SLEEPY HOLLOW “Homecoming” Recap

By Clara Pullman

The return to Sleepy Hollow this week, rather than embracing Jenny and Crane in a  warm welcoming bath, pushes them both out of their comfort zones and forces them into some reckoning of parts of their past they’d rather ignore.

That’s mostly what happens in this episode, which also features two characters drinking unholy beverages of colors not found in nature, a spirited game of quarters, a Headless bobblehead – oh and Malcolm and Jobe’s evil plan.

After this episode, I find I’m having a very weird experience and I don’t know what to do with it. In this season, Sleepy Hollow is actually tying all of its loose threads together and it’s making sense.

Ok there are still a few things I’m don’t quite get but….

Headless WASN’T just left loitering on J Street and wondering when the food trucks and artisanal cocktail bars would start appearing.

Malcolm’s pursuit of Crane from the first episode actually has a logical purpose: he was obsessed with finding out how to live forever so he could cheat his soul-sucking deal with the devil, and then he discovered Ichabod Crane, a man who himself had beaten death. And could provide him with some similar magic.

We even find out why FBI Agent Walters ushered Crane to Washington, never to appear again while Crane ends up being interrogated by some rando. (It’s because of Malcolm again.)

We get some clarity into why Crane never knew he was a Witness, in spite of it apparently being common knowledge among, well, almost everyone in Revolutionary times.

And Malcolm’s pursuit of the talismans actually made sense – mostly – and lead to an exciting climactic showdown with Crane and Jenny and Team Witness, as well as an important revelation about Crane that ties back to his origin story.

How is it that a premise that by rights should be so far removed from the original Sleepy Hollow concept actually feels closer to it than last season did? And why couldn’t they have figured this out last season when they still had Abbie in the show?

Season 4 keeps giving little callbacks to seasons past, starting with the cold open: Crane looking in astonishment at the riches of a filing station convenience store, in a nice reference to his reaction to Abbie’s provisions for the cabin in season one. Crane is a little oddly overawed by the convenience store’s abundance considering he’s been in America for 3 years now, but apparently he’s never had a slushie, so we get a bit of Crane ‘brain freeze” while he sips the unholy beverage in neon blue.

Team Witness is on its way to Sleepy Hollow to find that last piece of the Philosopher’s Stone before Malcolm can get it. Meanwhile Malcolm is digging Jobe out of the ground where Ansel left him last week, and it seems pretty clear Malcolm and Jobe are BFFs. Everyone converges on Sleepy Hollow.

Meanwhile, Team Witness needs to head into the Archives to do some research, so Jake and Alex get to see the Vault’s doppelgänger – or, as Diana calls it, Crane’s mancave. It’s bittersweet for Jenny to be back in the Archives, among her sister’s things which are still at the desk Abbie used. And ever so briefly we see Jenny have a flashback to Joe as a Wendigo. I wish Sleepy Hollow would head back to this breadcrumb in later episodes to let Jenny reflect on losing Joe but even acknowledging Joe is something.

One of my favorite things this week was watching the interaction between Jenny, Alex and Jake, as they team up to battle an ancient archer who is after Team Witness while Crane and Diana search for the last artifact. Jenny has always been the “I got this” character but this season especially she is walking around with a huge “Keep Away” sign for everyone except Crane. The one who gets to her isn’t Jake, whose crush is kept under wraps this week, but her new hacking buddy Alex. In Alex, Jenny has finally found someone less tolerant of BS than she is, and Alex pushes back when Jenny tries to sideline her and Jake again. But Alex also needs Jenny – to show her how to step out of her snarky remove and dive into real life and be badass and brave.

The episode culminates in Malcolm’s Big Night: He’s becoming immortal. He’s got the Philosopher’s Stone, Crane and the Headless Horseman and together they will create a cocktail that will allow him to live forever. This whole scenario gives Jeremy Davies the chance to chew some scenery, and I mean that in a good way. Malcolm is weird, and arrogant, and obnoxious, and giddy. Also I love that Dreyfuss wears a suit with satin lapels to his immortality ceremony. As one does.

Malcolm thoroughly enjoys revealing to Crane that George Washington, his commander and mentor, sacrificed him in battle against the Headless Horseman. The two fought on top of the Philosopher’s Stone, and it was the stone’s power that enabled Crane to defeat the Horseman. Malcolm just needs to mix together Crane and Headless’ blood on the stone to create an elixir of life that will allow him to cheat death.

Fortunately Jenny shows up and sucks Jobe into the Ben Franklin lantern used to defeat the demon Ancitif in season one.  As Team Witness gets ready to blow up the stone, Malcolm desperately tries to slurp up the episode’s second unholy beverage. Shouldn’t maybe the “elixir of life” looks like something better than snot? Although…that is a color found in nature so it’s got that going for it over the blue slushie.

I’ll admit, I felt kinda #sadface when Jobe disappeared. He is a weirdly likable demon and also fun to watch being bad. But I actually find it interesting that Malcolm is just a mortal. He just wants to live forever, which….most of us don’t want to die really so it seems….relatable?

Anyway, Team Witness heads off into the sunset without double-checking that the baddies are really dead. Seems like they might have wanted to go do a visual on that. Like that should maybe be part of the Evil Fighting punch list. Because at the end, both the Horseman and the lantern containing Jobe have disappeared. We know this because Crane is sitting at Abbie’s graveside, telling her the story and sharing a brief moment of victory.

And then we see Malcolm, who appears to be alive and maybe even immortal and I’m guessing all these guys are coming back again.