Violet recaps Season 1 Episode 2 of Sleepy Hollow, entitled Blood Moon, where Mills and Crane must prevent a dark witch spirit from coming back to life! Following the recap, Violet and Josh each share their thoughts on the episode.
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Sleepy Hollow, Season 1 Episode 2, Blood Moon Recap Overview
Need a quick Sleepy Hollow episode recap of Season 1 Episode 2 titled Blood Moon? Here is a summary of events for the episode. Each event is linked to the more detailed Sleepy Hollow episode recap for Blood Moon if you need more information!
- Crane has a vision of his wife, Katrina, who tells him that a dark spirit will rise with the blood moon
- Doubt is cast on Mills’ story when the officers recant, and Captain Irving shows her the video of Brooks’ death, which appears to be a suicide.
- Brooks’ body reanimates, and the demon appears asking him to release someone
- Mills attends Sheriff Corbin’s funeral. Meanwhile, Crane visits Katrina’s grave and realizes that the dark spirit is a witch
- Brooks calls forth the dark witch spirit, and helps her find a man named Jeremy Firth, who she kills by setting his car on fire
- We learn that Mills was once a delinquent, but Sheriff Corbin helped her turn her life around
- Mills is called to the scene of Firth‘s burned car, and they find that ash has been collected from his body. Crane recalls similar murders during the war, which were blamed on a witch named Serilda of Abaddon
- Mills discovers that Corbin’s files have been moved to the archives, to which she does not have access. However, Crane knows a secret entrance through underground tunnels.
- Brooks finds another victim for Serilda: a young boy named Kyle Hemmington
- Mills and Crane find information in the archives that a good coven weakened Serilda, leading to her being captured and burned at the stake, and that she needs the ashes of the descendants of the magistrate who sentenced her to death in order to return to life.
- Mills and Crane go to the Hemmington house to stop Serilda from killing Kyle, but they find out Kyle is adopted, and that Serilda has already taken the urn containing the ashes of Kyle’s dead father, the last of the Hemmington bloodline.
- When Serilda goes into the tunnels to retrieve her bones, Crane sets a trap with leftover crates of gunpowder and causes an explosion, killing her.
- Mills has a vision of Corbin, who tells her not to be afraid of number 49. It appears that he is referring to the room number of Mills’ sister at the mental institution.
Sleepy Hollow Episode Recap: Blood Moon, the Details
In the opening scene, Ichabod Crane is running through the woods from the Headless Horseman. Then the three other Horsemen join in the chase. His wife, Katrina, saves him, and tells him that before the Four Horsemen arrive, an “army of evil” will make way for their arrival, and that the first dark spirit rises with the blood moon. Katrina adds, “She’s one of us” and that he must stop her before she kills again. Ichabod looks above him and sees the face of a scary looking woman, but just then he awakens from his vision, and is in a hotel room. He tries to leave the room to speak with Mills, but a police officer stops him.
Meanwhile, at the police station, Mills is talking to the Captain, and finds out that the two officers who went on record about the Headless Horseman have recanted. He also shows her the video of Officer Brooks’ death, where we see Brooks running headfirst into the mirror, and his head snapping backward as a result of the impact. Mills tries to say that’s not what happened, and that she’s not the only one who saw something in the cell with Brooks. Captain Irving goes over Crane’s pscyh evaluation, as we see Crane following the instructions of post it notes placed around the hotel room telling him how things work. Irving says he has to go to Albany to “secure some resources” and in the meantime, he’s giving her latitude, but warns her not to embarrass him.
Mills goes to pick up Crane from the hotel room, though he is upset at being held prisoner there. He tells Mills about his vision. However, Mills is a little reluctant to believe what he’s saying.
Down in the coroner’s office, Brooks’ body reanimates and he snaps his head back in place. The demon appears and says something in a language we can’t understand, then Brooks pulls a large medallion necklace out of his mouth. The demon says something else to him, and Brooks asks, “Release who?”
Crane is riding in Mills’ police car, as she questions him about his wife, and how could he not have known she was a witch. He tries to change the subject to his outrage on the 10% tax now in place, but it doesn’t work.
While Mills attends Sheriff Corbin’s funeral, Crane watches from afar, then goes to visit Katrina’s grave, which reads that she was burned for witchcraft. He realizes what Katrina meant by “She’s one of us”: she was referring to a witch.
That night, Brooks uses the medallion to call forth the dark witch spirit. He tells her he was sent to help her find the people she is looking for, and to give her a message: “The ashes of the pious will ordain your resurrection. Take their flesh, and you will reclaim yours.”
