Demons begin terrorizing Sabrina as she vies to become the Academy's "Top Boy," and Susie tries out for the Baxter High boys' basketball team.
Sabrina dreams about her birth again, seeing her aunts, bloody mom, and dad. Edward takes her to the Dark Lord, and she suddenly sees three demonic wise men.
After waking, she enjoys her now powers to get ready for the day, but her family is confused as she listens to loud, intense music and is wearing a lot of black. With the day open, Zelda elects to go to the Academy in their hearse, as Blackwood wants her to come in to meet the rest of the faculty To their surprise, Sabrina wants to go as well and has decided to focus more on her Academy studies than attending Baxter High, which starts that day. She's even already spoken to the new principal, Wardwell, who gave her indefinite time away. As Wardwell relishes in her newfound role, Harvey asks Roz and Susie about Sabrina, whom they believe to be thinking things over. He reveals he's signing up for basketball rather than AP Art, as he and his dad got to playing after the magic eggnog helped him. Susie is interested in joining as well, boldly showing a lack of care that there's only a boys' team. Blackwood introduces Zelda to the faculty, saying she'll be teaching "ancient tongues and scriptures" like his late wife did. He grows annoyed as baby Judas starts crying and Prudence can't get him to stop, but is pleased when Zelda easily does; a female staff member gives her a dirty look. Nick compliments Sabrina's hair as they head for a traditional meeting, where Blackwood declares the need to elect a new Top Boy. Everyone unanimously cheers for Nick, but Sabrina butts in asking if the student has to be male; Blackwood admits it's just tradition but says the student must be full-time. She reveals how she's currently full-time, and says she wants to contribute to the school by giving every student a voice, regardless of gender. To everyone's surprise, Nick nominates her and Prudence throws in her support, so Blackwood recognizes Sabrina's nomination alongside Nick's. He explains they'll face three magical tests in a desecrated church: the Inquisition, the Boil and Bubble, and the Conjuring; there will then be a vote.
Later, Zelda reminisces about Edward becoming Top Boy and how it led him to being High Priest, and Hilda mentions to Sabrina how permanent this position sounds.
Ambrose enters, joining in about Sabrina's personality demanding she join, and says he and Luke are joining Blackwood on a males-only night for the potential Top Boy. Zelda says she needs to study anyway, and she is shocked when Luke states he's voting Nick because "it's Top Boy for a reason," and even Ambrose doesn't support her. While Sabrina goes to the Academy library for the night, Blackwood and the group of boys head to the club Ambrose previously met Luke at for a date. There, Blackwood tells them they can do what they want that night without getting in trouble. Although he still carries morals he developed as Top Boy, he says they're just men tonight, and calls for their entertainment, a female dancer named Salome. Sabrina starts hearing squeaks and thumping, and when she investigates, she sees one of the demonic wise men, Asmodeus (John Murphy). He brings the "gift" of filth and plague in the form of rats he sends to eat her. Nick is disgusted when Salome opens a platter that contains a fake Sabrina head, which Blackwood says is the only possible outcome for the vote. Struggling to fight back atop a table, Sabrina levitates a book to her hand, then performs a spell from it that causes Asmodeus to crumble into dust. Sabrina and Ambrose return home, where she tells him she was attacked and accuses Luke of being behind it, to throw her off her game. Luke becomes irritated like her, saying she's only at the Academy because she's forced and she questions every tradition she comes across. Furious, Sabrina repeats her belief that Luke or one of the others was behind it, her anger causing doors to close and wind to whip around. As she declares she's the one who'd be Top Boy at this house, Hilda enters. They try to play it off, and Sabrina tells her to go to bed, but her aunt dislikes her tone. At the Academy, Prudence asks Blackwood if she can take his last name to start the new cycle, but he shoots her down, and says she also couldn't try to be Top Boy, as it would embarrass both of them. Sabrina barges in to request the challenge be postponed, telling him about the attack, but Zelda assures him she gave the girl some protective measures. He decides the challenge will go as scheduled but suggests she take a moment for herself, and tells Prudence to tend to Judas while he and Zelda head to church. Prudence shows interest in Sabrina's attack and, angry at Blackwood, tells Sabrina to go to the Inquisition and leave the rest to her.
