Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Nov. 6th, 2018 04:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyI finished the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (it really needs 'the' to be officially part of the title, ok?) and I have many, many thoughts. Spoilers are quite likely so you have been warned.
First things first. I'm not sure anyone who has watched anything about the show will not realize this but still, this is definitely not a reboot of the Melissa Joan Hart version. This is an adaptation of the comic of the same name and while I'm not sure I'd call it chilling exactly, it's definitely dark.
Second: the makeup person/people on this show should be fucking fired or forced to explain themselves because Hilda (treasure Lucy Davis) looks straight up yellow or orange and like her makeup is spackled on and I refuse to accept that she'd be that inept with makeup. I accept the eyeshadow and lipstick because that feels like a choice she'd make because she thinks they're pretty. But the foundation applied with a trowel? No. Just no. Especially since the makeup is pretty crap across the board once you take a moment to really look. It is DISTRACTEDLY BAD as in I had to text Cass and ask if it was my TV being weird or an actual thing going on. I am forever gratified to know it's one of the things that pops up first as a critique of the show because it is just that bad.
Third: MJH may have gone off the rails into conservative crazy (she did, at least for awhile and I don't want to accidentally find out its worse, so I'm not looking it up again) but her Sabrina was charming most of the time. New!Sabrina is, well... *sigh* I've seen this actress in a few things and she's... not great? For the most part she can be fine but it's definitely something where a better actress would make this show 100% better and sometimes she's downright awful. Did I bitch already about her "oh, no. What now." being delivered in the flattest monotone ever? If so, it's worth bitching about repeatedly because it's so bad it's memorable. But not so bad it swings around to good.
Flipside to that, I think I'm the only person who likes Sabrina and Harvey together and doesn't think they have a sucking void of chemistry going on there. They're cute and my expectations were pretty low for both actors and while Harvey's is better for me, my expectations for him were actually lower. I think because I don't really tend to like comic!Harvey in any incarnation and sitcom!Harvey had the best 'ship ending so I figured anything would fall flat. But he works for me so eh? Together I think they work fairly well but YMMV.
This is definitely a show where the supporting cast is better than the title character by leaps and bounds. I love Ambrose, Hilda, and Zelda in different ways and how the three of them interact with one another (and Sabrina) and could have been quite happy with more of that and less of either of the schools, really. Hilda is adorable and sweet and it's weird to say that when I think of regular comics Hilda but there we are. I love that she and Zelda are both shown to be very accomplished witches in their own right and while they specialize in different things (and Zelda gets the more impressive and showy moments), Hilda's specialties are just as important as Zelda's and treated as such by just about everyone who isn't Zelda.
Zelda gets some of the best one-liners and is the actress you feel like might be slumming it but she's so awesome that I hope she's having fun because she's definitely a universal highlight. The downside is at the end when she does something completely insane, you wonder for a moment WTF.
Spoilers for sure:
So Lady Blackwood has twins and in the lead up to them being born, Zelda (in her midwiving capability) thinks she'll have two boys but surprise, the firstborn is a girl. Fearing that Faustus, the head of the church of night and obviously a dude who believes in dudes needing all the power and his creepy "hail Judas, hail Satan" club at the end is definitely not a good look, will not take kindly to his heir being a girl (particularly since he's already got another daughter running around), she tells Faustus that the boy ate his brother in the womb and she spirits the girl away to the Spellman house.
There are so many things wrong with this plan I don't even know where to begin. I suppose you could argue that even lying and telling Faustus that the boy was born first might not keep him from killing the spare, so I'll just mention it and keep moving. But um, Lady Blackwood is black and those kids definitely look it and I don't know how she expects people to not notice that hey, new baby at the Spellmans. Wtf.
And Zelda, honey, love: you deserve better than Faustus. But feel free to kill him at any time because ew, no, not looking forward to more of his creepy men are awesome and women, well, they're good for sex.
