sleepy hollow 2x09: mama
We open with Abbie wandering through a misty dream to the accompaniment of the creepiest rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” known to man. Because its use in Angel didn’t scar me enough. Anyway, Abbie sees a cloaked figure and develops instant mommy issues. She awakens abruptly inside Apocalypse HQ, where she apparently fell asleep while researching. Ichabod, meanwhile, has been temporarily defeated by the common cold and child-proof pill bottles. Abbie tucks him in with a big flannel blanket and goes off to meet Sheriff Reyes. Reyes was so impressed by Abbie’s handling of the “satanic cult” a few episodes back that she’s giving her her very own case: there have been a couple of suspicious suicides over at Tarrytown Psychiatric, and since Mama Mills offed herself there fifteen years ago, Reyes figured Abbie would want to take this one. Such a thoughtful gift.
Abbie heads over with Jenny in tow, because of Jenny’s personal insights into life inside the loony bin. This won’t be triggering at all, I’m sure. One random mental patient immediately fixates on the sisters, but a nurse derails him before he gets too close. He looks more terrified than homicidal, and I’m sure this will be important later. The nurse directs them to Frank Irving -- look! He’s still part of the show! Huzzah! -- and he expositions about the recently deceased patient, Nelson, who had actually been on the mend before his suicide. Also, before you can ask, no, Frank didn’t do it. He may have sold his soul to the Horseman of War, but he still has some humanity left, thanks. Abbie promises that they’ll get him out of here soon. Jeez, we’ve only been waiting all goddamn season for that already, Abbie. Nice to know you care.
The sisters pore through video surveillance and have a lovely chat about growing up with a mentally unstable mother and how they always seem to end up back in this psych ward. Abbie’s the only Mills woman who hasn’t been committed here at some point yet. They watch the recording of Nelson’s suicide, which is suitably macabre, and when Abbie switches over to night vision -- is this actually something a run-of-the-mill security camera is capable of? -- they see their mother lurking in the corner of Nelson’s room, muttering to herself. So that’s creepy.
Back in Apocalypse HQ, Abbie is forcing various cold remedies on Ichabod, who is less than appreciative. He does take a moment to fulfill his usual expository role, reminding Abbie and the viewers that Mama Mills wasn’t actually mentally ill -- she was fighting literal demons. But it still wasn’t easy growing up with her, as Abbie illustrates with a really upsetting flashback to her childhood. I have nothing funny to say about this, it’s just disturbing and very sad. We learn that the Mills family motto was “Eyes open, head up, trust no one.” Yeah, it’s no wonder the sisters have some issues. Abbie is convinced that Mama is the one causing the suicides -- that she’s forcing the victims to replay her own death. Then Hawley shows up (because when doesn’t he, these days?) and Ichabod is affronted. He picks a completely pointless fight with Abbie regarding Katrina to show his displeasure. But on the plus side, Hawley brought him matzo ball soup with bonus sedatives! That effectively shuts Ichabod up. By which I mean he falls asleep.
Over in Frederick’s Manor, Henry tries to convince Katrina that the Moloch baby is really just some random orphan he’s taken in out of the evilness of his heart. I’m...really not sure what this lie is supposed to accomplish, it’s not like Katrina doesn’t know the truth. Anyway, he uses his own abandonment to successfully guilt her into cuddling the baby, which still looks normal to her because of that stupid necklace. We get to see baby Moloch in his full ickiness, though, and Katrina’s skin turns gray and gross where he touches her. Is he, like, slowly poisoning her with evil or something? Henry is strangely moved to tears by the sight. Everyone has mommy issues in this episode.
Back in Tarrytown Psych, where Hawley is now part of the investigation for some unfathomable reason, the trio debate how exactly to stop Mama Mills from killing again. Hawley wants more firepower, because that will totally be effective against a ghost; Abbie wants to save her somehow; and Jenny essentially wants to send her back to hell. Or purgatory, or whatever. Then one of the security feeds shows them the mental patient from the beginning of the episode, who is now trying to slit his own wrists. They manage to get to his room and stop him just in time, and Abbie catches a glimpse of Mama...and then vanishes.
By which I mean that Abbie vanishes. Because that’s a thing now.
She finds herself in an abandoned wing of the hospital, which is literally falling apart around her. Like, she has to duck out of the way of a homicidal light fixture. Mama’s ghost blips into being in front of her, warning her that it’s not safe here -- no shit, Sherlock -- and then a nurse arrives demanding to know what the frickity frack Abbie’s doing in this part of the building. It’s the same one who spoke to Abbie and Jenny briefly earlier, by the way -- her name’s Nurse Lambert. Abbie, shaken, says that she’ll find her way back out -- which, um, why wouldn’t Lambert just lead her back to civilization? -- and then Jenny finds her. How did Jenny know that Abbie would be here? Seriously, if my sister disappeared into thin air, I wouldn’t automatically assume that she was obviously still in the building. I’m super confused by everything. Anyway, they maybe glimpse Mama again, and she scrawls an incomprehensible message on a door that Abbie immediately recognizes as the code the hospital uses to designate patient video sessions. Okay.
After a brief interlude in which Katrina notices the black splotch of evil on her neck and freaks out about it, Abbie digs up the DVD of the session indicated by Mama’s message. Jenny is understandably hesitant about watching it -- she spent their childhood mostly just terrified of their mother’s mood swings and crazy talk -- but Abbie convinces her to face her triggers head on. Psychologically speaking, I’m not sure this is the greatest idea ever for Jenny’s mental health, but whatever. In the video, Mama is clearly upset, yelling about needing to protect her girls and accusing Nurse Lambert of plotting evil. The unseen interviewer says that Lambert doesn’t exist. I’m guessing we’ve just identified the actual antagonist of this episode. And sure enough, over in Tarrytown Psychiatric, Lambert is now giving Frank Irving some suspicious-looking red pills. Fantastic.
