Sleepy Hollow Episode 7 Recap: The Midnight Ride Of Paul Revere & The Headless Horseman

Alas poor headless Freemason guy, I knew him well.

"Sleepy Hollow" continues it's crazy romp through history. This week the Headless Horseman almost derails the ride of Paul Revere to warn the colonists. You know the one-- "The British are coming, the British are coming". HH seriously gets around. I just hope kiddies today don't think that Ichabod Crane helped win the American Revolution.

And Officer Andy Brooks is back this week. Yeah! As you will recall he previously was in cahoots with the Devil. He then died by having his head bent around backwards (it's hard to explain, see picture below). It appears that Andy is sweet on Abbie and thinks he's the only one that can protect her from the impending doom. He tells her ex (Luke) to back off. Anyway good news is he says HH can be trapped.

HH is supposed to show up at sundown to separate Ichabod from his head. He still needs his head too though. We are reminded that he must get his head back BEFORE the other three horsemen of the apocalypse can be released. So off he goes to find his head.

Ichy's Freemason friends are beheaded in the process. I think we can all agree, it's very dangerous being a Mason. The slash mark through George Washington's portrait so it looked like he was beheaded was a fun touch. But the head is not at the Masons. It's actually at the police lab. Captain Irving goes off to retrieve it but HH has the same idea. Lab Tech Paul is killed and HH destroys the lab (with an AK-47, shotgun and axe). Irving safely escapes with the head. And he FINALLY believes that Ichy and Abbie are telling the truth. And I'm glad he's not a baddie as I originally suspected.

The then try to do everything possible to the head to destroy it. They try sledgehammering it, blowing it up with dynamite, pouring acid on it. Nothing will work. The next plan is to take it an automobile compacting machine and squash it. They never go because just then Ichy has some convoluted flashback about an old Mason manuscript with the Devil's trap symbol on it. That is the key to defeating HH.

After much sleuthing they find the document online but it was written with a Vignere cypher. OK whatever. But they don't know the password. It turns out to be "cicero" because it was on the back of Paul's Revere's skull's teeth. It's handy that you had that lying around.

The manuscript says the way to trap HH is to shine sunlight on him. UV light works best for their purposes since they're in a dark tunnel. I'm confused though. Didn't we see HH terrorizing people in the sunlight before? Maybe not.

And in the last scene Abbie and Ichy trap HH (by making a bunch of fake lantern heads to confuse him). He is immobilized in the beams of UV light. Everyone is standing around staring at him... until next week. You know they cant get rid of him. If so. what would the rest of the show be about?

Fun scenes:

Ichabod is shocked by the use of bottled water. It should be an inalienable right sir!
He is also astonished by the ability to purchase food in bulk.
Ichy telling the museum guide (in front of a group of school children) that he is completely wrong about Paul Revere.
Ichy has a run in with a computer and accidentally lands on an internet porn site. Hey he's still better at using a computer than a lot of people I know. HINT: Banging on the keys doesn't help!
Difficulty with straws.
Ichy gets schooled by Abbie and Irving that Thomas Jefferson was not that great a dude in some respects (that he had a bunch of kids with Sally Hemmings and denied it).

Favorite quotes:

“Rumors of my demise have been… pretty much true”- Andy Brooks. I love that guy!
"Paul Revere, you rum beggar"- Ichy. I guess that's a term of endearment.
"I am dead. Is that not apparent?"- Officer Andy.
"The Regulars are coming"- this is what Paul Revere and crew apparently shouted instead of "the British are coming". Is that true?

I wonder if this is covered by Obamacare.

Grade: 4 Monsters (out of 5). I'm still enjoying this campy show. I am at times confused by the plot lines (since they seem very convoluted) but I have decided to just lay back and enjoy it. No need to try to make sense of why a Headless Horseman and guy who's been dead for 200 years are in present day New York.