Category: Directed by Alex Pillai

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s02e10 – The Uninvited

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.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s01e16 – Blackwood

Back when they were writing Alien, screenwriter Dan O’Bannon and producer Gordon Carroll disagreed where the end of the second act falls. Gordon said it was “the darkest hour,” whereas O’Bannon countered with “the point of no return.” The idea being a point of no return is less subjective.

This episode ends at the darkest hour. Zelda (Miranda Otto) has ignored niece Kiernan Shipka’s warning and pleading not for Otto to marry High Priest Richard Coyle. Shipka knows—through cousin Chance Perdomo—Coyle wants to enact regressive policies to reduce women to a subservient role in the Church of Night. For Coyle, everything goes swimmingly, for Shipka, Perdomo, and Gavin Leatherwood (as Shipka’s beau), everything goes wrong. Coyle has got all the high cards and is even able to bring illegitimate daughter Tati Gabrielle onto his side at just the right moment, even though he’d made it a practice to push her away.

There’s a lot of good material leading up to the big showdown—though, admittedly, Otto being so passive is not great—including one of Lucy Davis’s best moments on the show. Shipka and Leatherwood’s attempts to save the day are a little too cute and there are—as always when the show introduces an established witch ritual or detail—some logic gaps. Shipka’s never heard of the Dark Pope of their Church, even though she’s been acquainted with it for the last sixteen years.

Ray Wise guests as the Dark Pope. It’d be nice if it were a good cameo because Ray Wise is actually someone but it’s not a great part. The problem with Coyle outsmarting everyone is Coyle’s not very smart. He’s only smart to his gaggle of teen male followers, who see him as Jordan Peterson or something. Even when Coyle’s at his best, he’s nowhere near good enough to make the part work.

There are no mortal subplots this episode; instead, Michelle Gomez argues with the Dark Lord over her new human lover. It’s fine, but not a great use of Gomez’s time. Especially when she’s saying how she needs to be protecting Shipka and instead she’s messing around with her dude. The stuff with Gomez talking to her crow familiar is great though.