Tonight’s season finale of Sleepy Hollow — a mind-bending double-feature of episodes called “The Indispensable Man” and “Bad Blood” — meticulously scrutinized the previous eleven episodes, pulled out all the proper nouns, and then decided to see how many of them it could throw into a blender and pulp together before time ran out.

Normally when I recap this show, I reshuffle the events in something closer to chronological order because I’m curious to see if the seeding of important tidbits in past events makes sense after time passes and we move forward to present day. Frankly, though, sticking to format this time around would undercut the stupefying shocks of the last five minutes. Also, trying to summarize two episodes in one night will be the death of me if I don’t cut corners somewhere. Hence, forgive my dispensing with a frill or two for the sake of mitigating the resulting time-crunch. Some of us aren’t professional critics who receive advance screeners and have a luxurious days-long head start on their recaps. Frankly, doing this kind of thing for fun can kill a fan, but don’t expect The MAN to provide recap-related death statistics to you.

Regardless: onward with a double-shot of recap!

First half: Maps and Legends.

Ichabod Crane’s studious combing-over of George Washington’s Bible turns up a peculiarity in the form of ten extra verses added to the story of Lazarus (John 11, which Washington expanded from 57 verses to 67 because he knew someday Crane would die and be resurrected as Lazarus was, and our first President loved gallows irony, and while we’re in this parenthetical anyway let’s set aside how barely religious Abbie knows without looking it up that John 11 has exactly 57 verses) that hint toward a convoluted map to Purgatory, where his beloved wife Katrina still resides as Moloch’s prisoner. Crane has also come to hate his slightly outdated flip-phone and wants a smartphone like Abbie’s. Though he continues to rail against modern consumerism, he’s succumbing to the thrall of nonessential tech upgrades.

Meanwhile, Abbie runs errands but gets interrupted by John Cho returning as undead deputy Andy Brooks, who’s still serving the demon and has now been ordered to quest for the map that we only just learned about sixty seconds before he showed up. Abbie says no, so he bails, hides in the sewers, endures Moloch cackling in his face, is punished with a surprise insect cocoon, and emerges with no clothes, a pink Borg Queen head, and intersecting lines painted on his chest that I think are supposed to resemble evil ley lines but look more like a giant asterisk. Maybe his new super-villain name is the Footnote.

All of this ties in clumsily to the date of December 18, 1799, which Crane found written in Washington’s Bible in invisible ink. Washington died on December 14th, but Crane is convinced Washington must have written the date down after his death. Because Washington couldn’t have just been scribbling the date of his next doctor’s appointment on the nearest piece of paper he could find, some six months in advance. To discern the truth, Crane and Abbie call in John Noble as the sin-eater Henry Parish, who’s also decided he now has occasional premonitions in addition to his ability to “read” things on contact. Henry is quite the magical bundle of surprises.

Touching Washington’s Bible reveals to Henry a message to Crane from “President George Washington” (an odd choice of greetings considering Washington would’ve been well aware that Crane died years before the President position existed) confirming Crane’s fallacious conclusion that yes, Washington was dead when he wrote that date in invisible ink. Zombie George Washington was made possible by the magical prayer beads of Reverend Knapp, the not-quite-immortal minister beheaded by the Horseman in the present day in the pilot. Crane remembers that Masons were mentioned in a previous episode, and Masonic code requires that when Masons die, their secrets have to be buried with them so that no one would think of looking for them there, except anyone who knows the Masonic code or can Google “Masonic secret-keeping rules”.

Sometime during their quest Abbie finds time to buy Crane an iPhone™, but Siri is a terrible conversationalist in magical topics. Our Heroes exhume the Reverend’s body and Henry yanks the prayer beads off his neck, though a hex upon them burns his hands and summons a pack of fragile shadow demons that shatter like porcelain dolls if you shoot or smack them.

Again assuming Washington followed Masonic procedure to the letter, Crane realizes the map itself must be in Washington’s grave. But which of Washington’s gravesites is the real one? Mount Vernon; Washington, DC; or Secret Grave Number Three? If those of you playing along at home guessed Three, you win. Henry’s previous vision hints toward the way, as it included a scene of the Reverend and a few helpers boating with a blanketed corpse. To them this must be the Hudson River, and the only place where he could be buried is one of the twenty-one islands contained within the river and certainly not anywhere along its several miles’ worth of shore.

Searching the river island by island leads them to Bannerman Island, some thirty-odd miles north of Sleepy Hollow. Entering the tomb requires them to locate and move a very special rock Just So, whereupon they descend into an Indiana Jones set, complete with superfluous pyramid and Washington’s real body hidden behind a seal of Cincinnatus, an ancient Roman farmer/leader who hated leading, not unlike Washington, who as a zombie was a fan of ironic crypt design. (Abbie knows the story of Cincinnatus from a high school Latin class that must’ve been excruciatingly comprehensive. Maybe required students to come in over the summer and on Saturdays to ensure they crammed in every last Roman personality, great or obscure.) Sure enough, the map to Purgatory is clutched in ex-Zombie Washington’s cold, dead hand.

