TV REVIEW: Sleepy Hollow’s Season 2 Finale Offers a Strong Setup For a Third Season

By Cindy Jackson

Sleepy Hollow’s season two finale, Tempus Fugit, begins with a gorgeous Revolutionary battle scene that was edited out of the original episode for which it was filmed, but managed – thankfully – to find a home here.

Flash forward a bit to Captain Ichabod Crane, being very stoic and Captain-y. A soldier tells the Captain that there is a woman being held prisoner who says she knows about his mission.

Captain Crane (yes, I am totally going to keep calling him that) goes to meet her. Abbie, thrilled to see Crane alive, greets him with exuberance, which, along with the fact that she is wearing pants, makes the Captain uncomfortable. Abbie has the advantage of knowing who she is dealing with, and convinces him to take her with him. It will take much more convincing, however, to get him to completely believe her.

Meanwhile, Katrina realizes that her husband did not make it to her triage tent as he should have because he was called away by a Miss Abigail Mills. She immediately runs to find Abraham (again??? *eye roll*) so he can help her find the Witnesses and kill them.

In one of about a bazillion beautifully done parallels to the pilot episode, Crane requests permission to transport Abbie to an encampment. During the carriage ride, Abbie talks Captain Crane into visiting Benjamin Franklin. Franklin tells Ichabod to go get him a book from another room so he can have a private chat with Abbie. Abbie tells Ben that the horseman’s ally is Katrina. Ben makes her promise not to tell Ichabod, because “of all the possibilities we’ve discussed, this is the one he is least ready to accept.” They decide that their best bet is to go to Frederick’s Manor because Grace Dixon my be able to reverse the time travel spell. Yes, THAT Grace Dixon. Crane’s face when he comes back and realizes they made a plan without him is PRICELESS.

Just when you thought you weren’t going to get your dose of sword-fighting Ichabod in this episode, here comes the not-yet-headless horseman. In comes Mr. Grumpypants with his broad axe, and he and Ichabod do their thing. Abbie grabs some guns and….let’s just say ol’ Ben isn’t as flexible and Matrix-y as our BAMF Captain Irving. In other words, yeah. The horseman totally beheads Benjamin Freakin Franklin.

This is NOT going well.

They escape from the horseman and Captain Crane promptly returns Miss Mills to her cell. He is extremely angry and demands she tell him what she discussed with Franklin. So she does. He does not accept what she says about his wife and walks out. As he leaves, Abbie mentions that Katrina is pregnant and also tells Crane to look at her cell phone, or “little rectangular box” for a photo of them together and that her password is his birthday. HER CELL PHONE PASSWORD IS HIS BIRTHDAY. AKA the Ichabbie squee heard around the world.

Crane is then relieved of duty for disobeying orders and leading the horseman to Franklin. He goes to his house and sees evidence of Katrina’s pregnancy and witchcraft laid out on the table because he apparently forgot to text “omw” before he came home. Oops. She was just about to literally stab him in the back (you know, as opposed to the five million times she figuratively did it) but soldiers came to let Captain Crane know General Washington was looking for him.

He gets away from Katrina like he’s going to karaoke night, and manages to sneak back to see Abbie. Or at least her belongings. He finds her cell phone and had an adorable misunderstanding of the phrase “slide to unlock,” then puts in her password which, I may have mentioned WAS HIS BIRTHDAY. He finds and watches a video of himself and Abbie and at once believes everything she has told him.

As he is doing that, the Colonel who relieved Crane of duty pays Abbie a visit. He tells her she is going to pay for what happened to Franklin. Instead, she kicks his revolutionary butt and leaves him lying on the floor of the cell. Enter Crane, who sees what she has done and comes off with a perfectly-delivered “I’m here to save you.”

One of my favorite moments include our duo walking to Frederick’s Manor. Crane is talking about how hard it is to believe everything about Katrina. Abbie is so sweet and reassures him that this Katrina is not the woman he married, and that there was a time when she did truly love him. Whether or not it’s the truth, it’s a beautiful thing to say to him in that moment.

Speaking of beautiful moments, they arrive at the Manor and Grace Dixon and Abigail Mills meet. They don’t have much time to talk but it’s a very emotional scene nonetheless. Abbie tells Grace why they are there and Grace prepares the spell. Abbie needs to stay with her while the spell is being performed and it will also need a lot of power, meaning the protection around the home will be compromised. That, obviously, means the horseman and Katrina are coming to visit. Crane goes out to hold them off, but first gets an awkward but incredibly sweet hug from Abbie. As Grace and Abbie prepare the spell, Grace tells Abbie that the blank pages in her journal are for Abbie to write on, and that “sometimes all it takes is to put pen to paper to make a difference.”

The spell takes effect, and Ichabod, Abbie and Katrina all end up in the moment before Katrina’s spell took effect. Katrina is furious with Abbie for ruining her plan (and killing her son, too) and immediately attacks her. Ichabod gets up and tries to stop Katrina. They fight, and Ichabod fatally stabs Katrina. In a stunningly performed scene, he falls to the ground with her, grief stricken. She sees a vision of Henremy waiting for her and disintegrates. Abbie tried to comfort Crane by saying he had no choice, to which he replied, “Yes I did.” (Oh my goodness.)

The episode ends with Jenny and non-evil Irving joining Abbie and Crane and they all pretty much pinky swear to be best evil-fighting buds 4-eva. A bit forced, maybe, but if it sets up the next season of seeing these four amazing people in the opening credits, I am ALL for it. Now it’s up to FOX to make the decision whether they want to make that happen. If tonight is any indication of what season 3 would be like, they’d better.