Ichabod screams for his Leftenant but she’s already gone.

When Abbie awakens she’s in the middle of the woods and in a shot for shot remake of the pilot, she wanders into the street and nearly gets hit by a horse drawn carriage before we see the sign for the town of Sleepy Hollow — population 1400.

Abbie wanders into town and finds out that whatever spell Katrina casted, it sent them back in time to the 1700’s, but she’s got an even bigger problem. As Ichabod noted when he first met the Leftenant, slavery is still very real in those early days of the American revolution so when the towns people notice Abbie walking around free and clear, everyone starts paying attention. Soon enough two soldiers clasp Abbie in chains and take her to the local constable station where she’s put in jail.

Abbie thinks quick because her situation just got really dire and says that she knows the key to winning the war, but she’ll only tell one person — Captain Ichabod Crane. Now Abbie is the one out of time while trying to stop Katrina, who seeks to let Ichabod die on the field of battle without any resurrection spells nearby to save him.

A truly fun romp this week and the set up is perfect for the next episode, which will mark the end of season two of ‘Sleepy Hollow’.

One side note — Frank’s story this week was just weird and out of place as he battled Jenny in a search for his family. He does mention that his wife and daughter have witch’s blood in them so that could be an interesting side item. Long story short, when Henry dies so does his control over Frank and he’s turned back into a normal person again. Oh and by the way, where the hell is the headless horseman these past few weeks? Katrina was on a mission to save his soul and now he’s just fallen off the map all together.

Make sure to tune in next Monday night at 9pm ET for the ‘Sleepy Hollow’ season 2 finale.