S01.E07: Chapter Seven: Witch Thanksgiving

[Athena]

Quote

The coven prepares for an annual ritual as Harvey takes part in a Kinkle family tradition. Sabrina grows suspicious of Lady Blackwood.

 

[Lebanna]

And another riff on Shirley Jackson. Someone else did it better...

Anyway, whatsherface actually is Blackwood's daughter, but we weren't supposed to know that even though she called him 'father' before - so I assumed we were supposed to know this already. Weird.

I did enjoy this episode a lot more than many of the others, as the way whatsherface was so delighted about getting to be cannibalized was so delightfully ghoulish. Also the other whatsherface and her eyes being open as she's eaten. Ew. And the line 'No, you're just orphans' was genuinely pretty funny.

[theatremouse]

I think they edited that previous scene poorly. She was calling him father for the same reason everyone calls him Father Blackwell. So she was in theory calling him Father, but off the top of my head I don't recall anyone else ever calling him Father, always Father Blackwell. So it stood out too much when she did that before. Maybe they did mean to tease it/make some folks wonder before they did the actual reveal, but it seems it was confusing for some who took that moment not as a "maybe" but as a definite, which made the actual reveal in this episode more of a "duh" moment than an "ah ha!" moment.

[kitlee625]

The cannibalism ritual was pretty delightfully creepy. That being said, the final feeding frenzy scene was just plain sinister. I'm glad that most of our "good" witches seemed to be equally horrified. I think if Sabrina or Zelda had eaten that woman I would have been really icked out. 

 

I feel like Zelda is really having a crisis of faith as she's questioning some of these witch traditions now that her niece/surrogate daughter is going through them. We saw a little of that in episode 4, where she rebelled against harrowing, but it'll be interesting to see the most fervent believer of the Spellman clan questioning her faith.

 

It's also interesting to me that Sabrina's father outlawed the Feast of Feasts while he was high priest. From what little we've learned about him, he seems like quite the rebel / church reformer, very different than Blackwell. I really hope we get to learn more about him.

Edited October 30, 2018 by kitlee625

[GaT]

7 hours ago, kitlee625 said:

The cannibalism ritual was pretty delightfully creepy. That being said, the final feeding frenzy scene was just plain sinister.

I was actually surprised by the feeding frenzy, for some reason I thought they would cook the queen & serve her as part of a big dinner. I didn't expect everybody to just grab chunks off of her dead body.

[Miles]

11 hours ago, GaT said:

I was actually surprised by the feeding frenzy, for some reason I thought they would cook the queen & serve her as part of a big dinner. I didn't expect everybody to just grab chunks off of her dead body.

I seriously hope for them that witches have some supernatural immunities because that just seems to be begging for a bunch of illnesses. Human (and presumably witch) flesh is nasty.

[AngelKitty]

Are all familiars actually goblins?

[paulvdb]

Yes. That was mentioned in the first episode

[methodwriter85]

On 10/30/2018 at 2:29 AM, Miles said:

I was actually surprised by the feeding frenzy, for some reason I thought they would cook the queen & serve her as part of a big dinner. I didn't expect everybody to just grab chunks off of her dead body.

This show tends to stay away from gory stuff so I was surprised as well.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Ha, Sabrina may as well have yelled, "I volunteer as tribute!" in true Katniss Everdeen style. I never understand these sacrifices where people think it's an honor to be die. Prudence has really been drinking the Kool-Aid if she truly believes all that crap she told Sabrina about living in the Dark Lord's heart forever along with all the previous queens. I do think that Prudence was sincere when she looked at Sabrina pityingly and said it was sad that Sabrina had faith in nothing.

I've never heard of Marchpane cake so I had to look it up. This one even has the brandied currants like Hilda's.

I know that the big reveal about Faustus being Prudence's biological father wasn't supposed to be funny but Ambrose chugging his wine afterward was hilarious.

Sabrina really wasted her opportunity to ask Faustus a lot more questions while he had that truth cake in him.

