Welcome back all you Riverdale fans! The long teased presence of Sabrina Spellman is here and, in grand Riverdale cliffhanger tradition was nothing like we were promised and barely mattered to the episode at hand. Huzzah!
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. She Turned Me Into a Newt
Sigghhhhhhhhhhhhh. I have to stop making predictions about future episodes. I’m always left disappointed.
So, the basic conceit of “The Witching Hour(s)” is we follow three Blossom women across three time-periods, though we’re really only following two as Cheryl is narrating both through a diary. On the face of it, this seems like it would be very interesting, especially with the promise of witches and magic and whatnot. We don’t really get any of that, with “witch” being used more as a metaphor for maligned women in different eras, even though the Blossoms are actual, literal witches.
I’m disappointed for a number of reasons. The episode continues to be way too chopped up, the pacing is wacked to all get-out, the acting half the time was perfectly moving and the other half more wooden than a middle-school production of “The Crucible,” Sabrina is barely in the episode, and the ending was…well, we’ll get to that nonsense later. The episode attempts to say something about how a patriarchal society destroys women, and the men as well, and then blames women, especially those who refuse to conform to the whims of said men, for everything but it’s pretty toothless and about as subtle as Hiram’s comical bomb from the season 5 finale. The biggest disappointment, however, is that it’s just so DULL.
It’s boring! I was bored the whole episode and I shouldn’t have been. This was the opportunity to drench the episode in Gothic Romance and “Peyton Place” 60s suburban scandal but no. much like “Ghost Stories”, it doesn’t take nearly enough advantage of the freedom afforded by being in Rivervale. It’s not wacky enough to be fun bad nor is it legitimately good. It just faffs about for nearly 42 minutes, failing to create the drama necessary for the tragic elements to land nor nailing the horror to sell the danger nor properly seeding the ending to make it have any emotional resonance.
And don’t even get me started on the wasted potential of mirroring the three eras.
2. Which Witch is Which?
Honestly, I could do this whole episode in two thoughts but I thought I’d have fun and do a highlight reel of each era. So, in the first era, Abigail Blossom runs a finishing school for young girls and falls in love with a Topaz ancestor/analog before said ancestor is murdered by the warlock Fogarty who murdered Abigail’s brother, forced her to marry him, and is then murdered by Abigail but not before cursing her to an eternally unhappy life. Describing it this way makes it seem very exciting but I can assure you it is not.
We never really get a sense of the characters because they’re the most rote versions of their archetypes. If you were to say Tragic Gothic leads, you would describe a more interesting version of these two characters. Their big meet cute locking of horns moment is so forced, it literally took place in Topaz’s second scene where she bursts into the classroom to basically tell Abigial “fuck your fork placement, we’re gonna look at STARS” but with less enthusiasm and wit. I had no idea what was going on not because things were unclear but because I had no idea how the information we had learned in the previous scene translated to the events of this one.
The whole plot shuttles us from scene to scene, event to event, never letting us get our bearings and by the end I was exhausted. Rather than feeling empathetic for Abigail and shocked by the death of Topaz, I was counting the minutes until Sabrina showed up or we cut to Abigail’s descendents. The only highlight was when Abigail took an axe to Fenn Fogarty and he somehow survived falling onto her axe ten times.
Also, there’s no witch hunt and Abigail does nothing witchy! Like…isn’t that the whole point? Wasn’t that literally what Cheryl was screaming about at the end of season 5? I guess the implication is she became a witch due to the death of Topaz but fucking hell, that’s not what’s implied later on so someone screwed up.
Continued below3. House of Un-Riverdalian Activities
Speaking of waiting for descendants, in the second era, Peggy Blossom runs a club for the wives in town, one of whom she shares a brief kiss with, and they come to her for advice and help with their husbands who find out, are hurt right in the toxic masculinity, and proceed to ruin her life by threatening her & the wives, gaslighting them, and throwing Peggy in jail by lying and saying she’s a communist. She is then in jail for 9 months and delivers the wife’s (Betty’s) child ‘cause she was gonna die and then Peggy is put on house arrest.
