Sabrina’s still on a roll in its third season
The premiere of the third “part” of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina wasn’t promising. A majority of the episode spent with Sabrina, Harvey, Roz and Theo wandering through a pretty fake-looking Hell to try and find the captured and possessed Nick was tedious at best, despite the obvious Wizard of Oz parallels being set up from the start. Then, a storyline with Sabrina competing against the made-of-clay Prince Caliban (Sam Corlett) to become the monarch of Hell seemed to introduce a season set almost entirely in that dimension, which was sure to be aggravating.
But…after the first episode the rest of the season thankfully didn’t spend most of it in Hell, so while Sabrina herself popped back and forth occasionally, most of this season was spent in Greendale with the coven trying to get their dwindling powers back after Sabrina’s dad the Dark Lord (Luke Cook) deprived them of their magic. So they must now find an alternate source of power, which leads them to do battle with the invading Pagan witches and Sabrina to figure out how to help her family, her friends and become Queen of Hell…which all wound up fitting together in a darkly entertaining fashion after a while. This season is more gruesome, threatening and much darker than previous seasons, and even though my chief complaint with this show is that it hasn’t been lighthearted or fun enough, the season long story that pretty much involved every major character and led the coven to be more of a united front than ever before (with Sabrina as ringleader) worked well enough in execution. No one is neglected while every character gets their moment to shine, and the frank wackiness of the horror kind of is fun, at least to watch. Aside from that first episode, the stakes are higher than ever and this season is never boring (especially now that the show has inexplicably decided to take a page from its sister-show Riverdale and randomly insert some bizarre, campy musical numbers). I didn’t even mind the inclusion of Sabrina’s normally dull mortal friends this time, as at least they’re all in on the action without any secrets being kept.
A weakened coven needs a new (female) source of power
The only drag is the angst between Sabrina and Nick (Gavin Leatherwood), who spends most of this season in a drug fueled post-traumatic suffering due to Satan’s occupation of his body- it’s just not entertaining to watch Sabrina anxious to “fix” him for too many episodes when we already know he’s not the right guy for her anyway. Sorry, Nick. Ambrose’s new relationship with Prudence is actually more interesting, so when the season eventually leads to their separation as well, you only hope the show realizes she’s definitely the right person to pair him with. The season’s deranged gothic terror and increasingly power hungry lead makes for a wild finale involving time travel and a nutty cliffhanger that sees the splitting of Sabrina in two (literally) as she decides to try life as both a teenager and the Queen of Hell, simultaneously. Bring on Season 4 (or part 4, which is apparently the second half of Season 2. Sigh).
Grade: B+
Sabrina wants the Devil’s throne after all
