The carnival has come to Greendale and it’s also bringing some drama and baddies with it! Episode 3 also sees Sabrina embark on a quest against Caliban in order to maintain her position as Queen of Hell.
In the previous episode, Sabrina and Roz joined the cheerleading team, while Sabrina had to begin her duties as Queen of Hell. Her first task? Dragging souls to Hell. After sending the first to Heaven, Sabrina had to face off with Jimmy who kidnapped a young girl, which he would exchange for another seven years. Meanwhile, Prudence and Ambrose found Blackwood and took him, Judas, Judith, and a strange egg back to Greendale where they freed Nick of Lucifer and put Lucifer in Blackwood instead. Theo also met a new student by the name of Robin and a carnival has arrived in Greendale.
A Quest Begins
Roz (Jaz Sinclair) and Harvey (Ross Lynch) are watching a movie and Mr. Kinkle (Christopher Rosamond) calls it a night and asks Harvey privately if he has protection. Meanwhile, Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) and Nick (Gavin Leatherwood) share a bed, but Nick is having nightmares about Lucifer (Luke Cook) and seems to have a deformed foot.
Zelda (Miranda Otto) isn’t happy Sabrina went to Hell on her own and then suggests Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) be a teacher at the Academy, but he wants to learn more, so he’s appointed librarian. Sabrina makes plans to go to the carnival with Roz and Harvey that night, but first, she’s skipping school for the day so she can be with Nick.
Lilith (Michelle Gomez) appears as Sabrina is needed at Court and it is then Nick learns Sabrina is the Queen of Hell. She doesn’t want to leave Nick, but he insists she goes. In Hell, Sabrina outlines her reformation of Hell, which includes learning a total of the souls and a freeze on deals with mortals with herself reviewing contacts. Caliban (Sam Corlett) then arrives to challenge Sabrina as he’s gathered the 666 signatures required of him and he says they must embark on a quest for the Unholy Regalia, which are the three most powerful occult objects and lost to the ages. She accepts his challenge and first up is King Herod’s crown.
Theo (Lachlan Watson) asks Harvey about the carnival and mentions he wants to ask Robin to the carnival, but he’s never asked anyone out before, so Harvey suggests proposing it as a group date and Robin (Jonathan Whitesell) accepts.
Syrup, Spells, and Smut
At the Academy, Zelda wants to appoint Prudence (Tati Gabrielle) as Prefect of students, when Melvin (Tyler Cotton) interrupts them. Hilda (Lucy Davis) is mopping up a mass of blood as Gerald tried to fly, but instead fell and died. It seems there’s something amiss with fevers and illness going around, and Hilda mentions what the Council said about loss of potency with magic.
Zelda is thrilled to see the students studying, but they’re reading Buxom and the Beast, which is a witchy romance novel and she realises Hilda is the one who wrote it. They argue over it as Hilda has ‘portrayed’ the character’s sister in a poor light, while also doing things that don’t relate to being a witch or part of the coven.
Sabrina tells Ambrose about being Queen as she needs his help and Nick steals her away for lunch. They are interrupted by Agatha (Adeline Rudolph) and Dorcas (Abigail Cowen) who torment Nick about his foot and Lucifer, which causes him to leave in anger. Ambrose stops Sabrina from going after him as he thinks he has found the crown in…Riverdale. The pair arrive at Riverdale and retrieve the crown from inside a tree and Sabrina wants to destroy it, but Ambrose wishes to study it in hopes he can restore the coven’s power. After they leave, a maple syrup-covered Herod (Ian Rozylo) escapes from the tree.
Later on, Ambrose realises the crown could save them, but Herod puts Ambrose to sleep and takes his crown in search of Sabrina.
Nick drinks heavily at Dorian’s and Sabrina later finds him at the Academy trying to amputate his foot as he can feel Lucifer inside of him still, but Sabrina believes it’s something like PTSD.
Onwards To The Carnival
At Professor Carcosa’s carnival, Roz sees through Carcosa’s (Will Swenson) appearance and sees a faun-like creature before they all head off into the carnival. Harvey tries and fails hitting the high striker while Roz’s new popular friends watch on and when Billy (Ty Wood) tries, he hits the bell.
Meanwhile, Hilda talks to Dr. Cee (Alessandro Juliani) about what happened with Zelda and soon Dr. Cee gets down on his knee and proposes, which she says yes to. Ms. Wardwell visits a palm reader (Lucie Guest), who speaks of her fiancé Adam. As for Robin and Theo, they are on the Ferris wheel when Robin puts his arm around Theo and goes in for a kiss. However, Theo stops and tries to explain his situation and transition, but Robin doesn’t care and so they kiss.
Harvey heads into a tent and sees a woman (Vanessa Rubio) dancing with a snake as men watch on mesmerised, including his father. Meanwhile, Herod watches Nick and Sabrina on the carousel and Sabrina explains that she became Queen for him, not her father, and she asks about his time there. To avoid answering, they head into the Tunnel of Love. Not long after, Sabrina and Nick come running out with Herod attacking them. Nick removes the crown and Caliban briefly appears to steal the crown. Just as Herod is about to destroy the pair, Ambrose arrives in time to kill Herod.
Nick asks Sabrina about Caliban as they leave as he’s concerned and he decides he wants to go back to the Academy. However, he returns to Dorian’s and he believes Caliban is Sabrina’s new suitor before he takes up Dorian’s offer of entertainment and booze.
In Hell, Caliban dons the crown when Sabrina storms in and hits him twice, knocking the crown off his head. While she declares the round is his, she won’t let him take her throne and the demons begin chanting her name.
The snake charmer, palm reader, and Robin speak of Harvey, Ms. Wardwell, and Theo being virgins and that Roz may be a threat. The carnival group then plant a seed and slit the throat of a man as a blood sacrifice before chanting and calling to the old gods.
Overall Thoughts?
I thought the quest of the Unholy Regalia was quite interesting, especially when they mentioned the first item was King Herod’s crown, and it certainly added the scary and horror element in this episode that many have come to love within the series.
It’s also interesting that are essentially two baddies within the season again with the carnival folk and Caliban, but I’m particularly interested to see what the deal is with the carnival folk after Roz saw a faun-like appearance within Carcosa…
While I am slightly disappointed that Nick and Sabrina have been essentially torn apart, it’s good to see the series not glossing over traumatic events and showing how someone can turn to vices in order to cope. Here’s hoping he gets better as the season goes on.
