"This Is War"

"Blowhard, braggart, blatherskite, and gasbag. He had an insatiable need to prove he was the sharpest intellect in the room."

—Ichabod Crane about Benjamin Franklin

"This Is War" is the first episode of Season Two of Fox's Sleepy Hollow. It was written by Mark Goffman and directed by Ken Olin. It is the fourteenth episode of the series overall, and debuted on September 22, 2014. This episode is the second season premiere.

Synopsis[]

Picking up immediately after the spellbinding events of the Season One finale, Crane finds himself buried alive in a coffin; Abbie is trapped in Purgatory; Crane's wife, Katrina, has been kidnapped by the Headless Horseman; Capt. Frank Irving is behind bars for a murder he did not commit; and Abbie's sister, Jenny, is among the wreckage of a horrific car crash. These events were due, in large part, to the shocking revelation that Henry Parish, the trusted friend of Crane and Abbie, is actually Ichabod and Katrina's son and the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse. Now, with Henry's emergence as the Horseman of War, alongside the Headless Horseman, Sleepy Hollow has never been so close to destruction.^[1]

Recap[]

The episode opens in Crane's cabin with Abbie holding out a birthday cupcake for him. It is his 251st birthday and he is confounded by the whole cakes, candles, and wishes tradition. They state that it has been a year since the events of the previous season's finale, and they say they both lost someone they loved.

Abbie gets a call from a the head of the historical society who has something to show them. They arrive at the society building to find the decapitated body of a guard. Both of them know what that means. They enter the building, armed to the teeth, looking for their contact, but they are too late, the professor is dead. He was studying the work of Benjamin Franklin, a man Crane apparently holds in disdain. He tells Abbie that he was required to work as Franklin's apprentice for a time, at Washington's behest. Franklin was a constant irritant, thinking himself the "sharpest intellect in the room." Abbie was amused, and said how she could understand why Crane found that irritating. Crane uncovers a secret drawer and collects the papers that fall out. The Headless Horseman then interrupts and opens fire, they return fire with consecrated rounds, injuring the Horseman. As it flees Crane is eager to pursue, but Abbie stops him saying they are low on ammo. Crane cries that the Horsemen had killed his wife, and Abbie replies he killed her sister as well. Crane relents and takes comfort in the fact they found the papers the professor had for them.

In the notes left by the professor is the chalk rubbing of a key which Crane recognizes. He was there when Benjamin Franklin was flying the kite with the key in the storm. Apparently, Franklin was not so much interested in electricity, but in destroying the key, something he failed to do. He then told Crane it had to be secreted away and that Crane needed to study Franklin's alphabet.

Known as the Gehenna Key, it could break the one rule of Purgatory: Any soul can leave Purgatory as long as another takes it’s place. With the key, any soul - or souls - could leave Purgatory at any time. Moloch wants the key so it might take those condemned to Purgatory with him to Earth as his army. With no other clues, the pair decide to have Henry scan the file. Henry is being held in the masonic cell as their prisoner, but neither is very happy about having to deal with him. They bring him the file and he says there is no sin to read there. Abbie calls his bluff, saying the key in question was in the hands of the Hellfire Club, the sin poster boys. Henry suggests that Sheriff Corbin might have had paperwork on the key, and Abbie calls a halt to the meeting and asks to speak to Crane privately. In the observation room, she tells him of something Jenny collected for Corbin, a sketchbook by Franklin that had drawings of a key. Then Crane becomes breathless, and he says he knows the training they did of the past year happened but he cannot recall details, not even how they captured Henry. Neither can Abbie...the illusion is broken and Henry gloatingly tells them it has all be an illusion.

Abbie is still in Purgatory, Crane is still in the pine box, and the entire illusion of a year passing has been Moloch’s doing. It had been a plot to get them to reveal where the key is, and they did so. As the illusion crumbles, Abbie finds herself back in Purgatory and Crane, the box, they call to each other, and he promises to come for her.

Henry next goes after Jenny who is dragged to a warehouse after he collects her from the accident site. She had gone to Philadelphia five years previously to collect a sketchbook. In it was a drawing of a key. Henry reads her sins and sees that the page from her memory was written in a code he must decipher, so he tells the Hessian guard to keep Jenny alive until he can. Jenny manages to free herself and kill the guard.

In his prison, Crane discovers there is sulfur in the soil he is buried in. Combining it with the potassium nitrate in the soil and charcoal from his fire-starter, he manages a very crude version of gunpowder and pushes the charge through the slats of his prison to blow it up. He manages to do so without killing himself, and claws his way out of the grave. He immediately tries to contact Jenny who texts back that she is trapped in a warehouse not too far from him. When he hears gunfire from within, he crashes an ambulance into the warehouse to save Jenny, but he doesn’t know how to reverse out, so she takes the wheel. He makes a note that he must learn how to drive. As they flee the warehouse, Crane catches Jenny up, and tells her they need the key.

