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When I started maternity leave late last October, I knew I’d finding myself with a lot of down time during those first few months and I wasn’t sure how I’d fill it. Like most people in the modern age, I turned to Netflix for advice. What did I find? The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina advertised at the top of my feed.
Now, I’d watched the sitcom Sabrina the Teenaged Witch growing up, but it wasn’t a show that I ever wanted a reboot of. It was fun for the time and I was ready for something new. So I don’t know what possessed me to start watching The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina but I did and I wasn’t disappointed!
Judging from the trailer, I expected another YA fantasy with characters that a younger me could relate to, but twenty-eight year old me, the me who’d just had a baby, wouldn’t be able to. But it is so much more than that!
Dark
The first thing you’ll notice when you either watch the trailer or start watching the show is that this is no light-hearted sitcom. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is nothing but dark, eerie, and mysterious, each episode submerging the viewer farther into Satan’s (praise Satan) world of magic. Sabrina is Frequently confronted by challenges and chooses morally questionable decisions. The farther she stumbles into darkness, the more I want to watch!
There’s blood, there’s death, there’s sacrifices—sometimes all within the same scene. If that’s not for you, then don’t bother watching this show.
Family
Above all else, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is about family and I love me some family dynamics! Sabrina’s relationships with her aunts Zelda and Hilda aren’t quite what they were in the sitcom—or at least not the way I remember. The family is shrouded in secrecy, betrayal, and atonement, everyone with their own debt to pay, people they’re trying to impress.
There’s another family member among them, and no it’s not a black cat. Ambrose is a Spellman ward, confined to the manto carry out a sentence. He acts as Sabrina’s mentor and guiding light in many ways, but also offers some minor comic relief—they don’t want to stray too far from the dark world they’ve created—and romance.
Identity
The thing that probably resonates the most with me was how much of the show is about Sabrina’s identity. She’s stuck between two world’s: the world of witches and the world of mortals. As a new mom, I was right their with her as I was watching this show. The first letter I wrote to my kid, I accidentally signed “Jess” instead of “Mom” for crying out loud! Though our reasonings are different, I found this aspect of the show very relatable and could easily see myself struggling with a lot of the decisions Sabrina faces.
Fantasy, Paranormal, & Magic
To top it off, the show is all about magic and in a way I’ve never quite seen done before! I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t obsessed with magic as a little girl. My cousin and I would look up spells and try to recreate them, but they always called for strange and gross ingredients. But somehow, in every other television show or book nowadays, magic use has been beautified. Magic no longer comes with a devastating cost. That’s NOT the case here. Sacrifices are required.
Season 2 ofThe Chilling Adventures of Sabrina airs on a Friday, April 5th, and you bet I plan to spend the entire day binge watching it! Who’s with me? I’ll make popcorn.
Stay Nerdy!
Jessaca
author: The Awakened series