Monday TV Recapped: 1/20/14 - Purgatory and Teeny-Bop Starlets
Okay, this Monday recap is a wee bit overdue, so we're going to quickly catch you up on the 'Sleepy Hollow' season finale and the last new episode of 'Castle' from January before 'Almost Human' and 'Castle' return tonight. Onward with the review-caps!
First things first, 'Sleepy Hollow' entered 'National Treasure'-mode with "The Indispensable Man". Andy approaches Abbie for the Bible and is rejected once more, so Moloch turns him into a humanoid-demon warrior after he pledges allegiance. Crane, having found a message from Washington in extra verses of Lazarus, calls up Parish (John Noble) to read the dead Reverend Knapp's (the second victim from the pilot) cursed prayer beads to find the map to Purgatory that Washington drew after being temporarily revived four days after dying. The beads scar one of Parish's hands (which heals, unbeknownst to Abbie and Crane) before the trio is attacked by Moloch's minions, which they defeat.
As Knapp wasn't buried with the map, Crane realizes that Washington was buried with it - and that he has more than one gravesite. However, Parish glimpsed Knapp on a boat, so the trio visits several islands along the Hudson - and they find Washington's glorified and booby-trapped Masonic tomb on Bannerman's Island. Crane finds where Washington's casket is hidden and retrieves the map, but the group is ambushed by the changed Andy. Parish helps them briefly regain the upper hand, and the trio escapes, triggering a booby trap and killing Andy for good.
All that is for naught, as Crane decides to burn the map at Abbie's behest to preserve their friendship and to resist whatever the prophecy surrounding the Witnesses may be. Meanwhile, Irving and Macey have been in questioning because 1) Irving is beating around the bush when in questioning with his superior, and 2) Macey's DNA was found on Father Boland's neck; Irving, however, decides to turn himself in and confesses to the murders of Devon Jones and Father Boland. (What happened to Morales isn't entirely clear.) Oh, and Crane redraws the map from eidetic memory.
As for "Bad Blood", Crane stumbles upon a Revolutionary War reenactment (outfitted by Laura Spencer, a.k.a. Jane Bennett) and gets new duds before receiving an urgent call from Parish, who meets up with the Mills sisters and Crane at what is now Crane's cabin only to reveal that he had a vision of Moloch summoning another Horseman, which the sisters confirm with Biblical verses. Everyone realizes that since it's thirteen years to the day since the sisters saw Moloch in the forest, something big is going to happen - also because there's an impending eclipse. Abbie retrieves a date book that Irving retrieved from Knapp's impounded belongings before being shipped to prison upstate, and she passes it off to Jenny to collaborate with paperwork and audio files from Corbin's stash. She's also not too impressed by Crane's redrawn map (as he betrayed her trust), but he claims it had to be done since they need a witch to place a binding spell on the summoning site.
The map leads them to the door to Purgatory, thanks to converging ley lines, and everyone but Jenny goes, as she's hesitant about Abbie leaving. Abbie and Crane enter Purgatory (with the warning not to eat or drink anything) while Parish waits on the other side and Jenny investigates an old abandoned church that intrigued Corbin. Abbie wakes up in Corbin's cabin to find Corbin and Andy offering apple pie a la mode, and Crane wakes to find his father (Victor Garber) throwing a celebration in his honor, but both realize that their situations aren't real, and they come to in a dark forest of lost souls. They find each other, confirm each other's identity with a fist bump, and find the echo of the church that Katrina visits before Katrina enters. Crane and Abbie are all ready to leave with Katrina, but because of a hitch that could break down the walls between Purgatory and reality, Crane goes back with Katrina while Abbie stays behind to face Moloch, aided by Katrina's amulet.
Left in Purgatory, Abbie stands up to Moloch and brands him with the amulet before running away and falling into a gigantic version of a dollhouse she and Jenny found and played with as kids - a safe haven for their troubled childhood and now a safe haven in Purgatory. Inside, she finds the younger memory-selves of her and Jenny, which Moloch removed from their heads because of what they saw. (We'll get to that momentarily.) Meanwhile, Jenny finds the church and can't get inside, but she finds a covered sign and hurriedly tries to reach Abbie, leaving a message about the name on the church sign - until Death stops her in her path by shooting at her truck, causing it to flip. Katrina, Crane, and Parish locate the burial site and four white trees, and Katrina's attempts to perform the binding spell are for naught, as there's nothing there to bind. Why? War was revived thirteen years ago under similar circumstances - which Parish reveals after mentally tossing Crane and Katrina against two of the trees and binding them with branches. Oh, and Parish is really Jeremy.
