Does Wardwell just periodically prank all of Greendale for
fun? Satan seems to have a very hands-off management style with her, so
possibly he’s not really monitoring the hijinks that she gets up to. She almost
murdered an entire high school in the prior episode, so presumably she has
pretty free rein to keep herself entertained.
It’s a little hard to tell exactly what she’s getting out of
this particular bout of spying, but it does give the show the chance to explore
the not-so-secret desires of its core characters. Sabrina, Ambrose, and Zelda
want to know if their relationships will work out, Roz and Theo are considering
health shortcuts, and Harvey needs to decide whether to visit Rhode Island,
where, as we all know, a portal to actual Hell exists. Never has anyone spoken
the words “Rhode Island” with the same reverence as people on this show do.
The big reveal that Wardwell is behind all the tarot readings
makes it much harder to determine how seriously to take her insights. Are these
visions accurate, and Wardwell is using them to spy, or is she bringing the
visions on? Can Sabrina truly trust Nick, or is that just what Wardwell wants
her to do? The vision she has of his magic show is not too reassuring—he cuts a
woman in half, banishes another to the Other Realm, and sends the third into
the vacuum of space. Despite Wardwell/McGarvey’s attempts to get her to trust
him, Sabrina clearly has a lot of concerns about her new boyfriend. In her
vision, his whole magic show is designed around harming women, all put on for
an audience of women. She seems to fear what he thinks about women, and what women think of him. And given the Church of Satan’s attitudes
around gender relations, it makes sense that she’d have some concerns about
dating someone raised very much by its rules.
The show wrote off Father Blackwood’s other baby so quickly,
it was easy to think that might be the last we’d hear of her. But no, that baby
is very much still important, a specter haunting Zelda as she pursues her
relationship with him. And now Wardwell knows about the baby, which might be
the biggest piece of blackmail she earns from all of this, and the biggest
advantage she’s had yet over Sabrina herself.
Roz and Theo’s visions are thematically somewhat similar,
despite the difference in what they’re trying to achieve. If they cut corners
to achieve the physical changes they’re both seeking, are they going to like
the people they become? Both of these stories resolve in somewhat unexpected ways, given
what we know about Wardwell. She gives Theo surprisingly sound advice about not
stealing or meddling with magic he doesn’t understand, even if he’s feeling
desperate. There’s really no upside for her in helping him with this issue.
She’s just being a good responsible adult. And if anything, she’s helping Roz
steer her father onto a more noble path. Is Wardwell secretly a very good
guidance counselor?
That said…there’s a lot that’s concerning about the way
Theo’s vision unfolds. The person giving him advice about how to handle his
situation is Dorothea, his ancestor, who thus far is the entity who seems to most understand the truest version of him, which makes it all the
more upsetting that she tells him to lie and steal. It’s an unsavory connection
between a queer elder and a sinister influence. The focus on the physical
aspects of his transition also feels really unnecessary, and the moralistic
underpinning to his decision-making here is mostly absent in the other visions.
Everyone suffers in their visions, but Zelda facing consequences for stealing
Blackwood’s baby is not exactly the same situation as a trans person trying to
feel happy in his own body. The uncomfortable suggestion about his
willingness to undergo an amputation to have the body he wants reads as a very
literal-minded take on what transition means.
Covering this as a cisgender recapper means that the
handling of this plotline is going to hit me in a very different way than it
would someone who is actually going through transition, and I want to be
respectful of the show’s efforts to be creative in the way they portray what’s
going on with Theo. But CAOS has in the past occasionally shown an
insensitivity around its storytelling (like the child-murdering demon celebrating
the “Festival of Lights” in the Christmas special), and I’m not sure I can give
them the benefit of the doubt here. I’ll also admit to being extra cautious
because I’m keenly aware of GLAAD’s guidelines for journalists, which indicate that the media should avoid “overemphasizing the role of surgeries in the
transition process,” which is the opposite of what happened here, even if it
was symbolic. It’s possible I’m overreacting here, and I’m very interested to read other
takes on this. But to me this was a very clumsy handling of a very sensitive
subject.
The most surprising vision might come courtesy of Ambrose,
whose life has changed almost as drastically as Sabrina’s has in recent months.
After decades of imprisonment, he finally has access to all the things he once
did. What’s he going to do with them? His vision suggests that, much like
Zelda, he may have a lot more interest in power and its trappings than his
former bathrobe-wearing ways may have suggested. The Spellmans have been out of
power for a long time, and the prospect of some of that glitz and glamour being
restored seems to be affecting all of them, except for Hilda, who just wants to
hang out with her new incubus boyfriend.
Regardless, the person Wardwell seems most intrigued by is
Harvey, who has a vision that the actual apocalypse might be coming, and that
he may have some role if it does. And if that should come to pass, Wardwell
doesn’t seem particularly concerned about protecting Satan’s interests in it.
Stray observations
- Only on Sabrina would someone casually say a line that
included the phrase “you ate the baby?” - Does every genre show just use the name Arkham freely?
- The scene with Harvey’s roommate was generally pretty
upsetting (did we really need the prolonged shot of him hanging up there?) but
there was something a little comical about all of the demons just showing up to
get their portraits painted. Everyone has vanity. - Come on, no Hilda vision?