Ambrose gets tangled in the boys club but before then he's basically the Salem character since CAOS Salem is a cat who doesn't talk (that we can hear) and also not a warlock stuck as a cat for a zillion years. Ambrose is instead on house arrest and has been for quite some time and he's clearly losing his mind just a bit. But he's also the one Sabrina runs to for answers first and ropes into her schemes for fear of what the aunts will say or do if they find out that she's being an incredible dumbass.
Because yeah, Sabrina does a lot of stupid shit. But I do like that she gets called out on it at times, especially when she tries to bring Harvey's brother back to life. Of course she tries to trick the universe and when Ambrose catches her, he demands to know why she thinks she's entitled to being above witch and mortal laws/rules and why she thinks the universe should grant her special favors. Which is a nice twist since a lot of times these shows are built around the idea that the title character/main character can and should have the ability to find and exploit all the loopholes. Sabrina tries and it blows up in her face... temporarily.
Which is where I have my biggest problem with the actual writing/plot/story. Sabrina's teacher, possibly her favorite, Ms. Wardwell, is (I believe, it's hard to remember at this point) killed and taken over by Madame Satan (I mean, of course) who makes it her mission to ensure that Sabrina chooses the path of night and signs her name/life away to the dark lord. Y'know, Satan. And Sabrina never realizes this because Sabrina very much does not want to do so and it's her arc for most of the series. She wants to be a witch and have the power but she does not want to essentially sell her soul for power. She wants to be a good witch, I guess. Anyway, Wardwell (it's easier to call her that) spends the entire season corrupting Sabrina without her realizing it. Hell, she manages to get Sabrina to kill someone among other things and it's both really interesting and really frustrating to watch.
Particularly because you keep waiting for Zelda or Hilda or Ambrose to say something. Especially Zelda who is very suspicious of her at every turn but never once looks more into it and discovers what's going on. It's not even like Zelda finding out would necessarily be a bad thing for Wardwell since Zelda also wants Sabrina to sign the book. Sigh.
Anyway, the season culminates in the oft-mentioned Greendale 13 (witches) being brought back by Wardwell to summon the red angel of Death who will ride through Greendale and kill all the first born children (and adults), be they witch or mortal. The witches decide fuck it, we'll bunker down at our school and the mortals be damned. The Spellmans decide to learn from history and not repeat it, so they gather everyone at Baxter High (the mortal school) and attempt to keep them safe the same way the witches are. Only things go horribly awry when Zelda is teleported away by the Blackwoods because Lady Blackwood is in labor and then Ambrose is teleported away by his sketchy love interest because he loves him and doesn't want him to die! Or because Blackwood has use for Ambrose and wants him safe and also sketchy love interest might still be under a love spell that Hilda whammied him with.
This leaves Hilda and Sabrina to keep the school safe. Naturally the stakes aren't high enough, so we have Harvey and his father hunkered at their house but Harvey isn't a first born, so he should be safe from the ride of death. Still, Sabrina has sent secondary love interest there to keep them safe so this should not be a huge concern for her, dammit. Susie and Roz, her other two human friends, are with Roz's grandmother who can see the future and I'm pretty sure she'd have not kept her granddaughter with her if doing so would kill Roz. Plus, Sabrina knows that Susie's a descendant of the one person in Greendale who wasn't a PoS towards the witches so in theory that should make Susie safe, too. Seriously, these are the only people in Greendale not accounted for.
So it's incredibly fucking stupid for Sabrina to agree to Wardwell's plan to go on the offensive and leave Hilda, who just said she was fading fast, all alone. Since she doesn't know Wardwell is working against her, she should have insisted that ww listen to Hilda and join the protection spell. But no. Sabrina goes off with WW and leaves Hilda all alone to defend the school and most of the mortals of Greendale against certain death... all so WW can get her to sign the book in the least subtle way possible. Sabrina eventually does and then uses Hellfire to burn the witches and save the town but at the cost of her soul.
