Doug Aarniokoski

“Rogue Air” opens with Eddie still missing and Barry and the gang searching everywhere while still trying to unravel Harrison Wells’ plan. As they try to stay one step ahead of whatever the Reverse-Flash has planned, Wells reactivates the particle accelerator, putting all of the meta-humans Barry has captured in harm’s way. Not willing to stand by and see that happen, he puts together a plan to transport them to another location, but he needs help to make sure they don’t escape in the process. With no one else to turn to, will Barry cut a deal with his enemies to ensure his plan succeeds?

It’s difficult to pin down an episode like “Awakening,” because it’s an episode that keeps thwarting expectations. It keeps setting itself up for twists and then abandoning those twists in favor of new ones, offers up some fun alt-history that it offsets with bad characterization, and provides even more evidence of Sleepy Hollow fumbling in the dark yet snagging brilliance in said fumbling. “Awakening” almost needs two reviews, one for what happens in the first three-quarters of the episode and one for what happens in the last ten minutes, because while the first part is bog standard season two Sleepy Hollow the second could potentially be the show’s most inspired move all season.

At a time when Sleepy Hollow is running the risk of losing its vital energy thanks to an excess of plots and characters, it’s important to remember the things everyone loved about the show in the first place. It captured the attention of viewers thanks to the ludicrous concept of a Headless Horseman wielding automatic weapons, and delivered that early and often. It moved past initial absurdity by capitalizing on the chemistry between its two leads and building a dynamic that everyone wanted to root for. And it managed to remain a consistently solid supernatural drama, deploying well-executed monsters and suspense.

In the last few weeks, Sleepy Hollow has settled into what appears to be a fairly comfortable episodic groove. There’s a monster of the week that benefits from some truly exceptional character design, exchanges that are at times witty and emotional between our two leads, a few bits of American history warped to serve the writers’ purpose, and everything comes to a head with a well-executed action climax and a closing scene of John Noble doing something cryptically menacing. It’s a solid enough formula for the show, and it’s yielded a series of entertaining episodes following the dramatic escapes of Ichabod and Abbie in the premiere.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 2, Episode 4, “Go Where I Send Thee…” Written by Damian Kindler Directed by Doug Aarniokoski Airs Mondays at 9pm (ET) on Fox After a few weeks that were heavy on constructing the season’s arc, “Go Where I Send Thee…” is a more conventional—if such a term can ever be applied to …