Season of the Witch

Joan Mitchell, a 39-year-old wife, lives a constrained life in suburban Pittsburgh with her husband Jack and their daughter Nikki. She feels restless and unfulfilled by the housewife role, while Jack's domineering and occasionally violent behavior weighs on her. The ongoing strain at home grows as he travels for work, leaving Joan feeling isolated and anxious.

Joan has been seeing a psychotherapist to cope with recurring dreams in which her husband seems to control her. The dreams foreshadow a growing sense of danger and loss of agency within her marriage. Therapy becomes part of her attempt to understand her fear and dissatisfaction.

Joan and her friend Shirley hear about a new woman rumored to practice witchcraft, Marion Hamilton. Curious, they decide to investigate by visiting Marion's house for a Tarot reading. The reading reveals Marion's leadership of a local witches' coven.

Joan and Shirley return from Marion's reading and meet Gregg, a Nikki's college acquaintance who has a casual sexual relationship with Nikki. The four drink and talk; Gregg tries to charm Joan, who rebuffs him. Gregg cruelly deceives Shirley into thinking she smoked pot, leading Joan to throw him out.

After returning home, Joan overhears Nikki and Gregg having sex, an event that unsettles everyone. Joan is sexually aroused and privately masturbates as Nikki discovers. This intimate moment marks the breakdown of boundaries in the household and fuels Joan's secrecy.

The next day, Nikki abruptly leaves home, while Jack heads off on another week-long business trip. Joan feels lonelier than ever as the house empties and she contemplates her choices.

Joan purchases a book about witchcraft and begins to experiment with simple readings and rituals. The new material fuels her curiosity and shatters her sense of safety at home. This marks the start of a double life that blurs the line between seeking power and succumbing to fear.

Joan uses a spell to draw Gregg toward her and they begin an affair. The deception grows as she tries to keep the relationship secret from Nikki and Jack. The affair escalates her descent into fear and magical ritual.

Joan experiences increasingly terrifying nightmares of an intruder wearing a Satanic mask invading her home. These dreams parallel her escalating involvement with witchcraft and her sense of being watched. Her reality becomes increasingly unsettled as rituals intensify.

Police inform that Nikki has been found in Buffalo, New York and will return home in a few days. The family grows anxious as the possibility of danger or separation looms. Joan weighs how this revelation affects her pursuit of power and her sense of safety.

After one final sexual encounter with Gregg, Joan tells him she does not want to see him again. Her decision is tangled with her magical experiments and her worsening paranoia. She attempts to sever the affair even as the occult forces around her press inward.

Following another nightmare, Joan shoots and kills her husband Jack as he unexpectedly returns early from a business trip. The event's outcome is ambiguous, with investigators later suggesting it may have been an accident. This act marks a brutal turning point in Joan's life.

Joan is initiated into Marion's coven in an elaborate and campy ritual, marking her formal entry into the secret sisterhood. The ceremony reframes her identity from anxious housewife to a self-assured witch. The ritual intensifies her commitment to the coven and its power.

The death is ruled an accident and Joan attends a party with her friends. A compliment about her youthful appearance prompts her to reveal she is a witch, and she is quietly celebrated for crossing over into a new identity. The crowd's references to her husband fade as she accepts a new sense of power.

In the final moments, Joan accepts her new status, being addressed as Mrs. Mitchell rather than Jack's wife. She smiles at the shift in perception, fully inhabiting her witch identity in a world that no longer defines her by her husband.