Warning: Spoilers Ahead for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4
Here’s an in-depth run-through of all eight eldritch terrors in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4. Despite being widely-loved, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina came to an end with season 4, with Netflix citing the pandemic in its cancellation announcement. While Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 5 does not seem to be on the cards right now, the final season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina delved deep into terrors of Lovecraftian origin, heightening the stakes to a cosmic level.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3 ended with Faustus Blackwood acting as the harbinger of eldritch terrors upon the world, as he opened the mystical time-warping egg retrieved from the Loch Ness in Scotland. Season 4 witnessed the tackling of each individual terror in episodic form, with the season finale culminating in the arrival of The Void, a horror so absolute and irreversible, it leads to a heartrending tragedy - Sabrina Spellman's death in Chilling Adventures' finale.
Lovecraftian horror thrives on fear of the unknowable, and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina attempts to tap into this abstract realm of terror. Every eldritch terror has roots in legends and mythology, much like the narrative arc of season 3, which featured Pagan gods like Pan and The Green Man, along with Lovecraftian references to the city of Carcosa. Here are all eight eldritch terrors explained, along with the role that The Void had to play in the events of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4 finale.
The Eldritch Dark
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4, episode 1 delves deep into the terrors of the intangible with the introduction of a group of miners, all dressed in black and donning gas masks, seeking to submerge Greendale in darkness while asphyxiating those who stand in the way. The miners are merely a physical manifestation of The Eldritch Dark, the first of many cosmic horrors in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4, which aims to plunge all life into a “crushing, consuming darkness.” This eldritch terror holds the potential to create a pit of absolute hopelessness and insanity, as it is characterized by an eerie omnipresence and the ability to feast on one’s deepest fears, regrets, and weaknesses.
When both Sabrina Spellman and Morningstar enter the heart of darkness, they are almost drained empty of their hope and resolve, causing the celestial light they create to fizzle out. However, with the aid of the Church of Hecate, who lend their powers to the duo, both Sabrinas succeed in consuming The Eldritch Dark with celestial light and manage to trap it within a glass dome. The Eldritch Dark is based upon the Lovecraftian entity named Darkness, which is a mysterious entity spawned by the “daemon sultan” Azathoth, capable of plunging all worlds into a primordial blank slate.
The Uninvited
The second of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's eldritch terrors is The Uninvited, an unkempt, mysterious man who knocks on people’s doors at night, seeking food, temporary shelter, and warmth. The Uninvited acts as a herald of The Void. Initially rendered mute due to the absence of a tongue, The Uninvited speaks of his loneliness once Father Blackwood fashions a makeshift tongue for him. He chronicles the tale of his existence even before the birth of time, and the eventual arrival of sentient beings, who had turned him away from warmth and shelter. Thus, this man was dubbed The Uninvited, doomed to feast on the hearts of those who failed to offer him compassion and wander the cosmos alone. By the ending of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4, episode 2, The Uninvited is trapped by Sabrina Spellman inside a dollhouse, and this figure seems to be inspired by Lovecraft’s The Outsider.
The Weird
The Weird manifests as a hive-minded tentacled parasite in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4. Using drowned bodies as a Trojan Horse to gain entry into Spellman Mortuary, The Weird enters Sabrina to siphon her power and offer nourishment to The Void. The Weird is deemed older than the stars and time itself, like most other eldritch terrors, and seeks to assimilate all life forms within itself, enslaving them till the end of time. With the aid of Ambrose, Nick, and Peste, Sabrina is successful in luring The Weird out of her consciousness, trapping it inside an octopus-like creature within a frozen glass tank. While The Weird does not seem to be a direct reference to a Lovecraftian tale, its aesthetics are inspired by Lovecraft's powerful Cthulu, a part-human, part-dragon, part-tentacled cosmic entity. Cthulu was first introduced in Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, which was published in the Weird Tales magazine.
The Perverse
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4, episode 4 featured The Imp of the Perverse, a goblin-esque statue capable of granting wishes and warping reality. The Imp is shown as a part of the collection of the trinket salesman, who seems to be an otherworldly entity in himself, with mythical artifacts such as Pandora’s Box and The Omphalos Stone in his collection. After The Imp is taken by force by Blackwood, he wishes to be the emperor of Greendale. This warps reality into a nightmarish dictatorship, wherein residents of the town have no memory of their powers and the true nature of Chilling Adventures villain Father Blackwood. This eldritch terror is especially horrific, as it rendered the most powerful witches and warlocks oblivious to reality, including brave mortals like Harvey, who now acts as one of Blackwood’s many minions.
The Imp affects everyone except Sabrina and Roz. Both were touched by at least one of the eldritch terrors themselves, resulting in them being immune to the terror. On the other hand, despite being under The Imp’s influence, Aunt Hilda and Dr. Cerberus form a resistance against Father Blackwood and are eventually freed from his influence after ingesting soup made from the Stone of Omphalos, which the Titan, Cronos, had swallowed. Reality is finally restored after Sabrina wishes upon the statue to revert Greendale back to normality, while Blackwood is held captive by his daughter Prudence for more information about the upcoming eldritch terrors. While not directly taken from any Lovecraftian tale, The Imp of the Perverse is an Edgar Allan Poe's adaptation of a story by the same name, which influenced the creation of Lovecraft’s God of Perversion, the sadistic Y'golonac.
The Cosmic
The Cosmic is not an entity per se, but the result of a cosmic catastrophe, wherein the worlds of Hell, Heaven, and Earth seem to be merging into one another, causing structures to erupt from the ground itself. This catastrophe is the direct consequence of the existence of two Sabrinas within a single timeline, namely Sabrina Spellman on the mortal realm, and Sabrina Morningstar as Queen of Hell. Moreover, The Cosmic heralds the arrival of three parallel cosmos’ hurtling towards Earth with full force, as it intends to annihilate one or both Sabrinas. In order to diffuse this chaos, the archangel Metatron (who also appears as one of the Supernatural series' angels) tries to negate both Sabrinas, being the keeper of Cosmic Order and the mitigator of time paradoxes. In the end, this eldritch terror is countered by Sabrina Morningstar, who decides to travel to a parallel universe in order to defuse the temporal paradox, leaving behind her father, Lucifer, and husband, Caliban, in the process.
The Returned
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4, episode 6 opens with the return of ghosts from the past, with the dead returning to Earth to exact vengeance. This prompts the return of Dorcas and Sabrina's father, Edward Spellman, who are unaware of their undead form and the exact nature of the circumstances surrounding their death. Once an individual crosses to the other side, they do not return quite in the same way - this is exemplified in Edward Spellman’s behavior towards Sabrina, berating her existence and renouncing her as his daughter. This leaves Sabrina heartbroken, and to make matters worse, a once-dead punk rock band named Satanic Panic is out for blood and demands a Battle of the Bands, while holding Harvey’s father hostage. What ensues is a frenetic race against time, as Mambo Marie plays a gamble against Lazarus, The Resurrected Man, and The Fright Club indulges in a Battle of the Bands outside the Gates of Hell. By the end of episode 6, the dead return to their graves, and pass on peacefully to the afterlife.
The Endless
The Endless manifests in the alternative world that Sabrina Morningstar travels to, through the talking cat puppet Salem, who is the head writer and creator of the world that emulates the sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Sabrina Morningstar finds herself playing out her own life, with her aunties being replaced by different actors, and fates in the script manifesting in reality. This world seems to be on an endless repeat, with scripts getting recycled and plot lines re-churned, and there seems to be no exit from the dramatic hellhole. Sabrina makes a trip to The Green Room, which is a kill room of sorts, where actors who go against the grain are turned into canned tuna by an unwitting Ambrose. With no magic to rely on, Sabrina appeals to Salem that the world needs to be rescued from the fast-approaching presence of The Void, and the two are able to smash through the mirror portal into Sabrina Spellman’s bedroom. Warning Spellman of the arrival of The Void, Sabrina Morningstar dies in her arms. The Endless seems to be based on the Lovecraftian deity Thasaidon, who is the Master of the Endless Void.
The Void
The Void is the ultimate culmination of every other eldritch terror, as it represents stark nothingness and the complete annihilation of all existence. After being warned by Sabrina Morningstar, Sabrina Spellman ventures into The Void, with the aim of trapping it inside Pandora’s Box. Sabrina encounters a stark white space, which houses all the planets spread throughout the vast cosmos, symbolizing a pit that contains everything and nothing at the same time. However, things go awry when Zelda and Ambrose attempt to summon Sabrina’s soul into Morningstar’s body, which inadvertently leads to Sabrina carrying a piece of The Void within her. Meanwhile, Lucifer arrives with an infernal army of possessed miners, along with Caliban, to demand Sabrina Morningstar’s body. Despite being bound from using her powers, Sabrina inadvertently consumes several beings as they seem to vanish into nothingness.
Acutely aware of the disastrous nature of her transformation, Sabrina decides to venture into the Mountains of Madness, which is a reference to an unholy site home to Lovecraftian terrors. She is approached by Blackwood, who offers her guidance to control her powers, but actually harbors the intention of assimilating her with the rest of The Void and unleashing the other seven eldritch terrors that lay trapped. With the arrival of the aunties, Agatha, Nick, and Ambrose, a transference ritual transpires, with Sabrina trapping The Void inside Pandora’s Box along with the seven eldritch terrors, while returning the vanished beings to reality, which included Roz and Prudence. However, containing The Void within her takes its toll, and Sabrina dies at the end of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4, having sacrificed herself for the greater good and saving the cosmos from utter annihilation.
Sabrina & Riverdale Cross Over In A Comic After Season 4's Events
While Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 5 isn't happening, the story will pick up where season 4 left off in The Occult World of Sabrina, a comic run from Archie comics that's set for a 2022 release. Early plans for the comic's storyline saw Riverdale's Archie and the gang as opposing witches and warlocks fighting against those from Sabrina's Greendale, and an adaptation of some plot material that would have been used for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 5 had it gone forward. The comic's final storyline has yet to be revealed, however, so it will be a matter of waiting for its 2022 release to see how Sabrina's Riverdale connection pans out on the page, and whether any of the eldritch terrors from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina manage to make a return.
Sabrina Appeared In Riverdale Season 6
In addition to their upcoming comic book crossover, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Riverdale already came together in the Riverdale season 6 episode "The Witching Hour(s)." This episode saw a resurrected Sabrina team up with Riverdale's Cheryl to harness the power of Bailey's comet and reunite a Blossom family ancestor with her lover in the afterlife. However, it's important to note that these events took place in Rivervale, not Riverdale. While the two share continuity to some extent, Sabrina's appearance technically hasn't happened in the main Riverdale reality/timeline (yet). Sabrina's Riverdale return and future are still significant, however, as this event opens the door for Sabrina to remain alive in other timelines as well. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 4 may have killed her off temporarily, but Sabrina Spellman will almost certainly be back.