This episode opens with lead Kiernan Shipka having her date with new potential beau Peter Bundic—well, wait, it actually opens with this terrifying sequence of a… okay, wait. It’s going to be hard to describe this guy. He’s not actually experiencing homelessness, but he’s an Eldritch Terror personified as a person no one will ever invite in but if they don’t, he tears out their heart. Brahm Taylor plays him. Taylor’s great. But, visually, he plays on almost every negative stereotype about folks experiencing homelessness.
Anyway. It opens with Taylor tearing out an unwelcoming person’s heart.
And then Shipka gets done with her date with Bundic and he doesn’t like Alien—now, last episode they said there was an Alien series marathon, which seemed like it’d take all night until I remembered Disney isn’t going to rent movies to revival houses, Alien franchise especially no doubt—but they just see the one and it doesn’t go well. Then Shipka has another date and it doesn’t go well either. And icing on the cake, Shipka’s other Sabrina, the one who rules Hell, is getting a lot more serious with prince of Hell beau Sam Corlett. Last season (part, season, whatever), Corlett tried to trap Shipka—before she splits—in time so the witch Sabrina, Spellman, is not a fan. Hell Sabrina, Morningstar, forgives him because he’s a very Australian hunk.
Shipka—in the Spellman part—teams up with Michelle Gomez, who’s also playing two, earthbound and hellbound parts, to try to sabotage the romance. It’s pretty funny. Corlett’s pretty good with the humor.
Meanwhile, it’s finally time for aunt Lucy Davis to have her wedding with “he’s still not Taiki Waititi, actually” Alessandro Juliani. Only Davis and Juliani are barely in the episode—they do get some nice moments eventually, but it’s a little inverted as plotting goes, especially since the early Juliani subplot goes quickly off the rails. Gavin Leatherwood is supposed to get the incubus out of Juliani and contain it, but it escapes into Lachlan Watson, leading nowhere outside some lusty scenes with boyfriend Jonathan Whitesell. It seems like the show’s trying to do a “look the male sex demon jumps into a trans man” thing only to realize it’s kind of icky performative to draw too much attention to it and then doesn’t really have a story to do with it anyway.
The episode’s never got time for itself.
There is some really good Shipka, as she finally breaks down about her love life, and some good twists in the plot involving Taylor but the episode’s always in too much of a hurry.
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