Sleepy Hollow – Heads of State

By: Stacy Miller

The episode starts with Ichabod (Tom Mison) looking at an apartment. It is a rundown abode. The landlord tells Ichabod the last tenant disappeared under mysterious circumstances, (Hmm, supernatural related?) stiffing him for two months of rent. “I was promised a walk-in closet,” Ichabod says. Jenny and Jake (Lyndie Greenwood and Jerry MacKinnon) are also there. Jake tries to convince Ichabod that the neighborhood is cutting edge and up Ichabod’s “hipster alley.” Be that as it may, Ichabod says the apartment is not for him. That is, until Jake reminds that it is one fourth the rent of the last seven places they’ve seen. Ichabod decides to take it and thanks Jake for helping him find an apartment. “My pleasure,” Jake says then turns to Jenny, “Jenny Mills. Jake Wells. Our names are similar.” Aw, it looks like Jake is crushing on our Ms. Badass! An awkward Jake leaves. Jenny asks Ichabod when he’s going to tell Agent Thomas about Molly.

Meanwhile at the Thomas house, Diana (Janina Gavankar) looks at Molly’s (Oona Yaffe) sketchbook and questions her daughter about the drawing she did of four trees as Molly mostly draws people. Molly reminds that her mother will be late for work and Diana says she’ll drop Molly off at nanny Clara, despite the girl’s insistence that she can stay there alone as Molly’s almost eleven years old.

Dreyfuss (Jeremy Davies) is in a business meeting and declines on investing in a company, citing the man’s lack of vision. He has a ten-year plan, but where is his fifty or hundred year one? “I’m investing in the human race,” Dreyfuss tells the man. Jobe (Kamar de la Reyes) interrupts, but as far as Dreyfuss is concerned, the meeting was over anyway. Jobe tells Dreyfuss that when sunrise comes, they’ll know why he (The Headless Horseman) came to Washington.

A man wearing a motorcycle helmet and riding a white horse shoots at the President’s motorcade. The security detail urge Madame President to get down. An officer shoots at the man and the gunman’s motorcycle helmet and head falls off! He becomes The Headless Horseman once again, wearing his traditional clothing, and rides off into the night.

The next day, Diana and Ichabod are watching a news report in which the officer gives his account. “This horseman, he was headless and he kept coming.” They turn off the television. Diana tells Ichabod that the city is on lockdown because of someone taking a shot at the president. As she now knows of the supernatural evil, Diana questions Ichabod about what this thing is. “An abomination. It goes by many names. If the horseman has set its sights on the president, nothing will deter it from its goal,” Ichabod tells Diana.

Merciless killer and death incarnate are just some of the ways Ichabod describes The Headless Horseman to Diana. And we are lucky as we get to see scenes of The Headless Horseman’s past hell raising, starting with clips from the pilot episode when he killed Sheriff Corbin as Abbie watched. “Dark rider of The Apocalypse. This is the creature that we faced,” Ichabod tells Diana. They are now at The Vault with Jenny, Jake and Alex (Rachel Melvin). “I figured the bastard would show his lack of a face sooner or later,” Jenny says. It is reasoned that The Headless Horseman is going after the President of the United States in order to retrieve its head. Royalty and heads of states are often considered powerful totems in some customs. The Horseman seeks the President’s head.

