Sleepy Hollow Recap ‘Spellcaster’: Come to the Dark Side

In the latest Sleepy Hollow recap, Ichabod and Abbie battle a powerful warlock, Henry returns from exile and Katrina learns to embrace her true nature…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

One of the biggest strengths of ‘Sleepy Hollow’ in the earliest episodes during season one was the ‘us against the world’ attitude carried by Ichabod and Abbie, which made them such a dynamic team and the best possible duo to help save the world. Slowly but surely the team started to multiply. There was skeptical Captain Irving, who didn’t want to believe the apocalypse was taking place in his backyard until he had no choice but to see what was happening right in front of his eyes.

Then there was Jenny, Abbie’s sister who was locked away for years in an asylum only to find out later that she was fighting this mystical war before her sibling even knew about. A few more pieces of the puzzle tried to get added to mix as well including mimbo of the year Hawley, who has thankfully shuffled off the show for hopefully the rest of this season.

And then there’s the curious case of Katrina Crane, who escaped purgatory full time this year, joined the witnesses and quickly became the source of ire for seemingly every person watching this show. She got in the way for more often than she helped and when Katrina’s infatuation with the Horseman of Death aka her former beau started to get in the way of the actual mission of saving the world, just about anybody watching ‘Sleepy Hollow’ was ready for her to fall through a wormhole and go back to the days when she only appeared through the reflection in a mirror.

But in the latest episode of ‘Sleepy Hollow’ titled ‘Spellcaster’, something rather interesting happened with Katrina that may help to explain some of her decisions and ineptitudes when she was billed as the world’s greatest witch, but seemed like more of a flea market side show act. The additional bit of information that we discovered about Katrina along with the reappearance of Henry Parrish made this week’s trip to Sleepy Hollow one of my favorites of the season.

I Put a Spell On You

Our new demon of the week kicks of the show as an auction house has received a ton of rare antiquities and at the top of the list is a book gathered by John Dee (a real person from the 1600’s), which is called the grand grimoire — the ultimate collection of dark magic spells, potions and concoctions the world has ever known. Dee wasn’t an evil man according to Ichabod, but rather a curious sort who loved to explore and investigate all manner of oddities. The book becomes our MacGuffin for the week when a pilgrim looking guy (the lead singer of The Wonders for those curious) shows up, snatches the book and kills two of the people working in the warehouse that night by boiling their blood from the inside out.

Gruesome yet admittedly creative way to kill someone!

While this is happening, Ichabod is out house hunting because he can’t live in this world forever without a place of his own. He also finds out in rather quick order that real estate speak like ‘quick fixer upper’ is code for ‘the house is in shambles’. Thankfully, Abbie has a case for them to investigate and off to the warehouse they go.

When they discover what was taken, Ichabod calls on Katrina for help because this has something to do with magic and she’s our resident expert. Abbie helps reconstruct video footage and when Katrina spots the culprit behind the crime, she immediately flashes back to one of the darkest times in the history of witches.

It seems our villain of the week is a former pastor from Salem named Solomon Kent. While he was a man of God in the daytime, he was a powerful warlock when the sun went down and led a coven of witches based out of the New England town. It seems Solomon was also quite taken with a local girl named Sarah, who he pursued tirelessly until one day he made his big move. She shot him down fast and in the ensuing ‘get your hands off me’ moment, Soloman accidentally killed her. To prevent the townspeople from stringing him up, he warlock’d up a demon face for Sarah and convinced everyone she was a witch and had to be burned at the stake.

The event set in motion the most devastating chain of events in history as the town of Salen started convicting witches left and right — one of them being Katrina’s grandmother, who was part of the coven who tried to convince Solomon to stop before things got out of control. Following a massacre that included Katrina’s grandmother, the coven finally gathered enough strength to strike back and they cast a spell on Solomon that sent him to purgatory where he’s rotted for the last five centuries until Moloch died and freed him from the prison.

He’s going after the grand grimoire because it contains powerful black magic and after a few deductions, the Scooby Gang figures out that he must be using it for a resurrection spell to bring his beloved Sarah back from the dead.

I’m Not Dead Yet

With a long since dead woman about to get pulled from the afterlife, Abbie seeks out Captain Irving for some advice on what’s about to happen when Solomon brings back his beloved. She’s curious if there’s a spot where he remembers popping out from the abyss or any details he might have about life after death. Unfortunately, Irving doesn’t have a lot of answers, but he does want to find a way back into her good graces.

