Sleepy Hollow: “The Indispensable Man” and “Bad Blood” (Episodes 1.12 and 1.13)

If you’re not into cliffhangers, last night’s episode of Sleepy Hollow was not for you. If you’re not into surprises of epic, familial proportions, “Bad Blood” probably irked you. And if you’ve never been curious as to what purgatory might look like, then you may not have been impressed with Abbie and Ichabod’s journey into the intermediary realm. However, if all of those things float your supernatural drama boat, you most likely had the time of your life during the two-part season finale of FOX’s hit show. And you were not alone.
All of Abbie’s hard work trying to acclimate Ichabod with the glories of contemporary life finally paid off last night, as we bore witness to a Sleepy Hollow miracle: Ichabod sending a text message. Next to the big reveal about his son, this was probably the most exciting, unforeseen event of the episode. Do we exaggerate? Very well then, we exaggerate. But still, it was a huge deal. And things got even more hilarious as he railed against the greedy, capitalistic ideals behind cellular phone upgrades, only to confess that he did sort of want a smartphone. (Even Ichabod could see that his flip phone was starting to look very 2008.)
“The Indispensable Man” was an episode concerned with prophecy. Everywhere they turned—Washington’s bible, Brooks, the Sin Eater (Henry Parrish)—Abbie and Ichabod were warned of a coming betrayal. Ichabod would forsake his fellow witness and leave Abbie to die at the hands of Moloch in purgatory. Abbie became a bit obsessed, wondering if the prophecy was true, yet not wanting to believe it. The Sin Eater also made an interesting point to her—that the prophecy was more likely to come into existence the more she focused on it. All of this brought up the question of whether or not prophecies can be broken, and if they are spoken into existence.
Washington’s bible revealed more secrets, as Ichabod and Abbie discovered another message (from zombie Washington, since he wrote it after he died) that explained the coming apocalypse and ways to stop it. First, they’d have to retrieve the map he had drawn up, which would direct them from Earth to purgatory. This was especially enticing for Ichabod, as he immediately realized he would be able to free his wife, Katrina. However, Abbie had been visited by Brooks earlier in the episode and had another plan for the map. She was of the opinion that it needed to be destroyed since Moloch was after it—an idea that Ichabod clearly struggled with, since it called for a major sacrifice on his part. Sacrifice, along with prophecy, was another big theme for the finale, and it has to be said that Sleepy Hollow plays around with religion (specifically Christianity) and biblical text so well—it’s sort of like being in the coolest Bible study class ever.
The Sin Eater, Henry Parrish, also played a major role in the finale (even before the big, epic, insane reveal). He used the dead priest’s beads to help figure out the location of Washington’s corpse, which was also the location of the map. After finding the map and fighting off a newly transformed and demonic Brooks (actually, Brooks might really be dead this time around), Ichabod did the unthinkable and burned the map, destroying his only hope at rescuing Katrina … or, so we thought.
Although Ichabod made what was essentially the ultimate sacrifice, “The Indispensable Man” (a shouts-out to Washington) ended with bad news all around: the apocalypse was still coming (so said Henry Parrish), and Captain Irving had to turn himself in after authorities began looking into the murders that his daughter technically committed while she was under demonic possession in “The Vessel.”