Sigh. We end the season with her telling Harvey she doesn't trust herself around him or their friends and she heads off to the witch school where she joins the Weird Sisters (who, until now, have hated her pretty consistently) and looks ~evvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllll!~
This is clearly already biting Sabrina in the ass but we have to wait for her to find out just how badly because cliffhanger.
There are other things at play and things I should mention. The Weird Sisters are pretty fun to watch and Prudence is acting circles around Sabrina in every scene, though it's not as totally noticeable if, like me, you're distracted by the eye makeup and the hair. It's still pretty obvious though. Nick is fine as a secondary love interest. Balki is the mortal principal which is a fun thing to notice each time he shows up. Sabrina's mortal friends are okay though I'm very, very confused about Susie. Not the whole "boy? girl? what?" aspect as that's clearly an intentional "Susie's still figuring it out" kind of thing. Nope. I'm talking about seeing and talking to Aunt Dorothea. It just happens and we don't know why or how and whether this is really a good thing or a bad thing. Just... why? Was it all a lead up so that Dorothea could a) let Susie know they weren't alone in this whole finding your own identity thing or b) so Susie could tell the witches to step off and leave Roz and her Nana alone, please? Or is there more?
We have a couple of dangling plot threads like the Witch Hunter Ambrose was desperate to find and Dr. C's weird eye flash at the end (though this was an intentional lead for S2). Oh, and the mystery of what really happened to Sabrina's parents. Also it's probably not a good look to have your blonde, white girl heroine hanging anyone from the hanging tree. Just... not a great look, k?
Like Riverdale, it's a really uneven show and it definitely suffers from pacing problems. But it does a decent job of cycling through the characters in a given storyline, which is something Riverdale could really learn to do more of. Cass won't be giving S2 a watch, but I will because I like the other Spellmans, Prudence, and honestly Wardwell/MS/Lillith is fun on her own. The actress was clearly enjoying the hell out of herself.
Oh, and as the cut says, the show could really, really do with more Salem. Such a pretty kitty!
First things first. I'm not sure anyone who has watched anything about the show will not realize this but still, this is definitely not a reboot of the Melissa Joan Hart version. This is an adaptation of the comic of the same name and while I'm not sure I'd call it chilling exactly, it's definitely dark.
Second: the makeup person/people on this show should be fucking fired or forced to explain themselves because Hilda (treasure Lucy Davis) looks straight up yellow or orange and like her makeup is spackled on and I refuse to accept that she'd be that inept with makeup. I accept the eyeshadow and lipstick because that feels like a choice she'd make because she thinks they're pretty. But the foundation applied with a trowel? No. Just no. Especially since the makeup is pretty crap across the board once you take a moment to really look. It is DISTRACTEDLY BAD as in I had to text Cass and ask if it was my TV being weird or an actual thing going on. I am forever gratified to know it's one of the things that pops up first as a critique of the show because it is just that bad.
Third: MJH may have gone off the rails into conservative crazy (she did, at least for awhile and I don't want to accidentally find out its worse, so I'm not looking it up again) but her Sabrina was charming most of the time. New!Sabrina is, well... *sigh* I've seen this actress in a few things and she's... not great? For the most part she can be fine but it's definitely something where a better actress would make this show 100% better and sometimes she's downright awful. Did I bitch already about her "oh, no. What now." being delivered in the flattest monotone ever? If so, it's worth bitching about repeatedly because it's so bad it's memorable. But not so bad it swings around to good.
Flipside to that, I think I'm the only person who likes Sabrina and Harvey together and doesn't think they have a sucking void of chemistry going on there. They're cute and my expectations were pretty low for both actors and while Harvey's is better for me, my expectations for him were actually lower. I think because I don't really tend to like comic!Harvey in any incarnation and sitcom!Harvey had the best 'ship ending so I figured anything would fall flat. But he works for me so eh? Together I think they work fairly well but YMMV.
