Sleepy Hollow Recap “Pittura Infamante”: Paint It Black

In the latest Sleepy Hollow recap, Ichabod and Katrina go on a date night that involves battling a serial killer from the 1780’s and Captain Irving returns alive and well but is Henry pulling his puppet strings?

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Before we get started with this week’s recap of ‘Sleepy Hollow’ for the latest episode titled “Pittura Infamante”, there was some major news surrounding the sophomore series following the Television Critics Association winter meetings this past week.

FOX executives said during a panel discussion that they are in negotiation to potentially bring ‘Sleepy Hollow’ back for a third season, but also talking about changes to make to the show to bring it back to season one form. The biggest change that’s coming to town in the near future is a more procedural type of story telling as opposed to the serialized drama the series has become.

The plan is to take ‘Sleepy Hollow’ back to a ‘villain of the week’ type format and tone down the apocalyptic nature of the series that took over during the biggest part of season two. Now a couple of notes about these proposed changes — typically speaking, I’m never a fan of procedurals because while they cant present a longer format for a series to survive (I’m looking at you Law & Order, CSI and basically every other cop show on TV currently), the story and characters often times suffer from a lack of moving forward. Then again, one could argue that large chunks of shows like ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ — which I’ve argued has many similarities to ‘Sleepy Hollow’ — was a procedural dressed up as a serialized drama. Actually, many of the best ‘Buffy’ episodes were stand alone stories with tones that carried over the plot line from week to week.

If this is what ‘Sleepy Hollow’ manages to do, I’m all for it. Hopefully, the show does enough to draw viewers back in and stick around for a third try next season because this has been one of the truly unique experiences on TV in the past few years. Here’s hoping ‘Sleepy Hollow’ finds its path and sticks around for at least a three or four more seasons.

With that said, the latest episode felt like a dive back into the procedural with Ichabod and Katrina taking care of a ‘demon of the week’ while Abby found out that her old pal Captain Irving was alive and well after he was supposed to be dead and buried.

It’s Date Night

Forget the fact that Katrina has been a disaster zone for the biggest part of this series, not to mention she’s basically falling for the Horseman of Death while turning against her husband at the same time, this week she might have finally become tolerable considering her role in vanquishing a serial killer, who came back to life after being stuck in a painting for more than 200 years.

Following a very rough few weeks for the power couple from the 1700’s, Ichabod and Katrina decide to have a date night together where they will attend a special dinner at the local historical society with artifacts from the John and Abigail Adams collection. The Cranes were on the verge of divorce over the last few weeks so this is a chance to reconcile just a little bit and put the demon drama behind them for a night (yeah right!).

The opening is special to Katrina because she was not only close friends with the Adams family (duh-duh-duh-duh, snap, snap), but she was a midwife to Abigail where she helped birth all five of her children. Now, the coincidences that the Cranes apparently either knew or had some connection to every historical figure from that era was funny and helpful during season one, but the fact that it keeps happening in seemingly every third episode is getting to be a big much. While I still love ‘Sleepy Hollow’ (unlike FOX apparently), this is one aspect of the show that desperately needs to change.

That said — Katrina is in heaven being around her old friend’s furniture and belongings. She’s feeling close to Ichabod and it’s just a good night all around. That is until the local restorer of paintings shows up murdered and dangling from a ceiling fixture, posed just like ‘The Hanged Man’ from a deck of tarot cards. His neck was slashed at the carotid artery and he bled out. He was also apparently a new friend of Ichabod’s (despite never seeing him in any other episodes) and now our hero is determined to get to the bottom of this.

The gruesome nature of the death sends a shiver down Katrina’s spine as well because it harkens back to the days she spent with Abigail Adams while serving as her midwife. It seems there were a set of brutal murders that took place around that time, mostly orphans, and they were sliced up in a similar fashion. Abigail (played by ‘Buffy’ vet Michelle Trachtenburg) was a junior sleuth in those days (of course she was) and she investigated the murders and was convinced the killer was a surgeon due to the precise nature of the cuts that were made to bleed out the victims.

Just when it looks like the killer is coming back from the dead, Ichabod and Katrina notice something strange about the painting that everybody was fawning over earlier during the exhibition — the same one that was supposedly from the Adams’ home yet Katrina has no memory of ever seeing there before. The painter in the picture has an unfinished upside down cross and in his left hand is a blade soaked in red. Yep, you guessed it, the blade is dipped in blood and it’s clear now that this isn’t just any ordinary painting. It’s Vigo from ‘Ghostbusters 2’!!! Okay, not really.

