SLEEPY HOLLOW “Sick Burn” Review

By Clara Pullman

Infection is running rampant on Sleepy Hollow this week.

There is a fire fever — or monster flu as Jake dubs it — that threatens to burn the city of Washington DC … again. Meanwhile Malcolm doesn’t look so good and he is having fever dreams about becoming emperor of America. And some disturbing foreshadowing about Crane.

Also Jake and Alex were back after their week-long hiatus, with more of their snappy dialogue and chemistry (chemistry doesn’t have to be romantic, boys and girls, although the show may be going that way….). And Molly and Jenny had some lovely bonding time. Good stuff all around from the players on Team Witness this week.

The week’s monster emerges when Diana and Crane take Molly to see her favorite teenage social media star, Logan something something. I’m not that excited by the whole teenager social media star thing but there was some A-plus silliness when Crane starts quoting The Who’s My Generation, a reference that goes straight over Molly’s pre-teen, eye-rolling head.

Unfortunately, poor Logan, after thrilling Molly with a selfie, collapses with a mysterious fever. Meanwhile the monster separately makes itself known to Jake and Alex while our resident millennials are on out on Tinder dates gone wrong. Jake’s been stood up and Alex’s date has come down with the mysterious infection after watching a viral video. Get it? It’s viral.

Alex and Jake head off to the hospital to check on her bad Tinder date, and find Crane there, along with a whole mess of people who have suddenly got a bad fever. I love that we find out here that Jake is germaphobe. And also that Jake just knows, if Crane is involved, this isn’t a run of the mill fever.  When a hospital orderly tries to control the writhing Tinder date, he turns into an inferno that burns them both up, so yeah, good call on that, Jake.

(By the way, good free advertising for Tinder, which gets name checked multiple times in this episode. Even if Alex’s Tinder date literally becomes tinder. Womp womp. Meanwhile, I guess Instagram won’t allow their name to be used? Having the characters refer to videos posted on Picagram, like, 400 times gets a bit awkward. )

So that’s basically the monster of the week only it gets even more complicated than that so bear with me. The week’s monster is a jinn – known popularly as a genie – who, via the viral video, not only gives its victims a fire fever but causes them to hear his voice in their head. A voice telling them to head to his underground lair (is there any other kind of lair?) where he consumes their life force.

Aaannd this all ends up tying into the week’s twistory, which introduces us to the original members of Agency 355: Paul Jennings, Sacagawea, Davy Crockett and Uncle Sam himself, Samuel Wilson. Team 355 fought this same monster when he threatened to burn DC to the ground through his spontaneously combusting victims. (The four show up in the flashbacks dressed like they’re about to get their official U.S. stamp photo taken. Not a coherent dress code for Agency 355.)

Phew, ok. Mostly what this does is let Jake and Alex show they’re not just members of Team Witness, they’re ready to be brave and to sacrifice for each other just like the original Team 355. Have I mentioned yet how great Jake is? He’s gone full hipster with his vest and flat cap and apparently he knows his wine and he knows the value of a mint condition set of action figures still in their original box and he is a germaphobe who nevertheless will infect himself to save Alex and really he’s one of the season’s major strengths.

As is Jenny, who spent this episode being the world’s most awesome babysitter. She’s looking after Molly, who, as would any of us, is thrilled to spend a day in Jenny’s world, hanging at the trailer, maybe trying out some throwing stars, and learning about a Buddhist ritual to help you find your true path.  We are getting to see a different side of Jenny – a little softer and very obviously wanting to look out for Molly in the way that she wishes she and Abbie had been. I love her look of relief when Molly chooses the path of the oracle, which gives her the ability to see into people’s souls.

About that … her first vision is not good. So here at the back half of the season, we are getting  Baddie Part Deux: Malcolm, who is no longer happy with just living forever but wants to inflict his newfound joie de vivre on everyone in America. Whether they like it or not. He clearly thinks he’s immortal thanks to drinking the elixir from Crane and Headless’s blood (still ew). But he’s got some kind of weird veining going on that sends him into visions of his own. That opening scene where he is holding his own private Mad Hatter tea party on the White House lawn and the disturbing vision of Crane being his captive — for what looks like years — is that just his fever dream or is it going to happen?

Molly’s first vision of Crane imprisoned suggests this could be more than Malcolm’s dream. I have to say, they are really slow rolling the new Witness story and while I’ve mostly enjoyed how they’ve played it, there are only 5 episodes left. Is Molly going to be having visions of a dysoptian future? Will her visions be used to help Team Witness solve the monster of the week mystery? We have questions.

At the end, Lucas reappears and it seems like he is part of Malcolm’s new nefarious plan. Jobe just looks like he is wondering how he got his wagon hitched to this twerp gone wild. It doesn’t seem to be what he signed on for. We still don’t really know what he DID sign on for, but supporting a megalomaniac with fantasies about saving the U.S. from democracy doesn’t seem like his thing, and he looks like he wants to be anywhere else but there. So why is he still there?? I’m rooting for Sleepy Hollow to tie up all these threads in the next five episodes, as so far they’ve done a good job on that front in season four.