A visit from the beyond brings encounters both tragic and campy for Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina
TV Reviews Recap
Sure, some of the eldritch terrors have taken on the shape of things that go bump in the night, but the Returned knows what’s even more unnerving than that: psychological warfare. The latest terror comes at the gang in a way bound to make them hurt—by appearing as their departed loved ones, proving that almost no one has the ability to resist trying to have one more meaningful interaction with the people they miss.
It also gives the show the chance to bring back a beloved character or two, most notably in the form of Dorcas, who goes straight to Agatha, who still doesn’t understand anything that’s going on around her. If at first the reunion seems sweet, the interactions all the other characters have with dead loved ones get violent in a hurry, so it’s only a matter of time before Dorcas remembers that Agatha killed her. Thankfully, Prudence has been keeping an eye on Agatha ever since she came back into the fold, and she appears just in time to stop Dorcas from killing her. By the time Marie starts leading the dead back home, Dorcas has reconciled with Agatha, an action that brings Agatha back to reality for the first time since she went mad after her interaction with Pan. It also means that even though Prudence has to lose a sister again, she finally regains Agatha, who doesn’t quite remember what happened, but knows it’s bad. Given how much Prudence has lost over the seasons, it’s one of the more emotionally affecting scenes the show has ever done.
The other scenes with dead people are perhaps necessarily less affecting—Harvey’s dead brother doesn’t come back, for instance, and Sabrina’s efforts to bond with her human father go about as well as you might expect, considering she immediately breaks the rule not to tell the dead people that they’re dead. Father Spellman panics when Sabrina explains who she is, and says a series of nasty things about how he’s not really her dad, a message that is only compounded when she tries to appeal to Lucifer as her father later in the episode. He’s still upset that Sabrina Morningstar got sent away, and refuses to acknowledge Sabrina Spellman as his daughter.
And beyond him, the returned dead people are played for laughs. A comically over the top metal band returns to randomly murder a rival band and challenge the Fright Club to a battle of the bands for Harvey’s dad, who turns out to have betrayed them years earlier. The whole thing feels a bit random? After Marie more or less tells everyone she’ll take care of the situation, everyone just hangs out for a bit until the dead go away, including Hilda and Dr. Cee, who have to contend with his murderous mother. Given that the episode cuts away from them sitting in front of a closet they’ve locked her into, it’s more or less implied that they then stayed there on the floor until it all got taken care of.
The battle of the bands ends with a bit of a letdown, as well. Robin returns immediately after departing in the prior episode, and the Fright Club plays a cover of “Time Warp,” which Lucifer says isn’t as good as Satanic Panic, and then Sabrina and some of the witches play a cover of “Sweet Child of Mine,” during which the girl Satanic Panic murdered comes in and zaps them with fire…from which they recover. What was the point of resurrecting her? Was anyone in Fright Club annoyed that Sabrina’s big solution involved forming a new band to show up her friends in the contest? Why was it so easy to call Robin back?
It all ends up muddling an episode that otherwise has a strong handle on how this particular evil is affecting all of its characters. Why bring back the band at all if all the other resurrected people have more of an emotional connection to the living characters? This show often has to navigate some dramatic tonal shifts between scenes, but the campiness of the band conflict in contrast to the emotional devastation Sabrina experiences in what is likely to be her only real interaction with her dad is especially jarring. The result may be that Harvey has reconnected with his father, but the route to that point was probably a little too convoluted.
Stray observations
- I do not understand what the show is doing with Lilith at this point but for now I’m holding off judgment until it becomes clearer what the payoff is.
- Between Marie talking about les Revenants and the general concept here, did this make anyone else think of the great French show The Returned? It was very good and very unnerving and I got too spooked to keep watching it after the friend I watched with moved away.
- It was nice to see Sabrina is still mourning the loss of Sabrina Morningstar, and so is Lucifer. Possibly this is something they could bond over!
- There’s nothing more rock and roll than reserving the practice room, I think we can all agree. Also, it’s abundantly clear Satanic Panic is going to suck because they’re all wearing their own matching merchandise.
- Never have I move identified with Hilda than in her confusion about who exactly is in Fright Club. Relatable aunt content.
