There are almost too many takeaways from the latest installment in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina saga to process. This despite the fact that it’s a shorter season at eight episodes (where season one offered ten with an in-between Christmas special that essentially put season two at ten episodes as well). Each filled with an ever-escalating penchant for breaking all the rules of expected storytelling, even within a supernatural context. As show creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa takes the narrative to even darker places after Sabrina’s latest flame, Nicholas Scratch (Gavin Leatherwood), remains trapped in the flesh Acheron that is his body, along with Satan a.k.a. The Dark Lord a.k.a. Lucifer Morningstar a.k.a. Sabrina’s dad (Luke Cook), there’s more than just an uncomfortable Electra complex at play. For Nick’s flesh Acheron has been relegated to hell while a self-appointed as queen Lilith (Michelle Gomez), still choosing Mrs. Wardwell’s body as a model for her own now separate one, physically tortures and humiliates him for sport on the outside while Lucifer does as much on the inside. Even if it’s only been a month, the suffering feels like eons to Nick, setting the precedent of the season about time being elastic and loop-oriented. Something that will play a key role by the final episode, which calls attention to its own stolen from the mind of Robert Zemeckis nature by at least name-checking Back to the Future.
Even if Sabrina is broken up about her evil father fucking with Nick’s head while inside his body, she knows there’s just got to be a way to get him out. And yes, there is. A circumstance that befalls her after following the blood-red road (we’re not in Greendale anymore) to Lilith in Pandemonium, where it’s brought to Sabrina’s attention that other members of the high court do not recognize the latter as a legitimate queen. Caliban, clay prince (Sam Corlett)–and yes, he’s very fond of mentioning he’s made of clay as often as possible–on the other hand, declares that he has more right to the throne. Sabrina shuts all claims down by reminding that she is the only rightful Morningstar. So it is that we have the cheerleader by day and Queen of Hell by night paradox after Roz (Jaz Sinclair) suggests to her that they join the former extracurricular as a means to feel more normal. This dichotomy is also a running thread that will reach a major crescendo by episode eight, “Sabrina Is Legend.”
Roz also chooses to play in a band with Harvey (Ross Lynch) and Theo (Lachlan Watson) to help feel more stable about her own superpower, the intuitive gift of foresight known as “the cunning.” In short, she’s a premonitory pariah, kind of like Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) in Charmed (and indeed, there are Charmed vibes in spades in this particular season). But becoming part of cheer soon changes that for Roz, as she starts to find blending in with the popular kids more effortless than Harvey, whom she wounds by referring to him as a friend in front of them when they ask if she’s going to a certain carnival that’s cropped up out of nowhere in Greendale. Specifically at the end of the second episode, “Drag Me To Hell,” during which Sabrina is tasked with ferrying the damned who have sold their souls to hell. Except she’s starting to think each person who has done so ought to be judged on a case by case basis. Just another idea for reform that gets the better of her more hell-oriented and preoccupied side, even though she swears up and down this is all just a ruse designed to temporarily placate the underworld and maintain the balance of both realms (even though her claiming the throne has the exact opposite effect).
This is precisely why she agrees to Caliban’s challenge: a search for three items known as the Unholy Regalia, consisting of King Herod’s crown (famed ruler behind the Massacre of the Innocents), Pontius Pilate’s bowl and Judas Iscariot’s thirty pieces of silver. To be sure, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is never short of biblical allusions. Nor pagan ones, as it were, in this season. Which brings us back to the ominous carnival (as if carnies needed more bad press) that appears as Harvey and Roz make out in the back of his truck, the foreboding voiceover of Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle) noting, “I’ve seen beyond the veil of this world. The old ones are returning to claim this earth.” Blackwood who is finally tracked down by Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) and Prudence (Gabrielle Tati) thanks to a bit of houdou magic influence from New Orleans sistren Mambo Marie LeFleur (Skye Marshall). His location? Loch Ness, obviously. It is there that he has been in a fifteen year time loop (thanks to a creepy egg with some untold horror nestled inside of it) perfecting his black magic, offering his services to the Void. Knowing full well that Hell’s days of prominence as the darkest force are numbered.
Sabrina, meanwhile, seems to have no idea just how far her power is about to fall, especially as it pertains to being tied to her coven, once smiled upon by the Dark Lord. But now that they’re not, he has revoked his gifts, weakening them and leaving them further vulnerable to the ascent of the “carnival people” soon revealed to be pagans awaiting the imminent return of the original gods, including the Green Man, who they must bring to life in completion by watering him with the blood of a virgin. It certainly makes Harvey a sitting duck as circumstances keep foiling his attempt at banging Roz, including when she ends up turning to stone after entering a tent in the carnival that turns out to be inhabited by a gorgon. It’s just one of numerous instances of the many people in Sabrina’s life both human and supernatural systematically being taken out by the dark cosmic forces afoot. This also encompasses the presence of Pan, masquerading as the ringleader of the carnival, along with Nagaina (Vanessa Rubio), a snake charmer with a keen sense of smell, particularly for virgins.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, for there are errant moments of levity, like when Hilda gives out copies of Buxom and the Beast, a “witchy romance novel” she wrote (overtly bashing Zelda with the summary description that the protagonist is “terrorized by her loveless spinster hag of a sister”) under the pseudonym Helga Stillwell. And yes, it was all at the encouragement of her werewolf fiancé Dr. Cee (Alessandro Juliani). Perhaps Hilda’s newfound confidence is also what prompts her to come up with the idea to use the Hare Moon (the same name as episode four) to funnel the celestial powers of the moon into their coven–with a little help from some residual angel blood from that time Sabrina had to smite a few in season two.
The pagans are way ahead of them though, using their own magic to, um, “eat out” the moon so that nothing but blackness falls upon the witches. It’s the perfect time, therefore, to present them with an ultimatum: worship their old gods or perish refusing to do so. Surprise, they’re going to perish either way. Unless Sabrina figures something out like she always does. But this simply isn’t as easy as it once was. Not just because the pagans and the old gods–paired with their weakened powers–are unlike any obstacle the coven has ever come up against, but because Sabrina herself is divided in intent and loyalty. Pulled toward her obligations in hell as queen yet still grounded to the earth by her love of select mortals and witches/warlocks there. This is, inevitably, why a more literal bifurcation must occur. But what will be the price for Sabrina(s) to pay? Only season four will tell. And even then, maybe not. For the show is all about an endless entanglement of conundrums. As though to remind humans just how easy they have it (so long as they’re not one of the ones privy to Sabrina’s secret).
