Category: Directed by Antonio Negret

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s02e12 – The Imp of the Perverse

The strange thing about “Sabrina” doing an alternate universe episode is its taken them so long to get around to it. Unless I’m forgetting one. It’s also strange it’s strange, like alternate universe episodes are just the norm of most things I watch these days.

Anyway, this episode’s an alternate universe because Richard Coyle strong-arms guest star James Urbaniak and steals the latest Eldritch Terror, a little gold imp statue, which grants a wish. Coyle wishes for the universe to be recreated with him as emperor.

Coyle makes his wish just as Ross Lynch angrily teases girlfriend Jaz Sinclair for being a witch, which she’s recently learned and shared with him. Sinclair and Kiernan Shipka are running for student council co-presidents; the episode opens with Shipka giving a tepid practice speech and aunt Miranda Otto complaining about her taking on new responsibilities when when they’re still waiting for the rest of the Eldritch Terrors to show up.

It isn’t a problem after Coyle’s wish comes true because everyone has forgotten Shipka except Coyle, who has branded her public enemy number one. Only Shipka and Sinclair—and Coyle—are able to remember the past because they’ve all touched Eldritch Terrors over the season. Eventually other people come over to their side, starting with Chance Perdomo but not because he’s hanging out with them, quite the opposite.

Everyone in the alternate universe gets a new personality while staying in their general locations. Like, Lachlan Watson is still dating Jonathan Whitesell, Otto is still running the academy (they’ll all just forgotten they have witch powers so it’s a very weird private school); Perdomo has an alternate universe character but not, you know, character. Shipka and Sinclair go to him first and he’s packing all his things and getting out of town. He doesn’t remember Shipka—or seemingly Otto and Lucy Davis—but he eventually gets a lot to do.

Meanwhile, the other big story arc is Sinclair and Lynch. Lynch, like all the straight boys in high school apparently, is in Coyle’s teen police force. They’re out to burn witches and it breaks Sinclair’s heart but she thinks she can get through to him.

The episode also gives Tati Gabrielle some good material and, even with a lot of logic problems, it’s a really entertaining episode. Alternate universe episodes, used sparingly enough, are a fairly reliable device, after all.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s01e18 – The Miracles of Sabrina Spellman

So following Sabrina showing herself off as a possible messiah, Richard Coyle gets back to town with Miranda Otto—Otto’s totally Stepford Wives—and convinces his bosses she’s a heretic and they’re just going to have to kill her.

Meanwhile, Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) is enjoying her new powers. She can make it sunny out, she can cure blindness, she can teleport objects, make it rain rose petals; so like anyone would, she starts proselytizing to her fellow witch academy students—she gets back in, because the show doesn’t just introduce characters to get rid of them after three episodes, it does the same thing with subplots (if anything, “Sabrina” might be an example of why shorter seasons are better as far as plotting goes too). She and boyfriend Gavin Leatherwood are restored to the school and the High Council, who are above the Dark Pope but maybe not above the demons Shipka and Lucy Davis conjured last episode for help, but also maybe below them? It’s unclear. Anyway. The High Council gives Shipka twenty-four hours to come up with proof cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) is innocent of murder. Otherwise he’s going to be executed.

Complicating matters are Coyle sending Otto in as a spy and saboteur to mess up Shipka, Leatherwood, and Davis’s attempts to clear Perdomo’s name.

Shipka also decides—if she’s able to pull off saving Perdomo—she wants to get the mortals and the witches together, even if it means she has to show everyone she’s a witch. Leatherwood does not approve.

Meanwhile, Michelle Gomez is making a monster (from her rib, nice touch) and Ross Lynch and Lachlan Watson decide the middle of the night is the best time to go monster hunting in the mines and what they find is going to change everyone’s life… forever! Especially Shipka’s.

It’s a rather well-paced episode, even if Shipka’s lofty dreams of mortal and witch cohabitation are a little naive. Plus some great moments for Otto. Bummer Gomez doesn’t get any. Soon, mayhap. Though, at this point, it’s impossible to say where “Sabrina”’s going and how soon it’s going to get there.