Netflix original show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is coming back for its fourth and final season and it tries to redeem itself from an uneven and story packed season 3.
We left off with Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) creating a time paradox where she duplicates herself with Sabrina Morningstar, who will go on to become Queen of Hell while original Sabrina will get to live in the mortal realm with her aunties and friends. All the while, Father Faustus Blackwood (Richard Coyle) is summoning the Eldritch Terrors to Greendale with the giant clear egg that he got in Scotland. Finally, the Church of Night coven has chosen a new goddess to worship in Hecate instead of Lucifer (Luke Cook) as he has taken away their powers for entrapping him in Nicolas Scratch’s (Gavin Leatherwood) body.
Sabrina Trying to Find Their Focus
Since its premiere in 2018, the show has slowly declined in its storytelling and has increased its uneven tone each season. Part 4 still has it’s manic and chaotic storytelling. Although they did try harder in focusing their narrative as best as they could. The entire season is heavily influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, with the last episode named after one of his famous works, At the Mountains of Madness. In each of the eight episodes of this season, a single Eldritch Terror is released in Greendale in hopes of destroying the world and finding their match in Sabrina and her allies.
The season could have been a basic procedural show of killing a big bad an episode which has some resemblance of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sabrina will never be Buffy Summers, though. There are signs that showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa tried hard to create a new badass leading lady. Sabrina starts the season off as single and lonely. Then, innocently enough, Sabrina starts dating despite all the while longing for either mortal first love Harvey Kinkle (Ross Lynch) or bad boy Nicolas Scratch. It never enters Sabrina’s mind that maybe she is enough for herself. Watching her tumble around into the dating scene is cringeworthy.
Sabrina And Responsibility? Sure, Why Not
One main subplot that redeems Sabrina is how she finally takes responsibility for her choices, and how they affect the rest of her family, including their own existence that creates a time paradox. Even Aunt Zelda (Miranda Otto) makes a call out to the movie Parent Trap cause we all know those hijinks do not last long.
The writers did try to wrap up each main characters’ storyline with their own happy ending or at least tried to. And with their inability of killing off main characters permanently it does take some time to get there. They even give us a fun call back meta episode that includes the aunties (Caroline Rhea and Beth Broderick) and animatronic Salem from the 90’s television show Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
After All This I Get A Comic??
With that said, is the ending satisfactory? Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has never been a perfect show. What it has done though, is remained a campy and inclusive show without being in your face. It was a fun getaway from our own world’s current Eldritch Terror: The Pandemic. It’s worth a watch to see where your favorite characters end up and to see some Lovecraftian creatures. At least there will be a continuation as Aguiree-Sacasa has stated on his Twitter that there will be a Season 5 by way of a comic named Witch War. The comic will have the Riverdale crossover so many have longed for.
So, what did you think of the final season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina?
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