I noticed that Nick was sitting next to Sabrina at the Feast of Feasts ceremony. I'm guessing that was so we could get the shot of Zelda, Sabrina, and Nick all looking on as the rest of the coven ate Mildred, but I kind of wish we'd seen Sabrina introducing him to Zelda because it had the potential to be delightfully awkward.

I am not a fan of punishing people for things that their ancestors did. When I was in middle school, I read a book about a woman who traveled somewhere in Europe and ended up being tortured by two other women whose ancestors were witches who had been tortured by the people who had the same last name as the first woman. I was maybe 11 or 12 when I read it and I remember thinking damn, ladies, this woman never did anything to you!

RIP pizza boy!

[Lady Calypso]

Oh hey! Pizza boy is the guy from Riverdale that appeared in a couple of episodes this season. Hello! I'm still unsure if it was meant to be an Easter Egg or a hint at a crossover.

Prudence is so snowed by the Dark Lord and his stuff, but at least it ended with her questioning at least part of it. And she's Blackwood's daughter which...honestly didn't surprise me. Honestly, it's something I expected this show to turn to as a "twist", but since almost all shows use the secret child twist at some point, especially with characters who they need stories for, it wasn't too surprising. 

The ritual was...odd. I'm surprised nobody's ever questioned it before. Sabrina's father seemed to question it enough to put a stop to it. But then it brings up a whole slew of questions, such as why he'd sign his daughter away to the Dark Lord if he questioned so many things. 

The Harvey stuff didn't surprise me, and of course his family are all witch hunters. Obviously Grandfather Kinkle knows all about witches, and he's going to be a pain in the ass. Unfortunately, it looks like the Weird Sisters (Agatha and....Dorcas, I think?) are going after the wrong Kinkles in Tommy and Harvey. I'm sure one of them is bound to end up dead...but is it too obvious to call that being Tommy? With this show and having the witches worship Satan, I'm sure there's more to it.

I'm glad to see Zelda questioning the witch world a lot more. 

[paulvdb]

18 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

Obviously Grandfather Kinkle knows all about witches, and he's going to be a pain in the ass.

I guess we'll get to see Michael Hogan as grandfather Kinkle again in season 2. The character seems very similar to his character in Teen Wolf where he was also the grandfather of the main character's love interest and a werewolf hunter.

[Last Time Lord]

2 minutes ago, paulvdb said:

I guess we'll get to see Michael Hogan as grandfather Kinkle again in season 2. The character seems very similar to his character in Teen Wolf where he was also the grandfather of the main character's love interest and a werewolf hunter.

If you’re going to be typecast in a role type, at least it’s a fun sounding one. 

[ruby24]

I think the problem I'm starting to have with this show is I can't figure out why Sabrina WANTS to be a witch at all. I mean, all the show has shown us of the witch world is ritual sacrifice, blood, violence, torture, demon posession and Sabrina seems to hate all of it, so...what exactly is the draw for her in this universe? To defend other people FROM witches? 

I think it would be different if she had some sort of dark side to her, if they showed her enjoying spell casting or partaking in occasional gore or something, but she's basically a sunny, normal person who keeps having to fight against the evil of the Church of Night in every episode, but she still wants to be part of it. But, why?

They could take some time to show us the fun of witchcraft somehow so that we can actually see what the attraction for a normal person would be in this whole thing. The comics and the old cheesy sitcom obviously treated witchcraft as a silly, funny thing, and this is doing the opposite, but I'm not sure it fits with Sabrina's personality on this show. 

Edited November 5, 2018 by ruby24

[CrystalBlue]

They renamed this episode "Feast of Feasts" on Netflix.  It aired in same month as American Thanksgiving though.  How much more darker can this show get?  Human sacrifice and cannibalism actually shown "in the flesh" with that gory scene in the end?  Yum yum.

This episode held my interest more than some of the previous ones, but from what we've seen so far, Sabrina thinks her father's high priest days were what she would like to follow, and she's not sold on Father Blackwood's reign.  ruby24's post above resonates with me.

I'm not so sure I even like Sabrina's personality.

