Category: Directed by Jeff Woolnough

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s02e09 – The Eldritch Dark

“Sabrina,” season four… wait, season two part two, wait, part four, wait… anyway. “Sabrina” starts this series(?) with lead Kiernan Shipka bummed out everyone else has a partner and wants to do partner things instead of ghost-busting—witch-busting—things. Human ex Ross Lynch is happily dating Shipka’s best friend, Jaz Sinclair, warlock ex Gavin Leatherwood is hooking with Shipka’s former mean girl now ally, Tati Gabrielle; even Lachlan Watson has a steady boyfriend now (Jonathan Whitesell). She could go to Hell and visit the other Sabrina (also Shipka), but she’s having a great time with former foe Sam Corlett. Not even at home can Shipka escape happy couples—visiting witch Skye P. Marshall is romancing Miranda Otto. So what’s Shipka to do?

Well, based on some questionable advice from aunt Lucy Davis, create some supernatural trouble in order to bring everyone together.

At the same time, former witch academy headmaster and current fugitive from Hell Richard Coyle is setting up his new Eldritch Terror worshipping church near Greendale, right under the cast’s noses. Who finds him? In a bold “we don’t know what to do with the character” move has newly resurrected prim schoolteacher and suffering from PTSD thanks to her run-ins with Shipka and family Michelle Gomez joining Coyle’s church. She’s gone from Christian lady to Lovecraft lady.

Coyle’s bringing the Eldritch Terrors, starting with the Darkness, which comes to attack the town in the form of phantom miners. So while Shipka and company are going on her snipe hunt, the very real danger of Coyle and his phantom miners is lurking in the shadows.

The resolution’s going to take both Sabrinas, which leads to some very fun Parent Trap moments with Shipka, and it’s actually pretty dramatic for the first episode of the season. Or part. Or series.

The supernatural subplots takeover all the stuff for the teens—it seems like there’s going to be a “bring sex ed to the high school” thing (Sinclair introduces it) but it goes nowhere—but Otto has time for a subplot about re-dedicating the witch academy to Hecate (Goddess of Witches), changing from Lucifer. It’s a nice subplot for Otto.

The resolution establishes there are going to be seven more Eldritch Terrors—one for every episode of the season—and it’s good enough setup for that big plot. It just doesn’t seem like there’s enough for Shipka to do in her own show.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s01e11 – A Midwinter’s Tale

It’s a Christmas special—or a Winter Solstice special—set before winter break for the teens, which adds to the weirdness because even though Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) said farewell to beau Ross Lynch last episode… turns out they’re still going to the same school. Yes, even though she’s all in on the witch stuff now, Sabrina’s still going to the human high school.

Even though back at the beginning of the series it was assumed if she went all in on the witch stuff she’d just go to witch school. So when she went all in and said her farewells to the humans, you’d think that meant she was changing schools.

But no.

She’s still doing human school during the day and witch school at night. I guess being a witch means you don’t have to sleep? It’s about the only way anything in the show makes sense, twenty-four hours in a day.

The episode’s interesting because it does appear to have been filmed after the first season—so a real holiday special—because Tati Gabrielle’s all of a sudden got a new haircut, which you think Shipka’s going to mention then doesn’t, and the show seems to have realized it didn’t have any phones. There are two ostentatious phone calls this episode.

The initial main plot is Shipka deciding to hold a seance for her mom (a frankly eh Annette Reilly; they really should have stunt-casted the part). Even though everyone tells her not to do it and even though everything Sabrina’s done in the last, say, five episodes has resulted in emotional turmoil and worse for her, her friends, her family, she goes ahead and does it anyway.

And because of the seance, the house gets infected with “Yule lads,” basically invisible gremlins led by witch of some sort maybe Heather Doerksen. Doerksen’s real good.

But the Reilly stuff and Doerksen stuff is all just prologue to Lachlan Watson getting kidnapped by a child-killing demon. Sabrina’s got to save her, with the help of aunts Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto, which is pretty cool because seeing Otto kick ass is fun.

There’s some more with Lynch—Shipka uses their temporary holiday reprieve to… poison his father. For a good cause but still… poison his father.

The show really doesn’t seem to know how to do Shipka “out” as a witch to her human friends. All of a sudden Jaz Sinclair and Lynch are just at the house, even though they never went there earlier in the season and Watson didn’t even know Davis by sight. Even though the episode opens with a flashback to she and Shipka as kids going to see Santa.

Did they not have a show bible or did they not share it with all the writers….

There’s also a resolution to Otto’s adoption arc, which might be the biggest red herring of the show so far.

It’s an effective episode—Watson’s the most sympathetic character on the show—but… with some major qualifications.