‘Sleepy Hollow’ recap: A hex on her house

If gillygaupus doesn’t mean “tall drink of water with mischievous grin and heart-meltingly blue eyes,” then, yes, Ichabod Crane should retire that nickname immediately. Silly, gorgeous self-deprecating man.

Apologies straight away to any reader who isn’t madly in love with Tom Mison’s character in the Fox supernatural sci-fi buddy cop drama, “Sleepy Hollow.” This recapper is as besotted as many of the loyal viewers and the series co-star Lt. Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie), if she’d just admit it like the rest of us.

Now that we’re past the confession, let’s get to the episode, “Go Where I Send Thee,” which is jam-packed with enough charming Crane snippets to keep DVRs working overtime for weeks to come.

Crane with whipped foam from his first cappuccino all over his moustache? Crane playing a hypnotic little ditty on the flute? Crane giving a speech about horsepower, pretending to be a novice driver, then doing a fierce round of donuts in a parking lot? Crane making a tender promise to “Grace Abigail Mills” to live and/or die together? Crane vowing to stay by her side “at every moment” of potential danger?

Two words: Rewind, play. Two more: Rewind, play. Go ahead. You won’t be alone.

The hour isn’t solely about drool-worthy scenes, though. It’s monster-of-the-week time in the small, not-at-all sedate town, and Leftenant Mills and Crane find out that they’re up against a resurrected Colonial-era killer who steals young girls from each generation of a local family.

The creature, dubbed the Piper, isn’t just a legend or some pedophile dressed in a Halloween costume, as that goofball Nick Hawley thinks. It’s a real demonic piece of work brought back to life by black magic, possibly Moloch’s. It uses the victims’ bones to make its flutes, whose music puts the girls in a trance and lures them to its underground lair.

The tune also does a number on Abbie, which eventually leads to the monster’s undoing.

The fact that the Piper looks like a geriatric samurai and purrs like an asthmatic lion would seem to make him a joke. In fact, it just makes him more menacing. And he’s a real whiz with those bone flutes, which have their roots in China and can double as ear-splitting, flesh-slicing weapons.

Abbie knows the storied Lancaster family whose daughter has disappeared. The matriarch was her supportive social worker years before, when Abbie and Jenny were thrown into The System. And yet she’s never heard of the Lancaster curse? That’s odd, but most fans probably won’t dwell, instead letting that detail wash over them. That’s kind of an all-purpose policy for this series anyway.

Abbie and Crane track the missing 10-year-old into the woods near her family mansion, where they find one of the bone flutes, which Crane plays -- beautifully, of course – and sends Abbie into a waking coma. They figure out how to harness the cruel noise on a smartphone and decide to use Abbie as a guide to the Piper’s den.

And whom do they meet in their next trek into the wilderness but the aforementioned Hawley, who’s injured from a Piper attack while hunting for that very same high-value bone flute.

Quick note about Hawley: Lots of viewers and critics seemed to quickly fall for this sandy-haired character when he initially appeared last week. Traitors! He’s likely to keep popping up because he’s another easy-on-the-eyes actor (guest star Matt Barr), a foil to Crane who calls him “Shakespeare” and “Pride and Prejudice” and an antiquities dealer. If there’s anything “Sleepy Hollow” is lousy with, it’s hazardous artifacts that always seem to fall into the wrong hands.

And speaking of wrong hands, Hawley has already proved himself to be “a privateer” and a “self-serving reprobate,” who swiped the Judas coin from Abbie and Crane. “Keeping it safe,” he says. Why trust this guy, ever?

Abbie knows he’s a mercenary, but she wants his help finding the girl. He wants the bone flute as payment, and he’s willing to bring his “things that go boom” to the fight. Does no one wonder why this surfer-looking dude is so heavily armed?

Round 1 with the Piper goes well for Abbie – she saves the girl – but not so swimmingly for Crane and Hawley, who basically get their arses handed to them. They go boom, though, and create enough of a blast in the Piper’s carcass-filled dungeon so they can escape.

Child back home. Parents happy. Case closed? Well, no because the Piper’s still at large. Big surprise: Hawley’s backing out of this battle because he now has his prize and he couldn’t care less about their crusade. Chaos is good for his thriving end days-themed business. Nice touch, Abbie, for cracking that bone flute in two before handing it over.

And strangely, Momma Lancaster isn’t all that thrilled to see her kid again. The curse, as it turns out, means that the Piper gets the girl or all the family’s kids die. As if on cue, the four Lancaster boys are stricken with a mysterious, life-threatening illness, and Momma trudges back into the woods with the girl in tow. Will she sacrifice the kid, or does she think she can take down the Piper herself?

She doesn’t have to find out what will become of her half-baked plan because it’s Ichabbie to the rescue. There’s some tag teaming on the Piper murder, with Abbie taking the kill shot (actually a complete run-through with a giant bone flute). But Crane’s secure enough in his masculinity to give Abbie her due and celebrate the win with a fancy, overpriced coffee drink.

Elsewhere in this episode: Frank Irving (Orlando Jones) gets a double gut punch when he finds out that his attorney, Henry Parrish, is the Horseman of War who’s stolen his soul. Remember that spiky ink pen that gouged Frank’s finger? He signed the lawyerly documents in blood and, no, he didn’t read them. Now he’s in big trouble.

He’s already hallucinating some video game-style scenes of Armageddon in which he’s fighting for the wrong side. Parrish has plans for him, obviously.

And Parrish (John Noble) has plans for the bone flute, too, which he buys through a middleman. No matter that it’s busted because he’s grinding it to dust anyway so he can … eat it? We’ll have to wait and see how that furthers his dastardly goals.