Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story
Episodes are listed in chronological order. Unmarked spoilers below.
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Recaps
Episode 1: The Local Legend
Episode 1: The Local Legend
Aired: August 29, 2022
When new science teacher Ichabod Crane arrives in Sleepy Hollow, his quest for a roommate leads to a surprising discovery.- Action Prologue: Episode 1 opens a year prior to the series proper, where Rip Van Winkle gets chased down by a mysterious figure in the woods.
- Cutaway Gag: There's a brief cutaway to Brom trying to be the substitute science teacher the previous year. It did not go well.Brom: Can anybody tell me what science is? [Beat] Anyone? [Beat] Please. Someone tell me what science is.
- Exposition Party: The mayor's Autumn Gala serves as a way to introduce Ichabod to multiple townsfolk, including Brom, who tells him about the Headless Horseman.
- Hot Wind: Parodied. Kat is introduced with one, but Matilda experiences the after effects.
Episode 2: The Ghosts in the Graveyard
Episode 2: The Ghosts in the Graveyard
Aired: September 5, 2022
Ichabod strikes a deal with his new roommate, the Headless Horseman, and turns to Matilda, the town witch, for guidance.- Freudian Slip: Brom calls Henri "Dad" because he misses his real father so much.
- Mistaken for Related: Brom initially mistakes Henri for his father... despite the fact that his father is alive and on a cruise.
Episode 3: The Briny Booty
Episode 3: The Briny Booty
Aired: September 12, 2022
Ichabod's first date with Kat is thrown into disarray when the Horseman becomes a 17th century pirate.- Fainting:
- Gravy does this after he's gotten too drunk.
- Ichabod Faints in Shock after Gravy stabs Douffe.
- Pirate Episode: With Captain Gravy Davy Crowbones on board, what else could it be?
Episode 4: The Star on the Stage
Episode 4: The Star on the Stage
Aired: September 19, 2022
Right before the Trousers' big fall play, Ichabod and Matilda turn the Horseman into a Revolutionary War soldier, but he's not exactly what they expected.- Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: Matilda thought she had gotten the head of a Revolutionary War soldier. What appears is a man in a Continental Army uniform... who immediately starts to speak in modern slang. What Matilda actually got was the head of the Revolutionary War reenactor (who is also The Stoner). Hilarity ensues.
- Info Dump: The play acts as one for the lore of Sleepy Hollow, though some of the details are questioned.
- Internal Reveal: Brom reveals the Horseman's existence to Kat.
- Unreliable Expositor: The Trousers' historical play has a number of details wrong, as Max Lee points out.
- Welcomed to the Masquerade: Brom reveals the existence of Headless to Kat, who takes it better than either he or Ichabod expected, agreeing to help.
Episode 5: The Chaos in Court
Episode 5: The Chaos in Court
Aired: September 26, 2022
Brom sabotages Ichabod's court date with an unexpected head.- Breather Episode: The episode is lampshaded as this in Unsolved Babesteries.Spike: Did Versace's brief recurrence on this earth help solve the mystery [of the Horseman's head], or was it merely a comedic interlude while the plot thickened around our hero like Devlyn's yummy stew...? (grabs script page) Who wrote this?!
- Courtroom Episode: Ichabod's half of the episode takes place during his hearing for trespassing in the graveyard, which Devlyn turns into a circus.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The Recommended Videos and search box text for Devlyn's Youtube page include such tidbits as:
- Various videos on fanny pack uses.
- "Why Guy Ferrari and I are calling it quits"
- "Damn, Convinced My Little Sis She's Dead"
- "American Whoopee 95th Anniversary Criterion..."
- "devlyn versace streamy award meltdown"
- Medium Blending: Episode 5 constantly shifts perspectives to Devlyn's Youtube livestream, which features more wacky sound effects and a brighter, washed-out filter.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech: Matilda reprimands Brom for his jealous behavior towards Ichabod in Episode 5, with a side of Deadpan Snarker:Matilda: I bet you're really, really happy with yourself that you've regressed back to toxically masculine high school Brom, bullying the new kid on the block.