On a dark road, Brooks turns on his police siren and pulls a guy over. He asks for the man’s full name, which is Jeremy Steven Firth, then tells him, “Wherever this road takes you, and it won’t be far, I want you to know it wasn’t personal.” Then he gets back in his car and drives away. Jeremy tries to start up his car, but nothing’s working. The witch jumps on the hood of the car, and sets it on fire.
The next day, Crane and Mills are at the police station, as Crane explains that witches draw their power from the lunar cycle. Mills isn’t too happy about her current situation, and Crane chides her for not believing her own eyes. Crane observes that Mills has not has appropriate time to mourn the Sheriff, and correctly presumes that the Sheriff believed her about what she saw in the woods. We then get some back story about how Mills met the Sheriff: she broke into a pharmacy to steal drugs, he caught her, and then helped her turn her life around rather than take her to jail. She then gets a call on the radio about some “unusual activity.”
Mills and Crane arrive to the scene of Jeremy’s burned car. The body inside is burned to a crisp, and it has claw marks on the chest. Crane observes that it looks like someone collected the ash, and he thinks he knows who did it. He goes on to tell a story about his own past, during a blood moon, when his regiment returned to camp to find it destroyed, and bodies everywhere, men reduced to ash. He sensed a darker presence in the woods around them. Murders like this became more frequent. Stories spread about a dark coven lead by a high priestess named Serilda of Abaddon, with whom General Washington believed the Redcoats had formed a dark alliance. This seems to make sense to Mills, who tells Crane that Corbin believed there were two groups of witches in Sleepy Hollow: one good and one evil.
They rush back to the police station to look at Corbin’s files, only to find out that they’re gone. While Mills goes off to find out what happened to them, a man comes up to question Crane, who uses the cover that he’s a history professor from Oxford. We find out that the guy, Luke, is Mills’ ex. She reports that the files have been moved to the archives across the street, and she doesn’t have access to get in. However, Crane says he knows another way into the “armory” and they head to the basement. Crane grills Mills about Luke, and we find out that they broke up because she was going to leave for the FBI. Crane moves a filing cabinet out of the way, grabs a pickaxe that happens to be in the nearby fire extinguisher container, and knocks a large hole in the wall.
They step through, and he explains that during the war they built tunnels beneath the city to secretly transport munitions. Apparently the bones of witches are buried down there too. He comes across crates of gunpowder they left there. Then he leads her up a ladder and through a secret door into the archives room, where she finds Corbin’s files.
Brooks confronts a young boy playing outside, and asks his name, emphasizing that he needs to hear his full name, which is Kyle Hemmington. Brooks replies, “It’s a nice name. I am sorry it had to be yours.”
Crane finds some information in the archives on Serilda of Abaddon: the leader of a good coven, called Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart, used white magic to weaken Serilda, making her vulnerable to mortal attack. She was caught and burned at the stake, but her last words were, “By the turn of the blood moon, the ashes of your ancestry will be mine. Your flesh will be my flesh. I will live again.” The magistrate who sentenced her was named Robert Daniel Firth, and Mills points out that the victim in the car accident was named Jeremy Firth. They realize that Serilda needs the ashes of the magistrate’s descendants to return to life, and that she must complete her resurrection by the turn of the blood moon, which is tonight.
Mills researches genealogical records and discovers that the Hemmingtons are also descendants of the magistrate, so they head over to that house. Serilda appears in Kyle Hemmington’s house and picks Kyle up, but is startled when Kyle’s mom comes rushing down the stairs in response to his screams. Mills bursts in the front door just then, and Kyle is fine but frantic, saying he saw a woman that looked like she was on fire. They notice that the urn of the mom’s husband is missing, and find out that Kyle was adopted. Therefore, Serilda already has the ashes of the last Hemmington. The only way to kill her is to burn her. They head to the tunnels, because Serilda will be there to get her bones, which she will need to return to flesh and blood.
Brooks digs up Serilda’s bones for her. When Mills and Crane arrive at the tunnels, they split up to look for Serilda, each carrying a gun. Meanwhile, Serilda assembles her bones and begins to come to life. Crane finds her and shoots at her, but she catches the bullet, and he drops his gun, not realizing there are more shots. Mills finds him, and they run towards the gunpowder crates and set up a trap for Serilda. Serilda reveals that Katrina is the one who bound her power, and that Katrina is trapped between worlds. They run further away and take cover, as Serilda follows them. Crane throws a torch at the crates and causes an explosion, which kills Serilda.
