An Octopus out of Water
Episode 3 of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season 4 starts with a flashback 2 days before as the third terror arrives, claiming that Faustus will serve them and requires a powerful body. He offers his body but the terror wants Sabrina as he is too weak. He claims that with her they will colonize the earth. We then cut to the present as Ambrose tends to the body of a man who has drowned in the river. While Ambrose is on the phone, a strange octopus-like creature escapes the mouth of the corpse and heads into the drain. At the same time, Sabrina uses a spell to summon a boy with the best parts of Harvey and Nick. Later on, Ambrose and Prudence speak to the convent and fight club about what is to come. They know that the next terror will be called The Weird but they don’t know much more about it. Before leaving, Mambo stops Harvey and Roz as she seems interested in Roz’s visions. At Baxter High, a new student arrives in Sabrina’s class, Lucas Hunt. He asks her out but she politely turns him down. Roz catches up with her outside and convinces Sabrina to accept Lucas’s invitation. In the evening, Mambo visits Roz and reveals that she is not a cunning woman but actually a witch. She explains that the women in her family were all witches but because they were prosecuted, they called themselves cunning to protect themselves. Later that day, Sabrina has a pleasant date with Lucas. She later has a strange dream where she meets with Lucas underwater. He tells her he is the Weird and with her power, they will consume all life. Sabrina doesn’t really listen and as she kisses him, we see tentacles grabbing her from behind. In hell, Caliban casts a spell on Lilith and her child as he is still planning to become the king of Hell. We then cut to Lilith whose womb suddenly swells at a rapid speed. She orders one of her minions to take her to Zelda and asks for her help delivering the baby as it is coming too soon. Zelda gathers the other women of the convent and performs a ritual to help her give birth; sharing the pain she feels. In class, Sabrina has trouble dissecting a squid in her biology class as each time she tries cutting, she feels pain in her stomach. Lucas takes her home and things become heated very quickly when Sabrina practically jumps on Lucas, kissing him very aggressively. He suddenly gets very freaked when he sees that her tongue has tentacles on it and he runs off. She quickly heads down to see Ambrose and shows him what is happening to her. Ambrose reveals that the corpse he looked at exhibited the same oddities. He concludes that the dead person was the last host of the Weird so that means she is the current one. Using Sweeney butcher paper, Ambrose tasks Sabrina with laying in it to enable him to see what is inside her. As expected, they see an octopus in her intestines. She begs him to get it out so he uses his wand to open her up. Unfortunately, he is not able to get it out without killing her. He later has an idea to drain the water out of Sabrina as the Weird needs water to live. With Nick also in tow, they head over to Sycorax who can control water. She starts her ritual and after collapsing, Sabrina throws up the octopus. Ambrose thinks they got lucky as the monster could have taken full control of Sabrina. In hell, Caliban is angry that Lilith is still alive and orders the two kings, Beelzebub and Asmodeus, to bring him the child while Roz arrives in the academy. Mambo greets her and Prudence asks what she is doing there. Mambo reveals she is a witch and after testing her, it is revealed that she is a seer. Roz then declares that she sees that two kings from hell are coming to take the baby. They relay this to Zelda who gathers the convent to stop them from stepping in. Zelda warns of the power of the dark mother and cast a spell to show them what she is capable of. They writhe in pain and collapse on the floor. Asmodeus is killed by the pain of childbirth and Beelzebub manages to escape back to hell to relay what happened to Caliban. Back in the academy, Zelda and Hilda offer their hospitality to Lilith and she accepts it. Sabrina heads back to school and tells Lucas she had an allergic reaction. They head into their biology class where time stops and Lucas witnesses Sabrina being possessed by the Weird. She declares that as the weird, they will assimilate everyone, starting with this school then eventually the world. Her neck breaks then she orders everyone to kill themselves. As he is doing an autopsy on the octopus, Ambrose hears the speech and rushes over the school, stopping the Weird. Sabrina collapses and Ambrose erases everyone’s memories. In the mortuary, Ambrose tells Sabrina that after after looking inside her body again, he concluded that the Weird’s consciousness has merged with her own after his physical form died. They need to make her brain inhospitable so they seek the help of the rot witch Pesta who will inflict diseases on her brain. He also tells her that she will need to focus on a mantra that is unique to her. Nick and Ambrose summon Pesta and prepare an octopus to trap the Weird. Sabrina starts singing “16 going on 17” as the rot witch works on her brain. When she starts struggling, Nick kneels over to her and helps sing the mantra. The ritual works and they are able to trap its soul in the octopus. The next day at at school, we learn that Lucas has transferred to Riverdale high. Sabrina later confides to Ambrose about what the Weird told her. He mentions that she was empty and she confirms that she needs to figure out who she is alone. She then drains the water in the bath where she was making her clay boyfriend. In the academy, Mambo takes Roz to the observatory and tells them they will be the sentinels of the three different realms. Mambo explains that they will take turns guarding while maintaining a psychic link and sense when danger is coming. Prudence decide to call themselves the new weird sisters. The episode ends with Agatha and Mrs Wardwell asking Faustus what is the next terror: which is the Perverse.
The Episode Review
The third episode sees Sabrina and her friends facing another terror, struggling at first then defeating it again. While this storyline is starting to feel a little repetitive and predictable, the different terrors do also have enough variety and creepiness to make them enjoyable to watch, even if we know that the real danger won’t probably come until the finale. It is also clear that Nick still has feelings for Sabrina in this episode and I do wonder how long it will be until the two get back together. This chapter also revealed a nice little twist as we discover that Roz is in fact a witch. The show carries on giving us some nice little Riverdale Easter eggs throughout while Sabrina making a boyfriend out of clay, reminded me of the episode of Sabrina the Teenage witch where Zelda and Hilda baked a boy for her. With Lilith now living in the academy and the convent killing two kings of hell, there could be some interesting future repercussions when Caliban and Lucifer find out. Just what the next few episodes will bring with the other terrors remains to be seen but for now, Sabrina remains quite the dark and thrilling drama.
