Sleepy Hollow – The Way of the Gun

By: Stacy Miller

The episode begins with Diana (Janina Gavankar) and Ichabod (Tom Mison) in the audience at Molly’s (Oona Yaffe) school play telling the story of the winter of 1777. Ichabod applauds the lines but thinks the choreography in the dancing leaves a lot to be desired. You know that parent at their kid’s school play who is over enthusiastic to the point of being loud and obnoxious? That is Ichabod. “Good God man, this is a theater not a morgue,” Ichabod tells the parent who hushes him to be quiet. After the play ends, Molly asks her mother whether she can go to a sleepover for the girls in the cast at her friend Kendra’s house. Diana says it’s okay.  After all Molly has been through lately, Diana wants her daughter to have some semblance of normalcy.  Diana catches a glimpse of a young woman (Seychelle Gabriel) at the back of the room and asks Ichabod whether he ever gets the feeling that someone just walked over your grave. They leave the school and return to The Vault when Ichabod receives a call. At The Vault, Ichabod is telling Team Witness about a group that sought to raise The Four Horsemen by bonding them to human hosts using a powerful supernatural artifact.  Dreyfuss (Jeremy Davies) has Death and has already raised Pestilence and Famine.  To raise War, he will need a totem named Weapon of Fire that was hidden somewhere in America during the Revolutionary War. While they are talking, the young woman Diana saw at Molly’s school is hiding in the stacks and takes one of The Vault’s books.  However, the proximity alarm goes off alerting Team Witness to her presence. And the security cameras show her in the tunnels. Team Witness go after the intruder. Jenny finds the young woman and the two fight.  The woman escapes with the stolen book.

Returning back upstairs to The Vault, Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) comments how the young woman knew Jenny’s moves before she made them.  Ms. Mills also noticed she had a tattoo that matched the group who wanted to raise The Four Horsemen.   Jake (Jerry MacKinnon) tells Team Witness that the only book missing is an account of a courier mission in the fall of 1780.  Ichabod realizes that this volume relates to a mission he went on with Benjamin Banneker (Edwin Hodge) to safe guard a powerful weapon that Banneker said would determine the outcome of the war. Unfortunately, the enemy had set the barn on fire, destroying Banneker’s life work but according to Banneker, not the cache he hid with the weapon. Ichabod believes this weapon could have been the totem of War.  Diana and Ichabod head to the barn where Banneker hid a cache containing the weapon.  The barn was rebuilt by the current owners in 2012 and is now a restaurant with a long waiting list to get a reservation.  Diana and Ichabod sneak in later to find the totem but again run into the mysterious young woman. And unfortunately, she’s not alone. Jobe (Kamar de los Reyes) has tracked her down. But the young woman has a vial and chants a magical spell that zaps Jobe away; at least temporarily.  It also knocks her unconscious. Ichabod opens the cache and uncovers a gun “The totem of War, it’s ours” he says. Diana and Ichabod has the young woman restrained while they wonder her connection to Dreyfuss and the plan to raise The Horseman of War. “If you don’t let me go, something bad is going to happen,” the young woman says, telling Diana that when the gun is fired it raises the Horseman of War, which will cause their world to fall to pieces. “It will be a disaster like no other,” she says, insisting that she is trying to help Diana and Ichabod. The young woman tells Diana that her name is Lara.

Alex (Rachel Melvin) and Jake find the coffins of the Four Horseman but are captured by Jobe. He says that Mr. Dreyfuss needs to know the whereabouts of a very important gun and they are going to tell him where it is. Jobe has taken Alex and Jake to a house where Dreyfuss tells Alex that he knows she was trying to hack him but he’s the one that does the hacking.  He demands to know where Ichabod Crane is with his gun.

Meanwhile at the DHS safehouse where Diana and Ichabod are with Lara, she explains that the gun can only be destroyed if it is taken to a nexus of primal energy.