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Some notes.1) Dorcas! The mistreated Sister, who inexplicably never earned a mention in the opening credits despite being literally featured in the artwork next to Agatha, who has had almost exactly the same screen time and plot relevance, and is played by an actress with no previous acting credits at all. Also, Abigail Cowen is such a witch’s name.2) Nothing in that Battle of the Band sequence makes sense. Why would Lucifer care to be the MC? What made Sabrina’s band performance better than the Fright Club’s? And why did they need a second performance anyway? They raised the murdered homecoming queen (so in an episode where the problem was the dead returning, the solution became more dead returning!), and she somehow commanded hellfire on the band responsible for her death, which didn’t actually do anything but having them appear in burned zombie makeup.3) Most confusing of all: why do they keep calling Satanic Panic a metal band when they’re dressed as a punk band and sing a punk song?4) By the way, do the actors actually sing? I know auto-tune and all, but they all sound so good.5) Why would Sabrina’s father call the Dark Lord a “filthy barn animal”? He was a Satanist himself, that was his object of worship!6) Why was Agatha in a straitjacket at the end? She wasn’t while playing poppets and singing nursery rhymes the whole episode (not to mention, the previous episodes, or when she was perfectly functional as Blackwood’s assistant). All in all, Agatha has been less of a character and more of a multi-purpose human prop to employ in the way it was more needed in any given moment.7) The Mambo Marie reveal makes no sense at all, and it’s honestly infuriating. If it was a male figure in disguise all along, it retroactively makes impossible for him/her to channel female magic alongside the other witches in countless rituals we’ve seen so far. All her previous motivations descend into absurdity. “Now that the great confusion between life and death has been resolved”. But that’s just the plot of this episode, so why was Baron Samedi on Earth before, acting as a voodoo priestess all this time? I also thought it was stated semi-explicitly that she was literally Marie Laveau.8) Didn’t it use to be quite difficult going to hell? Now characters move back and forth at will in a matter of seconds.
The Baron Samedi reveal was weird. They could have made her Maman Brigitte and kept her a woman. They were a punk band! For a show that leans on oldies so, so hard, it’s a weird mix-upI was also confused by the straight jacket, Agatha didn’t seem violent. Maybe they thought Dorcas would trigger her again?
The two greatest mysteries that the show will never answer: Why did Abigail Cowen get artwork in the credits but not her name? And how exactly is Ambrose related to the other Spellmans? It’s not the auto-tune that bugs me about everybody singing, it’s the ADR. Also, why resurrect the dead homecoming queen if she’s not going to be the star of Sabrina’s band? Why doesn’t she get to defeat Satanic Panic at their own game? What was even the point of Sabrina having her own band? The homecoming queen could have walked in during Time Warp and accomplished the same thing.
I also love how Aguirre-Sacasa apparently thinks any teenager is able to pick up an instrument, join a band and give a badass performance, if so they choose. No need to actually learn to play or practice, that’s for old geezers.I’m not particularly upset about Ambrose’s parentage (which the comics maybe get into more details about). Given enough degrees of separation, “cousin” is what one calls any distant relative. I also like how Chance Perdomo says “Cousin” when addressing Sabrina (I think she never does it when addressing him, though).
In the original comics, and at least one cartoon, Ambrose was an older effeminate white guy and one of several of Sabrina’s cousins. I don’t think they ever explain how any of them are related. In the CAoS comic Ambrose is a younger looking white dude and they never get into his exact relation. The comic basically stopped once the show started. This was right as the comic was really getting dark; like her dead dad just came back in Harvey’s reanimated body, ate Harvey’s family (not for zombie reasons just because), and was considering sleeping with his own daughter dark.
Here is a cousin ration chart, where they fall on there is anyone’s guess.
And how exactly is Ambrose related to the other Spellmans?Yeahhhhhh
I read the Battle of the Bands as Lucifer having decided from the start that Satanic Panic would win and thus it didn’t matter how well Fright Club did. Sabrina got around the cheat by winning over the audience visibly and vocally so he couldn’t just obviously declare in favor of Satanic Panic (not that I’m sure why Lucifer would care about upsetting a group of mortals and lowly demons but, still, that is how it read).
Yes, but the thing is, Fright Club gave a much better, much more crowd-pumping performance. Sorry, but you don’t beat Time Warp with Sweet Child of Mine.
THANK YOU!
