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A red sweater becomes a black turtleneck.
Fetching plaid pants become a skirt.
But something feels amiss.
At times, the feminist-leaning dimension of the show is too blunt and its emotional center is rendered hollow.
The show continues to excel at creating lush visuals and subversions of various Christian and pagan rituals.
Its a biting provocation, but its also a call for a revolution.
ButSabrinacan get a bit preachy in this territory, vaunting a kind of simplistic, feminist-minded message.
Sabrina doesnt want the illusion; she wants the real thing.
And when exploring this element, the show creates its most visually rich sequences.
In the third episode, were introduced to a Church of Night ritual known as Lupercalia.
Its basically a yearly excuse for everyone to have a lot of sex in the woods.
(Also, no one says Hail, Satan!
with the zealousness and panache that Otto does.)
But Prudence and Ambrose feel a bit mishandled in these episodes.
Why cant the focus be more on Rozs struggle with going blind and her newfound psychic abilities?
When Theos story line intersects with magic, the show slips into knotty territory that isnt properly untangled.
In Theos tarot read, he sees what happens when using magic to aid in his transition.
But the spell he steals from Hilda has grim consequences, mutating his arm into tree bark.
Witchcraft has often been used as a method of transformation in cinema.
Many ofSabrinas best sequences in these episodes build their thematic and visual landscape on physicality.
For Theo, unfortunately, there is only trauma.
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Check out Vultures streaming guide.