This is my favorite of the three because it’s the most focused and consistent. Does it still have problems? Yeah but it’s the same pacing and set-up issues that plague the whole episode. However, what sets it apart is how there’s an actual sense of escalating tragedy and trauma…even though it’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer as to WHY this era was chosen.
Moreover, because the episode is trying to be more serious, the more grounded acts taken by the townsfolks against her don’t feel as out of left field as the serial killer Civil War soldier returning from fighting in 1897; The heightened reality of Riverdale can only do so much when reality-reality was just that way. Furthermore, when it leans into the Riverdale of it all, it’s actually enjoyable rather than insufferable, like the way they telegraph Bitty’s desire to kiss Peggy or Peggy wearing the same dress and perfect make-up after MONTHS in prison to deliver a baby because apparently she’s the only one who can through her witchy ways of being…a woman, I guess?
OK, it’s not all enjoyably silly but it’s the closest we get and these are the scenes that get the most actual pathos out of me. Madelaine Petsch crying in Pop’s was genuinely moving. Nothing else in the episode can really get me to say that.
4. Witch Me A Fond Farewell
Of all the plot threads, this is the slightest, the most ludicrous, and the most dull. Because it is Cheryl, her past and tragedies are assumed to be understood by viewers of the show. To try and sum up her life in Rivervale here would leave me on the floor with twelve cork boards and 30 spools of red string trying to piece together what is consistent with RiverDALE, what was retconned in the season 5 finale, and what was made-up whole-cloth for RiverVALE. She’s trying to do something mystical with Nana Rose before the writers realize the scene really REALLY needs an audience proxy so they throw in Britta.
Honestly, it’s just an excuse to provide a frame that didn’t need to be there because Jughead as narrator already acts as that frame. In fact, that’s the problem with this whole plot thread. It does nothing, it’s all exposition, and the ending of it is utter nonsense. Not the graveyard scene, that was touching. No, the idea that Abigail Blossom IS, and always has been, Cheryl Blossom. This is, to put it mildly, a really fucking stupid idea.
My problem is that it’s not seeded throughout the previous two plots unless you squint really hard and then ask Sabrina to explain it all at the end of the episode. There’s little indication that Peggy is Abigail and if the episode is trying to say that Cheryl & Peggy spoke the way they did because she was the same person…fine. Whatever. This is RiverVALE after all. The histories are maddeningly unexplained in how they differ.
The more I think on it, the less mad I get but when they did a ceremony to transfer Nana Rose’s soul to Cheryl’s body and Abigail’s soul to Nana Rose’s, I threw my hands up in the air and asked Britta to save me with her exposition question powers. I think they failed to sell me on the torment of the time and on how this would help her in favor of a big twist. It’s always gotta be a stupid swerve, doesn’t it?
5. Chillin’ Adventures of Sabrina
Why was Sabrina here?! What purpose did she serve? I’m very happy she got a chance to show up but what was the point? She’s here for the final 10 minutes to give an explanation or two, help with a spell, and wink about witches never dying as if witchiness is genetic but also learnt(???) If she had played a part in each plot thread, acting as her ancestor or something since she’s not immortal, that would have been so much better AND made her presence something to celebrate. Instead, it’s nothing more than a glorified cameo in a dull episode.
That about does it for now! What did you think of the episode? Did it land better for you all? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you in a week for the final episode of this strange experiment in Riverdale’s history, the 100th episode overall, and maybe, finally, some answers. Until then, actually do something witchy Riverdale.
Best Lines of the Night:
1. Fenn: “Women. I’m back with supper.”
2. Abigail: “Did you hear about a woman named Lizzie Borden?”
Fenn: “No.”
Abigail: “She killed them with an axe.”
