Calling all witches, warlocks, and non-binary magick folx —Chilling Adventures of Sabrinais coming back for its fourth and final season. Now, before you go busting out the robes and throwing back a couple of potions in watch-party preparation, we’ve got some remembering to do.
Part 3 is incredibly jam-packed and because of the partially confusing time-travel element, we’ve created a sectioned guide to help breakdown the most essential information to serve as the perfect study spellbook.
Witchipedia
The end of Part 2 saw the birth of Father Blackwood’s, naturally sired twins, Judith and Judas. Their half-sister Prudence finds out about Blackwood’s nefarious plans to use them for dark magick purposes, so she teams up with the Spellmans to save them but they are kidnapped by Father Blackwood once again.
Three bad guys—turned warriors—who are each individually protecting magical items that help Sabrina break the heaven-hell-space time continuum. The group consists of Centurion (Pontius Pilot’s Bowl), King Herod (Herod’s Crown), and Vlad the Impaler (Judas’ Pieces of Silver).
A group of Hell’s hottest nobility that challenge Sabrina’s claim to the throne when her father, Lucifer Morningstar, goes missing. Comprised of the pettiest, rowdiest of men: Asmodeus, Purson, Beelzebub, and Prince Caliban.
A band of traveling magic-folk who use old ritualistic ceremonies to worship their deity, the Green Man. They aim to sacrifice Greendale’s virgins to overthrow the Spellman clan and put an end to all satanic-based witchcraft. The only one that matters by name here is Robin Goodfellow. But if you must know the others: Pan, Nagaina, and Circe.
Sorceresses: Gryla, Pesta, and Sycorax were summoned against their will by Zelda Spellman to assist the coven in driving out the Pagans.
Unknown terrors brought by mysterious beings called “The Old Ones” mentioned in Part 3, but are described briefly as life-threatening by Ambrose and Blackwood on occasion.
Must (Re)Watch
If you’re feeling a little extra studious and have a bit of time on your hands, but not enough to where you want to watch the entire eight episodes, we’ve got you covered. These are the most essential four episodes of Part 3.
Episode 1: “The Hellbound Heart”
In this devilishly delicious reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz”, Sabrina and the gang find themselves on the shores of Hell following the blood-red road in order to save the imprisoned, Nicholas Scratch. Obviously, since this is the first episode of the season there’s going to be some exposition out of character’s mouths that feel a bit clunky. For example, why would Zelda feel the need to explain to the students from the Church of Night that Father Blackwood was the villain? They already know that. More on this war later. But, not all the exposition is heavy-handed as they attempt to introduce themes for future episodes. They also humorously explain away lingering questions that viewers might still have from Part 2. A perfect episode to catch yourself up to speed.
Episode 4: “The Hare Moon”
The Pagans, who are introduced as the season baddies in earlier episodes, really get a chance to shine here. So, if you want to get directly to the crux of the entire season’s plotline, no need to keep reading the summaries on Netflix. Jump straight into this episode and you’ll find out why the coven is suffering, what the pagans’ plans and source of their powers are, why Sabrina should have actually left Nick in Hell and the weight of the danger that looms over Greendale.
Episode 6: “All Them Witches”
If “Annilhation” was adapted into a teenage teleplay this would be it. The Pagans’ plans for their God called The Green Man, are fully revealed. Basically, he’s hungry for the blood of virgins and is ready to turn the earth into a non-GMO, overgrown, planet-based planet. As the Pagans’ power grows and their threats against Sabrina’s family and friends become more sinister, help arrives when the Spellmans least expect it. This episode oozes major feminist witch energy as it hones in on what makes this show strong at its core, the rebellion against patriarchy. We get powerful lines such as: “We do not need to fight each other, that is what men do.” And hot-steamy glances from an unlikely pair in the making. Bonus: Hilda and Dr. Cee have the cutest subplot ever.
