S02.E08: Chapter Nineteen: The Mandrake

[Lady Calypso]

Quote

An ominous discovery leads to a desperate search for answers -- and a risky spell for Sabrina. Meanwhile, Father Blackwood makes a bold announcement.

 

[Blue Plastic]

Sabrina of course rushes to do the stupidest thing she can as fast as possible.

[AnimeMania]

This is the first episode that I kind of actually liked. I liked the fake Sabrina and the hint of female nudity, I wished Sabrina would have fallen out of the tub during the fight scene to add a little awkward embarrassment. I am not sure if Sabrina has lost her virginity yet, but making out with Nick wearing nothing but a robe, might make it hard to put on the brakes.

I am not sure why Sabrina feels that everything she believes is right and anything anybody else believes has to be crushed/ignored using any means necessary. Crossing your fingers doesn't allow you to lie with impunity. Especially since she never spends more than 5 minutes thinking about the consequences before rushing into action.

I don't understand why no witch has slept with a mortal before to create this hybrid "atomic bomb". Just in this series alone Ms. Wardwell and maybe Hilda (is her boyfriend still considered mortal?) are witch/mortal "hy-breeding". In any other show, witches are never considered to be a completely different "species?".

[pootlus]

Given that I think this show is going to make A Big Deal out of Sabrina losing her virginity, I'm pretty sure it hasn't happened yet.  I'm with you - Sabrina semi-nude with Nick and not going all the way? That takes some serious self-control!

I think that Theo's transition was dealt with better in this episode, i.e. when Mandrake!Sabrina offered him a man's body he declined.  The problem is that in the tarot episode he got an arm chopped off rather than revert to a female body so they really need to get a grip on what his characterisation is, because it's a mess.

[methodwriter85]

I kind of felt bad for the Mandrake at the end. That gave me some good Buffy feels.

Also, daaaaaammmmnn Lucifer.

Edited April 11, 2019 by methodwriter85

[Happytobehere]

The mandrake plot was a rip-off of the Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, right down to the screaming and pointing.

[AnimeMania]

54 minutes ago, Happytobehere said:

The mandrake plot was a rip-off of the Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, right down to the screaming and pointing.

I liked the fact that Sabrina Mandrake screamed, since the scream is a part of the mandrake lore. Mandrakes scream when you pull them out of the ground, and that scream can kill you. They should have had some birds or a squirrel or two fall out of the trees after Sabrina Mandrake screamed.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Sabrina's upgraded witch powers are the only thing protecting her from payback from Blackwood and anyone else on the council/at the academy who dislikes her for any reason. For that reason, when she said she was going to use a spell to get rid of all her powers, I was like GURL, YOU IN DANGER. The 60 year lifespan that Ambrose was talking about was for a normal mortal, but for someone like Sabrina with a target on her back, she'd be lucky to survive another year. I was relieved when the mandrake plan didn't work.

Ugh, Blackwood turning his coven into the Church of Judas with all of his gross misogynist tenets was so gross. Did he really expect all the girls to embrace being subservient to anyone with a penis? Run along and study your fertility crap.

Prudence is back to being the worst. She's willing to force the other girls to follow these draconian rules as long as Blackwood dangles the possibility of bending the rules just for her. This is some Handmaid's Tale kind of crap.

The worst part is that Blackwood doesn't want Leticia back because he loves her. He just feels possessive of her because he sees her as an extension of himself. If he was willing to let Zelda murder Prudence so he could keep Leticia, that should tell you how much he cares about his children (or at least his bastard daughter). She's expendable. And Leticia's only value to him is that she's his son's twin.

Poor Theo, always getting awkwardly stuck as a witness to Roz and Harvey's relationship conversations.

Mandrake Sabrina was too much like the BuffyBot for my taste, but she did have some funny moments ("Why can't people just be nice to me?").

So non-witch Sabrina without any powers is going to rule as the Dark Lord's queen?

[tennisgurl]

Mandrake Sabrina reminded me that its been awhile since I saw the second Harry Potter movie. I liked Mandrake Sabrina, she was creepy, but also funny in her weird politeness. Her scream was creepy as heaven when she saw the mashed up Mandrake people. 

So the line Prudence finally draws is forcing kids into brother sister incest. I mean, thats pretty fucked up, even by the standards of a church of satanists. Like, damn buddy I signed up for wealth and power, not to let my little siblings go all Lannister. 

[Zuleikha]

This show... 

The unwitting fulfilling of the prophecy to start the Apocalypse is a nice drawing together of all of the various Wardwell manipulations, but it's not even clear that Wardwell actually knew about the prophecy when she did those things (since she thought she was done after Sabrina signed the Book of the Beast). Also, having good Sabrina be tricked into the prophecy but still saccharine good just isn't as interesting as if all of these dark deeds--some of them genuinely, unambiguously dark--were taking a clear toll on her and changing her. The show is so close to being clever but then it keeps failing!

Nick's character seems totally changed from his first, much more interesting introduction. Who even is he anymore besides Sabrina's boyfriend? I liked the slutty, amoral, sweet scholar we first met.

I think that Theo's transition was dealt with better in this episode, i.e. when Mandrake!Sabrina offered him a man's body he declined.  The problem is that in the tarot episode he got an arm chopped off rather than revert to a female body so they really need to get a grip on what his characterisation is, because it's a mess.

At this point, Theo feels like a PSA more than a character. The show is trying to have its cake and eat it, too, and it just doesn't work. Also, Theo is not magical. Why is his dead ancestor able to communicate with him. 

Faustus's misogyny has gotten to cartoon levels. Why is he such a misogynist? If these were the old ways, what are the new ways? Why isn't there more signs of the misogyny in the rest of the coven instead of just in Faustus and his Judas Boys? Why wouldn't the Council care about Faustus's heresy? And again, given the multiple manifestations of the actual Dark Lord that we've seen casually happen, why does the Council seem so indifferent to actually trying to understand and serve the Dark Lord's will and/or understanding the miraculous resurrection of Sabrina?

Another missed opportunity to be IMHO more interesting is to have Prudence's break with Faustus be about belief. We know Prudence is a true believer. I wish she had broken with Faustus because she saw that he was betraying the tenets of the Church of Darkness for his own vaingloriousness rather than because he intended to marry Judas and Leticia to each other.

[Snorfbat]