Finished the season. Overall a pretty well done show. The casting is excellent, with Michelle Gomez as the real star. I wish they’d let her unleash her natural Scottish accent. I think it would have worked quite well for this character. Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Davis, and Miranda Otto are all excellent. But no one in the cast is bad. It’s a treat to see Bronson Pinchot.
I have to say I’m quite surprised by how dark, violent, and morally ambiguous the show is.
The show looks and sounds fantastic.
A couple things I might have missed
—how did Susie start communicating with Dorothea?
— is there no restriction in witch society for witches just outright murdering mortals?
— are these witches a combination of neo-pagan/Wicca and traditional witch fantasy?
— why is Sabrina the only witch able to wield so much more power than anyone else at the end?
The witch society doesn’t make much sense if you think for even a few minutes about it.
This show definitely improves over the course of its first season. I was not too impressed by the first few episodes, though the stories did get interested later on. The first couple of episodes are overstuffed, trying to introduce far too many characters, and hence seemed unfocused.
The best storyline was IMO…Sabrina’s attempt to resurrect Harvey’s dead brother. That was when the show really took off for me. All the characters snapped into focus and had realistic POV’s (whereas, in the early episodes, they just seemed to be doing or expressing whatever the plot needed them to do) and hence seemed like real people. And the story had a truly relatable dilemma at its core: Sabrina, the overconfident teen who thinks she can get away with skirting the rules and then realizing, horrifically, that her actions WILL have consquences.
One thing that bugs me, however, is the mines. Similar to what other folks downthread said about the apple orchard from ep. 1, what is the deal with the mines? They seem so jarringly out of place in a community that I assumed to be located in New England. I guess they haven’t specifically mentioned where Greendale is located, so it’s possible it could be somewhere in western PA or West Virginia. But even so, if this series is set in the present day (60s styles notwithstanding), the mines would likely be shut down or on the verge of being shut down. It would hardly be the thriving, community-supporting business it appears to be. And what are they mining? Coal? Harvey and his family all look a little too clean & healthy for having spent their entire lives mining coal.
I suppose I should chalk it up to plot contrivance (which apparently it is), but Harvey and his family seem to have a function similar to Xander on BtVS: the normal, relatable, perfectly ordinary character that helps ground the series in reality. Harvey is supposed to represent the mortal, “real” world (especially after Sabrina’s girlfriends both exhibit supernatural powers of their own). But the whole deal with the mines seems more implausible than the idea of witches with super powers.
I think that’s definitely important. Sabrina is important - Satan really wants her; she’s no ordinary witch. We saw that right off. Furthered by that he gave special dispensation for her father to marry her mortal mother. Her conception was planned/prophesied.
So, short answer: I don’t know why, but I’m looking forward to finding out.
I’m only to her the trial having ended and the beginning of the next ep but my sense of it comes from what Prudence had said in the mines through the filter of me-too (“he’s a man isn’t he?”): The Dark Lord can give you power (or at least fool you into thinking the power you have was because of him) but demands your subservience and your loss of free will. Like Harvey Weinstein demanded while convincing his female talent that they needed him and his blessing to have their power.
I’m thinking the power is as is in the parenthesis - that he gains subservience by convincing them that only by promising their obedience will they have the power - and that the Sabrina is potentially powerful and living in the mortal world had the potential to say no, as she did. Gaining her obedience, eliminating her free will, her agency, is important, so it does not interfere with him and so that others do not realize that they have power without him granting it.
I really like the show. I think the basic plot is that the devil just finds the coven awfully amusing, like a bunch of toddlers playing with knives. And now he’s gotten bored and given Sabrina a handgun.
But [spoiler]
I can’t make any sense out of it. It stars out OK, with the witches and the High Priest. He’s just the sort of local boss you’d expect, lording over his fiefdom and dreading the auditors from the the local diocese. But there is no diocese. He ought to have a Bishop, a Cardinal or two and layers between him and the Antipope. All these people seem to be missing; the high priest simply reports directly to the devil. Or his wife, whatever. Really? This is the devil, he’s a busy deity, especially these days. How does he have any time for this second rate Salem? Everything seems out of proportion.
Also, the season cliff-hanger annoys me, The show was building up nicely to a Greek tragedy climax with zombie Tommy but then it gets short circuited and out of nowhere we get the 13 witches and the Red Death instead.
[/spoiler]
Also, given that the Dark Lord sent Madame Satan (Miss Wardwell) to covertly ensure Sabrina signed her name in the book, leads me to suspect that: a) He was not confident that the various members of the coven - including the aunties who raised her - would be able to convince her to sign the book, and b) He seems to value Sabrina separately (and likely MORE) than he does the coven itself.
I think it likely that as the series progresses, the coven members will discover that the Dark Lord views them as expendable pawns and that Sabrina is the only one he has any real interest in. I’d bet that the show will eventually come down to Sabrina battling Satan for not just her soul, but for the entire coven.
You’re probably right. Definitely right about expendability (though Madam Satan killed her bird for his insight). Just have to have an excuse for why The Dark Lord wants to eliminate them and what he’s getting out it.
I’ve also considered the notion of a sort of split in the coven. At first, just for the High Priest or against and maybe starting as small rebellion (see Zelda and Prudence and the baby), but spreading as some lose faith in Dark Lord and find the truth (presume truth is that he doesn’t actually grant the power). But then I thought we’re only set for one more season for sure, so probably not in that time frame. Just too few episodes for that big a storyline.
Madam Satan/Ms Wardwell’s cover story is that she was a member of different coven in New Hampshire separate from the Church of the Night before she became involved with Edward Spellman. I think each coven is just an autonomous (albeit subject to the Dark Lord) entity more like a New England congregationalist church as opposed to a Satanic version of the Catholic Church. It’s not even the only coven in New England let along on the planet. This explains a lot about why Father Blackwood wears so many different hats (High Priest, Headmaster, etc) and makes the Witches’ & Warlocks’ disdain for Catholicism even funnier. Of course that he’s the High Priest implies there priests (& priestesses?, not clear if women can be ordained) subordinate to him.
I’m not even half through the season yet but this comment makes me wonder if we are going to end up with a Star Wars inspired “Sabrina. I am your father.”?
A reason I’d suspect it a wee little bit is that they played hard into the Harry Potter style expectations of her parents with their ghosts watching on and allegedly trying to help her at her almost Dark Baptism. Subverting that and going another tropey direction just seems like something writers playing with trope subversions would do.
I read somewhere that some of the cast, including Shipka, are allergic to cats so they limit Salem’s screen time. There was talk of making him a dog instead.
Shipka’s is so bad that apparently the one time she accidentally touched him, she immediately broke out in hives. I suspect that cat isn’t getting many on screen minutes if there is a second season.
Just read that there is no “if” about it. Apparently they filmed two seasons back to back. So a second is already paid for and, editing aside, in the can. Given Netflix’s business model, it will inevitably be released.
His eyes and expression went scary after he was chuckling walking away from Hilde kissing him. More to him than they made out obviously. Really a vampire or a witch hunter who killed the adopted witch at the beginning. Someone had and they just dropped that.
The season really picked up quality from the dream demon ep on.
I think they should switch out Salem if they cast can’t handle him. It’s either that or not have him around in a meaningful way. Maybe have him shapeshift, so he is still occasionally a cat?