This is definitely a show where the supporting cast is better than the title character by leaps and bounds. I love Ambrose, Hilda, and Zelda in different ways and how the three of them interact with one another (and Sabrina) and could have been quite happy with more of that and less of either of the schools, really. Hilda is adorable and sweet and it's weird to say that when I think of regular comics Hilda but there we are. I love that she and Zelda are both shown to be very accomplished witches in their own right and while they specialize in different things (and Zelda gets the more impressive and showy moments), Hilda's specialties are just as important as Zelda's and treated as such by just about everyone who isn't Zelda.
Zelda gets some of the best one-liners and is the actress you feel like might be slumming it but she's so awesome that I hope she's having fun because she's definitely a universal highlight. The downside is at the end when she does something completely insane, you wonder for a moment WTF.
Spoilers for sure:
So Lady Blackwood has twins and in the lead up to them being born, Zelda (in her midwiving capability) thinks she'll have two boys but surprise, the firstborn is a girl. Fearing that Faustus, the head of the church of night and obviously a dude who believes in dudes needing all the power and his creepy "hail Judas, hail Satan" club at the end is definitely not a good look, will not take kindly to his heir being a girl (particularly since he's already got another daughter running around), she tells Faustus that the boy ate his brother in the womb and she spirits the girl away to the Spellman house.
There are so many things wrong with this plan I don't even know where to begin. I suppose you could argue that even lying and telling Faustus that the boy was born first might not keep him from killing the spare, so I'll just mention it and keep moving. But um, Lady Blackwood is black and those kids definitely look it and I don't know how she expects people to not notice that hey, new baby at the Spellmans. Wtf.
And Zelda, honey, love: you deserve better than Faustus. But feel free to kill him at any time because ew, no, not looking forward to more of his creepy men are awesome and women, well, they're good for sex.
Ambrose gets tangled in the boys club but before then he's basically the Salem character since CAOS Salem is a cat who doesn't talk (that we can hear) and also not a warlock stuck as a cat for a zillion years. Ambrose is instead on house arrest and has been for quite some time and he's clearly losing his mind just a bit. But he's also the one Sabrina runs to for answers first and ropes into her schemes for fear of what the aunts will say or do if they find out that she's being an incredible dumbass.
Because yeah, Sabrina does a lot of stupid shit. But I do like that she gets called out on it at times, especially when she tries to bring Harvey's brother back to life. Of course she tries to trick the universe and when Ambrose catches her, he demands to know why she thinks she's entitled to being above witch and mortal laws/rules and why she thinks the universe should grant her special favors. Which is a nice twist since a lot of times these shows are built around the idea that the title character/main character can and should have the ability to find and exploit all the loopholes. Sabrina tries and it blows up in her face... temporarily.
Which is where I have my biggest problem with the actual writing/plot/story. Sabrina's teacher, possibly her favorite, Ms. Wardwell, is (I believe, it's hard to remember at this point) killed and taken over by Madame Satan (I mean, of course) who makes it her mission to ensure that Sabrina chooses the path of night and signs her name/life away to the dark lord. Y'know, Satan. And Sabrina never realizes this because Sabrina very much does not want to do so and it's her arc for most of the series. She wants to be a witch and have the power but she does not want to essentially sell her soul for power. She wants to be a good witch, I guess. Anyway, Wardwell (it's easier to call her that) spends the entire season corrupting Sabrina without her realizing it. Hell, she manages to get Sabrina to kill someone among other things and it's both really interesting and really frustrating to watch.
Particularly because you keep waiting for Zelda or Hilda or Ambrose to say something. Especially Zelda who is very suspicious of her at every turn but never once looks more into it and discovers what's going on. It's not even like Zelda finding out would necessarily be a bad thing for Wardwell since Zelda also wants Sabrina to sign the book. Sigh.
