SLEEPY HOLLOW Develops an Eating Disorder

Season 4, Episode 10 “Insatiable”
Written by Keely MacDonald
Directed by Steven A. Adelson

This is a little better than the episodes we’ve had lately. At least there are a few answers and some progress on the main plot. In other words, we know a little more about what Dreyfuss (Jeremy Davies) is up to. The monster is not exactly original but has some interesting twists to its abilities. And most importantly, Crane (Tom Mison) does not pretend that he was present when the Donner party was trapped and starving. Thankfully, we are given no flashbacks to that event.

We start off seeing a woman from Malcolm’s company, Helen (Kathleen Hogan), visiting him in his cabin in the woods. She is ambitious and Dreyfuss describes her as hungry, and famished, for power. Jobe (Kamar de los Reyes) ushers her through a door and the screaming begins.

Crane throws a party in his apartment. It is Jake’s (Jerry MacKinnon) idea, as a means for Crane to meet his neighbors. Crane and Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) talk about how well he is settling in. He tries to get her to take a room down the hall.

Jake brings Missy (Michele Plaia) to the party. She’s the bartender he met when Alex (Rachel Melvin) was on her ill-fated Tinder date. Alex is consumed with jealousy, at least if jealousy looks like you’ve been sucking on lemons, and I think maybe it does.

In the meantime, Diana (Janina Gavankar) visits an old mentor, Assistant Secretary Nancy Stryker (Catherine Dyer) and tries to convince her to investigate Dreyfuss. She doesn’t have enough evidence and the woman can see that it’s a personal vendetta. She’s wearing a lovely string of pearls.

Jobe enters the Eisenhower building. He goes through the metal detector and there’s a funny moment when the security guard sees his demonic form on the screen with spikes everywhere. A moment later he has a perfectly normal silhouette. He’s carrying a girly little basket with a handle. He stops at a statue of justice, the scales even. When he gets to the basement he opens the basket. The little basket contains a puzzle box. The box contains a demon. He lets the demon loose and tells it to eat. The demon heads into the duct system. A moment later a lobbyist starts eating everything in sight and then dies of starvation.

This puts Diana and Crane at odds. She still wants to go after Dreyfuss. Ichabod wants to stop the immediate threat. Knowing that Dreyfuss wants Molly has increased the urgency in hunting him down, at least for Diana. She concedes the point to Crane but then hijacks the histerns for her own ends.

Jenny goes off to find a book that might help and gets a treasure hunting offer. Alex and Jake spy on an assistant of Malcolm’s.

Diana and Crane go back to the Eisenhower building, where a little girl in a tour group comments that the lady justice statue has scales that are not equal. They were before, when Jobe went past them. Crane and Diana hear horrific screams, and follow the security guards to where Diana’s mentor is eating someone’s guts out like she was a zombie. She’s covered in blood and a guard shoots her when she stands up. I wouldn’t have recognized her except for the pearl necklace. Crane sees glowing red eyes behind the duct work.

Through video surveillance they see the puzzle box, which Crane has seen before. A fellow soldier had it. His whole company later died of starvation. The box was then passed down in the family, and the Donner party had it during their ill fated trip.

Their first attempt to capture the demon fails and the box is smashed. They figure out that the gold on the box is its kryptonite and create another box with 3D printing. They capture the demon with cars (full of trace amounts of gold) in a junk yard, which is actually pretty cool, and destroy the hunger demon with injections.

Dreyfuss and Jobe hunt down and find the headless horseman. Unfortunately, he is still alive. We find out that their purpose is to call forth the four horseman of the apocalypse. The social media kid, Logan MacDonald (Robbie Kay), will be the horseman of pestilence. The former employee is famine. Headless is the horseman of death. Since Henry is gone, it seems likely that they are planning for Crane to be the horseman of war.

Dreyfuss steals the scales of justice and throws them in with the horseman of famine. In the Bible, famine is pictured on a black horse with scales in hand, counting out grain.

Crane mentions several times that the team is working well together now. This is our hint that the team may split apart. There are cracks showing. It undermines trust between Diana and Crane when she takes away part of their team to investigate Dreyfuss. Jenny is tempted to return to her true love, treasure hunting. She is reluctant to make a commitment to stay in D.C. It would make sense if Jenny left. She’s the only one left of last season’s characters except for Crane. She was always restless and her main connection to Crane was through her sister.

The monster was very good this time, although he had no real contact with his victims. A starving body, great mouth and glowing red eyes, the monster is seen mostly in the dark or just as glowing red eyes. He’s both mysterious and appropriate.

Best of all, we have returned to the overall season arc and are given some reason for some of Malcolm’s actions, which makes some of the weaker episodes at least seem necessary. We know he pictures a very rosy future for himself after this apocalypse.

I’m enjoying the changes in Alex and Jake’s relationship so far. I hope that it doesn’t result in heartbreak for Alex.

 

Sleepy Hollow airs on Friday nights on Fox at 9pm/8c.