Chilling Adventures of Sabrina creator, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, revealed that season 4 originally ended on a bigger cliffhanger. The series is based on the Archie comic book series of the same name, which started in 2014 and is still in publication. Set in Greendale, the story follows Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka), who must balance her life as a half-mortal and a half-witch. She must protect the people and town that she holds dear from a variety of evil forces.
The Netflix series started in 2018 and ran over the course of two seasons, which were broken up over four parts. Despite the dedicated fanbase, the show was cancelled after its fourth season in 2020. In the final episode, "Chapter Thirty-Six: At the Mountains of Madness," Sabrina died after sacrificing her blood to open a portal to the Void. In the afterlife, Nick appears after her, revealing that he killed himself by drowning in the Sea of Sorrows to be reunited with her.
In speaking with Deadline, Aguirre-Sacasa talked about Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. He noted that Netflix requested for him to remove a scene that would have teased a series continuation. Since they knew that they were cancelling the show, they didn't want to lead fans on with any hope for more adventures with the title character. However, Aguirre-Sacasa revealed that this scene would have left the season on a bigger cliffhanger. Read on below for his full statement:
One thing Netflix asked me to do, which I happily did, was to cut a scene from the last episode after we knew the show was ending because they didn’t want to give fans false hope that the story would continue. The scene was one of my favorites. I cut it because I knew what they were saying but it was a little bit like a dagger to my heart. What plays out is that Sabrina’s aunt Zelda (Miranda Otto), who had had dealings with the voodoo god of death, Baron Samedi, shakes a bag of bones and he appears to her. He says, 'I didn’t think you’d be contacting me so soon.' And Zelda says, 'There’s been a terrible mistake. It seems that my niece Sabrina is dead and we need to bring her back to life.' So the cliffhanger was going to be Sabrina’s family trying to pull her back from the afterlife.
Fans of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina were fairly upset that the show had been cancelled. There has been talk about a plan to crossover the Netflix series with Riverdale, which would have massively expanded upon this universe. Having the witches of Riverdale versus those in Greendale excited a lot of viewers, although Netflix didn't foresee this working, especially given the timing of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While season 4 still ends with a possible way to continue, Aguirre-Sacasa and Netflix still wanted to make sure that this would also work as a conclusion.
If this final scene made it into the show, it wouldn't be the first time that a season ended with a character wanting to pull another one from death. After all, it was teased at the end of a season that Sabrina would sneak into Hell to save Nicholas Scratch and bring him back. The ending didn't please all fans, especially given the show's casual mention of suicide at the end. However, for those who are still craving Chilling Adventures of Sabrina content, the comic series is still ongoing and tells the story from the perspective of two separate arcs.
Source: Deadline
