Sabrina Spellman. Naïve Everygirl who is desperate to be normal? Or an incompetent witch who is foolish for thinking that she can ever blend in with humans? A little mix of both? The first interpretation was always the intention of her character in older comics, but given the fact that this series turned up the ante on how different / evil the witches are from humans (including doing things like driving Sabrina's mother insane and worshipping Satan), the latter interpretation seriously has more ground to stand on.
Hilda and Zelda. While they certainly care about Sabrina, one has to wonder whether or not they truly love her or just think of her as a possession they want to keep away from "unworthy species" like humans. They can't raise Sabrina all her life without some sort of affection, but they keep Sabrina separate from her mother and usually choose the code of the witches over their own niece's happiness. Issue #4 ramps this up where, after Harvey's death, their only advice for Sabrina boils down to "get over it".
Harvey's love for Sabrina. Sabrina and Ambrose cast a spell to make Harvey fall in love with her but it's unclear if it really worked or if Harvey noticed Sabrina on his own.
Awesome Art: Following up from its parent series, Robert Hack has managed to draw very creepy and atmospheric artworks for the series. Special mention should go to various amazing covers. One gets the feeling that the ad department has a very hard time picking which art goes in the final comic.
Madame Satan rapidly gained a fanbase of her own for being such a cool villain.
Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge after it became clear that they weren't One Scene Wonders but were going to be recurring characters.
Harsher in Hindsight: EVERYTHING about the original comic and live-action series seems to be heading this way in the comic. Sabrina has to decide whether or not she loved Harvey? In the comic and the series, the worst she got was heartbreak and having to become a human. In this comic, she can potentially be turned into a tree like her father was.
Homestuck's Rose Lalonde resembles a darker version of Sabrina. And this comic is a darker, horror-themed version of Sabrina that looks like Rose.
Ryan North evidently worked on some Archie Comics publications in 2016 (including an issue of Jughead featuring Sabrina), and he has worked with Andrew Hussie in the past, making this doubly amusing.
Zelda claims that Dogs aren’t smart enough to be Familiars and in the Netflix series, Zelda’s Familiar is a Dog, that she is very fond of.
Jerkass Woobie: Salem, mostly thanks to an Adaptational Backstory Change. While impregnating a woman and not taking responsibility is scummy, it's nowhere near trying to take over the world; he's horrified at Abigail killing the baby anyway, more focus is on the Made a Slave aspect of it all, and Samuel his old name gets renamed Salem as a reminder of how many witches and warlocks died. He also genuinely cares about Sabrina despite having to protect her to be human again, and admits he would have killed himself nine times over if he didn't have hope of that.
Paranoia Fuel: Witches can drive mortals insane to protect their secret. Cue all the Fridge Horror about how many times they did this before.
The Scrappy: Zelda and Hilda's Adaptational Villainy has caused them to lose a lot of fans from the live-action series for doing things such as stealing Sabrina from her mother, before driving the woman insane.
Tear Jerker: Sabrina's guilt and grief over Harvey's death. She imagines what life could be like if she chose her mortal half, feels terrible over his mother's Sanity Slippage, and one page shows her crying in her bed, with only her cat curled up beside her.
The main criticism launched at the first issue of the series is that the backstory feels too rushed and made everyone involved very unsympathetic. Some even noted that Diana's mysterious absence could have been further elaborated in a future storyline rather than the almost perfunctory rushing through her story. Similar criticism was also launched at Madame Satan's introduction in the second issue.
One of the major plot points in the old comic is Sabrina deciding whether or not she wants to stay as a witch or become a human. However, with how evil / different the witches' society is compared to human, this plot thread is particularly wasted and Sabrina decided that this life is a mistake as early as the 4th issue.
Tough Act to Follow: While still well-received, the series has to follow the golden standard for Archie horror comics set by Afterlife with Archie, a series that is widely beloved and considered to be superior in every aspect. Part of the problem is that the cast of Afterlife is vastly more sympathetic than the Spellmans and is much more well-paced and plotted than this series.
The Woobie: Sabrina and her mother for how horrible their lives are. Sabrina's father is more of a Jerkass Woobie.
Series
Adaptation Displacement: Many people compare it to the 1990s series and think it's a Darker and Edgier adaptation of it, not knowing it adapts a comic book called Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and that the franchise as a whole dates back decades.
Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Father Blackwood's anger over Lady Blackwood rigging the selection of the Queen of the Feast a case of a) Even Evil Has Standards about profaning a holy rite, b) anger that she interfered with his plans and this will make him look bad if it ever gets out, c) really loving his daughter deep down and being angry her potential death is not the will of the Dark Lord but an assassination attempt, or d) some combination of all of the above?
Anvilicious: The show may have some good messages but it becomes so preachy and uses so many strawmen characters that even their valid points are crushed by how unsubtle and aggressive the characters are about it.
Ass Pull: The reveal that Mambo Marie is actually the male Baron Samedi comes out of nowhere, and seems to only exist to break her and Zelda up before the finale.
The show makes excellent and timely use of music. Examples include the opening theme, the "Bad Moon Rising" right before Madame Satan's first appearance, "Black Magic Woman" when she's enchanting a mirror, various arrangements of "Dream a Little Dream of Me" during the fifth episode's Nightmare Sequences, and "A Little Wicked" during the season finale.
Badass Decay: By season 4, Lucifer is far from the near-omnipotent Big Bad he was in seasons 1 and 2.
Base-Breaking Character: Sabrina herself became an incredibly polarizing character once Part 2 rolled around. Half the base finds her a wonderfully flawed and interesting character whose impulsiveness and selfishness is balanced out by her desire to do good, and she still faces realistic consequences. The other half finds her overly preachy, annoying and hypocritical - and that her naivety and thinking she can have everything both ways just makes her insufferable. And due to the show's insistence on treating Sabrina as being in the right even when she isn't, it leaves very little room for Character Development and she's prone to making the same mistakes over and over. And this isn't helped by comparison to her persona on the 90s sitcom, where she was a good friend at heart whose impulsiveness was more understandable due to being new to witchcraft, and she faced plenty of consequences for her actions.
Catharsis Factor: "Witch Academy" shows the Weird Sisters being cruel Alpha Bitches to Sabrina and forcing her to do particularly nasty hazing rituals. The climax of the episode sees them getting their comeuppance - where the ghosts of children who died harrowing simulate all three girls being hanged (as they intended to do to Sabrina). Special focus is given to how much pain Prudence is in, and Sabrina then warns her that if she ever makes fun of her parents again "I will choke you to death on your own blood". For added catharsis, Prudence is then mocked by Father Blackwood for how easily she was beaten.
In "Heavy Is The Crown", Sabrina slaps Caliban after he's challenged her throne, declared his intention to invade Earth, and cheated at the first challenge by stealing the crown from Sabrina and leaving her to fight Herod and probably die.
Faustus Blackwood, High Priest of the Church of Night, succeeding the more progressive Edward Spellman, takes the church back to its barbaric roots while aiming to raise himself in the eyes of Lucifer. Upon the realization that Lucifer intends to elevate Sabrina Spellman and not himself, Blackwood attempts to murder the entire coven, with no hesitation about killing his own illegitimate daughter Prudence, nor in sacrificing his twin children for more power. Allying with Pagan deities to end the world, Blackwood makes himself the herald of the ancient Eldritch Terrors, killing many people and using their power to create an Alternate Universe where he rules Greendale and any opposition is tortured and executed. Attempting to gain the power of the Void within Sabrina, Blackwood cares nothing if almost all reality burns as long as he gets to rule the remainder.
"A Midwinter's Tale": Mr. Bartel is one of the single most terrifying demons in the series. Bartel poses as a friendly Santa so he can lure in "beautiful" children, like Susie (later Theo) Putnam. Once Bartel has them, he has them dipped in hot wax and uses dark magic to preserve them forever in "beauty" while they are still alive and conscious, with one statue still able to shed tears. Bartel has a massive collection of such statues, bragging how he makes them himself while intending on having Susie/Theo join them.
"Drag Me to Hell": Friendly ice cream man Jimmy Platt is a depraved Satanist who bargained away his soul and is instructed to buy it back with that of an innocent. Deciding there's nothing more innocent than a little girl, Jimmy proceeds to abduct and murder the children, eating their hearts every seven years. Upon learning Sabrina is in charge of hell, Jimmy intends to blackmail her for more life, or he will simply allow the girl to die before trying to murder another little boy anyways to extend his existence.
Crosses the Line Twice: The opening of Zelda's worst nightmare, where she is appalled that Satan would choose her sister's vegetable pie over the fat child she cooked. Things step back over the line a third time when Zelda kills her sister yet again in an inversion of the story of Cain and Abel, only for her real worst fear to be revealed. Satan lets Zelda know that Hilda won't be coming back this time, and Zelda breaks down so badly that she's the only character Sabrina is almost completely unable to communicate with in her dream.
