Pandora washes and unbandages they newly arrived man who
does not look well. He’s not a happy guy, angry at extinction and pollution.
His Mouldy Hippiness is enraged. Yes, he is the Mummy Hippy! Apparently Pandora
and His Mouldy Hippiness have romantic history and they have being bothered by
the Witnesses before. He then uses her for the “eye” which comes with a big
glowy light
Meanwhile Reynolds, Sophie and Abbie are having an…
awkward conversation. Atticus has been arrested but isn’t talking and the whole
investigation may be crumbling while Abbie is not at all amused that no-one
told her Sophie was an undercover cop with added issues with Abbie not wanting
to tell them why Atticus is after Jenny. She’s also far more focused on finding
her sister than the police investigation.
She goes to join Ichabod and Joe instead
His Mouldy Hippiness also has Jenny, all consumed by red
glowyness. – and His Mouldy Hippiness
drains that red energy into himself, though he can’t take it all too quickly
apparently. They run to Jenny – but she, Pandora and the Hippy Mummy all
disappear in a flash of light, leaving only a Convenient Clue in the form of a Sumerian
parchment (hey, did the Sumerians have parchment? Or were we on clay tablets
back then?)
Looking at it, Ichabod declares they are not just facing
a Mummy Hippy, but the God of Mummy Hippies
He’s known as the Hidden One and Ichabod has books
connecting to the shiny gem that Jenny absorbed – known as the All Seeing Eye,
which is what caused Jenny’s visions and scrawled messages. Which basically say
The Hidden One is going to take over the world. This is, apparently why the all
seeing eye is printed on American money as a warning – because of Ben Franklin
(who Ichabod didn’t like much). It’s also a masonic symbol which Franklin was
also behind – so they need to get a special Mason book from Albany in some
revered place of learning.
Which is a college frat party complete with togas, alcohol
and a random fight. They find the book and Joe nicely snarks at Ichabod’s
constant name dropping, as he reads the book and drags up another convoluted
flashback into how Washington also tried to harness the glowy red gem of doom
which a guy then absorbed like Jenny did then used as a mini-nuke, killing him
in the process.
So now they need to study Paul Revere, arcane expert’s,
notes which tells them that the staff the gem is connected to can draw the gem
into it – it’s a magical magnet. That staff was turned into a casing they had –
which both seals the eye and hides it. They just need to get it out of evidence
where it is currently being kept.
The Hidden One keeps sucking red energy from Jenny and
tells us his plan to basically wipe out humanity. Never trust a being that
speaks Echo Reverb.
Sophie interviews Atticus with lots of threats of
acronyms and attempts to be friendly. Atticus doesn’t care, he’s going to die.
Instead he offers info for Abbie. So Sophie, despite Abbie and her not being
great fans of each other, grabs Abbie while she’s busy stealing evidence to go
talk to him
Except Pandora’s already got to him first and made him
disappear. Possibly turning him into a bloody smear in between killing several
agents. Abbie confronts Pandora even while Pandora tries to recruit her.
Reynolds calls Abbie back in and again demands she tell
him what she knows about Jenny and what was going on between her and Atticus.
Especially since when Reynolds was out and about Ichabod and Abbie were all
sneaky. She tries to imply it’s a personal beef driving him which is a little
silly and then says she can’t tell him and he’s going to have to tryst that
which is a lot silly.
When he says no – she hands him her gun and her badge and
leaves. Reynolds then makes a call to a mysterious ominous someone to say that
they just lost their “asset.” He then leaves calls on her answer machine
basically trying to ask her to come back.
Then Sophie reveals that before she handed in her security
pass, Abbie withdrew a not-so-small arsenal. Reynolds asks – asks – Sophie to
find her.
Back in the archive, Joe considers turning himself back
into a Wendigo to help save Jenny. Ichabod politely tells him not to do
something so ridiculously foolish.
Abbie arms Ichabod and Joe and prepares to go in with
everything – including a scary book of norse summoning. Though Ichabod is not
that hopeful of their chances – but he and Abbie compare their awesome record
of awesomeness. Abbie also worries that she may be distracted by her
overwhelming fear for her sister – but Ichabod denies that along with the
episode theme.
They use their shiny new toys to go in and Pandora
decides to take them out while The Hidden One continues to drain Jenny.
Abbie shoots Pandora. And like every other time she has
ever used a gun since the first episode of season 1, it fails (seriously, every
episode she shoots something. Every episode the bullets do nothing. She doesn’t
even look surprised any more). Instead she uses grenades on the tree and
Ichabod tases Pandora. Immune to bullets, but not tasers. The Hidden one is
also at least distracted by grenades.
While Abbie removes the gem from Jenny (I’m never leaving
you again – go sisters Mills!), Ichabod summons some nasties from Pandora’s
Box.
The Hidden One Crushes the seal meant to hold the gem
but, thankfully, it works when shattered as well, still pulling the red light
from Jenny while the Hidden One is distracted being all immune to every
armament Joe can fire at him. Thankfully he follows narrative convention and
slowly stalks towards Joe rather than moving quickly and/or using the telekinesis
he already used on Abbie (they really should just use a computer game voice
over “that spell is not ready yet.” “you are out of mana!” at least it would
try to explain it when they do this)
We then get an Earthquake (curse your dramatic narrative
tectonics) and then Abbie then enters the tree portal into Hell to protect
Jenny (expressly Jenny). When she does there’s an explosion – destroying the
Tree and Pandora’s box
+100 points for calling out Ichabod’s name dropping.
So we have an Ancient Sumerian artefact and they could
study that with Sumerian texts or experts in Sumerian mythology or even
anything vaguely from Mesopotamia. But no, we continue this show’s absolute
raging fetish for the Revolutionary War and dredge up a ludicrous number of arcane
experts and name dropping from that era. Did everything from every mythology in
the entire plant manage to arrive in this battle, stopped only by the
omni-present and all knowing founding fathers and plucky Betsy Ross (who is
everywhere now but completely non-existent for two seasons). It’s ridiculous,
it’s reductive of all the world’s mythology to make it all about America and,
yes, I say again, it’s fetishistic. And kind of dully and unimaginative. But,
of course, the only way to make Ichabod’s man-out-of-time aspect remotely
relevant.
Ok, I like Abbie and Reynolds together – but let’s be
serious here, there’s no way Abbie can honestly act like Reynolds is being
unreasonable here. And this is a police investigation “I can’t tell you because
REASONS” is not now nor has ever been an acceptable response.
But it does raise that question we’ve been asking from
the beginning – does Abbie choose her job or her mission? And if she were going
to put aside her career, her job, her dreams for anything then THIS is the best
way to do it – because she’s not doing it for Crane, she’s not doing it for magic
or to be a Witness – she’s doing it for Jenny. And while being an FBI agent is
her fondest dream above and beyond nearly everything, I’m so glad it’s her
sister that is set above it. Up to and including sacrificing her own life
(which we know she hasn’t but still).
I also quite like the episode theme – gently touched on:
the idea that if you fear loss you will lose in way where loss is inevitable.
You can’t fight if you fear to lose something to much to actually do battle –
but nicely countered by Ichabod’s firm statement that they are so effective because
they care. And you can’t care without fearing loss.
