‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ Episode 10 Recap: Something Wicked

It’s been a long, dark, winding road to hell, plagued with cannibalism, Actual Satan, statement lips and a kind ghost relative, but here we are, standing together at the end of it all. It’s the finale of the first season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and I hope you’re snug and cozy, because boy, is it a doozy.

Evil Wardwell has taken the snug note, she’s sitting in an armchair by the fire, narrating a story to an unseen party. She says there were bad omens all around Sabrina, if only a person knew where to look. One of these omens is Roz’s Nana Ruth, Greendale’s number one source of psychic information and general creepiness, confirming Roz’s suspicions that Sabrina “could be, could very well be” a witch. However, “The cunning tells me that your friend is not the witch you need to fear. The Thirteen are coming, child. Like the wrath of not God, but something near as powerful only twisted.” Oh, that sounds bad. “And may God have mercy on our souls.” Um…uh-oh.

At Casa Spellman, Sabrina mopes upstairs, while Hilda predicts that Zelda dropping a spoon means there’ll be “a baby soon.” Lady Blackwood’s hardly started her fourth trimester, it’ll be ages yet,” Zelda says as I email L.L. Bean immediately to see if I can get that embroidered onto a sturdy tote bag. Zelda tells Sabrina that she has to go to school and face her broken heart. “Just do, Sabrina,” she says kindly, “as bravely and humbly as you can.”

At school, she of course sees Harvey immediately and flees, only to run facefirst into more trouble in the form of Roz and Susie, who flat out ask her if she’s a witch, as if a bathroom with Evil Wardwell peering out of a crack in the stall door is the right place for that question. She confesses and they hug her and say they’ll be there for her, which Wardwell does is not into. She’ll have to force her hand, she narrates. She has 13 threats buried right under Greendale’s noses. Cue thunder crash and organ music.

At Evil Hogwarts, Nick tells Sabrina that he’s “sorry for how everything went down with the resurrection” and then gives her the old puppy dog eyes when she says she and Harvey broke up. “I’d trade all the witch-orgies in the world for what you and that mortal have,” Nick says, and I’m about to empty my account on these tasteful yet witty totes, aren’t I? Suddenly, the statue of Actual Satan begins weeping blood. “This can’t be good.” Yeah, no shit, Nick.

Wardwell, posing as a high schooler, slits a football player’s throat under the hanging tree, summoning the Greendale 13, the hanged witches whose suffering we learned so much about when Sabrina was getting hazed at Evil Hogwarts. They emerge, all blurry and smeary and spooky, and she tells them to “summon the butcher” and explains that they can walk the earth for an hour for the next two nights. They go to menace silently, leaving Wardwell to thrive in some kind of evil wind tunnel. Her hair whips ominously.

As it turns out, Aunt Ghost has a personal relationship with the witches we now see drifting eerily past our characters: she helped them come to the new world to be free, and buried them on the family farm when they were hanged, but she conveniently disappears before answering Susie, who’s like OK, that’s great, but please tell me how to get rid of the evil witches circling on my yard.

At school, while Sabrina awkwardly tries to talk to Harvey, Hilda projects into the library and summons her to the Church of Night immediately: “Bit of a crisis.” She heads to the church, where Blackwood is in a tizzy after his evil Bible burst into flames. Evil Wardwell is in full diva getup, a leather jacket and huge sunglasses, not suspicious in the very least. The church members watch as Ambrose bursts in: one of the ghosts had grabbed him by the throat and told him to tell his friends that the Red Death is coming and all the firstborns of Greendale, witch and mortal alike, will die. Blackwood declares an official slumber party and orders the witches to shack up at Evil Hogwarts for the night, where they’ll find safety in numbers. When Sabrina asks about the mortals, Blackwood says, “Let them gnash their teeth and wail, or whatever it is they do.” In translation: Eff ’em.

To protect the mortals, the Spellmans summon a tornado, forcing them to flee to the storm shelter at Baxter High. In the hall, Hawthorne sniffs Wardwell’s hair and tells her he’s “engorged with excitement” for Wizard of Oz reasons. Pass.

Notably not present at Baxter are Roz and Harvey. Roz tells Susie that she and her grandma don’t want to go, and Harvey says he doesn’t trust witches to protect him, so Sabrina sends another witch, Nick, to protect him. Take what you can get, you know?

