Saturday, November 14, 2015

Sleepy Hollow,Season 3, Episode 7: The Art of War



Sun Tzu and chess and dramatics from Ichabod while Abbie effortlessly wins because she’s Abbie and made of awesome. We get the prequel to this episode’s theme – overthinking vs “feeling your way.”

There’s also a recap on just about everything going on so far, albeit quite neatly done so hats off to it.

Reynolds drops in because he’s heading to DC – and wants to leave Abbie in charge while he’s gone.

On one of the bad guy teams, Atticus seems quite agitated about losing the Shard of Anubis – since someone contracted him to get it and he only has 12 hours to do it. Sophie wants to help but Attticus is bringing in the big guns – norse poetry. He uses bad poetry to raise up pandora’s box, open it and call forth something norse involving berserkers – monsterous bald things he dispatches to hunt his prey.

Jenny and Joe are sparring, recapping (this show does like its recaps) and debating what to do about the two bank account numbers they have that Joe’s dad, the mysterious Sheriff August Corbin, left for them to find. There also follows some flirting – and the Shard which Jenny absorbed suddenly taking over and Jenny dropping Joe hard. She glows reds and has disturbing visions – Joe realises something is wrong – and they decide to consult Abbie and Ichabod

Of course this does mean explaining to Abbie that they went after Atticus after she expressly told them not to. They realise that only Jenny touched the shard and absorbed it. Ichabod thinks it’s a bad idea for a human to have something that powerful inside them.

So they need to get the shard out of her, Joe and Abbie argue when Jenny’s super-hearing hears the norse monsters attack. Bullets do nothing to the creatures – but Jenny does, fighting with immense strength and skill. Though even her super powers only slow it down (and impress/scare the others)

They run and hide in a convenient tunnel system and Abbie acknowledges Jenny’s awesomeness – and that the monsters are hunting the shards. Abbie suspects Atticus, Ichabod suspects Pandora and they realise Pandora and Atticus are working together. To reinforce that super-power Jenny isn’t all good, she feels all woozy and nearly faints

To the archives! There Abbie and Jenny have a nice bonding moment which they needed because they were angry before and I do love them re-bonding after a fight. Jenny pokes Abbie’s control-freakness and futile attempts to compartmentalise her life.

Joe and Ichabod talk Joe’s love life and Ichabod “losing battles on many fronts” which has Joe advising he speak to Abbie – suggesting he sees Ichabod and Abbie heading for a romance too


They do find the monsters – apparently Berserkers (which are monsters now?) which only get stronger if you hit them but they are weak to Misteltoe.

While Jenny has another red glowy moment and declares “behold my glory for I am coming”, hey got to admire that self-esteem

When she wakes up, Abbie is there for her and they have another excellent sister moment because they’re awesome together.

Joe and Ichabod track down the berserkers and use mistletoe bolts on them – which does nothing. Plan b – run away

Ichabod appears to Abbie to check exactly what ritual Atticus used to summon the berserkers but she is torn: interfering with Atticus risks them getting on FBI surveillance, getting in trouble and destroying Reynold’s case. Lack of options forces Abbie to agree to let him go despite her misgivings

She then runs distraction with the FBI for him and he picks the lock and goes in Atticus’s shack (where did Ichabod pick up this skill? And even if he had it historically how does he possibly then manage modern locks?)

As he tries to leave he is grabbed by Sophie. They have words which would almost looks like flirting but is definitely snarky before Ichabod leaves with the clue he needed – and the change of the ritual. Rather than summoning in the name of Odin, Atticus summoned in the name of Pandora. So they have no idea what these creature’s weakness is.

That clearly calls for a flashback and Revolutionary War with more name dropping to basically is a lesson to make the enemy turn on themselves.

Joe and Jenny have a fun moment while he draws her blood and gives her his fun predictions if the future with more underlying flirting and he finally kisses her.

Joe, Ichabod and Abbie use vials of Jenny’s blood to lure the berserkers – then stealthily pour more of the blood on each berserker – they viciously turn on each other, killing two and leaving one so wounded Ichabod can finish it off (what swords work now?)

And Ichabod finally speaks to Abbie – about how he wants to join the 21st century but worries about what he is losing – including the possibility of losing Abbie to her job

Which is what Atticus and Sophie arrive with guns. They want Jenny because his boss is on the way and waaaay scarier than Pandora. Atticus points a gun at Joe’s head – and Sophie turns the gun on him. Because she’s FBI – he turns to shoot her and she shoots him. Abbie is horrified that Reynolds never told her.

The gang runs back to find Jenny – but she’s missing, having broken out by her own power after carving her visions into the walls.

Reynolds goes to his boss in DC – and wants more time to bring down Atticus with lots of ominous “there are eyes on this one” and a sense that they need this done quietly. More ominous – there are “eyes” on Abbie.

Jenny goes to Pandora’s cave and opens the door to her tree – summoning Pandora and a cowled figure. Pandora tells her t kneel – and she does – and the cowled figure repeats Jenny’s words “behold my glory, I have arrived.”



I love the moment when Ichabod cuts in on Abbie’s rant and she raises her hands and takes a brief walk round. The way they act is really well done – it’s an excellent little moment that just shows how well they know each other and work off each other.

Am I the only one starting to find it funny that Abbie shoots every monster that attacks and every time it is immune to bullets. At what point does she lose faith in her gun

Abbie being torn between her job and supernatural duty is hard but very real. I can very much see how this would happen – how it must happen without her boss being in the know. She almost has to compromise her career and professional life to keep up her clandestine heroics. It’s very real – but  don’t see anyway how this can end well for her.

I’ll just say now that I’m not buying the whole way the berserkers were killed. If they feed off power used against them then the three of them fighting would have just kept making them stronger – and I’ll buy them being vulnerable to each other – but Ichabod finishing one off with a sword? Why his sword and not Jenny’s knives? Why even have a monster this week since it’s clearly not what they wanted to focus on.


Sophie is FBI? Didn’t see that coming