Irving explains that he’s having no ill effects from the rebirth and Katrina even cleared his soul saying that he no longer has a connection to Henry at all. Abbie is nearly ready to pull him back on the team because with a powerful warlock tainted by love about to unleash hell on Earth, they need all the help they can get.

Come to the Dark Side

During the investigation into this week’s MacGuffin, the team discovers that John Dee was smart when he put the book together because he knew that if these spells were the real deal, a powerful witch or warlock could have some serious firepower on their hands if they took it so he decided to leave the book in tact but remove a section, which ultimately took the full power away from executing anything inside. Solomon is now on the hunt for this second part of the book, but Katrina uses a spell to track the section as well and now we’re headed for a showdown.

Unfortunately, the witnesses are no match for Solomon’s magic, but Katrina is able to battle him back and catch him with one of her spells. It takes him off his game for a moment, but Solomon fights through and then turns the tables on Katrina while revealing a big secret about our favorite witch. He notices that she has a real darkness hidden inside of her and Katrina has been fighting these instincts forever, which stops her from exacting the most powerful magic at her disposal. In other words, Katrina is less Hermoine and way more Bellatrix Le Strange.

He tosses her aside and runs off with the second part of the book, ready to bring his girl back from the dead…or is he?

Back to the Future

At first, the witnesses are convinced that Solomon is ready to bring his pioneer girlfriend back from the dead, but a second look into the pages of the grand grimoire and they discover a powerful spell that would actually send someone back through time. Solomon isn’t going to resurrect Sarah — he’s going to go back in time and stop her death from ever happening in the first place. The act itself would set in motion the butterfly effect that could send this current time into upheaval and perhaps even blink Abbie and Ichabod out of existence.

The dynamic duo heads off to the woods to stop Solomon while Katrina stays behind, not feeling very well after dueling with the powerful warlock earlier in the day.

The final showdown is rather anticlimactic because Solomon is taken out by a puddle of water and some electricity, which shorts out his magic and knocks him unconscious. But Irving helped make the plan happen and now Ichabod and Abbie know they can finally trust him.

Big mistake.

One More for the Bad Guy

Henry has been absent since the return of ‘Sleepy Hollow’ several weeks ago, but he reappears this week in the quaintest of situations. He’s been living in a run down motel watching television and carving houses out of wood while conversing with a mother and her son, who run the place. Henry’s desire for maternal nurturing is only strengthened when he sees the bond between the mother and son who run the place. He even gets a twinge inside to help them after a group of unruly boarders nearly beat up the son and tell the mom to piss off (more or less). Henry thinking about doing something but finally goes back inside and shuts the door.

Until the next day.

Henry goes out and finds the trio of ruffians who accosted the mother and son before telling them that after Moloch’s death, he was have a crisis of conscience. Who was he without Moloch? What was he meant to do with Moloch gone? For a moment, he actually thought what he needed was a mother’s love like what he saw between the motel owner and her son. Then he realized he’s the goddamn prince of darkness.

So Henry obliterates the three dipshits, snapping necks and tossing them around like rag dolls before declaring himself the big swinging dick in Sleepy Hollow once again.

It all comes together when back in the woods, Irving disappears for a moment and the Scooby’s go to find him. He circles back and finds Solomon still laying on the ground after being electrocuted, but not dead yet. Irving takes care of that by snapping his neck and taking the grand grimoire for himself. Solomon turns to dust and when Ichabod and Abbie show back up, he tells them that the warlock is gone and the grand grimoire with him. Moments later, Irving meets up with his true master — Henry.

He proclaims that the witnesses finally trust him again and he’s back on the inside exactly where Henry wanted him to be. Irving asks if Henry is going to carry out Moloch’s plans, but the former Jeremy Crane proclaims that his father is dead and now he’s going to remake this world in his image instead. The king is dead, long live the king.

One more thing — back at the cabin with the witnesses off stopping the warlock, Katrina finally decides to embrace her dark side if only for a second. She finds a flower she turned colors earlier in the episode, except this time when she focuses on it, the petals turn black before exploding into nothingness. Katrina’s powers are growing but not because she’s finally honing them after being locked away in purgatory for over 200 years. She’s embracing her dark side and it seems this phoenix is just about to rise from the ashes.

Only three more episodes of ‘Sleepy Hollow’ to go this season so make sure to come back one week from today for the next recap following the new episode on FOX starting at 9pm ET/PT.