Lilith is an antagonist initially but is presented as a Wild Card compared to Father Blackwood and Lucifer. Except she actually murders Ms. Wardwell in cold blood within the first few minutes of the series, seduces an underage boy and then killed him, ate an innocent pizza boy, had an innocent man possessed by a demon and then murdered him herself. And that's in addition to her repeated Gaslighting of Sabrina. The only reason she's not treated as worse than the others is because the writers said so. Even as late as Part 4, her murder of her own baby before feeding it to Lucifer is quickly swept under the rug.
Aunt Zelda is an abusive sibling, aunt and cousin - who repeatedly demeans and degrades Hilda and Ambrose, and it's later revealed she offered up Sabrina's soul to the devil behind her back (and lying to Sabrina that she had a choice in the matter). She also regularly murders her own sister, with the knowledge that one day the revival won't work. Her Heel–Face Turn is never accompanied by a change in attitude either; she just decides to start working against Father Blackwood and expecting the others to help her.
Don't Shoot the Message: The 'Theo wants to join the basketball team but the principal won't let him' subplot does touch on the discrimination faced by trans athletes whenever they want to play on the team for their true gender. But not only does it ignore the nuance and fail to examine the reasons behind this debate, the opposition is presented as a strawman and the Aesop is arguably broken by having Sabrina use her powers to get Theo onto the team.
Draco in Leather Pants: Lilith is The Heavy of the first season, working for Satan to corrupt the hero Sabrina, and is willing to kill multiple innocent people to do so. However, due to her charisma and Michelle Gomez's good looks, a lot of fangirls are willing to excuse her evil deeds and portray her as a straight-up hero. While she does eventually break away from Satan, Lilith never actually becomes a good person and continues to be a Wild Card who won't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in her way. However, multiple fanfics great her as if she is an honorary member of the Spellman family.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Dorian Gray for his Wild Card tendencies, funny comments and being generally seen as a pleasant surprise to be added to the cast. Many fans even wish he gets even more screentime in the future as Ambrose's next Love Interest.
Esoteric Happy Ending: Season 4 ends with Sabrina Morningstar inexplicably dying and later Sabrina Spellman sacrificing her own life in order to stop the Eldritch Terrors for good. Typical Bittersweet Ending for this kind of a show, right? Well, then it turns out that Nick drowns himself to be with her for eternity, and the show treats romanticizing suicide in the teen romance genre like it's a happy ending and also deeply romantic. Um, yay?
Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite how little they have actually interacted, a large part of the fandom pairs Zelda Spellman and Lilith/Madam Satan together over their canon interests of Father Blackwood and the Dark Lord respectively, mainly due to feeling like they would treat each other better and their chemistry when they did interact. This is also true with their other love interests, Adam for Lilith and Mambo Marie for Zelda, who these shippers did not take well to. On Archive of Our Own, they have the most fanfiction of any pairing, even topping any with the actual lead, Sabrina, by a good margin.
Ms. Wardwell's look for the majority of the series is an Evil Makeover of Lilith pretending to be her; the real Ms Wardwell is dowdier, with hair in a bun, glasses, and no makeup. Naturally, Lilith's Ms. Fanservice look went over much better with fans.
Zelda has a few episodes where she's brainwashed into essentially being Father Blackwood's Stepford Wife. This is accompanied by a very pretty gown that flatters her cleavage and a cute hairstyle that frames her face. Understandably she looks quite good, even though the costume is degrading for her.
It's as subtle as anything on this show can be, but Blackwood's rivalry with his former mentee Edward Spellman definitely seems to have had something of an undertone; Dorian outright states that Blackwood has been overly close to a number of "his boys" and that those relationships tend to end... badly, and he proposes to Edward's sister in a speech that gives the extreme impression that his rivalry with her brother is still more important to him than the apparently mind-blowing sex he and Zelda have been having. (In fairness, the way she talks about Edward in the same scene gives the impression that he was essentially her first husband.)
A lot of fans started to ship Zelda Spellman and Lilith/Madam Satan relatively quickly in Part 1, despite the fact that Lilith is The Heavy trying to corrupt Zelda's niece Sabrina and the fact that in Part 1, Lilith is the cause of a lot of the dangers the Spellmans face. This mainly comes from the chemistry that their actresses have in the scenes where they interact and the feeling that the two have similar personalities. While the two do ally with each other to defeat Satan, they never actually become anything close to friends, with Zelda at one point refusing to give Lilith safe haven from Satan. Still, their shippers continued even to the end of the show.