Katrina, meanwhile, is in the custody of the Headless Horseman at one of Abraham's old properties. She is tied to a chair, but he cuts the ropes and offers her bread. She tries to run, but he prevents her.

Abbie is still in Purgatory, where she is surprised by the appearance of Andy Brooks who tries to help her. Moloch is preparing to enter the Earthly realm, and hopes to take all the lost souls of Purgatory as his army. Abbie asks Brooks to show her how Katrina contacted her while the witch was still there. Andy takes her to a cave entrance, telling Abbie she allows him to feel he is still human, and tells he this place is Moloch's lair, and the mirror within is what she needs. Abbie creeps inside and uses the mirror to contact Crane. After a heartfelt greeting, Abbie suggests they may be walking into another trap, if they come for her, maybe Moloch uses that to get his lost soul army out, so maybe they shouldn’t find it but instead protect it. Crane is adamant, he will not sacrifice her, they are both Witnesses and they both need to work together, there are two Witnesses for a reason and only together can they prevail. He’s determined and Abbie tells him to meet her in woods behind the church.

Crane and Jenny head to the Archives to see if sketch book is still there. They find the page in question, and it’s written in Benjamin Franklin’s alphabet. He left the key with the only person he trusted – himself. But he is not buried in Sleepy Hollow. Jenny does have an idea of where to look, though. They head to a statue of Franklin in town, and spot Hessians digging there. Crane then remembers Franklin saying, “the key to success lies under the alarm clock,” and they look toward the clock tower nearby. In the tower they find a brick marked "B.F." and with its removal find the key.

Meanwhile, Katrina is frightened and confused by the Horseman's behavior. He fastens her emerald necklace around her neck, and the necklace allows her to see him as he was: Abraham van Brunt, the man she was once betrothed to. The necklace allows her to see and hear him as the man he had been, and he says that her heart was stolen from him and Ichabod Crane, who will be dead by midnight.

Crane and Jenny head to the portal to Purgatory, and Crane says Jenny must stay behind as the only one of them left who knows what is happening, just in case he does not return. He then opens the portal. Abbie is behind the church in Purgatory, looking for the amulet that Katrina gave her to protect her from Moloch. Frustrated, she cannot find it, and then Crane is at her side. She throws her arms around him, never happier to see a person in her life. He says she looks parched and offers her some water, and as she raises the flask to her lips, another Crane shows up and shouts at her not to drink. The two Cranes then battle each other. One of them knocks the other down and flees with Abbie, and then calls her "loo-tenant." She picks up a nearby sword and chops the false Crane's head off just as the real Crane arrives. They share another fist bump, he retrieves the key from the false Crane and they run for the exit. They recite the chant on the run, and are expelled from Purgatory even as Moloch rushes to follow. They make it through the portal, and it closes before Moloch can follow. When the portal shuts, the key disintegrates.

They all convene back at the cabin, and they have to make a plan to stop Moloch. Abbie is unhappy they were fooled, and she states that they are not going to get fooled again. This is war.

Henry is in the tunnels when he passes a mirror and Moloch tells him there is new work to be done and points to a portal. Through the portal walks a suit of armor that Henry is meant to control with his soul. The second Horseman is officially risen.

Cast[]

Starring[]

Tom Mison as Ichabod Crane
Nicole Beharie as Abbie Mills
Orlando Jones as Captain Frank Irving (credit only)
Katia Winter as Katrina Crane
Lyndie Greenwood as Jenny Mills
John Noble as Jeremy Crane

Guest Starring[]

Special Appearance By[]

John Cho as Andy Brooks

Co-Starring[]

Jeremy Owens as the Headless Horseman
Marti Matulis as the Horseman of War
Luke Smith as Moloch (riding)

Trivia[]

The US title refers to the Horseman of War putting his plans to motion while the Japanese title refers to the objective and item-of-the-week: the Gehenna Key.
The term "blatherskite" which Crane used to describe Franklin is an archaic word of Scottish origin, and came from combining blather and skate - skate being a Scottish term for a contemptible person, and blather meaning foolish, voluble talk. A blatherskite was a blustering, often foolish person.
The modern definition of Gehenna is "a place of misery" but was originally the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew ge-hinnom, meaning "Valley of Hinnom." Gehenna originally was a valley west and south of Jerusalem where children were burned as sacrifices to the Ammonite god Moloch.

Goofs[]

When Jenny makes her escape from the warehouse she takes a Beretta pistol from the Hessian. After she picks the lock she holds a Glock which later changes back to a Beretta.
All junctions with US Route 9 through Sleepy Hollow, New York are in densely populated residential and commercial areas.