"Columbia"

"I'd hazard the demon we encountered was released when the Lincoln statue's hex was broken, which means someone did this, someone with a plan."

—Ichabod Crane to Diana Thomas

"Columbia" is the first episode of Season Four of Fox's Sleepy Hollow. It was written by Albert Kim and directed by Russell Fine. It is the fiftieth episode of the series overall, and debuted on January 6, 2017. This episode is the fourth season premiere.

Synopsis[]

Crane and Jenny begin to navigate life following the unexpected death of Abbie Mills. When he finds himself in a the nation's capital, Crane must forge unlikely partnerships in his quest to find the next Witness, as he discovers that there is more evil at play than he realized was possible.^[1]

Recap[]

In a subterranean room in Washington, Crane reviews his history with an unseen interrogator. The interrogator has slides of the Headless Horsemen, and notes that now Crane is alone, no one will miss him. Clearly fed up, Crane demands answers, he's been trapped there for two weeks and hasn't seen Director Walters. When the interrogator steps in, Crane knocks him out and makes a run for it, but notices an office with the door open. Inside are photos of him and Abbie, and pictures of various monsters. There is also a blueprint of the Lincoln Memorial, and Crane wonders who he is dealing with.

He sees the interrogator on a monitor, getting to his feet, so finds a ladder and climbs to the surface. He emerges into a wood, and runs until he comes to a paved surface. When he crosses it, an airplane passes overhead and he sees a sign saying reading Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. As the mist clears, the Capital Building is visible in the distance.

At a coffee shop, Homeland Security Special Agent Diana Thomas meets with her partner, Eric Cortez, and complains that date he set her up with wasn't her type. Eric tells her to stop finding faults with guys, and Diana says that she doesn't like change, besides things with her daughter Molly are upside down. They are interrupted when Diana gets a call, and they respond.

Crane makes his way into the city and heads for the Lincoln Memorial. At the same time, Diana and Eric arrive at the Memorial and go inside. Someone has cut the head off the statue of Lincoln. Eric goes to check the substructure while Diana sees a glowing green crack on the side of the statue that fades and disappears. She calls Eric but doesn't get through. Eric has found a figure standing alone in the substructure and tells him that the area is off-limits.

Eric approaches the inhuman figure, who turns and punctures the back of the agent's skull with one talon. The wound glows green and Eric collapses, his eyes burned out. Diana arrives in time to see the murder and pulls her weapon, the figure knocks her aside with superhuman speed. As it looms over her, Crane arrives and knocks the figure back with a stanchion, and yells at Diana to shoot the figure. She does so but it ignores the bullets and speeds off.

Diana turns her weapon on Crane and demands to know who he is. He gives her his name and when she doesn't stand down identifies himself as a historical consultant who has worked with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, and then refers to the figure as a demon he must pursue. When she reacts, he corrects himself and says "killer," and warns that if he doesn't catch it, then more people will end up like Eric. A glowing green portal opens briefly in the wall, and when she turns to look, she discovers that Crane has slipped away.

After Diana calls for backup, her supervisor, Mark Wong, arrives and gets her story. She explains about the glow, and insists that she didn't make it up. Mark assumes due to the shock of seeing Eric die, she was hallucinating, and warns her that such reports can ruin an agent's career. He advises her to go home and get some rest, and Diana reluctantly leaves. As she leaves, she sees a boot print in the dirt with gravel in it.

Diana follows her instincts to the manhole cover that Crane had escaped through earlier. She climbs down and finds herself in the facility, and discovers an office that has been recently cleaned out. She also finds Crane who tells her that the demon's trail grew cold, so he returned to the facility where men held him against his will and then abandoned when he escaped. She lowers her weapons and explains that she tracked him by the gravel, specific to the area. Crane is impressed and says that she can help him track the demon, but Diana insists that demons don't exist. He points out that Diana saw it with her own eyes, saw it kill her partner. He sympathizes, telling her that he recently lost his own partner, and now seeks someone who is to inherit her legacy, and thinks the men that held him are looking for the heir as well. He deduces that someone deliberately released the demon by decapitating the statue, and they will continue to perpetuate evil until they're stopped. He tells Diana that he is the only one who can find the people who killed her partner.

In a dark room, Malcolm Dreyfuss a man chant a spell but is interrupted when his phone rings. He turns up the lights and takes the business call. Malcolm enters his office and tells his agent to warn the prospective seller, Mizuyama, that he will find a way to make him let go. Once he hangs up, Malcolm says that now he has to wait another astral phase to complete the ritual. His guard, Branston, says that the entity has a confirmed kill and is on the loose, and more will come. Malcolm asks about Crane, and Branston says that he's keeping an eye on him. Branston points out that more deaths will raise questions, but Malcolm isn't concerned.

Elsewhere, the demon approaches a souvenir seller and kills him. As the police investigate the crime scene, Diana has brought Crane along, cuffed inside her vehicle. Crane tries to call Jenny, and gets her voice mail, and leaves a message that he's left Sleepy Hollow and has found new allies. Diana returns as Crane checks the handcuff that Diana used to fasten him to the steering wheel. She says that the seller's body is in the same condition as Eric's, he had a puncture wound at the base of his skull. She agrees to a temporary alliance with Crane, not a partnership, and removes the handcuff. She then accesses an archive for a Federal agency, 355, known as "The Vault." Crane recalls a reference to it on the letter that Ezra gave him from Washington. He says that they must go there.