Anyway, the season culminates in the oft-mentioned Greendale 13 (witches) being brought back by Wardwell to summon the red angel of Death who will ride through Greendale and kill all the first born children (and adults), be they witch or mortal. The witches decide fuck it, we'll bunker down at our school and the mortals be damned. The Spellmans decide to learn from history and not repeat it, so they gather everyone at Baxter High (the mortal school) and attempt to keep them safe the same way the witches are. Only things go horribly awry when Zelda is teleported away by the Blackwoods because Lady Blackwood is in labor and then Ambrose is teleported away by his sketchy love interest because he loves him and doesn't want him to die! Or because Blackwood has use for Ambrose and wants him safe and also sketchy love interest might still be under a love spell that Hilda whammied him with.
This leaves Hilda and Sabrina to keep the school safe. Naturally the stakes aren't high enough, so we have Harvey and his father hunkered at their house but Harvey isn't a first born, so he should be safe from the ride of death. Still, Sabrina has sent secondary love interest there to keep them safe so this should not be a huge concern for her, dammit. Susie and Roz, her other two human friends, are with Roz's grandmother who can see the future and I'm pretty sure she'd have not kept her granddaughter with her if doing so would kill Roz. Plus, Sabrina knows that Susie's a descendant of the one person in Greendale who wasn't a PoS towards the witches so in theory that should make Susie safe, too. Seriously, these are the only people in Greendale not accounted for.
So it's incredibly fucking stupid for Sabrina to agree to Wardwell's plan to go on the offensive and leave Hilda, who just said she was fading fast, all alone. Since she doesn't know Wardwell is working against her, she should have insisted that ww listen to Hilda and join the protection spell. But no. Sabrina goes off with WW and leaves Hilda all alone to defend the school and most of the mortals of Greendale against certain death... all so WW can get her to sign the book in the least subtle way possible. Sabrina eventually does and then uses Hellfire to burn the witches and save the town but at the cost of her soul.
Sigh. We end the season with her telling Harvey she doesn't trust herself around him or their friends and she heads off to the witch school where she joins the Weird Sisters (who, until now, have hated her pretty consistently) and looks ~evvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllll!~
This is clearly already biting Sabrina in the ass but we have to wait for her to find out just how badly because cliffhanger.
There are other things at play and things I should mention. The Weird Sisters are pretty fun to watch and Prudence is acting circles around Sabrina in every scene, though it's not as totally noticeable if, like me, you're distracted by the eye makeup and the hair. It's still pretty obvious though. Nick is fine as a secondary love interest. Balki is the mortal principal which is a fun thing to notice each time he shows up. Sabrina's mortal friends are okay though I'm very, very confused about Susie. Not the whole "boy? girl? what?" aspect as that's clearly an intentional "Susie's still figuring it out" kind of thing. Nope. I'm talking about seeing and talking to Aunt Dorothea. It just happens and we don't know why or how and whether this is really a good thing or a bad thing. Just... why? Was it all a lead up so that Dorothea could a) let Susie know they weren't alone in this whole finding your own identity thing or b) so Susie could tell the witches to step off and leave Roz and her Nana alone, please? Or is there more?
We have a couple of dangling plot threads like the Witch Hunter Ambrose was desperate to find and Dr. C's weird eye flash at the end (though this was an intentional lead for S2). Oh, and the mystery of what really happened to Sabrina's parents. Also it's probably not a good look to have your blonde, white girl heroine hanging anyone from the hanging tree. Just... not a great look, k?
Like Riverdale, it's a really uneven show and it definitely suffers from pacing problems. But it does a decent job of cycling through the characters in a given storyline, which is something Riverdale could really learn to do more of. Cass won't be giving S2 a watch, but I will because I like the other Spellmans, Prudence, and honestly Wardwell/MS/Lillith is fun on her own. The actress was clearly enjoying the hell out of herself.
Oh, and as the cut says, the show could really, really do with more Salem. Such a pretty kitty!
