Photo: DIYAH PERA / NETFLIX / DIYAH PERA / NETFLIX
When I saw the title of this episode, my first instinct was to write in my notes the endless, like a Netflix episode? Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop. And pay tribute to it: this episode is amazing! It is strange and disturbing, but it still has a coherent logic to be meaningful. It’s a meta and contains a lot of good jokes about the program we’re watching and the show-in-a-show and television in general, but not to the point that it’s collapsing itself. It’s playful and fan service without sacrificing the story; I think even if you were not a fan of the 90s Sabrina, the bit about the aunts who are not the ‘real’ aunties will still work. (Even though you are not in Sabrinaland yet and do not agree, let me know why in the comments!)
We are in the alternative cosmos, similar to, but not exactly like, the one in which the Spellmans live. In this world, Morningstar is the ‘new’ Sabrina, who suggests that there is an assembly line of Brinas in front of her that has been removed due to ambiguities – they are sent to ‘the green room’, the purpose of which is initially a mystery to us – and her whole life is a television show. This is not exactly a reality show; it’s more like the program is their whole reality. The whole world a soundtrack. No one is allowed to leave. Do not change your lines. Anything that happens in the show becomes true in the world ‘outside’ the show, although we will discover that for most people in this cosmos there is no world outside the show. When Morningstar tried to clear her head, she discovered that doors were opening in brick walls. All the books are empty. Very Pleasantville!
A neat narrative about who is in charge here comes at the meals: it’s all canned tuna and milk. Hmm. Who do you know who can thrive on such a diet? If your Salem guessed the cat early on, sign up! (It took me a moment, I’m not too proud to admit.)
Morningstar also realizes that she’s trapped in a time loop. It’s the same October day every morning. Salem arrives and Morningstar asks if he could see her missing magic mirror and if he has heard of the Eldritch Terrors. He says he will work on the former, but no dice on the latter. HMM.
In the meantime, Morningstar is just trying to go with the flow while she’s figuring out what Terror she’s dealing with right now. (THERE WERE ONLY EIGHT. There are only two left, and one is the Emptiness! Honestly, how hard is it to remember them? Did no one write these things down?) When Morningstar arrives on the set, she discovers that her rights aunts are here but it’s just a stand-in for her aunt from the 90s. Salem is a talking doll and the star of the show. Lillith, or Wardwell, whoever she’s here, helps Blackwood, the director. For today’s recording, Morningstar was dressed like a cockroach. (‘For your motivation’, Blackwood tells her … proverbially (sorry!), ‘Think Kafka.’)
Later, she goes to the Baxter High series, where alternative reality versions of her friends await her. Harvey is her boyfriend on set and off – she responds in shock to the ‘very unprofessional’ tongue in his kiss, and Harvey replies that they, they are together. “It’s cannon!” Morningstar is everything, are you not dating Roz? Roz’s perfect answer: “I wish! The writers will dream of giving ME a boyfriend. (Nick, hiding in the background is Harvey’s attack.) Since they are really dating in this world, Harvey invites Morningstar to visit later.
Morningstar tries to tell her alternative-Hilda about her real identity: that she’s married to the prince of hell, and that she’s the queen, and that, of course, makes her sound completely fearless. Hilda likes: “The last show you’ve been to sounds AMAZING”, but now she’s had a great performance on “the longest show in history”, which means Morningstar has to give up her life in advance and be fully committed to … whatever it is.
Opposite Harvey’s, during a meal of milk and tuna (delicious makeup food), Morningstar realizes that Harvey is letting the leading scribbles of the Terrors surround his walls. This Harvey thinks they’re just a harmless gift from the art department. Oh, Harvey, an innocent drug in all dimensions. Harvey tells Morningstar that he’s wiping the scripts off Wardwell’s band early because it takes him a while to learn his lines; could she practice with him? As they read, Morningstar realizes: This scene actually happened. Is that what Harvey said to Sabrina on her 16th birthday? Harvey suggests they go watch the pilot together, and Morningstar is horrified to discover that she’s real life (and for us the earlier seasons of this very show!) this cosmos, the show they all make. I like Harvey’s unconscious reaction to her freakout. “I understand that, I also do not like to look at myself.”
