It seems like Sleepy Hollow is taking a break from their usual “demon of the week” story lines. They are also taking a three-week break to give way for The World Series. Instead of fighting a demon, they are continuing to keep Horsemen from entering. This week they had to combat something completely new: infectious diseases.

This week’s episode titled “John Doe,” had Ichabod and Abbie fighting one of the other horsemen of the apocalypse: Pestilence. Only for about ten seconds, for the entirety of the episode was dedicated to figuring out the whole disease situation. In the beginning, a boy in Renaissance clothing collapses in the middle of town. He is infected with some type of disease that causes his veins to blacken.

Unfortunately, no one can communicate with him because he speaks Middle English, the language spoken during the Middle Ages. Luckily, Ichabod studied Middle English at Oxford. Ichabod learns that this boy is from the lost colony of Roanoke. Wait, shouldn’t he speak Early Modern English? I’d personally enjoy seeing a dying eight year old speaking like Shakespeare. Oh well, then there wouldn’t be the whole language barrier crisis.

Thomas’ infection starts to spread quickly amongst random people of Sleepy Hollow. The struggle to find the cure hits home when Ichabod becomes infected as well. In his unconscious state, Ichabod is reunited with Katrina in purgatory, where he learns that Katrina is hiding something from him. Of course, he wakes up before she tells him. Hopefully she did something unforgivable because they need to stop lollygagging on the whole “Ichabbie” action.

We did see Abbie is starting to soften a little. Ichabod and Abbie had found the lost colony of Roanoke and found that it had not changed at all. Abbie revealed to Ichabod that she feared he would want to stay there, since the horrors of the modern age have not touched the colony. Although, he couldn’t since the colony disappeared into their time bubble the moment Thomas was cured and Pestilence was defeated.

This week’s episode was slow and a little boring. It wasn’t bad though. However, nothing can beat the second episode. The next episode, which we have to wait three weeks for, does look amazing and well worth the wait. We will see the return of John Cho and the introduction of John Noble’s character. All I can say is that these next three weeks are going to feel like purgatory.