After coming all this way, then Abbie and Crane debate whether it might be better to destroy the map so Moloch can’t have it. They’re mindful of the previous prophecy that inexplicably said Crane would freely give Abbie’s soul to Moloch. Before they can finish the discussion, National Treasure 3 climaxes with the villainous Footnote showing up (now with a cool stocking cap added to his super-villain costume) and sealing the entrance, trapping himself inside with them. Abbie appeals to the Footnote’s buried human side, with limited success. Henry touches him and a flash of painful memories forces Andy to the surface long enough to beg for death. Abbie obliges with a stab through the head, which subdues him for about two minutes.

Somehow this leads to Washington’s entire crypt collapsing like any cheap super-villain lair, burying the Footnote first in crumbles and then in boulders. Lucky for Our Heroes, Crane remembers that the Masonic code strongly recommends hiding a secret exit behind your corpse’s altar and labeling it with “the Masonic symbol for ascension”, which is cheaper than a neon “EXIT” sign and more dignified than a hand-drawn picture of an Up arrow.

Thus they return to the map debate. Regardless of what was written, Crane decides Abbie means too much to him, glances at the map, and burns it. Sure, Crane could’ve used his brand new smartphone to take a photo of it first, but that would pose a security risk if Moloch ever signed up for an internet account and learned how to hack into his phone. But no, this is all part of Crane’s plan: after everyone adjourns for the act break between episodes, Crane uses his amazing photographic memory that was mentioned once or twice in previous episodes and begins drawing a new map from scratch to resemble the old one, thus providing an entirely different tangible document for Moloch to have someone steal instead. Plans like this are why Crane was a captain and never a general.

Meanwhile in subplot land: Captain Irving’s superior is tired of weird things happening without anyone being arrested. Before a pending DNA test can be completed and probably reveal that Father Boland was strangled last week by the tiny hands of Irving’s wheelchair-bound daughter Macey (although her demonic-possession alibi probably wouldn’t show up in the analysis), Irving confesses to his murder as well as to the murder of Officer Devon Jones. Commanding officer guy decides to ignore the DNA test results, arrests Irving, and has him incarcerated upstate for the time being so poor Orlando Jones has to miss out on the big finale.

Second half: Here Comes the War.

Crane attends a Revolutionary War reenactment fair and buys himself a new set of clothes that look exactly like the same ramshackle getup he’s chosen to wear since the pilot. He’s also back to using his old flip-phone instead for whatever reason. Meanwhile, Henry says he had a dream that the Second Horseman, War, is coming soon with a giant flaming sword, and today’s the day because there’s a solar eclipse, a prime setting for all the best prophecies. Curiously, it’s also the thirteenth anniversary of the day the Mills girls met Moloch and had their lives ruined forever. A solar eclipse marked that day, too. All the best demons plan their biggest heists and apocalypses using coincidental astronomy.

Plan A, then: prevent War’s resurrection by getting a witch to cast a “binding” spell on his burial site, and thus will the day be saved. Alas, they only know one witch who’s not completely dead: Katrina. Subplan B of Plan A, then: use the map to enter Purgatory, rescue Katrina, and have her cast the spell. How hard can it be to enter and exit Purgatory, especially with Moloch personally guarding it and Katrina? Sure, why not. Henry cautions that Purgatory is a place filled with edible temptations meant to trap you there, somewhat like Wonderland minus the daring fashion.

Meanwhile, Abbie’s sister Jenny is sent on a side quest: listen to the late Sheriff Corbin’s vast library of audiocassette diaries and see if she can find hints about Moloch’s repeated threat, admonition, or prophecy that “The saint’s name is a sign.” Jenny’s not thrilled about the potentially boring assignment, but she’s no stranger to drudge-work thanks to her time spent running Indiana Jones-style errands for Sheriff Corbin while he was alive.

The map shows an intersection of ley lines that just so happens to mark the spot where once stood the Trinity Church, the same refuge where Abbie’s ancestors Joseph and Grace once harbored fugitive witches such as Katrina. Standing in the dirt patch where it used to be, Abbie and Crane recite the spell from the map, and the entrance appears like a shattering window, reminiscent of Miss America’s dimension-hopping power, from Gillen and McKelvie’s Young Avengers.

