Summary
Chapter 15, “Doctor Cerberbus’s House of Horror”, is a smart filler episode to mark the half-way mark.
This recap of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 2, Chapter 15, “Doctor Cerberbus’s House of Horror”, contains spoilers. You can read the recap of the previous episode by clicking these words.
Chapter 15, “Doctor Cerberbus’s House of Horror”, is a true demonstration to future writers of how to write a filler episode but not let it go to waste, by bridging the chapter as a middle-story for the rest of the series. “Doctor Cerberbus’s House of Horror” is an impressive piece of work in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 2.
Chapter 15 is constructed into small short stories, with each character visiting the Tarot Reader Ms. McGarvey.
In Sabrina’s (Kiernan Shipka) tarot reading, she is jealous of Nicholas (Gavin Leatherwood) drawing the attention from the Weird Sisters. It doesn’t help that since the previous episode, there has been an unspoken awkwardness between them. The tarot reading describes a story where Nicholas runs his annual talent show at The Academy, bringing the Weird Sisters on stage to perform tricks. When he delivers a trick on Sabrina, she keeps floating in the air until she dies from lack of oxygen; the Weird Sisters manipulated the trick. The Tarot Reader claims she can trust Nicholas, but not those around him.
Theo (Lachlan Watson) gets a tarot reading in “Doctor Cerberbus’s House of Horror”. He’s unhappy that he cannot change much since stating he is male. But he gets the idea to steal from the witches and makes a strange sticky gender change potion to smooth all over his body. When Theo wakes up, he has masculine features, but soon realizes that his arm is turning into wood. Hilda (Lucy Davis) and his father chop off his arm, but later his legs turn into the wood as well. The Tarot Reader states he should not steal.
When a blind Rosalind (Jaz Sinclair) visits the Tarot Reader, she hears a story about an operation which enables her to regain her sight. The procedure works, with her father insisting she blesses the Church congregation that lent the family the money. Her guilt makes her feel like she shouldn’t have taken the money, but Harvey (Ross Lynch) recommends she partakes in charity work. She decides to meet a blind person, to help and advise, but learns in horrific circumstances that it’s their eyes she stole. The Tarot Reader explains that she has to be patient about her situation.
Zelda (Miranda Otto) reluctantly takes a reading from the Tarot Reader, but she will be happy she did. Her reading shows how she is hesitant about the wedding, and that she needs to admit the truth about the groom’s baby Leticia, that she spirited away to be raised by Dezmelda. She learns that Dezmelda ate the baby, to absorb the youth. At the wedding she catches Blackwood (Richard Coyle) kissing Dezmelda, with the wedding crowd laughing at her embarrassment. The Tarot Reader states that secrets should remain a secret.
Harvey seems eager for his Tarot Reading, wanting to understand his alternative future. He gets into an Arts Colony but lives with a strange dormitory roommate called Howard. They both draw monsters that come at night; concluding its the Harbingers of the Void. He wakes up to the horror that Howard has hanged himself and then becomes consumed by the void, and trapped. The Tarot Reader explains to him that he can achieve his arts at home.
And finally, Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) is the last character to take a tarot reading. Blackwood described a secret brotherhood, the Judas Society. Blackwood demands loyalty. He asks Ambrose to correct his family, especially Sabrina. He carries out his objective, killing his family. When the tarot reading is over, he asks about his boyfriend Luke, and as he sees the last card, he runs off.
Chapter 15, “Doctor Cerberbus’s House of Horror” concludes with the Tarot Reader packing up her cards and leaving for the day, with Hilda disappointed she couldn’t take a reading. Sabrina asks Nicholas as her official boyfriend if he could stay away from the Weird Sisters. Ambrose asks Blackwood if he would harm the Spellmans. He tells him that Luke is dead, and wonders if he will honor his place in the Judas Society.
In an episode-ending twist, it is revealed that the Tarot Reader was Madam Satan/Mary Wardwell (Michelle Gomez), she manipulated their minds, and when she turns her card, she is The Empress.
You can read the recap of Part 2, Chapter 16 by clicking these words.