Episode 8: “Sabrina is Legend”
The finale, of course. What’s great about this finale is that it sums up the prior episode in the first five minutes, therefore, you don’t have to backtrack nor feel guilty if you haven’t watched everything consecutively. However, do brace yourself, as this episode demands your full attention with its blink-and-you-might-miss-it plot structure as it fumbles to explain time travel and the apocalypse in one fell swoop. I’ll go more in-depth on the season finale and its ramifications below.
Where the Heaven Did We Leave Off?
The finale of CAOS Part 3 is overstuffed. So please hang in there with us, as things get a little tricky to explain. In our main timeline: Sabrina Spellman is duped by Prince Caliban into handing over the last piece of The Unholy Regalia and is locked in an underground hell stone for decades. Meanwhile, Greendale (and the rest of the world?) become victims to the supreme Pagan overlords after Prince Caliban’s failed rebellion to turn earth into the tenth circle of Hell. After an undetermined amount of time has passed, stone-Sabrina Spellman is awakened by future-Sabrina who informs her that everyone she loves has since died, but because of the newly created time loop, stone-Sabrina can reverse the casualties and save Greendale. The only catch is that both Sabrinas have to switch places with each other in the stone prison until the end of time in order to keep the cosmos in balance—more on this later. With the help of various magical objects, and the guardians of The Unholy Regalia, freed-Sabrina is able to prepare the coven and her friends with the tools and hindsight needed in order to defeat the Pagans, creating a separate timeline, but ultimately ending up with a “safer”, and alive Greendale.
After the fall of Desecrated Church and the usurping of Lucifer Morningstar in Part 2, the coven finds themselves dealing with the consequences from the fall out. As their powers weaken, Zelda Spellman summons a banished group of women called The Hedge Witches. Running out of options to secure magick and fight against the stronger Pagan army, Zelda turns to a goddess who presides over witch limbo with connections to the moon, Hecate. Which turns out to be a very powerful source of magick.
Part 3 introduced us to way too many characters to mention here, so we’ll just focus on the ones that are going to appear in the series’ last season.
We failed to mention this earlier, but Part 3 is unbearably horny in all the teenage melodramatic sense of the word. Go ahead, we dare you to watch Episode 3: “Heavy is the Crown” and get back to us. Here’s a mini-road map for all the teenage love drama: Sabrina and Nick (seemingly) done for good after he struggles to get over the fact that his body was a host to Sabrina’s father. Despite losing his virginity to Roz, Harvey is in denial about his lingering feelings for Sabrina. Ambrose and Prudence’s relationship dissolves after the latter misplaces her anger over being unable to revenge kill her father who they had been hunting down for a month. This false sense of betrayal drives Prudence to the arms of Nick Scratch, as he also feels resentment towards someone he once loved. It’s not all doom and gloom on the Part 4 horizon. Hopefully, we see more development from our new lesbian and queer relationships in Mambo Marie and Zelda’s hot union, along with Robin and Theo’s cute quirky vibe. Oh, and if we don’t see more of Hilda and Dr. Cee, we riot.
OK, remember when we said we would explain the two Sabrinas and the cosmic imbalance? Well, here we go. The utmost important thing to remember is that Sabrina Spellman broke the time-space continuum all so she could go to high school and be with her friends. Instead of switching places with herself in the entrapment stone, she decides to warn herself about losing to Prince Caliban, therefore creating two free-roaming Sabrinas. One goes on to take the throne in hell, Sabrina Morningstar, and the other, Sabrina Spellman, willingly subjects herself to reading John Steinbeck novels and drinking milkshakes with her friends. Ambrose catches on to Sabrina hiding the truth from him and gets her to spill the potion on manipulating the time loop. Understandably worried, Ambrose warns Sabrina that she will pay for throwing the cosmos off-balance eventually.
Another side effect of Sabrina Spellman’s time breach is some unknown element of horrors known as the Eldritch Terrors. During Ambrose and Prudence’s month-long hunt for Father Blackwood, he procured a mysterious egg fetus that allows time to be compressed or elongated. With the twins at his side and magick egg in hand, he cracks it wide open as the screen cuts to black. Part 4 will focus on these terrors.