For sure Time Warp won over that sleepy cover of Sweet Child, but they cut out the “… it’s just a jump to the left…” and resulting refrains. No pelvic thrust to drive them insay-yay-a-a-a-ane! WTF show?
To add to this, I want to know who the music supervisor on this show is, because bothering to license Time Warp and Sweet Child O’ Mine and NOT getting Highway to Hell for this episode is just…dumb. Satanic Panic definitely should’ve played Highway to Hell.
I read it as Satan was just doing it to piss Sabrina off
And just have fun. He seemed to really dig his MC duties.
Yeah- they probably could have done something about her impulsivity and selfishness being due to the fact her dad’s the devil since he also demonstrates some impulsivity and selfishness. But her personality traits and flaws weren’t consistent enough and they never really confronted the flaws of the character they created
None of this show’s version of Satanism has ever made any sense. Where do the witches go when they die? Did Edward come from Heaven or is he somewhere in Hell or somewhere else? You’d think having your wife impregnated by Satan would be an honor like being Satanist Joseph. Also yes, I don’t understand why they had to include that reveal about Mambo Marie. They could have just done “I have to go watch the dead to make sure they stay dead” or “I have to go with the dead because I’m actually Marie Laveau and I’m part-dead”. Even Zelda seemed confused? I kind of liked the zombie punk band plot – it was kind of old school cheesy and it seemed like they were having fun with the flashback since it seemed like something out of an old comic. But it didn’t fit with the rest of the plot and neither plot had quite enough time. Sabrina’s plot basically ended with “Well I guess he really wasn’t my dad and I also hate my real dad so whatever not a big deal”. That feels like it should have been a bigger deal considering (spoiler) what happens in the finale.That way they could have had her dad meet her wherever she went instead of Nick randomly killing himself
But Sabrina’s ultimate reaction to Edward is actually one of the few things that make perfect sense. She just realized Edward has never been a father to her, she has no memory of him, she had never even met him while sentient, and he’s not her biological father, so he’s pretty much nothing to her. Imbuing emotional power into a new encounter would be impossible after that realization, even with a version of Edward that was less harsh than this one (which we can assume was distorted by his revenant state). Even Zelda and Hilda didn’t try to disprove Sabrina’s statement, because it’s the truth. Meeting the person who your mother once loved before you were born isn’t particularly significant. Sabrina had built herself a myth about Edward, but mostly based on idealizations and longing.Also, we can cast a few shadows on Edward. Sure, he intended to reform the Church of Night into a less misogynistic version of itself, but didn’t seem eager to relent his position of power in the process. It still would have been female empowerment mandated by illuminated patriarchy. And beyond that, we haven’t heard much about him that felt like he was such a good guy. Mostly, it sounds like he would spend most of his time working and ignore his family.
It does kind of make sense, though from everything our aunts had told us before he at least seemed to like her before dying and they didn’t suspect she wasn’t his. Also it just felt like they could have given it more time since she spent so long going “Edward Spellman’s my real dad” like 2 seasons ago. Also her mom’s soul was destroyed in limbo so the only actual parent she has left is Lucifer who suuucks. Maybe summing it up with “but I had you Aunties and Ambrose and who says a family means parents”? Or her meeting him in the finale and getting to at least bond over the fact he at least liked her mother and she never really got a chance to know her (but she seemed nice)?
“What made Sabrina’s band performance better than the Fright Club’s?”You didn’t like the elevator muzak version of “Sweet Child?” there is no way the actors are singing. The only thing worse than their lip synching is their fake guitar playing.
That was one of the sleepiest renditions of that song I’ve ever heard, including Sheryl Crowes. The bit where the prom queen returns to strike vengeance upon the band during the bridge could have been really bad ass, at least visually, but was a wet fart.Starting with this episode, there is no sense to be had anywhere at any point.
I don’t understand Sabrina’s mannerisms at all, whether Shipka is making weird acting choices, or it’s just a consequence of Sabrina being smug and overeager. Her two settings seem to be smirking or some sort of bored overacting. It’s not exclusive to this episode, but when she got on stage before she started singing, I kept thinking “ugh just please stop.”
She’s either not a great actor or getting really lousy direction. Haven’t seen her as anything other than Sally Draper, so I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she also frequently seems to be the worst actor on screen which is a problem when the show is named after you.