Morningstar bolts and opens a door she’s NOT supposed to open. Behind it is the green room. There’s blood everywhere and it looks like a terrifying, almost-underwater version of the morgue. Not the same everywhere. Also: Ambrose! “Judging by your headband, you have to be the new Sabrina.” Thanks HECATE this guy is here! Ambrose reports that he makes cat food for the Eldritch Terror to consume. What horror is this? The endless. The endless … is SALEM. Well, this is the kingdom and also Salem. It’s complicated, but just go with it. Ambrose cracked the case, so Salem banished him, and now that’s just what Ambrose does, put corpses through a meat grinder and turn it into the food I contain in all the tonic cans. Ambrose is defeated – he says there is nothing they can do because they are too one with the Endless. It’s all very nice.
The next day, Morningstar takes a scene with Roz, who goes blind in the Baxter High bathroom. Somehow Prudence and Agatha are here too. This is when Morningstar learns that what happens in the ‘show’ also happens to the inhabitants of the cosmos: Here Roz really loses her sight. “Silver edge: being blind gives me a bow!”
At the end of the trade services, Morningstar talks to her real aunts who tell her that they used to play the aunts – “big hits, fan favorites”, but were demoted. Unfortunately, they also do not know about the Eldritch Terrors, but they do share this cold detail: the stands sleep under the beds of the main characters. (Under Sabrina’s bed: Elspeth, with a platinum wig.)
That night, Morningstar discovers Caliban among the crew and throws herself into his arms. “We may not talk to the cast,” he tells her, and he does not even miss an actor. Look, in the cast, he ‘endlessly took off my shirt and objected.’ I know, right? He likes his new job, in which he can decide when and if he should take off his shirt. Morningstar tells him that they are married in another universe, and that love always finds a way, and Caliban responds to this by … taking off his shirt. Never change, Caliban! Oh he also builds an air void, that is the Emptiness. The void! AAAHHH.
Morningstar wakes up Harvey, who helps her sneak into Wardwell’s to get tomorrow’s pages early. (In another big wink, Wardwell sleeps on the couch because they never built a bedroom for her character.)
Morningstar calls together the entire cast to explain what is. They must find her magic mirror; they must escape before it is too late. She may have been here for maybe a day and a half and probably everything she says sounds completely inappropriate, but everyone just has to trust her. The aunties from the 90s maintain that there is nothing to worry about. The writers throw a big thing into the show every year! No matter if it’s the murder of a beloved character, or a wedding ‘or what you have: as Zelda from the 90s says: “In reality nothing changes, everything just recovers.” How do they know anything about this? The aunties from the 90s refuse to say.
The next morning, Morningstar’s calendar shows that every day after that is just … gone. When she started posing, her boyfriend was replaced: Nick is now Harvey. According to rumors, Harvey is being sent to the green room. Nick, very Method, does NOT like not being called Harvey. Morningstar holds on by being a needy actress with many annoying questions for Blackwood, such as, “What’s my motivation for vanity?” Blackwood explains that he is merely the director and that the only person authorized to review the text is the lead author, who is … who? No one knows or is willing to say. But Morningstar quickly realizes that the lead author is, of course, Salem the stuffed animatronic cat.
They have a wonderful bit back and forth in which Morningstar explains everything we need to know and slammed Salem back: ‘It’s all outline. Why are you telling me this? ‘Salem thinks that the endless and the void can coexist, but Brina points out that all the pages of scripture are empty after the void has arrived.
As she shoots, Morningstar talks to the fake aunt from the 90s about preparing for the Void, and she goes boldly out of the script. She says she goes to the store to buy candles, and basically breaks the hell loose. It turns out that the aunt from the 90s are servants of the Void. When Morningstar and Salem run away, those aunties start to look like the scary monsters they actually are. In an extremely clever and also exciting chase sequence “writes” Salem all their martyrs out of command – “Zelda turns her ankle suddenly!” – as they cling to freedom.
Morningstar wants to save the others, but it’s too late: Caliban is dead. Ambrose is dead. Nick is shirtless and drenched in blood, but it turns out he’s also a servant of the Void who now wants to be called Harvey. “I’m you only boyfriend. Salem slips on a banana peel. Hey, why mess with a classic?
Salem opens the gate behind which the wonderful mirror of Morningstar awaits, and they dive through it and shatter it and then … DUNNNN to move on!
Constant riddles: I mean … literally everything ?! But my big question I hope is our final answers: can there really be two Sabrinas, or is it necessary that the balance of the cosmos for Morningstar perished in transit? I wonder if this season has tried to build on a showdown for the throne of hell and the disappearance of Morningstar means it will be Caliban against Lillith against Adam? Or are we just going to drop the plot thread because we finally have no more time despite many opportunities and endless episodes?