Sleepy Hollow - 'Dead Men Tell No Tales' (and Bones - 'The Resurrection in the Remains')

Okay; I see what you did there.

And so we come to the Bones/Sleepy Hollow crossover; or as I like to think of it, proof that Brennan is a blinkered idiot. I mean, seriously, she prides herself on detached observation without assumption, which means that she looks like a bit of a pill every time Angela's psychic or a random ghost pops up to establish that the supernatural is totes for real even in the Boniverse, even without a massive supernatural hotspot in upstate New York; a mere four hours drive from the Jeffersonian. Actually, this makes Christopher Pelant make a lot more sense, because clearly he was a motherfucking wizard; I bloody knew it!

Anyway, it is the Ween of Hallows, and a group of revelers setting up a kegger in an abandoned church stumble on a dead med student lying atop the iron coffin of a headless redcoat. Cue a visit from a certain informal investigative duo still pondering the ultimate fate of one Abraham van Brunt, patriot captain turned Hessian demon cavalier and better known as the Horseman (Headless). Of course, we know that he was actually sucked into Pandora's Box, and sure enough they soon learn - thanks to an extra awesome turn from the Angelatron, reconstructing a face from a missing skull - that this was in fact the nefarious redcoat General and probable diabolist General Howe, of shadow assassin-summoning and Ichabod-torturing fame.

"It's not nonsense, it's a spell book."

In the dead student's digs, Booth - who was, it turns out, and old mate of August Corbin's - and Abbie discover a book of spells in runic script, which contains a hidden message - This book shall lead the Witness to the skull that grants the power to resurrect the dead. Cutting ahead to 'Dead Men Tell No Tales' this suggests to me that OMFG, by her lights, Pandora is a Witness. More prosaically, the student wanted to do some Flatliners style shit with near death experiences, and so nicked the skull of a British Army necromancer from his secret grave as a good luck charm, which notably is the kind of shit that seems a little outre in Bones, but is par for the course in Sleepy Hollow.

Anyway, back in Bones Ichabod produces an authentic letter from the Jeffersonian archives; an order from George Washington that Howe's body be returned to Sleepy Hollow (even if it is mysteriously in Ichabod's handwriting.) Of course, by now the skull has turned out to be the murder weapon, and Crane breaks the case by revealing that a missing tooth had in Howe's lifetime been replaced with a French-made porcelain prosthesis (and honestly I would have watched the episode just for his disdain at the concept of fancy porcelain teeth.)

"Franklin invented sex on the beach?"

Mystery solved, the corpse is packed off for Sleepy Hollow and the four investigators retire to the Founding Fathers for a celebratory drink before Abbie and Ichabod return to Sleepy Hollow (and to Sleepy Hollow.)

Unfortunately, Pandora hijacks the transport carrying Howe's remains and uses a runic medallion to transform the decapitated skeleton into a very active zombie, promising him revenge against an old enemy: "Crane," the general hisses, in case we thought that someone might have encountered Ichabod in his patriot days and not fixated on him in an unhealthy fashion. Truly the greatest trick that Washington ever pulled was keeping Crane out of the history books.

Gotta love that 18th Century shooting stance.

Howe's hijacking interrupts the team costume bowling match - at which Ichabod runs into Zoe, who is dressed somewhat disconcertingly as sexy (seamstress) Betsy Ross, but who is the only one to recognise his natty, hand-embroidered waistcoat as a John Adams costume - especially when the General resurrects a force of redcoat zombies who prove impervious to bullets. The books eventually identify them as Draugr, virtually unstoppable undead shock troops, and the only hint of a weakness is a reference to Howe's 'primal tomb'.

With no other means of identifying Howe's original burial site (clearly not Twickenham) our heroes turn to the country's foremost forensic analyst. While Christine's Jane Goodall costume still needs finishing touches, Brennan agrees to look over the bone and determines it was originally interred in Washington's secret, unused tomb in the Capitol building. Insisting on coming along for the archaeology, they find a tomb with a Masonic lock and a booby trap fueled with unquenchable Greek Fire, prompting Ichabod to realise that the Great Manhattan Fire was caused by (not just a seamstress) Betsy Ross putting down Howe's original Draugr regiment with a multi-barreled, rapid-repeating, Greek Fire crossbow; an instrument of pure gratuity that I chose to dub the Betsy Rossbow.

"We're here for a massacre or an Iron Maiden photo shoot,
whichever comes first."

Leaving the indomitably skeptical Brennan ("She would dismiss Moloch as a tall man with a skin condition") to coo over the anthropological ramifications, Ichabod and Abbie set about planning a means to dispose of the Draugr without, you know, burning Sleepy Hollow to the ground. Their plan is to use Ichabod as bait, lure the Draugr into the stone tunnels under the city and incinerate them there, where the Greek Fire can burn itself out without taking too many houses with it.

The plan is enacted just in time, as Pandora - displaying a scary snake face which may or may not be her real visage - and Howe plot to unleash the Draugr on the unsuspecting Halloween crowds, thus reaping the fear that Pandora needs. Even with the Witnesses successful, enough fear is generated to bloom another rose (this one white) and leaving just one, a red flower, to open. The fact that Pandora is talking about fear and love at about the same moment Abbie is pushing Ichabod to ask Zoe out on a date makes me fear for the new love interest even more.

Meanwhile, Jenny and Joe have been pursuing the B-plot and trying to get a meeting with the mysterious buyer who wants the Shard of Anubis. This man, the kingpin of illegal artefact shipment, turns out to be an old military buddy of Corbin Snr, and also the target of Agent Reynolds' big investigation, leading to a clash of Abbie's worlds.