WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season 2, streaming now on Netflix.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season 1 and “A Midwinter’s Tale” did a good job in setting up what we all love from a show starring attractive teenagers: a love triangle. From the beginning of the series, it seemed as if Sabrina Spellman and Harvey Kinkle were going to be together forever — after all, they're the ones who ended up together in the previous television show. However, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is not bound by its predecessors.
After a severe breach of trust involving a reanimated brother, Harvey and Sabrina break up. While it was an initially frustrating development, where the series went in its second season made all of these characters more interesting. Overall, the Harvey and Sabrina break-up is perhaps the best thing to happen.
Sabrina and Nick
Sabrina catches Nicholas Scratch’s eye in the first season after she’s put on the spot in choir class for a solo. Since then, a friendship developed between the two of them — albeit with romantic tension, but a friendship nonetheless. Despite his bad-boy vibe, Sabrina trusted Nick, which is evidenced by her enlisting his help to save the mortals at the end of Season 1.
Season 2 begins with Sabrina and Nick pitted against each other for the title of Top Boy/Person. However, they don’t actively try to sabotage each other (which would’ve been the witch thing to do). Instead, they unite to figure out why demons are coming after Sabrina, resulting in Ambrose becoming Top Boy. That's a good foundation for a budding romance. That they’re friends first makes Nick a logical choice for Sabrina. Her first love, Harvey, was one of her best friends. It’s important to be friends with the person you choose to be with, or else there’s nothing for the relationship to rest on when the physical excitement fades.
The “Lupercalia” episode is where the Sabrina and Nick relationship really starts to take off. Lupercalia is the witch’s version of Valentines Day, only with more “orgiastic carnality,” in the words of Zelda Spellman. One of the rituals involved in the Lupercalia festivities is the couple spends a night of “unholy abstinence” together in the woods, stripped down to their undergarments. Sabrina is nervous about the culmination of the Lupercalia festivities as she’s still a virgin and says as much to Nick. This is where Nick confesses that he’s never been with a mortal before and that he’s also nervous.
These types of uncomfortable conversations are so important to have with a partner. This establishes trust before physical intimacy. And, it’s refreshing how sex-positive the witch community, and this show as a whole, is. He tells her, “You’re pretty special, Spellman. I don’t want to mess things up with you.” At this point, we really hope he doesn’t.
Nick’s Big Little Lies
Sabrina and Nick’s rapport is, on the whole, effortless. They have chemistry, as seen in the Lucifer Morningstar play, and they seem to genuinely have fun together. Dancing to Hall and Oates is always a guarantee of a good time, but it seems like they can really let loose together at Baxter’s Valentines Day dance.
Given Nick’s past, Sabrina is still not entirely convinced of Nick’s fidelity. She asks Nick to distance himself from the Weird Sisters, whom he’s dated as a group, which is not a good sign. Trying to control who your partner talks to is never a good idea, but it’s a lesson Sabrina, and young adults, has to learn on her own.
Sabrina’s intuition ends up partially correct. Nick has lied to her twice that we know of, but not about seeing other people behind her back. The first lie is about Amalia, his jealous-to-the-point-of-madness familiar in the shape of a wolf who tries to kill Nick’s girlfriends, and Sabrina quickly forgives him. The second lie isn’t as easy for Sabrina to forgive, but the situation is a lot more complicated.
Basically, the Dark Lord asked Nick to get closer to Sabrina. As we know from the show, the Dark Lord has a habit of creepily appearing by your ear and enigmatically telling you to do something without explanation. For example, he told Sabrina to steal a pack of gum, something that she didn’t think was a big deal until Wardwell interfered.
Sabrina assumes this means that their whole relationship is founded on lies. It doesn’t. Nick already had an attraction to Sabrina when the Dark Lord made his request, so for him, it was a no brainer: he got to please his Lord while getting to spend time with a beautiful young woman.
Nick tells her, “The Dark Lord asked me to get close to you, but then I really fell in love with you.” This is entirely believable. The whole season we’ve seen him help her to the best of his ability — diving through a bathtub to find her father’s manifesto, for example — and there’s no reason to think that the Dark Lord asked him to sabotage any of her efforts. There’s simply no evidence of it.
Nick ultimately sacrifices himself and gives his body as a jail for the Dark Lord, but not before telling Sabrina that he loves her. His sacrifice shakes her out of her initial rage towards his lie. He sacrifices himself for the good of witches and humanity, of course. However, it’s also a huge gesture to show Sabrina that he loves her. It’s far beyond the traditional sending flowers and chocolates, and this act makes him worthy of her forgiveness.
And it’s not like Harvey has been sitting around pining after Sabrina. In the first season, Harvey was, quite frankly, dull as a character. Now that he’s exploring a relationship with Roz, he’s got much more of a personality. Now he gets to be a comedic character that says things like, “did he just say ghost children?” while he tries to catch up with everything that’s happening in Greendale. His chemistry with Roz is just as strong as his chemistry was with Sabrina only there’s no baggage.
All in all, Sabrina and Harvey are better off broken up, at least for now. The friends are all united even with Harvey and Roz dating, which is incredibly mature. The season ends with Sabrina telling them, “Let’s go to hell, and get my boyfriend back.” A descent to Hell will make for a very entertaining next set of episodes. Demons should be shaking in their hooves because the “Fright Club” doesn’t back down from a fight.
Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina stars Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina Spellman, Ross Lynch as Harvey Kinkle, Michelle Gomez as Mary Wardwell/Madam Satan, Jaz Sinclair as Rosalind Walker, Lachlan Watson as Theo Putnam, Chance Perdomo as Ambrose Spellman, Tati Gabrielle as Prudence Night, Adeline Rudolph as Agatha, Abigail Cowen as Dorcas, Gavin Leatherwood as Nick Scratch, Richard Coyle as Father Faustus Blackwood, Lucy Davis as Hilda Spellman and Miranda Otto as Zelda Spellman.