After the events of ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ Season 1, the relationship between Harvey and Sabrina was left pretty strained, to say the least, with his discovery that she was a witch and having to murder his zombified brother that Sabrina brought back to life in a horribly misguided attempt to make him happy. Unfortunately, because of these obstacles, Ross Lynch, who plays Harvey, admits that he doesn’t have much of a presence on the upcoming ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: A Midwinter’s Tale’ special, set to hit Netflix on Friday.
“Harvey and Sabrina’s relationship just isn’t … the same. They’re not spending as much time together. I’m there, but it’s pretty minimal. There’s not a lot for me in this particular episode because of those circumstances.”
Kiernan Shipka, who plays Sabrina, added:
“The holiday special is really wonderful. It’s a really emotional episode and it’s beautiful for the holidays. Obviously, the show wouldn’t be our show without some excitement and some demons — literally.”
Because this holiday special drops between seasons, it works as both a stand-alone episode, but does bridge certain story elements from season one, leading into season two. According to showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa:
“We wanted it to be a standalone insofar that everything you need to enjoy the episode is in the episode. But there are elements that we serialized through the first part of the season that we did have to carry through and help us set up the second part of the season. We see a little bit more of the aftermath of Harvey and Sabrina, their breakup at the end of part one.”
Aguirre-Sacasa also described how the Spellman clan celebrates the holidays, versus their friends and neighbors in the rest of Greendale:
“To most of Greendale, it’s Christmas. But for the Spellmans, because they’re witches, they celebrate Winter Solstice, which is a pagan holiday, which is similar to Christmas in some ways. For instance, they put up a tree, but rather than call it a Christmas tree, they call it a yule tree. You learn about one of the most important witch traditions, which is the burning of the yule log. However, for witches, the burning of the yule log is a precaution to keep nasty things from crawling down the chimney. The other thing is, Christmastime is traditionally a big time for ghost stories and ghost visitations, A Christmas Carol being the best example of that. So Sabrina gets it into her head that she’s going to have a seance to contact her mother. So, that’s another way that witches celebrate the holidays on our show.”
The special ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: A Midwinter’s Tale’ hits Netflix on Friday, December 14. Season 2 of the series kicks off on April 5, 2019.
Sources: TV Line/Entertainment Weekly