Jeremy/Parish reveals that 1) his inherently powerful magic kept him alive; 2) Moloch offered salvation; and 3) the church was the first thing that he saw of humanity after being brought back, so he took the name of the church (St. Henry's Parish) to spite the saint. In Purgatory, Abbie learns her side of the incident - she and Jenny were sent to stop Moloch from reviving a beardy Jeremy - but she's stuck in Purgatory. And back in the forest, Death arrives and trades War's seal for Katrina before riding off, and Jeremy/Parish seals his father in what used to be his old coffin before breaking the seal and summoning War. Well then ... that's a lovely way to end the first season - and a lovely way to give fans agita for the next eight or so months.
Meanwhile on 'Castle', Castle and Beckett tackled the prevalent issue of teeny-bop starlets and paparazzi-driven fame in "Limelight". When Mandy Sutton (Alexandra Chando), a teen pop starlet (a faux-Disney actress turned pop star - think Miley), is found dead in an alley outside her apartment building, Castle and Beckett are called to the scene. Marilyn, Mandy's mom/manager reveals that Mandy fell off the sobriety wagon and made out with a bad boy ex (who got Mandy into drugs and threatened to kill her when they broke up), which caused her Habitat for Humanity boyfriend to break up with her. However, the dead body isn't Mandy - it's Claire, her decoy; Mandy's PA finds her checked in at the Wessex Hotel under an alias, and Castle and Beckett arrive to find her incredibly hungover, so they bring her back to the precinct for questioning - and her safety.
A fan letter with pictures of a sleeping Mandy and a paparazzi photo from the night Claire died lead Ryan and Espo to Ken Castor, an obsessed fan with a restraining order and a closet shrine to Mandy. Ken realized that it wasn't Mandy the night of her "death", but he did see a red Ducati with gold wheels and a flame decal in the adjacent alley - which was sold to Jesse, Mandy's ex three days prior. Meanwhile, Castle tries to connect with Mandy over the troubles of fame but is interrupted by Alexis (who came to check the status of Pi's letter of recommendation) - and Alexis unknowingly accidentally insults Mandy. And they accidentally trade phones, so Alexis meets her at her hotel and Mandy open up about stardom, drinking, and wanting to disappear - and Alexis admits that she's considering breaking up with Pi. After texting with a bartender friend about Claire, Mandy decides to head over to the bar - and Alexis tags along for safety reasons, leading to everyone at the precinct freaking out about Mandy's disappearance.
At the bar, Sam reveals he recognized that the last news footage of "Mandy" was really Claire, as she was at the bar the night she died trying to get Mandy's digits because of some trouble - and then she asked to talk to Jesse. Mandy tries to reach Jesse, but she starts getting mobbed by fans at the bar, so Alexis leads her out of the bar, and Jesse drives up, forcing them into his truck at gunpoint. He's convinced that someone's messing with him, since he knew that Claire was in the make-out photo from the bar and that the cops are trying to pin her death on him. Also, both he and Claire were apparently paid to stage the photo and he showed up to stop Claire from leaking the news, but she was already dead. The cops show up in the nick of time, and Jesse gives them his side of the story, which also nets James Lockhart, the photographer who was paid by Harvey Stryker, a TMZ-esque celeb gossip website owner. Harvey denies setting the whole thing up (the fake Mandy, the partying, the breakup, etc.) to drum up business, but he denies it, saying that he bought the photo from Lockhart and was tipped off. Who tipped him off? Someone calling from a burner phone - and that someone is Marilyn, who still has the burner phone.
Marilyn's reasoning for silencing Claire was it was all for Mandy - specifically to break Mandy up with Zack, as he wasn't helping her wild reputation. Ah, a case of Mother Knows Best ... or thinks she does, anyway. As the case wraps up, Alexis returns to the precinct with Zack so he and Mandy can make up, and Castle hands over his letter of recommendation, but he senses that Alexis is hesitant about Pi. And to wrap up the gossipy news about Castle (that he was seeing his ex - for lunch, he says), Beckett comes clean that she put their wedding announcement in the papers - just one way she's coming to terms with bridging the gap between public and private life.
***
With an off-beat start to the season, 'Sleepy Hollow' kept building and somehow kept its head - pun intended - without bogging the show down, thanks in part to the humor of Crane adapting to modern times and including John Noble as a recurring guest star. It returns for its second season this fall on Fox. As for 'Castle', the episode was a good look at modern celebrity culture and the differences between public and private life. 'Castle' returns with the 'Devil Wears Prada'-skewering "Dressed to Kill", which airs tonight on ABC.
(GIFs from fuckyeahsleepyhollow and castlelounge)
