The Sundance Now original Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale is a story set in the modern day where witches live amongst ordinary people. Sarah and her daughter Harper live in a town called “Sanctuary,” where for years now, witches have been helping the ordinary in whatever way possible, with some rules in place. Sarah has a coven of four friends from the town, and she has occasionally bent the rules for them. She’s always thought of them as her dear friends and never imagined it would be problematic for her in the future. However, after a tragic incident takes place and one of her friends loses her son, she starts to blame Sarah and her daughter for his death. Things were already terrible for Sarah, but in episode 6, we really get to see the things she did come back to bite her even though she did them out of the kindness of her heart.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In Episode 5?
Episode 5 of Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale begins with Abi watching a video of all the friends hanging out back when things were all sunshine and rainbows. On the other hand, Sarah rushes to school to find a shaken Harper after Bea got their classmates to dunk her in the fountain, claiming she was performing magic on her. Ironically, the principal of the school is determined to keep the incident under wraps and not call it a crime against witches because it would mess with the reputation of the school, etc. (this feels too real). Basically, no action is going to be taken against the perpetrator because the school has been very “inclusive.” On the other hand, Bea’s mom, Julia, apologizes to Sarah and Harper for Bea’s conduct, while the girl insults her mom too. Ever since the news about Julia taking Sarah’s help to get Albie to love her again went public, Bea’s been treating her mother terribly. First, she supported a rapist, and now her cheating father—what goes on?
On the other hand, Albie tries to get the police to arrest Sarah because he didn’t give consent for Sarah to perform magic on him. At the same time, Abi visits Jake, who has been infected by a virus and is very sick. Jake provokes Abi into thinking that it might not be a virus and that he may be getting punished by Sarah and Harper for talking against them. Maggie does check on Sarah to see if she has the consent form, and Sarah fakes it with some magic. However, Harper drops another bomb on Maggie by asking her to arrest Bea for trying to get her killed in school. Maggie does find evidence of the video on Bea’s phone too, so she ends up arresting her on both counts. Seeing the mess the town is in, Sarah decides to perform a sunstone rite, which is supposed to bring clarity in times of despair, and she plans on performing it for the whole town. Pierre, her dear mate, doesn’t quite like the idea.
Strangely, Abi decides to tell her husband Michael that it was she who slept with Albie, but Julia never knew. In his irritation, Albie reveals to Julia that it was Abi, claiming that she can’t judge him because she “violated” him (boo hoo). Abi tries to visit Jake again and finds him in much worse condition. She gives him some of Dan’s old things, which make him even sicker, while Sarah starts her ritual in a park somewhere. Maggie visits a professor who knows about magic, but she notices that some sort of spell occurs when she’s trying to extract answers from her. Maggie leaves quietly, so there’s no more damage done. On the other hand, Cheryl tells Bridget that they would have to go on a break if Bridget took Sarah’s side. She claims she’s prejudiced against witches because they have power, which means she’s dangerous too. Unfortunately, this means Bridget can’t help Sarah with her massive ritual, which leaves her to perform it all alone without her coven.
In front of Sarah’s house, Jake’s mom decides to use her religious faith to ward off the evil that is Sarah from the town. Sarah tries to pacify her with a spell, but everyone believes she’s cursed her, just like she cursed Jake. Harper is good friends with Professor Shula’s son and spends some time with them and with Maggie, who drops by for some information about witchcraft. Harper thanks Maggie for believing her and helping her out. Maggie asks Harper if she knows of any of Dan’s other victims, and Harper points her to a girl’s rugby team he coached (yikes). On the other hand, the original rape video is finally found, and Harper can be proven innocent because Dan did in fact assault her. There’s something seriously wrong with Abi’s husband, Michael. They can’t stop fighting about why Dan was evil after watching the video of him and Harper. Michael blames Abi, claiming she indulged him and made him a monster. Abi replies that she did make a monster, not out of Dan but out of Michael himself. It appears like he’s about to assault her, but then he stops and says she created a god (weird).
While Sarah is performing the ritual all by herself, Michael puts something in Jake’s medication in the hospital. The ritual almost kills Sarah, and we don’t even know if it worked.
What Happens In Episode 6?
Episode 6 begins with a flashback in which Harper and Izzy (Bridget and Pierre’s daughter) found a magic book that appeared to have symbols in it that moved on their own when they looked through it. It’s almost as if one of them is, in fact, a witch. In the present day, Pierre finds an unconscious Sarah in her ritual circle with a bleeding hand and takes her home. She claims she’s lost her magic when she tries to find Harper through a locator spell. On the other hand, Harper is actually with Izzy, trying to comfort her because Izzy’s worried Harper will get arrested for murdering Dan through witchcraft. Harper assures her that that’s not the case, and Dan fell by accident. On the other hand, Jake’s getting worse because of whatever Michael’s giving him, but he tells Abi he’s just making it appear so. More people in the town are contracting the same virus, and this is more reason to blame Sarah and make it seem as if she’s cursed all of Sanctuary for committing hate crimes against her and her daughter.
Elsewhere, one of the guys from the police force finds evidence that Izzy was at the party on the night Dan died, and she headed up the stairs a minute before he died too. Until now, everyone believed Izzy was at home on that day, plus she has a motive to kill Dan for hurting her best friend Harper. When Maggie goes to talk to her, she finds some drawings Izzy’s made. When she takes them to Shula’s, the professor tells her that those are “Old Signs,” and she’s even got a sigil of destruction from an ancient book called the Starcross Grimoire. This is a book that can cause great harm if it’s in the hands of the wrong witch. Abi has a great plan against Sarah. She gets the whole town to gather again and claims that Sarah performed an illegal ritual in front of her, which caused Dan to become “evil.” She tells the town that her son died by falling out a window six years ago, and Sarah used her grief against her and asked to resurrect her son. Essentially, she claims that Sarah is the reason Dan raped her daughter (you’ve got to be stupid to believe this!). It seems the only sane people in town are the girls who were actually assaulted by Dan, and they call crap on Abi’s claims.
Jake ends up dying from the virus, and this makes things much worse for Sarah, so Pierre tells her to pack a bag and escape with him. Maggie finds them in Pierre’s home and asks if the whole thing is true, and Sarah admits that she brought back Dan from the dead, but for Abi’s sake. She also admits that she has done a bunch of illegal activities for the coven. On top of that, she shows Maggie the Starcross book.
Do Sarah And Harper Escape?
Maggie decides to take Sarah and Harper to a safe house; however, they don’t make it far, barely finding Harper. Sarah tells Harper everything she’s heard and says they need to get out of there before anything worse happens because she has no magic. Harper tells her mother to close her eyes and puts the missing amulet on her mother’s neck. Harper tells Sarah that everything will be alright, and her confidence or the power of her love will bring Sarah’s powers back. At the end of Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale, Sarah and Harper get caught by Ted and the police force. Maggie tries to interfere, but she’s unable to do anything because Jake’s father is too furious and can’t be reasoned with.
