Sleepy Hollow S01E05: Plaguer, Not Plastic

Sleepy Hollow S01E05: Plaguer, Not Plastic

[Ed. Note: Carmen Petaccio is a writer from New York City. He blogs regularly at bpofd.com and loves Sleepy Hollow.]

Wake up, #SleepyHeads! #SleepyMonday may #SleepySadly be #SleepyOver, but we’re already #SleepyWell on our #SleepyWay to #SleepyFridays. So no matter how #SleepySleepy you are, remember to #SleepySign the very #SleepyReal online petition to keep #SleepyHollow on #SleepyBoth #SleepyMonday AND #SleepyFriday, where they and we #SleepyBelong. #SleepyOnly then #SleepyWill we #SleepyBe truly #SleepyBlessed. #SleepyAnd #SleepyWho #SleepyWouldn’t #SleepyWant #SleepyTo #SleepyBe #SleepyBlessed? #SleepyNoOne! #SleepyThat’sWho! #SleepyLet’sGetToTheEpisode!

So, an adorbs little girl is strolling around a Spooky Forest collecting leaves for her scrapbook. She meet-cutes a sickly little boy who’s dressed as the Joaquin Phoenix character in M. Night Shyamalan’s seminal psychological horror film The Village (which, sidebar, is a solid movie regardless of its flagrantly moronic, thematically necessary twist and do ya wanna fight about it?). The adorbs little girl invites the sickly little boy to play tag. He sickly agrees, and chases after her in a sickly fashion. Adorbs little girl, now in radius of sickly little boy’s germ breath, promptly disappears into thin air. Thankfully, Samurai Horseman of the Apocalypse is there to take her place in the game. Samurai Horseman chases sickly little boy through the woods, onto Sleepy Hollow Drive, and evaporates into swirling wisps of Horseman dust. Worst game of tag ever.

Meanwhile, Ichabod has moved out of the Holiday Inn Express and into the Sergeant’s Luxurious Cabin in the Woods. He’s stocked up on anti-plastic rage and artisanal formaggio and Two Buck Chuck. He’s ready to spackle those Hessian bullet holes in the walls, as soon as he learns what spackling is. Or at least he thinks that’s what’s gonna happen…until a call comes through on Abbie’s walkie talkie. Sickly little boy was found passed out in the street, probably due to his sickliness! To the Cherokee!

At the scene of the sickness, Abbie’s awful ex-boyfriend, Luke, explains how sickly little boy was stumbling drunk down the street, passed out, and now has Black Vein Disease. A stunning diagnosis, Dr. Absolute-Jerk, really. Ichabod, being a handsome genius with eidetic memory, is like wtf where’d you learn to solve crimes, Luke? Cambridge?! Icks goes to investigate further, and it takes him all of one second to figure out that the boy speaks High Valyrian Middle English and is from the past. So there, Luke.

Back at SHPD, Captain Orlando Jones calls in the CDC, which definitely isn’t operational during the government shutdown. (I guess script supervisors are a part of the government. Like this kid who doesn’t even speak English would receive treatment anyway. Learn English, you free-rider! #Christie2016) Ichabod instructs everyone to brush up on their Chaucer, as if they hadn’t been already, and Luke continues to act like the Patient Zero of Jerks. “I am a jerky ’80s movie antagonist,” says Luke. “We know,” says Captain Orlando Jones, “please shut the fuck up.”

In a subtle homage to The Newsroom, the qualitative antithesis of M. Night Shyamalan’s seminal psychological horror film The Village, Ichabod Skypes with sickly little boy, who is now in Contagion-style, PLASTIC quarantine. It’s essentially the scariest experience one can imagine for someone whose idea of technology is a Jacob’s Ladder.

Way to ease him in, Ichs. Via his Olde Voldemort, Ichabod ascertains that the boy’s name is Thomas, and he’s from Roanoke. In a manner befitting a place where there hasn’t been magic ghost demon crimes every week for the past month, all the surrounding police officers deduce that this is a straightforward and non-magical runaway and/or Prisoners situation. Ichabod (doy) deduces instead that this boy is from the LOST Colony at Roanoke. Ichs and Abs head to investigate and, on their way out, Captain OJ informs them that Thomas’s BVD is spreading. Something tells me this isn’t a straightforward and non-magical runaway and/or Prisoners situation at all!

Suddenly in possession of superhuman tracking skills (!), Ichabod uses spider webs and CGI flowers to track Thomas’s path back to the LOST colony. This leads him and Abbie to a rinky dink lake with a rinky-dink island in the middle. Obviously the LOST colony of Roanoke has been living for four hundred years in a chronological anomaly on rinky-dink island, so Ichabod tests the depth of the waters with a stick, so they can, like, cross. Then a scary undertow monster sucks the stick under the water, all scarily. Then Ichabod makes v. great faces in response. After, Ichs and Abs walk across the water (!) to the LOST colony, where silly hats are all the rage.

All the silly-hatted colonists are infected with BVD, but due to an unknowable (but probably soon knowable) magic, they aren’t sick. “When I was diagnosed with BVD, I thought my life was over. Little did I know, it was just beginning.”-Someone in a silly hat. Anyhoo, the Jack of the LOST colony explains how the Horseman of Pestilence (dibs that name for my emo revival band) infected them with BVD, and most likely chased plague-covered Thomas into the present to spread his BVD plague there. Where does this Horseman of Pestilence think he is? Freshman Orientation at Cambridge? The nerve!

Ichabod and Abbie rush back to the hospital to rescue Thomas and return him to the chronological/wellness anomaly, but, turns out, Ichabod is infected with BVD now, too. BVD : 2013 :: Silly hats : 1578. He and Abbie throw excellent hissy fits and an orderly injects Ichabod with a sedative, making him very…wait for it…wait for it…SLEEPY.

After another pointless, gorgeous Katrina flashback, and some more Luke awfulness, Abbie enters the chapel from the end of LOST (yes spoilers, I just did you a FAVOR) and prays to God to send her a sign about how to save Ichabod. No sign comes, because there is no God, but on the way out she sees a deus ex old lady fingering the holy water birdbath thing. This makes her realize she has to baptize Ichabod and Thomas in the fountain in the LOST Colony of Roanoke. But does she have enough time?!

Captain Orlando Jones, conveniently all-in on this plan, arranges for Abbie to steal an ambulance with Ichs and Thomas. Ichabod nearly dies in the forest en sleepy route to the LOST Colony, but Abbie shoots him up with Red Bull and he’s fine. They make it, barely escaping The Horseman of Pestilence. Ichabod takes a — let’s be honest — much needed bath in the fountain, curing his, Thomas’s, and everyone else’s BVD. All better!

With everything all better, The LOST Colony of Roanoke evaporates into swirling wisps of Roanoke dust. So Ichabod and Abbie are free to spackle and eat artisinal cheese until their flawless bellies burst. Or at least they think they are…until The Headless Horseman rises Godzilla-esque from his lake lair! And then the scariest thing that ever happened on Sleepy Hollow happens: your television says there won’t be any new episodes of Sleepy Hollow for three weeks. #SleepyNOOOOO

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