[tennisgurl]

The Witch Thanksgiving Feast was so delightfully ghoulish and creepy, that I had to love it. I mean, these people have really drank that Kool-Aid if they think that being ritually sacrificed and eaten by their friends and family is some huge honor that they can only hope to achieve. Thats some seriously creepy stuff there, even by Church of Night standards. I loved Sabrina's expressions throughout the episode, like all she was thinking was "...seriously, is everyone here totally insane?!?" the entire time. And they just TORE that lady open!

It seems like Zelda is starting to question Satan a bit more, now that her family is being really affected by all of this. 

So, who choose Fiona Apple as the orgy background music? Ambrose or Prudence? I guess Pridence gets to choose, as Queen. Not a bad choice for a pre- ritual sacrifice orgy I guess. I loved Ambrose just making lame jokes and chugging wine the whole episode, which I guess when your on century long house arrest, is mostly what your day would involve. "Prudence gets her just desserts...and she gets to be the dessert..." 

Poor Tommy and Harvey. Why couldn't they have squished asshole dad and grandpa?!

[Catfi9ht]

I always feel like an idiot when I post something like I did for episode 4, which I liked, then I feel like I need to post an update for this episode, which I hated.

On 11/4/2018 at 8:39 PM, ruby24 said:

I think the problem I'm starting to have with this show is I can't figure out why Sabrina WANTS to be a witch at all. I mean, all the show has shown us of the witch world is ritual sacrifice, blood, violence, torture, demon posession and Sabrina seems to hate all of it, so...what exactly is the draw for her in this universe?

I'm going to add sexism to this list too. We started the series with Sabrina trying to establish her WICCA club in order to protect women, but since then she's been pretty silent about it. I realize that some folks who posted in the threads for the first couple of episodes thought this was over the top, but it did establish Sabrina's personality as being aware there is an imbalance at the school between how boys and girls are treated. 

Fast forward to this episode and what have we seen from the Satanic church? There always seems to be a man in charge and now women need to volunteer to be human sacrifices, including Desmelda's story about child rape, and Sabrina doesn't say a word about it? I found it strange and not in keeping with her personality at all.

And "The Cunning"?! I have no words to describe how ridiculous as a plot line this is so I'll just leave this Simpsons quote here instead.

This show needs to decide what type of show it wants to be: campy? gory? suspenseful? It seems like it hasn't decided yet which is part of the problem.

I always try to end my posts on a positive note so I will say I enjoy the prosthetics and musical selections in this show.

[Zuleikha]

I am late to this show, but I find myself perplexed by the basic worldbuilding. Why did Aunt Zelda, who seems to be a true believer, leave Sabrina so unprepared to be a member of the Church of Night? Sabrina doesn't seem to know ANYTHING! We know that Aunt Zelda and Aunt Hilda are fine with cannibalism, so it seems odd they wouldn't have raised Sabrina to be fine with it, too. What you're raised to see as normal, you often see as normal.

Given that the Dark Lord physically appears at times to people and in visions and the witches have actual powers, it doesn't seem odd to me that Prudence and Matilda would believe in the whole queen of the feast bit. They've got actual proof of the validity of their religious teachings.

Which goes back--again--to the problem of the basic worldbuilding. The show seems to be approaching its world with a conventional moral POV but also clearly wants us to sympathize with the witch characters/dislike the witch hunters. There's anti-patriarchy stuff going on while also justifying the patriarchy's fear and murder of witches and also reproducing patriarchy in the witch covens.

And I agree that it is really unclear what Sabrina wants or expects out of all of this. She's going along with her secret mission of destroying the Dark Lord, but she also is sticking out like a sore thumb in ways that just seem stupid. It would make a lot more sense if she were researching her father, trying to understand his reformations of the Church of Night. She's also endangering her friends in ways with her shortsightedness. She couldn't have foreseen the encounter in Moon Valley, but why on earth did she bring Prudence to her friends? And how has it never occurred to her that the owners of the Satanic mines--aka Harvey's family--may have a connection with witch hunters.