Harsher in Hindsight: In episode four, while being subjected to a cruel hazing ritual that has killed previous witches by the Weird Sisters, Sabrina says that the Greendale 13 would have been shocked and ashamed by the bullying going on in the academy which is supposed to be a safe haven for witches. In episode ten, it is revealed that the Church of the Night might have been able to save the Greendale Thirteen but instead chose to let them be tortured and killed by witch hunters to keep the coven safe and secret. In short, the Greendale Thirteen might not have been that shocked by how cruel witches could be to their own kind.
Richard Coyle plays the villainous Father Blackwood who’s the headmaster of a school for young witches and wizards. After the show ended, he was cast in the Fantastic Beasts series to play another wizard, Aberforth Dumbledore. Aberforth, while grumpy and jaded, is about the opposite of a villainous character. He is also the brother of the (eventual) headmaster of fiction's most famous school for young witches and wizards.
Ho Yay: After being sealed inside Nick, Satan and Nick are seen wrestling for control during their Battle in the Center of the Mind. They are always seen shirtless. Later, after being sealed inside Father Blackwood, Satan taunts him, asking if Blackwood wants to wrestle. Played for Drama later when Dorcas and Agatha cruelly joke about Nick being raped by the Dark Lord, and his reaction implies there may be a degree of truth to their comments.
Incest Yay Shipping: Tends to be kept close to the chest as with most 'problematic' ships these days, but there are enough shippers of Lucifer/Sabrina that it has its own ship name, Morningspell. Ambrose/Sabrina also has a small community of shippers.
Informed Wrongness: Sabrina killing Agatha as an Equivalent Exchange to resurrect Tommy is presented as her going too far. Except Agatha is a murderer, and she used magic to kill a mortal, making that a fitting comeuppance for her behavior. She ends up a complete Karma Houdini because of this trope.
Jerkass Woobie: Prudence is introduced as a cruel Alpha Bitch who bullies Sabrina for being half-mortal and only relents when forced to. However, after having spent her entire life believing herself to be an orphan, she learns over the course of Part 1 that Blackwood is actually her biological father who just never cared enough to acknowledge her as his child, and that her mother committed suicide after she was born because Blackwood refused to marry her. Her desperation for Blackwood's love and approval remains her major motivation throughout Part 2, and despite her increasingly villainous actions it's fairly clear that she is emotionally lost and in need of support. She has also lost her sisters (one dead, one insane and working for Father Blackwood), and Ambrose (she no longer feels she can rely on him). And on top of all that, her younger siblings also spend fifteen years (through the power of time magic) in the custody of Blackwood and are brainwashed to be obedient to him. Things just keep getting worse for her.
Sabrina Spellman is shipped most often with her main two love interests Nichola and Harvey, as well as her teacher Mary Wardwell, her rival Prudence, her father Lucifer, her friend Roz, Lilith, her cousin Ambrose, and Caliban, as well as a crossover ship with Archie Andrews from Riverdale.
Zelda Spellman has arguably the most popular ship in the fandom with Lilith, but she is also popularly shipped with Faustus Blackwood, Marie LaFleur, her sister Hilda, Mary Wardwell, and Lucifer, as well as a crossover ship with Missy from Doctor Who.
Despite having a grudging respect for each other at best, Sabrina and Prudence do get their moments, particularly the scene where Sabrina helps Prudence bathe.
Some fans get this vibe from Madam Satan and Sabrina, which could also fall under Mind Game Ship and/or No Yay.
Magnificent Bastard: Lilith, aka Madam Satan, was the first witch who has faithfully served Lucifer Morningstar for ages. Killing Sabrina Spellman's teacher and taking her identity, Lilith flawlessly manipulates Sabrina to darkness, subverting her good intentions and eventually getting Sabrina to sign her name in Lucifer's book. Turning on Lucifer to assist the heroes when he kills her human lover, Lilith manages to see him confined while she takes over rulership of Hell. Even when Lucifer manages to escape, Lilith negotiates her own survival and stays close to bide her time, eventually able to permanently steal Lucifer's powers and banish him to Earth as a mortal.
Agatha and Dorcas cross it when they cast a spell that collapses the mine shaft, causing the deaths of five innocent men. Neither one suffers a lasting punishment for the murders and the whole incident is ancient history by the final episode.
If Father Blackwood doesn't cross it when he mind controls Ambrose and two other underlings into assassinating the Anti-Pope, he certainly does when he poisons nearly the entire coven out of spite for Satan placing Sabrina above him.