Episode 6: The Distractions at Dinner
Episode 6: The Distractions at Dinner
Aired: October 3, 2022
While Brom and Matilda investigate Baltus's possible involvement in the death of his former assistant, Ichabod endures a tense dinner with Kat and Baltus- Cutaway Gag: Anne tells Ichabod the Babes are the ones giving her lines, cutting away to the Babes acting as the Spies In a Van acting super serious.
- Fake Relationship: Matilda and Brom pretend to be in a Secret Relationship, using the mayor's office as their hideaway after they are caught by Judy, so they don't reveal they were looking for incriminating information against the mayor. This backfires magnificently when Judy offers to marry them for real and they can't come up with a reason to say no without getting caught in a lie. Cue combination wedding march-funeral dirge and a very reluctant Marriage of Convenience.
- Get Out!: Kat tells Ichabod this in the middle of dessert after he tells Kat he believes her father killed Anne Tarry.
- Wrote the Book: Baltus says this about Kat's mother Elizabeth, who literally wrote books on local legends.
Episode 7: The Secrets in the Sea Log
Episode 7: The Secrets in the Sea Log
Aired: October 10, 2022
With help from Dr. Crayon and the Trouserses, Ichabod and the gang put together some big pieces of the Horseman puzzle.- The Bus Came Back: Douffe returns at the end of the episode, awake from the coma Headless's stabbing put her in.
- Captain's Log: Gravy Davy's sea log contains information about the Horseman, which Ichabod reads aloud.
- One Last Job: Conversed — Paulie Tahoe is happy to come back for "one last job" after getting resurrected.
Episode 8: The Heist at the Hotel
Episode 8: The Heist at the Hotel
Aired: October 17, 2022
Legendary con-man Paulie Tahoe helps the gang infiltrate Storms Inn in (debatably) the heist of the century.- The Caper: Paulie Tahoe makes an elaborate plan, which he calls The Friedburg Caper, to infiltrate the wedding at Storms Inn so that Matilda, Ichabod, and Brom can investigate the basement.
- Caper Crew: Conversed and parodied. While some of these are typical caper roles, others... not so much:
- The Mastermind: Paulie Tahoe
- The Muscle: Brom
- The Hacker: Douffe (lampshaded and parodied, since it was never stated what she would be hacking into)
- The Pickpocket: Matilda
- The Linguist: Cal (whose extent of other languages is "Et tu, Brute?")
- The Master of Disguise: Blair (whose extent of "disguise" is multicolored visors)
- The Dinosaur Expert: Tripp (who is actually a bird expert)
- Heist Episode: In the title — Paulie Tahoe helps the group break in to Storms Inn to infiltrate the basement.
- The Reveal:
- Lucretia Lazenby is actually Oksana Bolshekov, former international super spy.
- Henrietta Hudson was a witch whom Anneke Storms murdered and turned into the Headless Horseman via curse. Anneke herself changed her children's last name to Crane as penance for her deed. Her disappearance was likely due to Henrietta murdering her in the basement of her orphanage out of revenge.
Episode 9: The Clues in the Clink
Episode 9: The Clues in the Clink
Aired: October 24, 2022
Being thrown in jail doesn't stop our crew from discovering more...discoveries.- Accidentally Broke The Macguffin: Kat shatters the skull of Anneke Storms when Judy startles her.
- Dead All Along: Kat has a death certificate dating back a year ago.
- Freudian Slip: Brom calls Ichabod "Dad" after Ichabod approves of him, implying "Well Done, Son" Guy.
- Prison Episode: Most of the episode shows the characters in the Sleepy Hollow police station after they got caught trespassing in Storms Inn last episode.
- The Reveal: Baltus was confirmed to have killed Anne and told Dr. Crayon about it, and Kat died a year ago.
