Chilling Adventures of Sabrina S3 is a mesmerizing melting pot of the macabre

Kiernan Shipka stars in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, back with another macabre season on Netflix.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is back, delivering another bewitching brew of horror, magic, and the occasional high school hijinks. After a slightly uneven second season, season 3 is an expertly paced thrill ride, as Sabrina grapples with romantic entanglements, daddy issues, and an infernal challenge to her hellish birthright. In the process, Sabrina reveals that it is ultimately a show about power: specifically, who gets to have it, and the consequences of not wielding one's power responsibly.

(Spoilers for first two seasons below; only minor spoilers for S3. But there is one major S3 spoiler below the embedded video; we'll give you a heads-up when we get there.)

The series is based on the comic book series of the same name, part of the Archie Horror imprint, and it's much, much darker in tone than the original Sabrina the Teenaged Witch comics. Originally intended as a companion series to the CW's Riverdale-a gleefully Gothic take on the original Archie comic books-Sabrina ended up on Netflix instead. Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (who also worked on Riverdale) has cited classic Satanic horror films like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist among his influences. As I wrote in 2018:

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