- "Blowhard, braggart, blatherskite. And gasbag. He had an insatiable need to prove he was the sharpest intellect in the room."
- —Ichabod Crane to Abbie Mills about Benjamin Franklin
"This Is War" is the first episode of Season Two of Fox's Sleepy Hollow. It was written by Mark Goffman and directed by Ken Olin. It is the fourteenth episode of the series overall, and debuted on September 22, 2014. This episode is the second season premiere.
Synopsis
Picking up immediately after the spellbinding events of the Season One finale, Ichabod finds himself buried alive in a coffin; Abbie is trapped in Purgatory; Ichabod's wife, Katrina, has been kidnapped by the Headless Horseman; Capt. Frank Irving is behind bars for a murder he did not commit; and Abbie's sister, Jenny, is among the wreckage of a horrific car crash. These events were due, in large part, to the shocking revelation that Henry Parrish, the trusted friend of Ichabod and Abbie, is actually Ichabod and Katrina's son and the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse. Now, with Henry's emergence as the Horseman of War, alongside the Headless Horseman, Sleepy Hollow has never been so close to destruction.[1]
Recap
Ichabod is in their cabin with Abbie holding out a birthday cupcake for him. He’s turning 251, and he hates this whole modern birthday thing. Apparently it’s been a year since the events of the finale, and they’re talking about how they both lost someone they loved. They’re, of course, indicating that Jenny and Katrina died after the he was trapped.
Abbie gets a call from a professor who has something to show them, and they arrive at a university to find the decapitated body of a guard. The Headless Horseman is back! They enter the university, guns ablaze, looking for him. They’re too late, though, the professor is dead. The professor was studying the work of Benjamin Franklin, and it’s revealed that Ichabod knew Benjamin Franklin and talks about how horrible of a person he was. The headless horseman arrives and gets into a fight with them, but escapes. Now Ichabod wants revenge even more.
In the notes left by the professor is the chalk rubbing of a key the professor found at the university, and Ichabod reveals he was there when Benjamin Franklin was flying the kite with the key. Ichabod then remembers the night, and apparently Benjamin was trying to destroy the key, not experiment with electricity.
Apparently that key can enter the world of purgatory, and break the one rule it has: Any soul can leave purgatory as long as another takes it’s place. With the key, that doesn’t have to be so. Headless wants it to bring Moloch back.
Ichabod wants to talk to Henry to get the key, and they go down to the basement to talk to him (he’s their prisoner). They bring him the paperwork about the key, and in exchange he wants a plant. It’s a weird partnership.
Henry uses his powers on the documents, and he tells them that there’s no sin in them. He says that the old Sheriff might have paperwork on the key, but Abbie says they don’t. Abbie goes to talk to Ichabod off to the side, and suddenly his memory from the day he was buried is all blurred.
It’s revealed that they’re still in purgatory, and the entire illusion of the year passing has been Moloch’s doing. He did it so that they could find out where the key is, and they did. So now Henry is sending them back into their respective punishments – Ichabod in his box and Abbie in Purgatory.
Jenny got dragged into a warehouse by Henry after the accident, and it’s revealed the Jenny went to Philadelphia 5 years ago to get a sketchbook, and in that sketchbook was one of a key. Henry reads her sins and sees that the page from her memory was written in a code he must decipher, so he tells the guard to keep Jenny alive. Meanwhile, Ichabod discovers there’s sulfur in the dirt he’s buried in and manages to use the sulfur in the ground to blow it up.
Elsewhere, Katrina is in the custody of the Headless Horseman in some cabin. She’s tied to a chair, but he cuts the ropes and offers her bread. Let’s not forget that Headless was formerly Katrina’s to-be fiancé, Abraham Van Brunt. She tries to run, but he keeps that from happening.
Abbie is stuck in purgatory, but she sees agent Brooks who tries to help her. Moloch is preparing to enter the Earthly Realm, and getting a demon army to go with him – which is why she needs the key. Abbie asks Brooks to show her how Katrina contacted Ichabod while she was there.
Jenny manages to escape from the hold and knock out the guard and texts Ichabod her location and how she’s working on a way out. In purgatory, Brooks leads Abbie to Moloch’s layer that holds a mirror that is capable of a path to view and communicate with the Earthly world.
Ichabod crashes an ambulance into the warehouse to save Jenny, but he doesn’t know how to reverse the car so she takes the wheel. On their drive Ichabod informs Jenny about all the happenings, and how they need the key so they head to the archives to see if the pages with the sketches are still there.
They find the page in question, and it’s written in Benjamin Franklin’s alphabet. He left the key with the only person he trusted – himself. However, he’s not buried in Sleepy Hollow but Abbie has an idea of where to look.
Back in Purgatory Abbie sneaks her way inside Moloch’s vault and tries to use the mirror to contact Ichabod. They manage to communicate, and Abbie thinks they’re walking into another trap so maybe they shouldn’t find it but instead protect it. Ichabod doesn’t want to sacrifice Abbie for the key, and says there are two witnesses for a reason. He’s determined to help, and they agree to meet in the woods behind the church.
Ichabod and Abbie get to the location where the only Benjamin Franklin statue is, and Ichabod remembers Franklin saying “the key to success lies under the alarm clock,” so they look under the clock tower and find it!
Back with Headless, Katrina is still scared and confused. Headless changed outfits! He’s now in the same traditional garb that he wore with Katrina at their party, and wraps the same necklace around her neck that he put around it then. The necklace allows her to see him as his old self: Abraham Von Brunt, and not Headless. Abraham says that her heart was stolen from him and Ichabod will be dead by midnight, but we don’t believe it.
Ichabod and Jenny go to the woods behind the church so Ichabod can enter purgatory and get Abbie out now that he has the key. Abbie is at the same location in purgatory, but she’s looking for the amulet that Katrina gave her to protect her from Moloch. She can’t find it, but she found Ichabod! He says she looks parched, and it turns out it was demon. The real Ichabod shows up and saves Abbie, and she chops off the fake Ichabod’s head. Now they’re off to use the door before Moloch can get to it! They find the door and try to get through, but Moloch and his army are right behind them. They make it through and the portal closes before Moloch can make it after them, and the key disintegrates.
They all convene back at the cabin, and they have to make a plan to stop Moloch. Abbie is pissed they were fooled, and she states that they are not going to get fooled again. It’s official: This is war. Henry is underground when he passes a mirror and Moloch tells him there is new work to be done and points to a portal of some sort. Through the portal walks a suit of armor that Henry is meant to control with his soul. The second Horseman is officially here.
Cast
Starring
Guest Starring |
Special Appearance ByCo-Starring
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Multimedia
Videos
Trivia
Title
- The US title refers to the Horseman of War putting his plans to motion while the Japanese title refers to the objective and item-of-the-week: the Gehenna Key.
Goofs
- When Jenny makes her escape from the warehouse she takes a Beretta pistol from the Hessian. After she picks the lock she holds a Glock which later changes back to a Beretta.
- All junctions with US Route 9 through Sleepy Hollow, New York are in densely populated residential and commercial areas.
Body Count
- Unnamed Acolyte of Moloch from Necromancer
International Titles
| International Titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Language: | Title: | Translation: |
| French | "Les Ténèbres en guerre" | "Darkness at War" |