Courtesy of FOX
Warning: Spoiler Alert
Tonight’s anticipated ‘Ichabod learns about the modern world’ cold open was interrupted by a dream sequence in which Abbey finds her mother in purgatory. Then the modern world thing presents itself in the form of a child proof cap on a bottle of over the counter cold medication. Tonight will be fun if Tom Mison does the whole episode in that stuffed up British accent.
Abbey gets called to Reyes’ office, forcefully leaving Ichabod in a chair, under a blanket, in the Archive. Reyes has a case that involves three suicides in three days. Reyes also divulges that she is giving it to Abbey because Abbey has earned her trust. Despite the fact that this is how and where Abbey’s mother died.
While at the asylum, Abbey and Jenny reflect on what that particular place did to their mother and how it has influence just about everything they’ve done since then. They do this while Jenny runs through security footage. Then they see the victim climb onto a table and hang herself. Upon a second viewing with the night vision feature, we see a woman in the corner. Which they believe instantly is the ghost of their mother.
Abbey calls on Holly to assist while Ichabod is out of commission. A detail that Ichabod rejects. Holly brought some maps and books to aid in the investigation as well as Matzo Ball soup laced with some sort of sleeping agent.
Katrina sits in a room with Henry and the baby. For those who missed last week’s episode, the baby appears like any other human baby. However, Henry asked Abraham if Katrina still wore her necklace (with the green stone that allows her to see the human form of Abraham and not the Horseman). The idea here is that perhaps, the baby doesn’t look human at all, but with the necklace, Katrina sees what Henry wants her to see. Katrina picks up the baby after Henry questioned her track record as a mother. Timing being what it is, the second she turns around you see the infant is black (like as in artificially black, black like he was painted) and has horns on his head. Moloch is no human baby.
Abbey, Jenny, and Holly survey the live security footage on site at the asylum. Jenny notices a patient breaking a mirror. They all pounce at once and are able to stop him. Abbey, using a flashlight, looks into the corner of the room. At first there is nothing, then her mother appears, then disappears. And so does Abbey.
Abbey reappears in what looks like a dingy darker version of the same asylum. Eventually her mother’s spirit does appear just long enough for her to scream, “it’s not safe for you here”. Which is something she’s said in more than one flashback. Just as the spirit disappears again, Abbey responds to a noise. It’s a nurse who works there. But when the camera zoom in close, you notice that this woman is dated based on her relative ‘style’. My first assumption is that it is the same hospital but 20+ years earlier.
I may have jumped the gun. Because Jenny just came running around the corner. Could be that it’s just an unused corridor of the hospital, present day. I was not completely wrong about the nurse. We find evidence of ‘Nurse Lambert’ on an old tape from Momma Mills. And now we see Nurse Lambert talking to Irving after talking to Abbey.
Abbey, Jenny and Holly get back to the asylum. Lambert is in Irving’s head and convinces him temporarily to zip tie his hands at the bottom of a large bathtub while the water fills up. They get to Irving in time, but as they pull him up he’s yelling, “but I need to die”.
The nurse in question apparently killed a large number of people Or at least aided the suicide, calling them mercy kills. She was arrested and put to death in 1958 while working at this particular mental hospital.
The trio make their way to a solitary cell where their mother stayed for a seven month stretch once. The room is falling apart, but Abbey thinks she sees something under the plaster. The two sister’s begin to break apart the surface of the wall to reveal a massive mural. Hand drawn portraits surrounded by song lyrics and a decent amount of other details we have yet to see. Jenny makes the connection that even when their mother was trying to protect them, they were never really safe. Then Momma Mills appears again. “You’re not safe!”
The following scene their mother is actually able to hold it together long enough to say a few coherent sentences. There is a hex that can stop Nurse Lambert (I seriously just typed Nurse Rached, but corrected it), but she can’t remember it. She had a journal with strong magic in it. Then you hear a voice saying something indecipherable. Abbey asks her to not leave. Then Abbey gets pulled out like she was jerked back with a bungee cord.
Nurse Lambert walks in the room and throws the other two alive humans in the room against opposite walls with her mind. Then she disappears. Momma Mills looks at Jenny and says, “I’ll get Abbey, you get the journal.” Lambert using her demon mental powers moves Abbey to a few different places each more restrained than the last until Abbey is sitting on a old chair shackled. The nurse goes into her spiel of how she’s only freeing those in need. And Abbey’s next.
Momma Mills shows up to interrupt the deed. Simultaneously, Holly finds the journal and Jenny begins reciting the hex. As she repeats the hex we see the facade of the nurse peel away as she commands Momma Mills to obey her. Eventually the black eyes come forth and she is destroyed, right there in the room.
What sci-fi/fantasy/horror show wouldn’t be complete without contacting your long since deceased mother by way séance. Which works, of course. Then it’s a series of strong, compelling non-verbal acting along with a nice performance from Momma Mills. She expresses pride in what her daughters have become. She tells Jenny that she watched over her while she too was stuck in that hospital. When Abbey suggests that Moloch may still be on earth in human form, she again references the journal and then drops a subtle bombshell.
Laura Mills (Momma) to Abbey: You were meant to go further than any of us. You were meant to win this war.
Abbey: You don’t deserve any of this. How can we free you from this place?
Laura Mills: Sweetheart…you already did.
(Laura gradually disappears)
Driving on a back road out of the hospital, a man jumps out from the brush. Abbey slams on the brakes. The man in Captain Irving. “Don’t give me that Aiding and Abetting look Mills”. Irving hops in the back through the lift gate.
Katrina has put together a potion of sorts with the intention of feeding it to the child. If it works, it would send Moloch’s soul back where it came from. The baby is not in the crib. She looks throughout the house until she gets to the kitchen. Standing on top of the step-ladder is a blond-haired boy that looks to be somewhere between 7-9 years old holding bread and staring back at her.
“I’m hungry mother…”