Jake refuses to tell Dreyfuss where Ichabod and the gun are so Jobe use his demon touch to give Wells a Hell burning experience, then snaps Alex’s neck. But it is all an illusion. Dreyfuss threatens to have Jake experience it again for real this time, but Jobe says they should concentrate on Alex because “her feelings are close to the surface.” Not wanting Alex to be hurt, Jake agrees to tell Dreyfuss what knows. Wells tells Malcolm about the book where Crane got his information.

Lara tells Diana and Ichabod how she grew up without her mother and relied on Dreyfuss, who was never cruel to her. “I know better than anyone what he wants to achieve.” And with that, Lara locks Diana and Ichabod up.  She tells them that she can’t let Dreyfuss win then runs off with the gun.  Ichabod realizes that Lara lives at the place where she’s locked them. Diana tells Ichabod that she can climb out of the window onto the narrow ledge outside then unlock the door and let Ichabod out.  She tells Ichabod that she put a tracer on Lara.

Meanwhile, Jake regrets telling Dreyfuss about Crane and the volume but when Jobe killed her, even if it wasn’t real, he couldn’t take it. Alex also admits that when she saw Jobe burning him she didn’t want him to be hurt. But before Alex can admit her feeling for Jake, Jenny appears and knocks out the guard to rescues them.

Diana and Ichabod locate Lara by a magical flame where she is attempting to destroy the gun. “Return to the consecration that shaped you,” Lara chants a spell then tosses the gun in. But Jobe is able to divert the weapon into Malcolm’s hands. “Malcolm, don’t do this,” Lara pleads. She tells Diana to get out of there. “Showdown at the Eternal Flame Corral,” Malcolm says when Diana pulls out her gun, “Who has the faster trigger finger Agent Thomas?” Lara attempts to stop Malcolm from shooting Diana and Jobe uses his demon powers to move Lara out of the way.  But all this does is give Diana a clear shot at Malcolm.  She and Ichabod are surprised that Dreyfuss wasn’t mortally wounded by Diana’s shot, meaning his ritual worked and Malcolm Dreyfuss is now human.  Lara throws one of her crystals, causing Jobe and this time also Malcolm to vanish. Meanwhile, Alex, Jake and Jenny are walking through the woods to get to Diana and Ichabod when they notice Airforce One overhead; the plane is on its way to the Presidential retreat of Camp David.  Jenny says that Dreyfuss plans to take out the Commander In Chief.

Lara, Diana and Ichabod rush to find the gun again before Jobe and Malcolm return.  But they are too late; Jobe and Malcolm reappear. An angry Jobe wants to hurt Lara, Diana and Ichabod but Malcolm that he needs them in one piece. “One anyway,” Malcolm says. Lara begs Malcolm not to do this.  Dreyfuss reminds Lara that if he doesn’t do this, she’ll never come to be. Ichabod realizes that the blue crystal she threw at Jobe gives Lara the ability to manipulate time. “She is from the future. A future I might add that I’m about to create” Malcolm tells Ichabod and Diana. Lara comes clean with who she really is. “Crane a very different Crane helped me to come back so that I could destroy the gun and protect you so that Dreyfuss couldn’t make you into the Horseman of War.” She tells Diana how Malcolm raised her after she was told Diana had died. “The Washington play was the last time I ever saw you.” Diana is shocked to realize that Lara is Molly all grown up.  Lara again pleads with Malcolm to spare her mother but if he does that, Malcolm won’t be able to mold little Molly into becoming the woman that is Lara. Plus, Agent Thomas is perfect for the job of Horseman of War.  Lara tries appealing to Malcolm’s decency as the kind, generous man who first took her in and taught her how to fight for what she believed in. “You don’t have to become a tyrant” Lara says.  Her words doesn’t stop Malcolm from moving Lara out of the way and taking a shot at Diana. But Ichabod steps in front and takes the bullet meant for Agent Thomas. Ichabod falls to the ground. He tries to fight the transformation. “I can feel it. The blood. The fear. The slaughter. The thrill of it. Armies clashing, striving for conquest. I am become War.”