Back at the police station, Mills decides to go into Corbin’s office. When she opens the door, she has a vision that she finds him inside and has a heart to heart with him. His last words to her are “Don’t be afraid of number 49. That’s where you’ll find you’re not alone.” But then Crane interrupts her and breaks her vision. She looks back to see an empty office.
Elsewhere, we see a placard that reads “Room 49” and see a woman doing push ups. We discover that it is Abbie Mills’ sister, Jennifer Mills. She pretends to take the pills the nurse gives her, but spits them out after the nurse leaves, and crushes them. She starts to do chin ups, when she hears a loud noise in her room. She turns around to look, but the episode ends there.
Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 2 of Sleepy Hollow
Violet’s Thoughts on Sleepy Hollow, Season 1 Episode 2: Blood Moon
This was an okay episode, but I still have mixed feelings about the show. As I mentioned last week in my thoughts on the pilot episode, I was intrigued by the premise of the show, but the execution at times seems a little subpar. That seemed to be the case in this episode as well.
They’re definitely taking things to the spooky level, with demons, witches, and dark spirits, which I like, and they also try to throw in the “jump” factor a couple of times. At the same time, they’re also keeping up the comic relief factor of Crane still trying to understand this new world in which he has woken up, which I continue to find amusing.
Unfortunately, something else that still remains is the “Wait, why did that just happen?” factor, where something occurs that doesn’t make much sense. For example, when Crane starts busting down the wall to get to the tunnels, how does he know exactly where to go, and get it right on his first try? I’m sure a lot of things have changed in that building in the past 250 years! And why are there so many things left in the tunnels from 250 years ago? No one else has thought to use them or move them since the Revolutionary War? What about the Civil War? Or the Underground Railroad? Why are so many things left undisturbed down there, yet it seems like other things have been built down there since then, such as stairways and railings? It was just a little too easy for him to find his way to the archives, as well as too easy for him to access the room through that grating door, which opened up without any difficulty. And the whole thing about the boy, Kyle, being adopted — you’d think that Brooks would have been able to figure out through some sort of supernatural power that Kyle wasn’t part of the bloodline, much like Serilda did, rather than make a human mistake like that and waste everyone’s time. Another thing that didn’t make sense, is why would Katrina say that Serilda is “one of us”? That would imply that Serilda was part of Katrina’s coven. She could have just said that Serilda was a witch. I guess you could argue that it was supposed to be a big reveal that there was a good coven and a bad coven in Sleepy Hollow, but I think that’s something the audience could easily figure out.
Apart from the negatives, I did like that we got a little back story on Mills and her relationship with Corbin, as well as a little back story on Crane and Katrina. You can see that the show is trying to make an effort at character development.
Anyway, the episode left us with an introduction to Abbie’s sister, Jennifer, and therefore leaves us wondering how her character will come into play. I will be watching next week’s episode because I am curious as to what Jennifer’s role will be in all this, so good job to the writers for keeping me interested.
Josh’s Thoughts on Sleepy Hollow, Season 1 Episode 2: Blood Moon
The biggest thing that stuck out for this episode of Sleepy Hollow in my mind was, “No Headless Horseman this episode?” I thought that was a bit strange that he was not very present this episode aside from the beginning. I guess I can understand the Sleepy Hollow writers’ move on this–it would be hard to center a show completely around that one character and get longevity out of the show. I had thought the show runners would bring in more characters to provide additional story devices.
Right now I am still pretty intrigued by Sleepy Hollow. It has a mixture of X-Files and a bit of a Supernatural feel to it at the moment. It does not quite have the same impact as either show for me, however. X-Files was amazing, and I am not sure this show is anywhere near the same caliber yet.
A sort of funny thought that traces from my recap from last week for Sleepy Hollow: I chuckled a bit when Ichabod Crane was messing with the light switch and marveling at it. I had a feeling the show would sneak in some of the types of scenes.
What is interesting about the show, is there is a bit of an edge to it. People that are more sensitive to scary movies might get an occasional jump on this show. The witch had a fairly scary looking appearance, and the demon in the mirror from last week actually got me to jump in that scene. All in all, I am still excited about show, and will continue to write further Sleepy Hollow episode recaps!
Scenes from the next episode of Sleepy Hollow: For the Triumph of Evil
Here are scenes from Sleepy Hollow, Season 1 Episode 3, titled For the Triumph of Evil: