Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina returns for a spooky season 3, and the ending sets up even more trouble for Greendale and its resident teenage witch. Based on the Archie Comics series and developed for TV by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina takes place just across the river from Riverdale. Not for the faint of heart, the series features plenty of gore and horror elements - which in season 3 include numerous trips to Hell.

When the story last left off at the end of season 2, Lucifer had been imprisoned inside the body of Nick Scratch and Lilith had been crowned as the new Queen of Hell. However, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3 finds the three realms - Heaven, Hell, and Earth - falling out of balance due to the instability of Hell's throne, forcing Sabrina to reluctantly claim the crown for herself. Pagan witches sense the weakness of the Satanic witches and move in on Greendale, with plans to resurrect an old god called the Green Man and let plant life retake the world. The Church of Night's strength is depleted without Lucifer's blessing, and Sabrina finds herself torn in three different directions: beating back Prince Caliban from the throne of Hell; efforts to rejuvenate her coven's powers; and trying to protect her mortal friends from the new supernatural threats.

Related: Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina Season 3's Riverdale Connections

Sabrina succeeds in the final challenge for Hell's throne, stealing Judas' thirty pieces of silver from Vlad the Impaler's tomb. However, upon returning to Hell she is tricked by Caliban, who entombs her in stone in the ninth circle of Hell, and reveals that he has done the same to Lucifer and Lilith. With the House of Morningstar defeated, it appears that Sabrina has lost and is doomed to stay in Hell forever - until she's rescued by someone unexpected. Here's what happens in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3's ending, and what it means for season 4.

What Happens in the Original Timeline

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Calibans Defeat

At the start of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's season 3 finale, "Sabrina is Legend," Ambrose explains what happened in the original timeline after Sabrina is entombed in stone. Caliban is crowned King of Hell and attempts to make good on his campaign promise to turn Earth into the tenth circle of Hell. He leads Hell's armies in an assault on Earth but is thoroughly defeated by the Pagans, who used Harvey Kinkle as a virgin sacrifice to resurrect the Green Man and enslave the world. With Caliban beaten and Hell weakened, the Celestials descend from Heaven and ransack Hell, leaving it empty.

From here, things get a little muddy. After several decades, a future version of Sabrina shows up to rescue the entombed Sabrina. It's unclear who freed this original Sabrina, or whether she somehow got herself free, or whether there's simply an infinite time loop of Sabrinas being rescued by Sabrinas, creating a predestination paradox. Whatever the case, the future Sabrina switches places with the Sabrina entombed in stone and gives her strict instructions to do the same thing when her own time comes.

How Sabrina Changes the Timeline to Save Greendale

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Future Ambrose

Following instructions from her future self, Sabrina returns to Earth armed with all three pieces of the Unholy Regalia: King Herod's crown, Pontius Pilate's plate, and Judas' silver. She finds that many decades have passed. All of her friends and family are now bleached skeletons - with the exception of Ambrose, who has managed to survive and evade the Pagans. Together, Sabrina and Ambrose figure out that they can use the Time Egg that Father Blackwood retrieved from Loch Ness to send Sabrina back in time to before the Pagans won. The Holy Regalia's ultimate destiny was to be melted down and turned into a weapon to fuel this journey: a morningstar.

Related: Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina Season 3 Cast & Character Guide

Armed with her knowledge of the future, Sabrina is able to prevent Theo, Harvey and Roz from being captured by the Pagans, and save Mambo Marie, Aunt Zelda, and Prudence from being killed by Father Blackwood. They regroup at the Academy of Unseen Arts, where Sabrina hatches a plan to trick the Pagans into killing their own god. Theo's new hobgoblin boyfriend Robin, who had defected from the Pagans, pretends that his betrayal was all part of his cover and brings them a virgin sacrifice for the Green Man to prove his loyalty: Ms. Wardwell.

After beginning the ritual, the Pagans realize too late that Ms. Wardwell is actually Pesta the hedge witch in disguise, and she uses her unique powers of decay to destroy the Green Man. With their god dead, the Pagans are driven out of Greendale and their leaders are killed. However, when it comes time for Sabrina to go to Hell and rescue herself from the stone, she comes up with a different plan - one that she thinks will solve all her problems.

How (And Why) Sabrina Creates a Time Paradox

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Queen of Hell

Instead of freeing herself from the stone after being tricked by Caliban, Sabrina instead gets to her past self before she reaches the ninth circle of Hell. After everything that she witnessed in the terrible future where her friends and family died, Sabrina finally has the conviction she was missing for the rest of the season: she wants to live in Greendale and dedicate herself to her mortal friends and her coven, rather than Hell's throne. However, Sabrina's past self hasn't lived through that future and is still hungry for infernal power. Sabrina therefore proposes a deal: the other version of herself will remain behind and rule as the Queen of Hell, while the "original" Sabrina will return home. It seems like the perfect solution: Hell gets a fully dedicated monarch, stabilizing the realms; Lucifer will be satisfied at seeing his daughter on the throne; and Sabrina gets to fully embrace being a Spellman rather than a Morningstar.

Of course, there's no such thing as a happy ending in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. When Sabrina admits what she's done to Ambrose, he's horrified, telling her that she's created a time paradox that could cause even greater chaos. Hell being left without a ruler merely destabilized the three realms, but by breaking the time loop Sabrina has destabilized the very fabric of time and reality. What's more, she's done this at the worst possible time - since Father Blackwood is bent on bringing back eldritch terrors that are even older and more powerful than the Pagan gods.

Related: Riverdale Connects To Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina With Billy Cameo

Father Blackwood, The Eldritch Terrors, and the Time Egg

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Father Blackwood and the Time Egg

Flanked by his twin children, Judith and Judas, and a thoroughly insane Agatha, Father Blackwood (having retrieved the Time Egg from the Spellman house after its occupants fled) finally accomplishes what he was trying to do in Scotland. Performing a dark ritual, he invites the eldritch terrors to "tear through the skin of reality." He stabs the time egg, causing it to hatch open and unleash an unknown abomination upon the world. Blackwood declares that they have birthed "the beginning of the end... the end of the Spellmans. The end of all things," before bursting into maniacal laughter. Driven mad by the fifteen years he spent in a pocket dimension studying the eldritch terrors, Blackwood's priorities have apparently shifted from obtaining power to destroying all of reality. That's obviously not great news, but at least the witches of Greendale are no longer powerless.

The Order of Hecate Explained

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Hare Moon

Throughout Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3, Zelda struggles with the direction of the Church of Night. The coven previously worshipped and derived its power from Lucifer, but he was understandably unhappy about being tricked and imprisoned by Sabrina and her family. He withdraws his gifts from the Church of Night, leaving their powers depleted, and Zelda's plan to pray to Lilith instead proves short-lived when Lilith's claim to the throne of Hell is rejected. It takes a brush with death and a spirit journey through limbo for Zelda to realize who they should be worshipping.

After Aunt Hilda fails to resurrect from the Cain Pit, the women of the Church of Night gather around her grave and pledge themselves to Hecate. Hailing from Greek mythology, Hecate is an ancient goddess of (among other things) magic and witchcraft. She is one of several deities who embodies the archetype of the triple goddess - at once Maiden, Mother, and Crone, which in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina are represented by three phases of the moon. Hecate blesses the coven with restored powers, bringing Hilda back to life, and the Church of Night rebrands as the Order of Hecate.

In combination with Sabrina placating Lucifer by leaving beind a version of herself to rule Hell, the Church of Night becoming the Order of Hecate officially brings an end to the Spellmans' fealty to Satan. That's a huge change for a show that, up until now, has had characters frequently saying things like "Praise Satan" and "What the Heaven?" Their magic may well be very different in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4 - but given that the eldritch terrors were around long before the Greek gods, the Order of Hecate may not be powerful enough to stop what's coming.

More: What To Expect From Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina Season 4