The witches' vocabulary plays Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad ridiculously straight at times, to the point where it's hard to take their dialogue seriously in dramatic instances. For example, the "Dark Trial" scenes can veer into these, given mentions where the lawyers refer to the judge as "Your Dishonour", or where the judge says "Disorder in the court" can make some of the surprise twists come off as silly.
The use of Stock Sound Effects can be distracting given that they are played in serious scenes.
The tension of the Season 2 finale hypes up Hell as an impossible place to break into. And yet Sabrina manages to open the gates by herself in five minutes.
When Lucifer who is posing as a Catholic priest asks Mary Wardwell if she can’t recognize the devil in her own home. He actually seems rather frustrated, and it seems like he’s trying to tell her that he’s right in front of her.
Older Than They Think: A blonde teenager signing her name in the book of the devil to receive powers of a witch? The Season 1 finale brings to mind the climax of a certain 2015 horror film The VVitch.
Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: In 2x08, the Mandrake tries to get Ambrose to show it affection by oddly flirting with him and asking if it can sit on his lap, which visibly throws him off. Ambrose later mentions to Sabrina that the Mandrake's thoughts, feelings, and desires are all the same as her own, which implies (likely by accident) that Sabrina might have some sort of crush on him. This does not dovetail well with the fact that they are family and basically treat each other like siblings.
Pop-Culture Isolation: Harvey at one point compares a situation to The Dark Phoenix Saga, and while it does happen to be a very spot on analogy, not being a comic-book reader, Sabrina doesn't have the faintest idea what he is talking about and he has to go into detail about the characters and plot of the comic to get his point across.
Portmanteau Couple Name: The show has an odd example that mixes this with Idiosyncratic Ship Naming. The very popular Zelda/Lilith ship is often referred to as "Madam Spellman". A mix of Zelda's last name Spellman and Lilith's self-proclaimed title of Madam Satan. There is also the less popular alternative of "Zelith". Other popular Portmanteau Couple Names include "Nabrina" (Sabrina/Nick), "Habrina" (Sabrina/Harvey), "Spellwood" (Zelda/Faustus Blackwood), "Zarie" (Zelda/Marie LaFleur), and "Morningspell" (Sabrina/Lucifer Morningstar).
Salvaged Story: For those that find Sabrina Unintentionally Unsympathetic, the second half of Season 1 has many characters calling her out on her behavior. Ros and Harvey essentially blame her for everything that went wrong in their lives, and she's even expelled from the Academy for a couple of episodes. Upon discovering Lilith's true identity, she has a Heel Realization where she realizes most of her 'heroics' were manipulations by a villain, and she's Brought Down to Normal as a result of her rash decisions.
Luke, Ambrose's Season 1 boyfriend. He is an incredibly shallow character and whatever characterization he gets aside from bisexual and interested in Ambrose is being a Jerkass. A lot of fans feel like he come off as a patronizing example of a bisexual character written in for poor representation. And then there's the unceremonious way he is killed mid-Season 2, playing the controversial Bury Your Gays trope.
Agatha and Dorcas for never getting comeuppance for the murder of Tommy in Season 1. While Agatha does get killed and resurrected, she ultimately ends up a complete Karma Houdini while Harvey has to kill Tommy and Sabrina ends up alienated from all her friends. There's also their status as Flat Characters in contrast to Prudence — who became far more interesting by the time Season 2 came along.
Seasonal Rot: It's generally agreed that Parts 3 and 4 are weaker than the first two Parts. Part 4 in particular gets flack for the underwhelming Eldritch Terrors who are easily defeated, rushed pacing with some storylines like Roz being a witch being brushed aside and the controversial ending.
She Really Can Act: Michelle Gomez playing both Lilith and Ms. Wardwell in Season 3 shows off just how good she is; giving each persona her own mannerisms, and is convincing enough that some viewers admitted to forgetting it was the same actress.
Ships That Pass in the Night: As of Season 2, Ambrose/Dorian has attained a small following despite the characters not having really interacted.
Overall, the special effects in the show are top notch, but the spiders that attacked Principal Hawthorne look really dated and don't move correctly. In particular, the spiders running across the screen are running headfirst into each other and either phasing through or just walking on top without changing their speed.
The blood dripping down the Spellman's door after they had guts nailed to it looks really plasticky and fake.
When Madame Satan's true face is revealed at the end of the first season. While the makeup effects for other characters are very well-done, she just looks like a deranged Muppet.
