‘Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina’ Chapter 16 Recap: A Wedding And A Funeral

Spring has sprung in the real world, which heralds the beginning of wedding season. Nuptials are upcoming on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, too, but Aunt Zelda’s I do’s won’t have anyone reaching for their tasteful floral prints. Question: Is it still bad taste to wear white if it’s a Black Wedding? Asking for a me.

Ahead of Zelda and Father Blackwood’s wedding, there’s plenty of drama and backstabbing — literally. Like a real abundance of stabbing.

The Fenty Triplets are the first to express their disapproval of the union, interrupting Blackwood while he shaves in his chambers to tell him they had a dream about the wedding involving “the altar, a coffin, bloodshed.” Blackwood dramatically drips blood into his basin and tells them to go back to sleep, dissing both Sabrina and Prudence — he doesn’t think either of them have claim to the Blackwood name, by marriage (Sabrina) or blood (Prudence) — in the process.

Sabrina is the next to poo-poo the wedding, participating in some light DIY with Hilda, Zelda and Ambrose (who is losing cat-person points by throwing things at Salem, calling him a “little prick” and accusing him of eating his familiar). Zelda is the ultimate bridezilla, if this bridezilla was also on first-name basis with Goat Satan Himself. She blows off Ambrose’s sulkiness and says that there will be “nothing but smiles this week,” dead boyfriends, dead familiars or disapproving teens be damned.

Three makes a trend, so it’s only fitting that Sabrina’s dad, Edward Spellman, shows up in ghost form at Dorian’s, telling his daughter that Blackwood was responsible for the plane crash that left Sabrina an orphan. Oh, and they were on their way to deliver Edward’s manifesto to the Anti-Pope, who lives in a pineapple under the sea rules in a reverse Vatican. The Anti-Pope is going to preside over the wedding, and Edward warns that Blackwood will likely use this as a political opportunity. Oh, and one more thing, ‘Brina? “Avenge my death. Finish the work that I started before it’s too late.” Ugh, parents and their demands, right? Mow the lawn this, avenge my death that.

The real cherry on top is the ghost of Constance, Blackwell’s dead wife, who shows up to haunt Zelda. As the memes would say,

Nobody:

Ghosts in this episode: I HAVE A QUIBBLE.

When Sabrina calls a family meeting to raise her concerns, Zelda (rightly) calls out the fact that Sabrina was having a mid-day absinthe binge when she supposedly saw her father. Besides, there’s no way for her to retrieve the manifesto, she says — the only copy went down with the plane over the Devil’s Triangle.

Which is why you date a shirtless Nick Scratch, apparently. Sabrina watches as Nick bursts out of a bathtub that apparently…teleported…him…to the bottom of the ocean? I guess? Whatever, he has the manifesto. It’s fine.

Sabrina and Hilda perform the typical bridesmaid duties, vanquishing Constance’s ghost, and then Hilda poisons Sister Jackson, the little pot-stirrer who was giving Zelda trouble at the Academy. You can’t even be mad, because she does it in a cute way, by adding cyanide to some delicious cookies. Zelda thanks Hilda, who has gotten a special reversal of her excommunication before the wedding, and asks her to hang out with her the night before her wedding while she waits for the Dark Lord to come and bone her. As is tradition. Ahem. Hilda’s delighted.

That’s not the only expected stabbing (heyo) for the week. Ambrose is assigned to guard the delightfully creepy Anti-Pope (he called Nick a “firm and potent youth!”) during his visit. Blackwood is indeed planning on presenting His Unholiness his own manifesto, he reveals to the Judas Boys, and wow, it’s super misogynistic. Just full sexist nonsense. Think “witches belong in the kitchen” and you’ll be headed in the right direction. Via Ambrose, Sabrina manages to interrupt the summit and drop off her dad’s papers, which are the exact opposite. The Anti-Pope says he’ll consider both and, wow, Blackwood is pissed. He monologues to Baby Judas that there will be blood.

Night falls, and everyone’s up to their usual: Actual Goat Satan dramatically throws open the double doors to Zelda’s room, Nick and Sabrina are making out, Ambrose is hanging with the Judas Boys and has to excuse himself for his rumbly tumbly, and Prudence, furious that Father Blackwood refuses to give her the Blackwood name, stands over him with a knife. He waked up to someone screaming and is therefore not murdered: It’s Dorcas, who has discovered the stabbed-out body of the Anti-Pope and a very bloody and very confused Ambrose, who disapparates and interrupts Nick and Sabrina’s makeout sesh to hide. He lands at Dorian’s, where he regurgitates a dead mouse, his familiar, and theorizes that Blackwood somehow planted it to control him and frame him for the Anti-Pope’s death.

The next day, Ambrose is still hiding, and a grumpy Blackwood is very “the show must go on” about it. He’s been inspired by Prudence’s ambition and has decided to not only make her a Blackwood, but also have her participate in the wedding ceremony, which is 1. Still happening, 2. Also a funeral for the Anti-Pope and 3. Will be officiated by Father Blackwood. Oh, and 4. HILARIOUS.

Sabrina also has a plan, and that plan is “Hamlet.” She’s going to pull a little glamour-and-avenge action and have her “parents’ ghosts” interrupt the wedding and force a confession. Here’s the thing: Hamlet fully dies, and the play-within-a-play plan doesn’t super work out great. The English curriculum at the Academy is really lacking, it would seem. Blackwood sees through the ruse immediately and reveals Sabrina and Nick immediately. Ambrose tries to jump in and kill Blackwood, but nobody wins: Sabrina and Nick are expelled, and Ambrose is thrown in the Witch’s Cell to go nuts.

We end on two dark, dark ideas of what marriage is: Evil Wardwell appears to have fallen in love with Adam and presents him with a ring that will secretly protect him from Actual Goat Satan, still not revealing that she’s actually, you know, a demon. Zelda and Blackwood have gotten married quietly in Blackwood’s office after the ruined ceremony, and are off to Rome to honeymoon and transport the Anti-Pope’s body, leaving Prudence in charge of the Academy while they’re gone. Blackwood casts a stern glance at Zelda as they depart and reminds her that “a wife walks behind her husband.” OOF.

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.

Stream CAOS: Chapter 16 ("Blackwood") on Netflix