‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ Episode 7 Recap: You’re On the Menu

A.) You reading recaps is appreciated and keeps me warm at night and in my heart. But…
B.) I urge you to also watch this episode too, because it’s an instant classic that deserves to be commemorated in, I don’t know, bronze? What’s our most precious sculpture material these days, circuit boards? Whatever is, get a lot of that and craft a tribute to “Feast of Feasts,” because dang.
iii.) I’m officially adopting Fenty Triplets HBIC Prudence as my spiritual guru moving forward. Any questions? Also, I think TV shows are eligible for Oscars now, so let’s get on that.

It’s Thanksgiving in Greendale, the leaves are turning and Aunt Zelda is expressing her enthusiasm for any and all contact sports, while the men of the Kinkle family will be shooting the biggest, gunniest guns they can get their hands on. Sabrina is about to invite Harvey in to say hello to her weird family when she notices the entrails nailed to her front door. Maybe another time, then!

Inside, her gleeful aunts inform Sabrina that this means their family has been selected to participate in the Feast of Feasts, you know, the cannibal Thanksgiving/Hunger Games mash-up witches celebrate. What, like you’ve never heard of it? A woman from each of 14 families enters a lottery for the chance to be queen of the feast, which means she’s slaughtered and eaten by the coven in remembrance of a long-ago witch, Freya, who served herself for dinner to save her brethren. Zelda will submit for the lottery, and Sabrina is horrified.

Meanwhile, Evil Wardwell apparently teaches history? Maybe? She has her class look into their family histories as an assignment. The scoobies discover that they are all spooktacular in their own ways: Roz has “the cunning,” a second sight that will help her know things about people even as she physically goes blind, Harvey is descended of witch hunters who massacred Greendale’s original coven, and Susie is…somehow chatting with a badass lady pirate ghost? It’s a lot to take in, honestly.

Back at Evil Hogwarts, Fenty Triplet HBIC Prudence has also been chosen as a tribute. Her sisters, who are also orphans, are seething with jealousy and wonder. It’s the highest honor, you see, to be devoured by your coven like so much barbecue. At the ceremony that night to choose the queen, Sabrina blows in and plays chicken with Zelda: If she’s really so fine with the tradition, she’ll let Sabrina be on offer for human sacrifice. Zelda begrudgingly swaps so that she won’t look like an asshole in front of Father Blackwood, and then the real fun begins: each tribute draws a strip of paper from a box held by Lady Blackwood, then sets it on fire. Sabrina’s burns red, while Prudence’s burns yellow. Prudence (wearing an absolutely insane sheer white outfit, by the way) is selected as the entree, while Sabrina is her handmaiden and must indulge Prudence’s every whim in the days before she becomes dinner.

These whims include a buttermilk bath topped with rose petals, macaroons, a big ol’ witch orgy with the Fenty Triplets and Ambrose and Nick (soundtracked by Fiona Apple’s “Criminal,” sex-having music if I’ve ever heard any) and a whole lot of innuendo read off in her English-Southern hybrid accent because you gotta live before you can die. Sabrina begrudgingly scrubs Prudence’s back but declines to join the orgy.

The next morning, it’s take-your-evil-sacrifical-witch-to-school day, and Sabrina lures Pru to Baxter with promises of “boys, lots of mortal boys to torment and seduce, or both.” “Oh, you had me at boys to torment,” Prudence replies. It’s a trick! Sabrina is trying to Rosebud her! Spoiler: it doesn’t work in the slightest. Prudence approves of Susie and her witch-helping ghost aunt, then immediately tells Harvey that “blood atonement is demanded” for his witch-hunting ancestors. Pretty chill first impressions all around, I’d say.

Evil Wardwell is lurking, as usual, and Sabrina introduces Prudence and recruits Wardwell’s help in convincing her that being eaten by your friends and family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Wardwell brings her and the Fenty Triplets (in outdoorsy military lewks complete with berets) to the woods to meet a witch who rejected the crown after her high priest decided he needed to “initiate her” the night before the feast and she ran. Sabrina tries to convince Prudence that this is Blackwood’s will, not Satan’s. She doesn’t believe her — after all, Blackwood has raised her like a daughter.

Not so fast: Lady Blackwood arrives at Chez Spellman panicking about spotting and soon confesses to casting an intense spell to stop someone “planning what belongs to my children.” She says she had to “hurt them first,” and Zelda realizes that the Fenty triplets are maybe Blackwood’s illegitimate children and we’ve fallen into a succession drama. Sabrina catches wind of this and tries to convince Prudence, who is too busy getting fitted for an incredible gold brocade gown to worry about being the subject of a cannibalistic conspiracy. Prudence decides to go along with it because, hey, one cannibalized life to live. She’ll lay the trap at a dinner party. (No roast child on the menu this time.)

The meal ends with a nice truth serum-laced cake a la Hilda, which gets Lady Blackwood talking almost immediately. When Sabrina says that they’ll miss Prudence, Lady Blackwood spits out, “I won’t!” and then ‘fesses up to rigging the selection so that Prudence would be queen and no children would be standing in the way of her twins to collect the spoils of the family. And, yes, Prudence is certainly Blackwood’s daughter. “Are we your daughters too?” the remaining Fenty Triplets ask hopefully. Prepare the new “best line-reading on a streaming show based on a comic book,” because Richard Coyle is about to get it for his delivery of “What? No, you’re just orphans.” A bargain is struck: Blackwood will cancel the Feast and all future Feasts if they’ll keep their mouths shut. Oh, and Prudence gets to “wear the dress and sit on the skull of thrones.” Big milestones in every young woman’s life.

At the Feast, Blackwood attempts to stop proceedings but is foiled by a bystander who doesn’t even go here and jumps in front of the coven, slitting her own throat and thus crowning herself queen of the feast.This is not Korean barbecue-style: everyone’s grabbing raw parts and gobbling them down. After an initial hesitation, Blackwood joins the melee. They say that if you can’t eat ’em, you should join ’em, and this is the rare case in which he gets to do both. Prudence lives and gets to sit on the skull of thrones — not bad.

Elsewhere in Greendale, the scoobies struggle with their identities: Harvey was unable to shoot a deer (actually a familiar that died with a goblin twisting out of its body) in the woods at his family’s urging, Roz doesn’t understand the “second sight” of the cunning, thrust upon her family when they accused women of being witched generations ago, and Roz’s blind, vibe-reading Nana Ruth calls Susie “handsome fella.”

The next day the Kinkle brothers clock into the mine, excited about time-and-a-half pay. The Fenty Triplets, minus Prudence, have other plans along the lines of time-and-a-half slay. The lift rocks high over voodoo dolls wearing eensy weensy little mining helmets and savagely bring them down, smashing to black and our credits. What will become of poor, tall Harvey? And will Prudence find another occasion to wear that sick gold dress? We’ll have to stay tuned.

Kase Wickman is a writer, editor, Ravenclaw and certified fraidy-cat who lives in Brooklyn. If she had powers, she’d never have to wash off mascara again. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram, if you dare.

Watch Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Episode 7 ("Feast of Feasts") on Netflix