The relationship between Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and the CW's Riverdale — the former is a sideways spinoff of the latter from developer and executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa — has been handled with a combination wink-shrug since CAOS premiered in 2018.
The distance was necessary to draw on Riverdale's audience without alienating viewers who preferred to watch CAOS independently, and it's functioned well to create two separate shows that nonetheless brush up against each other as two titans of teen TV.
Riverdale had the advantage of premiering nearly two years earlier than CAOS, and had more time to grow into one of the batshit craziest shows on television. Its completely wild approach to plot twists, tone shifts, and overwrought dialogue has consistently been out-there enough to overshadow the inherent weirdness of CAOS's witches, demons, and magic powers — until now.
Part 3, which premiered Jan. 24 on Netflix, draws CAOS closer to Riverdale and finally establishes it as a creative match for its cousin on the CW.
This closeness occurs literally, like when Sabrina and Ambrose take a cameo-free day trip to Cheryl Blossom's maple syrup farm, and metatextually, like the casting of former Riverdale actor Jonathan Whitesell as an entirely new character who is *checks notes* a horny goblin. More important than these nudges to the audience, however, is how much closer Part 3 of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina feels to a Riverdaleverse show in tone, humor, and straight-up bonkers ideas.
Parts 1 and 2 established Sabrina's dark, witchy world as a deadly, intentionally horrifying place where human sacrifice and cannibalism are commonplace, but now that its audience knows the basic rules of the coven, Part 3 is finally free to have fun with them. And oh, what fun it has.
This season includes choices like "Hell is basically The Wizard of Oz: Torture Porn Edition" and "the Greendale High cheerleaders perform Run-DMC's "It's Tricky" twice in an episode about killing the "ice cream man", while gleefully daring its viewers to think it's anything less than 100% committed to the bit. Characters age 15 years in the blink of an eye, vomit beetles, travel through time, and convene an Avengers-style assembly of the previous seasons' witch villains to take down... Medusa?
Part 3 is hellishly fun, and it wouldn't come off half as well as it does without its cast of younger actors who have grown into their roles over the course of the show. The core four of Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina, Ross Lynch as Harvey Kinkle, Jaz Sinclair as Rosalind Walker, and Lachlan Watson as Theo Putnam have solid chemistry this season, which can also be chalked up to the fact that Sabrina's mortal friends are finally all-in on her witchy business.
There's a lot going on in CAOS Part 3. On a non–Riverdale adjacent show it might seem like too much, but in the context of its universe plot points like a magic sea egg delivered by the Loch Ness monster, a hot mud prince interfering with Biblical history to steal tableware, and Aunt Hilda self-publishing an erotic novel are all a part of the show's regularly scheduled (and highly enjoyable) insanity.
It took three seasons for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to get comfortable with its magical wackiness and the triumphant result is a hyper-watchable Riverdale rival that knows exactly what it needs to stand out among 2020's currently running teen shows.
And who knows? With Katy Keene premiering in 2020 and more Riverdale on the horizon, maybe getting a little weirder with its witch stuff was all Chilling Adventures needed to start setting up a real crossover episode...