Once inside, they’re forcibly split up: Abbie is tempted by ghostly Sheriff Corbin and Deputy Andy offering her deceptive pie. When she refuses and runs, they scream and the pie bleeds. Crane is tempted by his estranged father (TV’s Victor Garber) offering him vintage wine and a professorship in an American colony where the British never lost. When he refuses and runs, Victor Garber turns malevolent and eats a wine glass. Feel free to reread that sentence as many times as it takes for your head to process it. For me, “Victor Garber eats a wine glass” wins Most Memorable Moment of the Month in all of TV.

Once reunited, their initial, mutual doppelgänger suspicion is overcome by a sacred fist-bump that no demon could possibly simulate. They wander past numerous misshapen prisoners of Purgatory, each one benefiting from the show’s makeup crew indulging themselves in assorted creepy creations, and find the church where Katrina has been loitering since the pilot. Alas, she can only leave under one of two conditions: (1) she must receive True Forgiveness, which is so hard that absolutely no discussion ensues; or (2) someone must take her place.

Abbie volunteers to be that someone, so that Katrina can go back to reality and stop War from returning to destroy all Creation. Crane protests but tearfully acquiesces. Thus is the prophecy fulfilled! But he vows that someday he will return for her. Katrina understandably furrows her brow at this promise.

Katrina passes on her Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart souvenir protective amulet to Abbie, and with that the Cranes reunite and return to the waking world, where Henry is patiently waiting. Abbie is left behind to deal with a raging giant Moloch, though gouging his shoulder with the amulet burns and drives him away for a while. After a jarring commercial break, she finds herself waking up in a life-sized version of the dollhouse that she and Jenny shared and played with when they were kids, before their special day with Moloch.

Populating the dollhouse are several young girls who introduce themselves as Abbie’s own memories — personified, removed from her young head by Moloch himself, and dumped into this Purgatory dollhouse for evil safekeeping. Where Abbie had spent the last thirteen years believing that fateful day ended with a blackout, her memory-girls reveal the truth about that day…which continued for a few minutes longer than she thought.

Meanwhile, Jenny locates an abandoned church that Sheriff Corbin believed was the key to everything. She finds the church’s sign buried under nearby leaves, drops it in horror, leaves a voice mail for Abbie, and speeds back to town to rejoin the team. From out of nowhere, the First Horseman — Death himself — rides in on a pale horse and shoots up her SUV till it flips over, leaving her unconscious and bloodied.

Meanwhile, Henry and the Cranes gather around War’s certified gravesite. Katrina prepares the spell. She feels nothing happening. Henry insists War is right there. His smile is discomfiting.

Abbie learns what really happened That Day: she and Jenny unwittingly witnessed Moloch exhuming War from his grave, thirteen years ahead of schedule.

Jenny learned what the church’s sign said: “St Henry’s Parish”.

Henry uses evil magic to trap Ichabod and Katrina with animated tree branches. “Henry” reveals he is War.

“He” also reveals his true name: Jeremy Crane.

Their long-lost, evil son — the one who created a scarecrow golem thing for terrorizing purposes during his orphanage days — was condemned to that grave by the Sisterhood and spent the next two hundred years slowly aging and plotting his part in the apocalypse. Once arisen, he took his name from the first sign he stumbled across. As one would expect, War loves ironic irreverence.

(This revelation may require hardcore fans to revisit all of John Noble’s previous episodes to look for clues — some of which receive a brief flashback-montage here for maximum shock effect — as well as to inventory how many of his scenes made no sense in context if he were truly evil all along. I’d be curious to know the results of such research.)

(Also, while I’m digressing anyway: I’m not sure if it’s coincidence or not, but Spider-Man once fought a villain called the Sin-Eater, whose identity turned out to be someone he’d been working with closely, who in previous issues had kept casually mentioning how sometimes solutions are right under your nose and it’s often the person you least expect. The aforementioned flashback-montage shows us several such clips to that exact same effect. Homage?)

Then arrives the Horseman — the man once known as Ichabod’s good friend Abraham Van Brunt — to claim his prize. He spirits Katrina away while War/Jeremy/Not-Henry laughs, snaps in half an antique token that he refers to as the Second Seal (Rev. 6:2-4), and proceeds to bury Ichabod in War’s own former grave.

To be continued.

…next season, that is. Be sure to mark fall 2014 on your calendar. Until then, thanks for reading and sharing the experience.

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If you missed a previous episode of Sleepy Hollow, the last few episodes can be watched online at Fox’s official site, or MCC recaps are listed below for handy reference. Enjoy!

9/16/2013: “Pilot”
9/23/2013: “Blood Moon”
9/30/2013: “For the Triumph of Evil”
10/7/2013: “The Lesser Key of Solomon”
10/14/2013: “John Doe”
11/4/2013: “The Sin-Eater”
11/11/2013: “The Midnight Ride”
11/18/2013: “Necromancer”
11/25/2013: “Sanctuary”
12/9/2013: “The Golem”
1/13/2014: “Vessel“