No, it’s actually a painter from the 1700’s named James Colby, who was a famous artist in his day, but eventually he ended up living life as a vagrant, bouncing from town to town, giving people portraits in exchange for room and board. He eventually disappeared in 1782 — the same time the murders stopped happening. Coincidence?!?

When Ichabod and Katrina take a second glance at the painting, the figure in the picture no longer has his back turned but instead has its head turned and staring right back at them. Definitely one of the creepier, horror-ish moments in the history of this show. The Cranes discover through a hidden journal of Abigail’s that Katrina finds that she did find out Colby was the killer when she sacrificed herself as a guinea pig to get captured by him. Before he could slice and dice the first lady, she called upon her old Reverend Knapp (remember him from season one?), who binds the killer inside a painting before placing a hex on it to keep him trapped forever like he’s in the Phantom Zone.

But what did we learn during Superman 2? They will eventually find their way out!

An Unholy Return

While Ichabod and Katrina are off coupling together, Abbie is back at the station perusing her family’s journal when all the cops in the building raise their guns when an intruder walks into the station. It’s none other than Captain Irving, back from the dead — literally.

They place him in a holding cell and Abbie has to sneak her way into see him to find out what the hell is going on. Irving has no memory of anything that’s happened over these past few weeks. The last the he remembers is Ichabod and Abbie giving him a sword, but he assumes he must have lost, which is why he died. Instead, Abbie tells him the truth that he won the battle, but lost the war as he died in the end. To make matters worse, she’s convinced that the reason Irving is back is because his soul belongs to the Horseman of War and he will eventually turn on them just like any minion of hell tends to do.

Abbie does have to take the tough job of telling Irving’s wife that he’s back alive, but she knows this situation is probably going to get worse before it gets better. As much as she doesn’t want to believe Irving is evil incarnate, it’s hard to ignore the tell-tell signs since she watched him die over a month ago and now he’s back and alive as can be.

To take proper precaution against Irving turning on them, Abbie sends Jenny on a mission to retrieve a weapon from Hawley that could be used to put the former Captain down if he ends up being Henry’s lackey. Hawley is out of town, but he sends Jenny on a trip to the local graveyard where she can retrieve a set of magical bullets that were ‘forged from the actual gates of hell’. Jenny gets the bullets (not without a slight zombie attack, but she handles it) and she returns the mystical trinkets to her sister for safe keeping.

Now the Mills sisters have at least one weapon capable of putting Irving down once and for all if he decides to turn.

Paint It Black

Colby finds his escape from the painting by collecting enough blood to allow him to break the hex and get back to the real world once and for all. It seems he’s marking all of his victims by anyone who touches the painting and gets blood on them. The poor restorer was the first one and now the curator of the museum has blood on him as well. Ichabod is the third person to get blood on them so he’s marked for death now also, but he has no plans on allowing Colby to collect even one more person.

Before he can stop it, however, Colby draws in the curator. This forces Ichabod and Katrina to cast a magical spell to go inside the painting so they can take down Colby and save the curator’s life before he bleeds out and gives the psychopathic painter the means to an end.

Inside the painting, Ichabod and Katrina find the curator and stop his bleeding long enough to buy some time, but Colby shows up enraged and ready to collect a few more necks. Katrina does her job and gets them out, but Colby is free as well. He’s got a razor and he means to use it!

Out of nowhere, Abbie shows up guns blazing and plugs the hundreds year old painter before Ichabod tells her to take out the painting instead. She fires off a few more rounds and Colby slumps over dead. Day is saved but one problem — did no one else notice that Abbie used the mystical gates of hell bullets to take down Colby? Maybe she should have saved those for the day Irving eventually turns?

Either way, the Cranes celebrate and plan for more date nights, hopefully minus Colonial serial killers stuck in paintings and Abbie heads back to the station where she runs into Sheriff Reyes, who has some interesting news for her.

It seems new evidence has come to light that may exonerate Captain Irving of all wrong doing. They are off to see what exactly happened and if Irving is now a free (dead) man. Could Henry be pulling the strings from behind the scenes to get Irving turned loose considering he owns his soul now? I’ve said for months, I believed Irving would be the third Horseman and now it looks closer and close to reality.

Find out for sure next week when ‘Sleepy Hollow’ returns for a brand new episode at 9pm ET on FOX.