A woman speaks these words, then leaps off a building. Abbie is left breathless and terrified in her wake.
"We've had this coming."
A nightmare, a creature with darkness for eyes, sands of truth pouring from his body, infecting victims.
"This Coming"
Trust becomes key. Who should be allowed into our space? Who earns the right to our history? Who has access to our minds?
In "For the Triumph of Evil," Sleepy Hollow turns away from jump scares for a chance to delve into the inner psyche. It questions how personal demons can be more frightening than reincarnated beings, how their brand of haunting can be more intense and unnerving. Our own inadequacies are used to manipulate The evil Sandman turns victims into creatures who cannot handle the truth of their deed. Like Oedipus of old they turn blind. The sands of truth fill their eyes, which then explode under the pressure with a visceral squelch.
The villain of the episode, a creature patterned after the story of the Sandman, begins to terrorize Abbie. It forces her to confront the past she has so dutifully repressed. Bits of pieces of her past--the man who witnessed her and her sister Jenny with the demon, the psychiatrist who believed Jenny but did nothing to help her--confront Abbie with the need to be truthful, the need for her to rectify sins of omission. As the Sandman stalks and slays the other silent witnesses, it draws closer to Abbie, taunting her.
To beat this new evil Abbie and Crane turn to their roots, or at least their roots as Americans. The monster has origin in Mohawk legend, and by going down to their elemental selves the protagonists can face and defeat this foe. With the aid of a trusty Mohawk car salesman--an interesting choice of occupation for a shamanistic Indian--Abbie learns how to beat the Sandman on his territory. Entering a world of dreams through mystical tea and scorpion venom, and followed by the ever-endearingly chivalrous Ichabod, she finally experiences a clear conscience.
Healing confession leaves her stronger and more able to persevere. If, as the characters theorize, "fear is pain," than Abbie is now untouchable. She has overcome the fear and guilt of what happened when she sold out Jennie. She's now ready to kick trash and take names as a witness of the apocalypse.
Some Thoughts:
-It looks like they are setting up for some early American Masonic tie-ins. The "lair" that Abbie and Ichabod use has a smattering of compasses and squares. They are even framing a set of scales in the last shot. Coincidence? Maybe, but I choose to think not.
-Captain Irving is evil, right? He's just got to be.
-The creepiness of the effects continues to impress. The white out eyes and the spun glass defeat is one of the coolest details I've seen.