The puppet used for Salem later in the series is really cheap-looking. Even the puppets from the 90's sitcom were expressive and could move a few parts of their bodies, whereas this one just barely moves its mouth.
The principal's unwillingness to question every football player to find Susie's bullies is portrayed as an unwillingness to help at all, but if the identities of her tormentors are known, then it would save the school a lot of time and trouble to simply question and punish those responsible. Bringing in every player on the team for questioning would heighten tensions, most likely leading to rumors on both sides and probably retaliation toward Susie and her friends. Furthermore, the Black Panthers remain controversial to this day, and it's understandable that a public institution would want to avoid provoking the backlash that would come from sponsoring (or simply hosting) a Daughters of Black Panthers Club. Not right, perhaps, but understandable.
The basketball coach's objections to Theo joining the team are portrayed as transphobic prejudice, but several of the points he makes are generally fair reasons as to why Theo wouldn't work well on the team: Theo is extremely short, skinny and has demonstrated no special ability for the sport. All of those, ignoring any of the transphobic implications, are fairly valid points about a physically demanding sport. The fact that Sabrina has to use magic to cheat Theo's way onto the team only drives the point home further, because Sabrina basically cheats and doesn't disprove the coach's points.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In general, the fact that this adaptation is a dark retelling inspired by the comic book of the same name instead of being a reboot of the 90s sitcom earned it a number of detractors on the internet made up of people who remembered fondly the comedy of the sitcom and are in particular upset that Salem's role was reduced whereas Salem was often considered the best part of the 90s shownote Kiernan Shipka is allergic to cats, which is why Salem doesn't appear as much. A video called "Best Witches" was posted by Netflix a couple of days before the series premiere where the cast of the sitcom sent their best "witches" to the new actor playing their old role. It was mostly seen as a way to Win Back the Crowd. You can watch it here.
The episode featuring The Returned brings back the souls of the dead, and the living have to deal with it and make sure not to upset them. Instead of showing, for example, Harvey meeting a resurrected Tommy, the Greendale plot instead focuses on a battle of the bands against a Satanic band. Said Satanic band was resurrected with no relation to the Returned, having been summoned by Harvey playing a guitar which accidentally summoned them.
A lot of fans wish that instead of Harvey having to kill Tommy and lose his brother a second time, it would have been better for Agatha to be Killed Off for Real since she was one of his murderers and that would have been a fitting comeuppance for her. It's a sore spot that neither Agatha nor Dorcas ever get full comeuppance for that.
After being possessed by Lucifer, Nick essentially deals with PTSD in a thinly-veiled metaphor for sexual abuse (crying "I can still feel him inside me"). Rather than touching on this potentially interesting direction - and examining how males are affected by sexual assault too - he's written as the Designated Villain who can't be faithful to Sabrina when he uses sex to deal with his trauma, which feels like a complete waste of what felt like a good moment to explore the outcome of it, especially given how many shows rarely address the intended metaphor.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Despite seemingly friendly at first, it's made clear that pretty much every single character is in some way horrible or evil. Even the title character Sabrina, while not having done anything bad per se, sees absolutely nothing wrong with the evils that go around her constantly, and often makes things worse due to being stubborn and pushy with her views.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: Despite how polarizing the character actually is, few have any criticisms for Kiernan Shipka's great performance as Sabrina. In fact, many feel that her performance is so strong, it comes close to redeeming her in some ways.
Unnecessary Makeover: Sabrina's elaborate getup when being crowned Queen of Hell for the second time is meant to evoke Elizabeth I of England, also known as "The Virgin Queen," who was notable for having never married and thus never submitting to the authority of a man (a connection also drawn by Sabrina mentioning being "married to Hell" just as Elizabeth said she was "married" to England). However, fans were very unhappy with the look and found it stuffy, unappealing, and uncharacteristic of Sabrina, with the attempted thematic connection being largely ignored, rejected, or missed altogether.
Wangst: Rosalind's despair over going blind would be very understandable, if it wasn't for her odd focus on how she'll supposedly never be able to experience books again. Considering she is focused on reading classics which are available on Braille or as audiobooks, her complaints seem oddly misplaced.
The Woobie: Poor sweet Mary Wardwell was murdered by Lilith, and after she was resurrected she suffered from memory loss and her fiancée was previously murdered by Satan, who also took advantage of her state and manipulated her into believing that the Spellmans are behind Adam's disappearance.
, a cover of the song in The Phantom of the Opera when the ball at the end of Part 2 happens, sung by the cast.