Sabrina the Teenage Witch Review - Episode 11: A Girl and Her Cat (or when the witch and her familiar finally bond)

Every great series has that one episode where everything quietly shifts. That one episode where a supporting character becomes essential and where the tone deepens without losing its charm. With Sabrina the Teenage Witch, it is no different.

A Girl and Her Cat is that episode for Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a story wrapped in holiday chaos but filled with something far more lasting: connection.

There are louder episodes. Bigger laughs. Flashier magic. But none hit quite like this one. Because beneath the Christmas lights and the pizza place chaos, something rare and intimate happens, the moment when Salem stops being just the comic relief and becomes the emotional core of the series.

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Not just a cat, a heart with claws

Until now, Salem had mostly existed on the sidelines. A talking cat with world domination jokes and dramatic tantrums, sentenced to feline form after trying to take over the world. He was hilarious, over-the-top, and endlessly quotable, but always on the edge of absurdity. A punchline in a fur coat.

But this episode dares to pause. To let Salem sit in his own silence. To strip away the jokes and reveal something underneath the sarcasm, vulnerability, longing, love.

When he tears Sabrina’s favorite sweater, it’s a classic sitcom setup. Her anger feels real. His guilt, sharper than usual. The sequence at the pizza place, where Salem causes a scene chasing a mouse, feels like one final attempt to stay close to her. And when she leaves him in the alley? That lands.

For the first time, Salem isn’t just part of the gag. He’s the story.

And it hurts.

Because Salem, for all his bravado, is deeply lonely. The audience knows it. The aunts know it. But this is the episode where Sabrina finally sees it too.

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A soft unraveling under Christmas lights

Holiday episodes often lean into sentimentality, but A Girl and Her Cat does something quieter and far more effective. It lets absence speak. It lets worry build. It replaces grand resolutions with small acts of grace.

Salem ends up in the home of a little boy named Rex, and the show resists the urge to go full fairytale. There’s no overblown lesson, no magical escape. Just a cat on a couch, trying to get home.

And then, out of nowhere, Coolio appears. As himself. Because of course he does.

He—Coolio himself—comes out of a poster on the wall! It’s absurd. It’s perfect. It reminds us that Sabrina the Teenage Witch has always lived on that strange border between sitcom chaos and magical realism. But this cameo doesn’t undercut the emotion. It heightens it. Because even when the world goes sideways, Salem’s focus is clear. He wants to be found.

He doesn’t try to fight his way back. He just hopes someone will come for him. That someone still cares.

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Salem, seen at last

What makes this episode remarkable isn’t just that Salem is in the spotlight. It’s how much it matters. Sabrina the Teenage Witch is a show about growing up in a weird world, and part of that journey is realizing who truly stands by your side.

Sabrina had always seen Salem as baggage. Annoying. Loud. Kind of pathetic. But in this moment, faced with the thought of losing him, something shifts. She sees the real him. The exile beneath the fur. The warlock who once dreamed too big, lost everything, and now lives in a house that never fully forgave him.

And she chooses him anyway.

That act, not of rescuing but of recognition, is what makes the episode so powerful. She doesn’t just find her cat. She finds her familiar. The one who frustrates her, challenges her, and loves her with a loyalty he tries to hide under layers of drama and dry wit.

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A love letter to unlikely bonds

The final scene is quiet. No magic. No punchline. Just Sabrina holding him. He nestles into her arms like he belongs there, because now he finally does.

From this point on, their dynamic changes. Salem is no longer just comic relief. He’s the anchor. The one who calls her out. The one who believes in her even when she doesn’t. The one who sees her becoming who she’s meant to be, not just a witch, but a whole person.

He doesn’t stop being annoying. He’ll still knock things over on purpose. Still fake injuries to get attention. Still try to order pay-per-view wrestling. But after A Girl and Her Cat, we see every one of those moments differently.

Because now we know what’s underneath.

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The episode that gave Salem his soul

A Girl and Her Cat is the episode in Sabrina the Teenage Witch that does not just deepen a character. It rewrites the emotional language of the show. It tells us that even the sassiest, most self-sabotaging warlock can be saved. That the people, or cats, we think we’re stuck with might actually be the ones who save us.

It’s not flashy. It’s not loud. But it lingers.

In a series full of spells and slapstick, this is the episode that purrs. That aches. That says what so many of us needed to hear, you are not just tolerated. You are wanted.

This is not just a holiday episode. It is a turning point. A revelation. A small, perfect reminder that love often shows up in unexpected places, curled up in a windowsill, eyes half-closed, waiting to be chosen.

And in the world of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, this is when the magic finally grows claws.

Rating: 5 out of 5 sarcastic meows of redemption