This episode focusses upon two strands: Sabrina’s newfound magical talent and what it means for her, as well as the ongoing issue of Ambrose’s fate. Back at the Academy, Faustus and Zelda return from their honeymoon. Faustus has elected himself as The Anti-Pope following the murder of the previous one at the wedding two episodes ago, and the Council is called to make judgement on Ambrose, Sabrina and Nick. The Council are willing to allow Sabrina and Nick back into the Academy, but they still deliberate on Ambrose’s fate, and instruct him back to his cell. Sabrina is adamant that Ambrose’s familiar was how Ambrose was controlled, and uses her new abilities to resurrect the familiar in order for him to testify.

Faustus and Zelda’s return from their honeymoon shows Zelda to be acting decidedly out of character. Wearing a lovely summer dress and constantly smiling and doting on her husband, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that she’s under some sort of enchantment. Fortunately, Hilda is a genius anyway and clocks on immediately. Unfortunately, while warning Sabrina of the dangers of using her new powers as if there will be no consequence, Zelda, while under the influence of the spell, minces the familiar so that Sabrina will be unable to bring him back to life to testify. Sabrina uses her new powers to conjure the music box that controls Aunt Zelda and they break an enchantment, and the three witches start plotting how they can stop Ambrose from being executed.

In Sabrina-style, this results in Hilda using a poppet to make sure that when Ambrose is executed by guillotine, instead the executioner’s head falls off. Faustus tries to order a member of the Judas Society to step in and try again, but Sabrina encourages him to do it instead if he’s so eager to kill Ambrose. However, before Faustus is able to The Dark Lord appears and frees Ambrose. The Council make it clear that Faustus has angered the Dark Lord and, as a result, he is stripped of his Anti-Pope title. So, on that front, everything seems peachy.

That brings us onto the other focus of this episode: Sabrina’s newfound magical abilities. Following Sabrina’s deity-like strength displayed at the close of the previous episode, I was concerned that she would settle back down and either not remember her sudden outburst or be unable to perform such a feat again. However, no sooner has she been brought in to be cared for by Hilda than is she sitting back up, completely unharmed from her arrow wounds and healing Ambrose too. The next day, she succeeds in changing the weather on a whim and even heals Roz’s eyesight upon request. I hope that this in particular does not backfire, especially considering Roz’s vision to be patient when it comes to healing her eyesight. Hopefully there are no dramatic repercussions to be had from Sabrina using her powers in this way.

Sabrina is convinced that following her death, she has been brought back to life to spread her father’s doctrine, that witches and mortal kind be unified to create more people like Sabrina, who she calls “witches 2.0”. She begins by preaching to members of the Academy about the new way, and that mortalfolk and witchkind should live together in harmony for the survival of their species. She then takes this one step further by wanting to show her newfound abilities to mortals, through a gathering of Roz’s church friends at Sabrina’s house.

However, before she has a chance, Harvey and Theo turn up. During this episode, Harvey went down into the mines with his father and discovered the Woman in White. Theo and Harvey managed to defeat her, but discovered something more sinister on the walls of the mine.

Elsewhere:

• Ms Wardwell continues her plot against the Dark Lord by creating a Beast using her own rib and some random man she met.
• Prudence continues to confuse with what side she is on. Despite being intimate with Ambrose mere episodes before, as well as being willing to murder her own father, she is now determined to be his lacky. She shuts down Sabrina’s claims of mortalkind and witchkind comingling, and yet she seems eager to know from Ambrose what Sabrina has become. It will be interesting to see just how committed Prudence is to her new Blackwood name, especially now that her father has lost his Anti-Pope title.
• There is much relationship drama between Nick and Sabrina in this episode, except for once it’s not Sabrina who is having the problems. Nick resents that Harvey was the one to catch Sabrina after she’d flown at the close of the previous episode, and says that he wants to be that person for her. Moreover, he is concerned that she would not be preaching her own gospel should they continue to be in a relationship, as she’s suggesting that witches and mortals should be able to be together in order to create a new breed.
• Gray was an unexpected foe to the Spellmans in this episode, selling them out to Faustus in the interests of his own survival. From a background character, there might be more to him than meets the eye.

Musings

• I’m in two minds over Faustus’ fate. On one hand, he is clearly a villain. However, Zelda married him to improve the Spellman name – and all that’s happening now is that she’s going down with him! Unfortunate.
• I’m convinced that Sabrina will not actually be the Herald of Hell. She has spent far too much of this series completely devoted to just doing good deeds, regardless of reward for them. There must be an element of free choice here, and from the look of her new powers, she might be in a position to conduct that reform she was hoping in the Church of the Night.

To see the rest of the reviews of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, click here.