At the church, Ambrose asks Luke where he went the night before; the latter refuses to say more than that it was a private matter for Blackwood.
Blackwood begins the first test, a series of questions. Nick gets an easy one about the shape that represents Satan, but Sabrina has to name the five books of the Lesser Key of Solomon, which even Zelda doesn't know. The Weird Sisters, in the library, psychically feed Sabrina the info, and Blackwood is suspicious, since she didn't have time to prepare, and hammers her with questions. She shows him up at every point, ending with how Rasputin was killed, earning her applause from the entire crowd. At Baxter High, Susie tries to join Harvey at basketball, but the jerks she fought last season start making fun of her. She snarls that she's not afraid to fight them again, but the coach finally intervenes and makes her leave; Roz convinces her not to argue. Hilda visits Wardwell to request that she suggest Sabrina come back to Baxter at least part-time, to temper the changes she's experiencing. She says Sabrina has the right to choose where she goes to school, and leaves when Susie and the others burst in requesting her help. They return to Coach Craven, who agrees to let her face off against the boys based on talent, despite how she's short, with no coordination and can't even dribble. Back at the Academy, Sabrina plays innocent, but Blackwood says her knowledge was suspicious and cheating would result in lashings. He is gobsmacked when she says such sexist, appalling behavior is something she plans to work on when she becomes High Priestess. Blackwood claims such a thing has never been, nor ever will be, but Sabrina counters her aunt raised her to believe she can be whatever she wants. Zelda says the next competition should get rid of any transgressors, and Blackwood reveals he'll be sealing the church for the Boil and Bubble challenge. Another of the three demons attacks Sabrina on her way home, this time with bats, but she wards them off using her witch whistle. At home, she tells Hilda she thinks Blackwood might be sending the demons. She has no idea what the Boil and Bubble challenge is, but Hilda claims to have been the school's best bubbler and will give her a crash course. They go to the kitchen where Hilda says she needs to have stable formulas memorized, and for seasoning incantations, she should use rhyming couplets. Hilda questions if this is all worth it and brings up Sabrina's friends. Sabrina feels they wouldn't welcome her since she signed her name in Satan's book. Hilda claims this action doesn't completely change who a person is, but Sabrina says it does, since she signed away what she was, her soul, in blood. Sabrina tells her the Dark Lord said he'd call her to do his bidding, and while she doesn't know when this'll be, she doesn't want to be near her friends when he does. Heartbroken, Hilda can only take Sabrina in a tearful hug. When the second test doesn't go as expected and another demon attacks, Sabrina is determined to find out who sent them as Wardwell continues plotting, Zelda questions her relationship with Blackwood, and Susie plays some basketball.
Maybe I should've expected it because of how last season started, but I didn't realize I was going to be cringing and laughing throughout this episode.