As the Spellmans circle at Baxter to protect the mortals, they’re teleported away one by one in extremely funny but tense physical comedy: Lady Blackwood is in labor, so Zelda has to deal with that, immediately telling Blackwood to get out and summoning Prudence, and Luke luuuuuuhhhhhves Ambrose, so he pulled him to Evil Hogwarts. It’s down to just Hilda and Sabrina, and it’s not going great. It goes even less great when Wardwell rocks in and sabotages the effort telling Sabrina that she has an idea. Sabrina has a little fight with Salem over whether she should go and it’s pretty cute.

Wardwell leads Sabrina to the woods, where it becomes clear that she intends for her to sign the book of the beast and come into her power. When Sabrina hesitates, she says that she could be the greatest witch of her generation. But what if she just wants to be a witch of a generation? As a scary-ass war skeleton on a horse gallops in and the wind whooshes, Wardwell tells her, “All women are taught to fear power. Own your power. Don’t accept it from the dark lord, take it.” Not gonna lie, with a pep talk like this, I’d be in too. Wardwell vanishes and Actual Satan appears behind her to bring it all home, reminding her, “When I call on you girl, you answer.” She signs. Lightning crashes and she’s thrown back as the power comes in, and it’s incredibly intense. The Dark Lord has shown her what to do.

At Evil Hogwarts, Zelda guides Lady Blackwood through the last push to deliver her first baby then catches it with a panicked look on her face, exchanging glances with Prudence and hustling the baby off before saying that Blackwood is bleeding too much. Things are not looking great for Lady Blackwood!

Elsewhere, the ghost witches retreat, but only to make room for the Red Death and the horseman, and it’s creepy as all get out.

At the hanging tree, Sabrina orders the witches to stop and leave. They’d love to know who the hell she thinks she is. Like I said: a witch of a— scratch that, it turns out she’s the witch. She says she’ll burn them with hellfire and proceeds to do so when they say she’s bluffing, and, yep, they all burn to nothing in blue flames, agonized. And once the witches died, all the other scary death stuff did too, Wardwell narrates, nobody knowing just how close they came to dying.

Almost everyone survived. Zelda explains to Blackwood that Lady Blackwood died in childbirth, and that one of the twins consumed the other in the womb. Blackwood is surprisingly psyched about this, saying that his “only begotten son and heir” is “fortified by the brother he consumed.” Blackwood gathers a bunch of dudes around him and holds up the baby. “Hail Judas, hail Satan,” they chant. Ambrose, in the circle, looks troubled.

Nana Ruth is also dead. Roz covers her in a blanket, then watches her ghost walk out the door.

Hilda walks home with Dr. Cerberus, who kisses her. She makes happy jazz hands as she walks into the house. We can assume that she would not be as happy if she saw the weird, possibly demonic flicker in his eyes as he walks away from Chez Spellman. On a high, Hilda encounters an anxious Zelda, who admits she has “done something rather impulsive” and ta-das a bassinet. “Did you make a magic baby?” Nope, she’s done the far more normal thing of stealing Blackwood’s first child, a girl, and pretending like it was a boy and dead because, hey, if you can’t improvise to save a kid’s life, what can you do, right? It’s chill though, because she says she and Hilda can raise it and keep it a secret “for ever and ever.” Hilda announces that it’s about time she move into her own room. Hard to get down in a Ricky and Lucy suite with your sister there.

Sabrina appears in Harvey’s room for one last moody staring session, where he notices that her hair is different now. Blonder. Eviler. It’s a very evil, very good wig, I agree. She says she’s sorry for everything, and that she doesn’t think it’s safe for her to be around him or her friends. After one last big smooch, she disappears on the currents of an evil wind machine.

It’s revealed that Wardwell’s fireside chat is actually with a bound and gagged Principal Hawthorne. “Who the hell are you, lady?” Great q. As it turns out, she’s the mother of demons, Madam Satan. Soon, she says, she’ll have a new title as a thanks for grooming Sabrina to be Satan’s footsoldier. She unzips her face, says, “I’M THE FUTURE QUEEN OF HELL” and, obviously, eats Hawthorne. Can’t say you didn’t see that one coming, you know? She has a chat with her bird, who uses a human voice to share some doubts that, um, maybe Sabrina’s the one who’s going to be the queen of hell? Wardwell wants none of it and snaps the bird’s neck.

There’s just enough time left in season one for one more jarring yet cool shot: Sabrina and her evil hair and the Fenty Triplets, marching into Evil Hogwarts in their spooky dresses. Sabrina shoots a wink at Nick, then we crash into credits.

What really happened to Sabrina’s parents? What’s going to become of the babynapped Baby Blackwood? Will Sabrina’s hair stay that way? We’ll just have to chill until next season. Until then, thanks for joining me on this dark, dark path.

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 Season 1 finale ("The Witching Hour") on Netflix