Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Season 4 (AKA Part 4)

January 6, 2021 11:49 AM - Season 4 (Full Season)

In the final season of CAOS Sabrina and the gang team up against the eldritch terrors unleashed by Father Blackwood.

Warning: spoilers for the season ending abound on the net and most likely in this thread.

posted by roolya_boolya (7 comments total)

Thanks for posting this! I'm not done with the season yet, but it's been a blast so far. I'll chime in again soon.
posted by heteronym at 7:25 PM on January 6, 2021

I am curious about how everyone else felt about this, because I thought this season was all over the place, and not in a good way. Episode 7 was brilliant but everything else just felt like the writers were taking all their half-cooked ideas that they couldn't use in other seasons and shoving them wherever they thought they might fit. I was pretty annoyed by the end.
posted by janepanic at 5:56 PM on January 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

I quite enjoyed it. I agree episode 7 was a standout but I found the rest entertaining enough. I liked how they went all out for the two Sabrinas option. I moreso had the feeling they knew it was the final season so they could really push envelope.

However I did long ago give up any hope that this show would have any mythology or rules of magic that would remain consistent through the course of an episode, let alone a season.
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:15 PM on January 9, 2021

I finished the season last night. I still don't know what I think of the ending, other than that, like almost every other thing in the history of the show, it drove how what a shambles its theology/metaphysics is. Not that I particularly care, at least most of the time; in this case, though, the obviousness of the fact that "will this look cool on TV?" is a, or maybe the, driving consideration was frustrating.

That said, I liked the season overall. Maybe it's because I knew it was ending, and that I wouldn't get the chance to see more of Sabrina and crew. I thought the Eldritch Terrors notion was as narratively floppy as most of the other things that've happened, but it made for some decent visuals. Blackwood made no sense, as usual. I dug the Return of the Living Dead references in the battle of the bands episode (even if Satanic Panic's cover of "Party Time" was weak sauce; I recommend Acid Witch's version). The reshuffling of the Weird Sisters was a bit perplexing, but whatever. Overall, I thought it was time well spent.

I can't tell if the writers knew this was the final season or not. I lean towards yes, but I don't know for sure.
posted by heteronym at 2:26 PM on January 9, 2021

Lillath killing her child to keep him from Morningstar / the Devil was incredibly dark. I was certain at first it was a ruse and was somewhat surprised that they went there. And the show skipped quite lightly over the implications. None of the other characters reacted to the baby's death if I recall correctly.

Between that and some of the sexual elements, for example Nick's foray into BDSM in the previous season, I had the impression it is not really a show aimed at teenagers. But perhaps that's a banal observation.
posted by roolya_boolya at 12:28 AM on January 10, 2021

CAoS has always been an uneven to me, so I'm trying to be fair here...but the worst part of this season was the end, so it's hard. The most generous take I have on that last episode is that they wanted to write toward something that could be a cliffhanger or a series-finale, and made some last-minute changes when they realized it would be a series finale. The last episode would have been a lot cozier if the season ended with Sabrina in Pandora's Box (and basically everything else got pushed into next season). It definitely feels like they tried to put two seasons worth of material in the final season, to the show's detriment.

I do wish Lilith killed Lucifer? You don't have to keep his character around when the show is ending. Ugh. And we didn't get ANY shenanigans about Sabrina ruling hell! And...making Mambo Marie into Baron Samedi was a Choice that I did not understand.

I agree with everyone that episode 7 was extremely well-done. Not a super original premise, but off-the-charts execution.
posted by grandiloquiet at 1:19 PM on January 24, 2021

There was so much to love about this show: the fantastic premise, great characters played by a (mostly) fine cast, the costuming and set design, the cool, creepy, immersive feel of it -- I was always left feeling like I wanted to live in Greendale. But the plotting was its Achilles heel. After the first season, there was always simply too much going on and it made too little sense. It's frustrating to have a show that could have been so fantastic hamstrung in such a way.
posted by orange swan at 6:29 PM on March 25, 2021 [3 favorites]