While I ended last season enjoying a lot of the darker moments and how the story was going, this episode brought back the melodrama. This is especially true for Sabrina's mortal friends, who I started enjoying last season as they dove into the supernatural, but are now again concerned with school issues. Susie gained confidence over time, and this is commendable for sure and good progression, but often times the way they show it is obnoxious. I don't really understand how the writers even came up with the issue she faces in this episode, though it leads to a massive, great moment for her. Quick question: what time period IS this show supposed to be set in? Because the school having only a boys' basketball team made no sense to me. Every school I've been to has had a team for both sexes, and having multiple teams is the only reason to even specify this one as the boys' basketball team. Obviously women do face a lot of issues even in our time, and some I can't possibly imagine or understand. Perhaps this is even just being purposefully dramatic. But I don't understand how a coach now could act this way, or why the school wouldn't at least have a separate team for girls. For Sabrina's situation, it's odd they always had just a Top Boy, but their culture being different can explain this; for Susie it's as if they're plainly saying no girl can possibly play basketball at all. Oddly enough despite them making the male characters seem this way, I was just laughing in agreement with Coach Craven. When Wardwell tells him to not turn Susie away because of gender, he immediately relents, and says how she can try out despite being uncoordinated and unable to shoot or even dribble. Sure, like many other male figures in this show, he seemed to take at least some issue with Susie earlier because of her being a girl, but he has a point later. Making a team is based on ability, so it doesn't really make sense for Susie to try out; we even see later that from around the free-throw line or maybe closer, she takes a shot and doesn't even touch the rim or backboard. Everything is honestly just handled better on Sabrina's side, though there are some odd moments in her arguments as well. Like I said, the witch world is very different from ours, and as they've expressed plenty of times that men are more valued to them than women. Blackwood makes things blatantly unfair from the beginning, giving Nick an easy question for the first test, followed by an incredibly hard one for Sabrina. In a way it reminds me of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, where most people get tough words in the spelling bee while Ned gets mostly words like "cat." Things were stacked against her from the start, so it makes sense that she would find a way to cheat through the first test, and the way they did it was clever. She cheats more later to help Susie, but that moment doesn't feel really justified at all, and puts Susie in a bad position since she won't always have magic to help her. At the same time the first cheating was smart, Sabrina felt obnoxious and stupid to me with how she kept assuming the guys were sending the demons after her. Considering her dream at the start of the episode, I started assuming they were connected to the strange and mysterious circumstances surrounding her birth. Prudence dropped a major hint at the start of the series that her parents' death wasn't an accident, and Sabrina has seen things that suggest it as well. Yet she sees something that goes along with how focused the Dark Lord has been on getting her by his side...and she assumes the demons have to do with a school role. In a better section of this episode, Wardwell slyly points out that these demons were likely conjured, and the best conjurer at the school is Nick, her opponent. Continuing this section, Sabrina is willing to believe this at first, but Nick is able to help Sabrina reach a better conclusion and is willing to help her. Nick also continues his attempts to woo Sabrina in this episode, and for the most part it made me laugh just because of how bold, and in a way lame, he is. His flirting and Sabrina distancing herself from her friends leads to a moment later in the episode I disliked, however, as it sets up a cliche misunderstanding situation. Another thing I did like in this episode is that Sabrina is acting out, and it's actually explained why she's doing so. The writers could've just left it at her being different because of signing the book, but she didn't really seem different during the Christmas episode, and it's not like her family acts dark and angry all the time, so it shouldn't have changed her that much. When she talks to Hilda, she reveals she's actually scared, as she worries that she's going to have to do something terrible for the Dark Lord. Before, she had a chance to fight back and possibly do something about him, but now things seem hopeless for her, because she agreed to do his bidding. The moment Hilda realizes how scared and alone Sabrina feels is heartbreaking, as she looks horrified and both are struggling to hold back tears. This was such a good points, but then soon after, Hilda is again cheerfully suggesting Sabrina hang out with her mortal friends. She obviously means well and probably thinks this will help with how Sabrina is feeling, but it just comes off as being like she didn't really listen. There was great cinematography at certain points in this episode; in particular I liked the shot of Hilda and Sabrina at the table, and the point Sabrina and nick stepped up for their nominations. For this moment, they stood on either side of the Dark Lord statue, which has a young boy and girl looking up to him. With Nick in front of the girl and Sabrina in front of the boy, it's a perfect flipped version of how they're standing before a priest of the Dark Lord. This episode had a lot of issues that frustrated me, but I feel I just forgot for a bit how dramatic the show can be. I remember the first season also making me cringe at first, and ultimately having points to it I enjoyed overall as the season went on, so I'll hope this one is the same.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
April 2020
Categories
All
|