Frank finds his own way over to the abandoned wing -- seriously, are there no actual professionals on staff in this hospital? Shouldn’t there be some kind of system in place to ensure that mental patients don’t randomly wander into dangerously decrepit areas? How is that wing not completely barred off from the rest of the place? Anyway, he attempts to drown himself, but Abbie, Jenny, and Hawley show up just in time to save his ass. Also they see Mama again, looking worried. I’m assuming she’s actually been trying to help the suicide victims this whole time. Abbie visits Frank once he’s settled back in his own room, where there continue to be no real doctors, and tells him that he’d been given psychotropic drugs that opened his mind to demonic suggestion. Fun times. He’s exhausted by the ordeal, and sorry that he’s now on suicide watch and won’t be able to help out the investigation further.
Our heroes use the internet to discover that Lambert was actually a killer nurse from the 1950s who called herself an “Angel of Mercy” -- she bumped off a number of mentally ill patients before being executed herself in 1959. So we’re definitely dealing with a ghost here. Abbie thinks that Mama might know how to stop Lambert, so they head back over to Mama’s old cell in the abandoned hospital wing. Apparently she used to get locked up in solitary for months at a time. Everything is super depressing. Abbie notices something in a crack in the wall, and they realize that the whole wall has been plastered over -- but there’s something underneath. In a strangely uplifting sequence, the sisters and Hawley together rip apart the outer layer to discover that Mama drew a whole mural on the wall -- including drawings of her daughters and the music to “You Are My Sunshine.” Jenny spots that and flashbacks to being a child sitting in the car with Mama, showing off her own picture of the family, while that song plays on the radio. Young Jenny complains about the smell in the car, and we realize that Mama is trying to commit murder-suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s...difficult recapping this episode, honestly, because suicide and parental abuse and mental illness really aren’t subjects I want to be cracking jokes about.
Mama appears in the room, and even Hawley can see her this time. She tells her daughters that there’s an ancient hex that will stop Lambert, but she can’t remember the right incantation. But an old journal that had been passed down from their ancestors should have it. At this point, Lambert turns up again, and yanks Abbie away and locks the others in the room. Mama promises Jenny that she’ll do her best to protect Abbie while Jenny hunts down the journal.
Jenny and Hawley head down to the hospital archives, where patients’ personal effects are stored after they die. Apparently no one ever cleans this place out. She finds the journal, written by their ancestor Grace Dixon. Flashbacks to last season remind us that the Cranes actually knew Grace back in the day, and she was the woman who helped Katrina secretly give birth to Henry. Her journal is in remarkably good shape for a two-hundred-year-old document that’s been stored under less than ideal conditions. Jenny quickly finds the hex, which is West African in origin. Nice to see some non-Eurocentric magic for a change.
Meanwhile, Lambert has Abbie strapped into a wheelchair, promising to give her peace. “Like mother, like daughter,” she adds knowingly. She also narrates a flashback to Mama’s own suicide. Everything is deeply upsetting. As she starts to force the red pills down Abbie’s throat, Mama appears and does her damnedest to fight the bitch off. Lambert looks like she might be getting the upper hand, but Jenny recites the hex and it rips Lambert apart. Mama disappears when Lambert does. Once again, Jenny and Hawley magically find Abbie and free her from her restraints. Abbie is in tears, explaining how Mama fought for her, but she never had a chance to thank her. Jenny gets shifty-eyed and says she might be able to make that happen.
Ichabod, health much improved by sleeping off the bulk of the episode, helps Jenny set up some kind of seance in Mama’s old room. So...is Jenny a witch now? She was pretty handy with that hex earlier, and she definitely knows her way around this particular spell. And more importantly, can we trade Katrina in for Jenny permanently? Because Jenny’s spells actually work. The group -- including Hawley, who’s just kind of been hanging out with them all episode and hasn’t been told to leave yet -- summon Mama’s ghost one last time. For once, she seems totally clear-headed and calm, praising her daughters. She reveals that yes, she’s always known Abbie was a Witness, and that she’s been trying to protect them all along. We get her side of the flashback to the carbon monoxide poisoning incident -- it had actually been Moloch trapping them in the car, but she’d managed to fight him off and keep herself and Jenny alive. And Moloch had also trapped her here in the hospital ever since her death, where she’d done her best to watch over Jenny. She lets them know that there’s valuable information in Grace’s journal, including some kind of powerful weapon. Abbie wishes there were a way for them to free her now; Mama smiles and tells her they already have, then vanishes for good. The Mills sisters hold each other and cry for a while, and I have to admit to being slightly emotionally affected myself. (Kudos to Beharie and Greenwood for some pretty great performances in this episode, as well as Aunjanue Ellis as Mama Mills.)
As the group drives away from Tarrytown Psych, Frank Irving jumps out in front of the car. Apparently he got sick of nine episodes’ worth of waiting around for someone to spring him and decided to make his own bid for freedom at last. “Don’t give me that aiding and abetting a fugitive look,” he tells Abbie sternly, and hops in their trunk. I am blissfully happy to finally have him back on the team.
And because every single episode this season has to end with Henry’s plots, we jump back over to the manor house, where Katrina is concocting some kind of witchy brew. Sounds like a curse, and I hope she’s gonna shove it down baby Moloch’s throat. Seriously, wasn’t the whole purpose behind her return to Headless to kill Moloch once and for all? How hard is it to kill a baby demon? But when she approaches the crib with her poison, she finds it empty -- and downstairs, baby Moloch is now like a ten-year-old kid. What the fuck.
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