Spoilers are ahead. In Fear Street Part Two: 1978, the solution to breaking the Shadyside witch’s curse seemed so obvious. In hindsight, perhaps, a bit too obvious.
The Netflix slasher film, inspired by the R.L. Stine book series of the same name, picks up where Part One left off: Camp Nightwing. In 1978, the Shadyside, Ohio camp was attacked by a murderer who had been possessed by Sarah Fier, a woman who haunted the town since 1666 when she was hanged for being a witch. Thanks to C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs) — a Camp Nightwing survivor who came in contact with the witch and lived to tell about it — we learn that, in a deal made with the devil, Sarah Fier cut off her hand.
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The Sunnyside campers harass Christine “Ziggy” Berman (Sadie Sink), later known as C. Berman, with a nursery rhyme that goes, “Sarah Fier cut off her wicked hand on Satan’s Stone, in exchange for eternal life, scarring the soil beneath with the Witch’s Mark, bringing darkness upon the land.”
She was hanged and later buried on what was once Camp Nightwing without her severed hand, which holds a grip on the land where she died. “When she’s near blood will fall,” the legend states and we see that in practice; blood drips from noses anytime she is near. “And the curse will last until body and hand unite.”
Since C. Berman knows where the hand is and Part One’s heroine Deena (Kiana Madeira) knows where Sarah’s bones are buried, all Deena needs to do is reunite them and the curse will be broken. The town will be saved from anymore damnation. And, more importantly, Deena’s girlfriend Sam (Panic’s Olivia Scott Welch) will not become one of Sarah’s murderous henchmen like so many before her: the Nightwing Killer, Ruby Lane, the Skull Mask Murderer, and The Pastor. They all live happily ever after.
Well, they would have if ending a 300-year-old curse was that simple. At the end of Fear Street Part Two we see that Sarah Fier wants more than her hand back. When Deena reassembles the witch’s body she is transported back to 1666, where she becomes the infamous witch. (You’ll notice some other familiar faces from Parts One and Two playing Sarah’s neighbors in the third movie.) Apparently, Sarah Fier would like to set the record straight about what happened all those centuries ago.
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There is more to her story than those legends state and in Fear Street Part Three: 1666, Deena will learn what happened to set the whole town on a horrifying path that has become a fate they can’t escape. By seeing what Sarah endured all those years ago through her own eyes, Deena might finally know how to save her town from another tragedy. But as C. Berman stated in Part Two, “The past is never really past.” It tends to repeat itself.
Shadyside is a town full of outcasts who have been underestimated all of their lives. Deena, her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores, Jr.), and the rest of her friends certainly fall into this category thanks to the cycle of abuse that has haunted the town since 1666. You don't get the nickname Killer Capitol, U.S.A. for nothing.
Shadysiders are pariahs to their wealthier Sunnyside counterparts who go as far to accuse Ziggy of being a witch in the summer of 1978. The witch has become the go-to insult for anyone who is different. Let’s guess that like Ziggy, Sarah wasn't actually a witch, just a victim of a witch hunt. Now it's Deena's turn to find out who really set Shadyside on such a dangerous path before the witch strikes again.