Sleepy Hollow Season Premiere Recap: No Sympathy For The Devil

“Sleepy Hollow,” Fox’s brand new fall drama inspired by “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” kicked off on Monday night.

Missed it? Here’s a recap to get you caught up on all the latest from Ichabod Crane and his companion in the fight against the apocalypse — Lt. Abbie Mills.

Hudson Valley, New York, 1776: It’s 1776 and Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), a former Oxford professor of history, is wearing blue on the battlefield. His conscience forced the Brit to change sides and fight for the Americans — under General George Washington’s command — in the Revolutionary War. But this is about more than standing up against taxation without representation. Ichabod, all long hair and piercing blue eyes, has a mission: to take down a man with a bow marking on his hand.

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And he does. In a swift combat sequence, Ichabod severs the head of the man in a leather face mask, and the man, in turn, delivers a fatal blow to our hero.

The Woods Outside Sleepy Hollow, 2013: Bottles rattle, the earth moves and a hand emerges from a cave grave. It’s Ichabod, back from the dead, his hand grasping at his bare, totally-toned chest for his fatal battle wound. Fully recovered, he heads out into the forest and eventually finds a road, with double yellow lines, and semis. A close call with a car sends him running past the sign reading “Village of Sleepy Hollow, Pop. 144,000,” as the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil” plays.

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A Diner, Sleepy Hollow: Sheriff August Corbin (Clancy Brown) tears out a newspaper article about an unsolved homicide as he shares a meal with Lt. Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie), his young protege. He asks her about her plans to leave the force and head to Quantico. Before they can discuss it further, they’re called out to investigate a disturbance at Mr. Ogilvie’s farm.

Mr. Ogilvie’s Farm: As Abbie heads to the front door, Sheriff Corbin proceeds into the barn. “Step out where I can see you,” he tells the figure spooking the horses. The figure does and we get our first glimpse at the Headless Horseman. For the Sheriff, that glance lasts just a moment as he’s Ned Stark-ed out of the drama via beheading.

“Officer Down. Oh my God,” Abbie cries, as she watches the Headless Horseman (who has a branded hand) ride away.

Sleepy Hollow Town Center: Andy Dunn (John Cho) is responding to her call when he’s forced to slam on his breaks. It’s Ichabod in the middle of the road. Cuffed, he’s taken to a holding cell where Abbie comes in for an ID. “It isn’t him,” she says. “The man I saw… had something on his hand – like a branding.”

Ichabod perks up. “Did he carry a broad axe? The mark on his hand — was it a bow?”

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On The Road To The Mental Facility, Sleepy Hollow: Abbie volunteers to drive Ichabod — under Captain Frank Irving’s (Orlando Jones) orders — to a mental facility. They take a detour to his cave.

The Bible he came back to life holding has a special passage marked in the Book of Revelation. It suggests the Headless Horseman is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Ichabod tells Abbie that Gen. Washington previously told him to kill the mercenary with the bow marking to save humankind back in 1776.

Unconvinced, or maybe just overwhelmed, Abbie finally drives Ichabod to the mental facility, where she tells him about her own spooky past. As a young girl, she and her sister, Jenny, were walking home in the forest and they saw four white trees and heard a scary voice before blacking out.

Sleepy Hollow Police Station: Ichabod safely locked away, Abbie goes back to the station and goes through her late Sheriff’s things, finding a secret cabinet with files revealing he’d been researching two covens — one good, one evil — as well as hundreds of unsolved, ignored cases, including Abbie’s own childhood experience.

Mental Facility, Sleepy Hollow: Asleep, Ichabod hears from his wife Katrina. She’s a witch, part of an ancient order meant to fight the darkness in Sleepy Hollow. When he killed the mercenary Horseman in battle, their bloodlines merged, she said. The Horseman’s body was entombed beneath the river, Ichabod’s in a cave. Evil that controls the Horseman woke that creature up, and that triggered Ichabod’s break from his death slumber too. Katrina warns him — if the Horseman reclaims his skull, he’ll be whole again, three more Horsemen will follow and the beginning of the end will start. Not all bad news, she tells Ichabod the Horseman can’t survive the sun.

As a mysterious creature comes for the couple in the dream/nowhereland, Abbie rushes in and whisks a newly awake Ichabod out of the facility. The Horseman’s skull is buried in Katrina’s grave and they have to retrieve it before he can. She calls Andy for backup, but it turns out, he’s on the other team.

Sleepy Hollow Church Graveyard: Brandishing a machinegun, the Headless Horseman arrives just after the pair dig up his head. Andy arrives too and tries to tie up Abbie, but she frees herself (after biting him) and calls for backup.

“Put your hands on your— ” says one cop fresh on the scene.

“What the hell is that? Do you think he can hear us?” says the other.

Before the Headless Horseman can cause any more damage — or recover his head from Abbie and Ichabod — the sun begins to rise and he starts to burn.

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Sleepy Hollow Police Station: “I outta throw you in jail, except I have a preserved head in a pickle jar and two cops who’ve just backed up your story,” the Captain tells Abbie and Ichabod.

“Truth, sir, we’re just scratching the surface here. Whatever this is, it’s gonna get a lot worse,” she notes.

Sleepy Hollow Jail Cell: Ichabod and Abbie walk in to find that the locked up Andy has also been killed by the creature who is tormenting Katrina, and who Abbie saw as a child.

Cue the Rolling Stones’ song once again.

“Sleepy Hollow” airs Mondays at 9/8c on Fox.

— Jolie Lash