While Diana and Ichabod are retracing The Horseman’s path above ground as an invisible force stopped it from getting any closer to the motorcade, Alex, Jake and Jenny are in the tunnels. Jake continues to lavish Jenny with looks and praise. “You keep eyeballing me like that you’ll lose an eye,” Jenny warns. Ouch. Alex tells Jake that he’s probably not Jenny’s type, but Jake knows that opposite often attract. Street level, Diana and Ichabod find a man hole with warding as do Alex, Jake and Jenny directly below them. It is a magical ward with the mystical strength to repel The Horseman. Alex removes the disk from the manhole in the tunnels to examine at The Vault. She finds strange hieroglyphics and Ichabod recognizes the work of Benjamin Banneker (Edwin Hodge). Jake is a fan of Benjamin Banneker as he’s read everything about the man. Ichabod tells the team of an account “he read” about a man’s (Ichabod) meeting with Banneker in 1777. In a flashback, Ichabod had given Benjamin Banneker an invitation to join Washington’s army. Jake questions Ichabod about how he could know any of this, as all Benjamin Banneker’s papers were burned in a fire in 1826. He wants Ichabod to admit that he is a time traveler. In fact, Alex had lifted a hair from Ichabod’s coat and sent it to the lab for carbon dating. The jig is up Ichabod, time to come clean. “He is technically two hundred and sixty-five years old,” Jenny says. Ichabod admits he was born in 1751 and that he and The Horseman have been sworn enemies ever since they found themselves in a magical slumber for over two hundred years after meeting on a battlefield in 1781. Yay, more pilot flashbacks! Ichabod tells the team about facing The Horseman many times with Jenny’s sister, Grace Abigail Mills, as the two Witnesses. Diana takes Ichabod aside and angrily berates him for keeping secrets from them. He needs to be honest with them. They return back to the room with the others and Ichabod continues his tale of Benjamin Banneker. He explains about seeing Banneker’s workshop. Ichabod wonders if Benjamin Banneker created the ward that stopped The Horseman. And Jenny discovers that a folio with some of Banneker’s papers survived the fire and was sold to billionaire Malcolm Dreyfuss who lives in town.

Jobe warns Dreyfuss that an agent from Homeland Security is there and she has Ichabod Crane in tow. “Let’s see how this plays out,” Dreyfuss tells Jobe. Diana and Ichabod are shown in and Diana tells Dreyfuss that a case she’s working on requires a folio that once belonged to Benjamin Banneker. Dreyfuss plays along, asking Jobe to get the folio from the vault downstairs. He further explains of his interest in the occult and how he sold his soul to the devil at age twenty-five. He’s kidding (or not) of course. When Jobe returns with the folio, Dreyfuss talks about the non-existent ‘J’ Street in Washington being a mystical barrier keeping supernatural evil out and away from the seat of government. “Mr. Dreyfuss, your knowledge of the supernatural is extensive,” says Ichabod. Jobe interrupts by reminding Dreyfuss that he’s late by a half hour for a board meeting. Dreyfuss loans Diana and Ichabod the folio and they leave. Jobe questions Dreyfuss on why he provided so much information. The billionaire explains that they can use Crane’s history with The Horseman to their advantage. Jobe doesn’t like it and Dreyfuss appreciates his concern.

Back at The Vault, Team Ichabod decides to trap The Horseman using Banneker’s ward barrier of ‘J’ Street. Jenny tells Diana how she and Abbie stumbled across a demon raising between four white trees when they were children. Diana tells Ichabod she’ll meet him between ‘I’ and ‘K’ Streets. Diana goes home and looks at Molly’s sketchbook again. She finds drawings of The Horseman. Meanwhile, The Horseman gets ready, donning a head and a biker disguise complete with motorcycle.

At ‘J’ Street, Diana shows Ichabod the sketches of The Horseman that Molly drew. Ichabod explains the meaning of the sketches and comments that it’s like Molly was drawing from Abbie’s perspective. Diana is understandably angry about the idea that Molly could be the new Witness. They are interrupted by The Horseman’s arrival. Diana takes off for the barrier while Ichabod taunts The Horseman about not giving up Ichabod’s head for the president’s. Jake and Jenny figure out how to get the barrier opened. Diana and Ichabod run inside the wall and trap The Horseman outside. Afterwards, Diana confronts Crane about the secrets he’s kept and tells him she done with him and the supernatural. He won’t come anywhere near her daughter.

Later that night at home, Diana asks Molly where she’s seen the things she draws as she draws from life. “I don’t know; I didn’t actually see them. It was like they came to me in a dream,” Molly answers. She is no longer having the dreams, not since she stopped being quiet. Diana promises that they will go back to the way things were before.

Jobe and Dreyfuss go to where The Horseman is trapped. Dreyfuss tells The Horseman that he can help get him the president’s head and that thorn in his side “One Ichabod Crane.” Jobe has removed Banneker’s disk so The Horseman is free to go.

The episode ends as Ichabod is now residing in the apartment he saw earlier and trying to figure out how to assemble furniture. He hears a noise outside his door and when he investigates, a weird goo attacks Ichabod’s face.