The 355 Agency appears to be one small office. It is deeply underwhelming. The person there, Jake Wells, asks if he can help them. After a moment, he recognizes Crane as "Captain Brownbeard" from Sleepy Hollow, and digs out a file of Darknet sites with photos of Crane. Jake explains that their job is to catalogue everything from the fringes. He takes a selfie of himself with Crane, just as they hear an explosion from the next room. As they enter, Jake complains that Alex said she wouldn't set things off anymore. A woman, Alex Norwood, explains that she put the new Mayan artifact in the microwave to test it. The room is much more to Crane's liking, it is large and palladium and contains all of their files and artifacts. Jake explains that he does news and information while Alex does artifacts and gadgets. Crane launches into the room and finds a log with Washington's seal, and a code written in Benjamin Franklin's alphabet. He claims that he learned them when he apprenticed as Benjamin's typesetter, and then hastily corrects that he learned it from study. Crane continues going through the logs and finds a reference to the demon; it was summoned in 1865 by a Confederate occultist named Booth. Booth raised the beast to kill the president. Diana realizes that the occultist was John Wilkes Booth.

The log talks about how Booth finally enacted a desperate ritual to kill Lincoln. The demon entered Booth's body, to thwarted Mary Todd Lincoln who used her supernatural powers to protect her husband. The demon managed to kill Lincoln with a puncture wound to the head, and then fled via the stage. Mary managed to seal the demon in an underground chamber, and later Agency 355 constructed a protective totem on the same spot: the Lincoln Memorial. When someone decapitated the statue, they released the demon using a hex.

Jake is shocked and delighted that everything that they've been documenting is real, but Alex isn't convinced. They debate whether to show Diana and Crane something. Once they agree, Jake opens a hidden door to a series of secret passageways built during the Revolutionary War. Crane immediately enters and Diana follows him to search for the demon's prison.

As they go through the tunnels, Crane says that he sympathizes with Diana dealing with her newfound knowledge of the supernatural. He talks about how Abbie helped him find his feet. Diana explains that she and Eric served in the Marines, she left when she had a baby, Molly, and the girl is now 10. She says that Molly isn't talking and has not since she fainted a few weeks ago, but the doctors said there was nothing wrong with her. They find a cell, the door split open, and find scratches on the oxidized green walls in the outline of the Stars and Stripes. Diana says it points to manic behavior, and Crane points out that the seller was selling flags, and an American flag was near where Eric was killed. He proposes the demon is fixated on the flag, a symbol of what it had been raised to destroy. Diana realizes that is not good; back to the library, Diana finds a newspaper ad about a Freedom Concert the next day. Everyone will wear the Stars and Stripes, and Crane says that it will be a massacre.

When Jake and Ales return, Crane tells them what they've learned. Diana points out the cell walls were made of copper, not a good choice normally. Jake suggests that copper is the demon's weakness, and Crane says that they need to make some copper weaponry. Alex is eager to go to work with some of the weird artifacts in storage, grabs a blowtorch, and tells them to get her some pennies.

Crane and Diana head to the concert and some re-enacters comment on Crane's "costume", saying it's too plain, it's all about Hamilton now. Crane takes offense and tells him there were others involved. He then spots the Wilkes demon fading in and out of the crowd. He takes out a Stars and Stripes and waves it in the air, and starts singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Diana calls Jake, who says that they're ready and Alex loads a Gatling gun with copper bullets. She points out that it's weird, even for Jake, and Jake says that he's always believed something bigger was in the world, and now it's all true.

Crane leads the demon to a nearby structure. Jake and Alex are waiting, and Crane takes their gun and prepares to shoot. When Booth doesn't appear, Diana and Crane advance while Alex takes the gun. The demon appears behind Alex, grabs her, and knocks Jake aside. It grabs him by the throat, but Jenny Mills appears grabs the Gatling gun and shoots it. It goes down and disappears, and they confirm that Jake is okay. Crane, introduces Jenny to the others as a warrior, gentlewoman, and all around bad ass, then happily hugs his friend.

Once alone, Crane tells Jenny that it's a good group. She explains that she was in the Himalayas but hasn't been able to track the next Witness. Jenny is still trying to convince herself that her sister is really gone, Crane concurs. She says that Crane and the new Witness will find each other eventually, and asks if he's run into anyone with potential. He admits that he might have, but it's too soon to tell. Jenny tells him that he's not alone and never will be, the whole country is there because of him. She assures him that he belongs more than anyone she knows. Crane reflects and says that the colonists invented a personification of liberty: Columbia, for whom the city was named.

In his office, Malcolm listens to a news report on how Mizuyama was killed on a corporate retreat when a wild animal attacked him. Now Malcolm Enterprises will buy out the company. Jobe, arrives from Tokyo and Malcolm congratulates him on his work. Branston calls and says that Crane killed the demon. Malcolm says that the intent was to break the protective spell, and tells Branston to keep an eye on Crane. When Jobe suggests that they grab Crane, Malcolm says that it's not quite time. He then takes Jobe to the basement and unveils Lincoln's severed head. Malcolm tells Jobe that he finished the ceremony and the prize is ready to be extracted, and Jobe's eyes glow red. He raises his hand and blasts the head to pieces. Malcolm removes a tablet from the shards and says Jobe that there's no amount of blood he won't spill to get the rest of what he wants.

Crane meets Diana at the Jefferson Memorial, and tells her that he's going to stay in DC and find the men who abducted him. He also feels that it's time for a fresh start, but he is his history. Diana figures that more demons are coming, but she owes it to Eric to find the people responsible for his death. Crane warns her that once she begins on this path that there is no turning back. Diana responds that it helps if she doesn't have to do it alone.

When Diana returns home, she checks on Molly. Molly doesn't speak, and Diana talks about the weirdoes that she met at work, people her daughter would like. Molly continues to draws. Once Diana leaves, Molly takers out a journal and opens it to her sketches of Crane.