- A Rotten Time to Revert: The Headless Horseman, while transformed into Paulie Tahoe, gets thrown in jail with the rest of the group and immediately begins planning their escape... until the spell ends and he reverts back to Headless.Brom: Wait... this might still be part of the plan.
- Safe Cracking: Ichabod and Brom have to figure out the new code to Dr. Crayon's safe. It turns out to be the date he got divorced from Douffe: 10/07/22.
- We Need a Distraction: The Babes twice act as distractions — once running around naked with doughnuts so Kat and Judy could bust the trio out, and once pretending to have frostbite to allow Brom and Ichabod to break into Dr. Crayon's safe.
- Welcomed to the Masquerade: Kat enlists Judy to help break the trio out of jail, and tells her about Headless in the process.
Episode 10: The Haunting of the Hollow
Episode 10: The Haunting of the Hollow
Aired: October 31, 2022
Our dear Horseman's tale is now at an end.- Alas, Poor Villain: Kat may have manipulated Ichabod and both threatened and actually killed people, but she was running out of time before she would die again. Matilda is heartbroken that she couldn't save her best friend without others getting hurt.
- Flashback: Diedrich narrates what happened at the Autumn Gala the year before, showing how Kat died from taking the poison meant for Rip and how Matilda saved her by sacrificing Rip's life-force.
- Flash Forward: The ending scene occurs a few months after the events of the climax, with Ichabod now teaching at the high school, Matilda opening up her boutique with Brom at her side, Baltus still in jail, and Douffe on a beach somewhere.
- Ghostly Death Reveal: Diedrich's death is revealed when Verla puts his head on Headless.
- Grand Finale: The final episode is a whopping near-30 minutes to wrap up the mini series.
- Heel–Face Turn: Matilda turns on Kat and reunites Headless with their head to keep Ichabod from getting sacrificed.
- Killed Offscreen: Diedrich Knickerbocker is killed sometime between his last appearance in The Heist at the Hotel and the beginning of this episode, with Jonathan Oldstyle replacing him.
- Killer Finale: Multiple characters die, including Diedrich, Jonathan Oldstyle, and Kat (twice).
-
Meaningful Release Date: The series was purposely timed so the finale would air on Halloween, to fit the spooky themes. It also landed on the six-year anniversary of the release of the Grand Finale of Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party. - Metafictional Title: The Trousers write a new play with the true Sleepy Hollow history called, "Headless".
- Posthumous Narration: Any Diedrich narration this episode counts as this, since he was killed before this episode and only appears as a Head/ghost.
- Removing the Rival:
- Jonathan Oldstyle kills Diedrich to take his place as Sleepy Hollow's bard. It doesn't stick, as Jonathan himself ends up getting killed while Diedrich returns as a ghost.
- Baltus tried to do this by poisoning Rip Van Winkle at the Autumn Gala the previous year. Instead, he ended up poisoning his own daughter, but was able to meet his original goal by using Rip's life-force to bring back Kat for a year.
- The Reveal: Kat was accidentally poisoned by her own father after she took the drink meant for Rip Van Winkle. Matilda resurrected her from Rip's life-force, but the spell only lasts for a year. Kat lured Ichabod to be the next soul to sacrifice themselves to keep her alive, and Matilda was at least somewhat in on it.
- Sequel Hook: Lucretia/Oksana receives a mysterious flash drive from the late Paulie Tahoe, as apology. Ichabod opens the door to his new landlord, gets a surprised look on his face... and the camera cuts to credits.
- The Stinger: Shows Douffe on a beach, drinking and enjoying divorcee life.
- Wilhelm Scream:
- Matilda uses one on her voicemail.
Matilda: (recorded) Please leave a message after the banshee wail.- Kat makes one after Headless gets their head back, killing her.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Henrietta tells Matilda she has barely begun to unlock her magical potential, and that it was not her fault she couldn't save Kat. She also tells Ichabod that his courage has redeemed his family name.
