She may not be a witness, but Jenny wins MVP of this episode of Sleepy Hollow. Over the course of “The Sisters Mills,” she wins the trust of terrified children, locates important weapons, figures out how to stop the Monster of the Week, and has the good sense to record Ichabod lecturing to second graders. Bravo, m’lady.
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Not Your Average Tooth Fairy
The episode opens with two sisters being cute, which never bodes well. Once they go to bed, the older sister, Saffron, witnesses a terrifying monster sucking the life out of the younger sister, Tessa. This life-sucking results in Tessa falling into a coma. Joe alerts the Mills sisters about this, and they arrive at the hospital to speak with Saffron. They’re both excellent with kids, especially Jenny. Saffron certainly needs a kind ear; her parents don’t believe her story about the monster, and she’s angry with them about this. And presumably because they named her Saffron.
The writers should really pair Ichabod with kids more often, because it’s hilarious. He’s not used to the jaded youth of the 21st century and is somehow even more awkward with them than he is with modern adults. He does win over Saffron though and gets her to draw a picture of the monster, whom she calls “the tooth fairy.” Cue every nightmare from my childhood, and cue Betsy Ross.
Your Weekly Betsy Ross
This time on Sleepy Hollow, Betsy Ross is shoehorned into the episode because her niece came down with the same illness as Tessa shortly after losing a tooth. Many children in the area died, all of them within 48 hours of onset. As one does in a crisis, Betsy called Paul Revere. Ichabod wasn’t allowed into the room with everyone’s favorite silversmith-slash-dentist, but he did see a bright light under the door. Soon after, Betsy’s niece made a full recovery.
From this information, the team identifies the monster as an Abyzou. It’s drawn to the wound of a recently lost tooth, is only visible to children, and is weakened by silver. Speaking of invisible to adults, we cut to a young boy with a loose tooth who sees the horrifying creature standing right next to his oblivious mother. Visually, the villains on this show haven’t been super scary since Moloch, but this one is genuinely unnerving.
Abbie Tells the Truth
To figure out which children will be targeted by the monster, Ichabod and Jenny visit a local elementary school. They discover two children about to lose teeth, one of whom is Gregory, the boy whose psyche was just forever shattered. Making two teams (Ichabod and Joe with one child and Abbie and Jenny with Gregory), they stakeout the children’s houses that night.
While Ichabod and Joe use this opportunity to talk about chicks, Abbie finally tells Jenny that she found their father. But plot twist! MVP Jenny found him five years ago. That really shouldn’t be shocking, since Jenny can find basically anything and spent the early part of this episode locating Paul Revere’s dentistry bag. Jenny doesn’t understand why Abbie would be interested in her father, since she’s the one who’s always had bad things to say about him. “I only hate him because you hate him,” she tells Abbie. But this family drama comes to an end, because the Abyzou attacks Gregory.
On the plus side, the silver coin Jenny gave Gregory to protect him works. On the negative side, the Abyzou still kicks their asses. Gregory tries to help the sisters locate the monster, and Jenny briefly illuminates it with water (MVP!), but it ultimately takes them both down and gives Abbie a serious head injury.
Not Your Average Pandora
Team Witness is now down a witness, as Abbie is unconscious in the hospital. Jenny uses this occasion to be great with kids once again, and professes her love for her sister to Saffron. But because hospitalization isn’t difficult enough, Pandora arrives, disguised as a nurse. She gives Saffron a pouch, telling her it can heal her sister if she follows instructions, and then turns to Abbie.
Through some kind of magic, Pandora wakes Abbie up. She gives a bit of her backstory: On God’s instruction, her father beat her until she “forgot all language,” sold her into slavery, and she later had her father killed by lions. None of this has anything to do with the Greek myth of Pandora. She also calls her and Ichabod some word that I didn’t catch, and asks Abbie, “What can you not accept to lose?” We don’t get an answer, because Pandora leaves.
The Destroyers Get New Info
That night, Saffron goes into her treehouse and takes a tooth out of the pouch that Pandora gave her. The Abyzou takes the bait. Luckily, Ichabod and Jenny are there and they’ve got Paul Revere’s weapon. After Ichabod used his historical charm to procure Revere’s dental bag, they realized that the assorted tools could be put together as a weapon. Jenny then realized that it fires silver nitrate, which makes the monster visible enough to reveal its weakness and be killed. Does anyone else even need to be in this episode? Give her a protein bar and an hour and Jenny could probably solve the world financial crisis.
Weapon in hand, Ichabod and Jenny render the Abyzou visible. But the visibility doesn’t last long, so they have to keep finding and shooting it. Finally, Ichabod nitrates it in the face and kills it. Tessa wakes up from her coma and a little less fear is harvested to feed Pandora’s devil tree.
Once she’s healed, Abbie gets some information from her friends. Jenny has learned that the Shard thief’s name is Sophie Foster and that she’s working for a man named Atticus Nevins. Ichabod had done some research on the information they learned from Pandora. He looked up the word I didn’t catch and found out that it means “destroyer” in Sumerian, the same word from the prophecy he found in the first episode. Realizing that this is not the Pandora from Greek myth, they decide that she is instead somehow connected with their destiny as Witnesses.
Things That Outrage Ichabod this Week
- Studying. He has an issue with the idea that there are things about American history he doesn’t know, even though he missed 200 years of it. He also has a problem with the editorializing of history found in American textbooks. No argument here.
- Going to the dentist. Apparently Paul Revere traumatized him back in the day. (As someone who had a palate expander, I sympathize.) By the end of the episode, though, Abbie had convinced him to try modern dentistry, and he falls in love with it and its drugs. He even hallucinates Betsy Ross while under, tells him to stop overthinking things and start taking romantic chances.
- Emoji-less texting. Or at least I assume, based on the amount of emojis present in this episode. Ichabod has been texting Zoe Corinth quite a lot, and not just about his impending citizenship. If the use of the money-covering-its-eyes emoji is any gage, Ichabod is ready to get back out there.
Sleepy Hollow airs Thursdays at 9pm on FOX.
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