Sabrina immediately going from feeling shitty for almost causing a cataclysm by ignoring advice from people smarter than her, to triggering her step-dad because…she ignored the advice of people smarter than her was stupid and killed any emotional weight the scene had. She’s been through enough shit over the years to know her actions have major consequences. Your dad doesn’t like you because you insisted on ignoring good advice and revealed his resurrection to him like a spoiled brat? Dickhead, I do not fucking care.I think the actors in The Stoned Philosophers were in the Quill and Skull Society in Riverdale’s Stonewall Prep.Really dug Lazarus’s costume.
She’s been through enough shit over the yearsSomething to keep in mind (especially going into the last few episodes, where it becomes relevant). It’s not been years, it’s been months since her 16th birthday – after all, season 1 only comprises the time from Halloween to Christmas, and we never saw them celebrate another Halloween.(Yes, they went with the crazy notion where basically every week there’s a major crisis in these characters’ lives.)
The compressed timeline of constant crises mean her choice at the beginning of the season to make up the ghost of Bloody Mary makes even less sense. You think she’d appreciate a 5-minute breather.
It was particularly egregious for her to ignore Zelda in pretty much the very next scene, in the very next episode after her bullshit was revealed to potentially destroy the entire cosmos…and it wasn’t even really necessary. Like that scene could have happened exactly as written without Zeldas warning and it would have been easier to conjure some fucks about Sabrina’s emotional devastation. The show seems to be engaged in a strange dare for the last episodes. (And yes, confirmed the band was Stonewall Prep alums)
I have learned to just let go of logic and enjoy this season for what it is: the showrunners and everybody just going crazy and doing whatever they want as they burn through the final episodes. They know they’re done, they know this is the end, so let’s just have some fun, eh? Like an episode where everybody gets to play “alternate Nazi reality”. Or this episode where a bunch of old actors get to return, and then they have a random battle of the bands in front of the gates of Hell! Let the kids do a fun cover of Time Warp! Throw logic out the window and just enjoy the silliness, I say.
I keep expecting these episodes to get lower grades. Also, hopefully, I’m not mixing up episodes, but it’s interesting there hasn’t been much attention paid to the relationship between Marie and Zelda.
Just when I thought this shit-sandwich of a season couldn’t get any more rancid we have the nadir of the fucking show right here. Kumagoro’s comment basically hit most of the low notes, so no need to repeat, but just come the fuck on with ALL OF THIS.
1. Sabrina being stupid as hell.
2. The battle of the bands being some weird B+ plot (integral and yet not? What were we even fucking DOING with this? Did we just need to murder those fucking kids to show that THIS ELDRITCH HORROR AIN’T FUCKING AROUND)
3. Marie being Baron Semidi? Okey dokey. Sure. Let’s mercifully remove her from the plot and call that “resolved.” Why the fuck was BARON SEMIDI even getting involved before The Returned shit then.
4. Was Lazarus The Returned? If so, really fucking convenient that it could be killed with the spearhead (also can we not just say Jesus? What the hell?) If NOT, then what was the entire fucking point of playing that game with him. Is he a herald of The Returned? How did he get to Greendale? Or where were they? What were they doing? What does any of this fucking mean?
If you’re still reading this, I want you to take a second to answer this question: Why do people care so much about Sabrina? This was the season where I really started to question what the fuck the answer to that is. She’s generally selfish, stupid, and predictable. I feel like people only really care about her because…they’re written to care about her. The next episode reinforces that unintentionally too.
If you haven’t finished the season yet, you can quit now. I promise, it’s fine. Do something else with the two hours of your time. Fuck this show.
The Marie twist (not even sure I should call it that) to just wrap up their relationship with Zelda was all the more frustrating considering *TECHNICALLY SPOILERS* there’s literally no pay off to Baron Semedi’s first gift. Maybe it was something they would have used in a full season, or a S5, but it’s once again another plot point that doesn’t matter one bit!
Sabrina’s dad is a Warlock. Her mom is human.
Also this show’s final episode is a disgrace.
Cute puppy tho.
Butchering the hell out of classics was cringeworthy.
There are a lot of crimes committed in this episode but the biggest one is definitely removing Marie and basically making her magic just affinity with someone she knew in another life.I was very disappointed by the choices of the people they brought back and the many, many dead.Happy for Agatha, though.