Hello Readers,
Witching hour has passed and with it the finale of popular Marvel show, Agatha All Along. Many fans are claiming it is one of the best MCU television shows that has been released in the last few years. It is a spin-off from the first show to debut on Disney+ in 2021, WandaVision. The character of Agatha Harkness made her first appearance as a supporting character who turns out to be a centuries-old witch rather than the friendly neighbour.
Agatha has a presence in the Marvel comics that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is based on but she has not had her own series such as Ms Marvel or others that have had the TV treatment. Even though we learned some of Agatha’s secrets in WandaVision, there is a lot more to her than we thought we knew.
Agatha All Along centres around the coven’s journey down the Witches Road. When Agatha realises that Wanda sapped her of her powers, she assembles a coven of witches and one mysterious teenager and they set off down, down the road.
Beware there will be spoilers for the full series of Agatha All Along so make sure to finish it first.
Agatha All Along (2024)
This Marvel series has been praised by many for its women-centered story arc and inclusion of LGBT+ characters which are typically rare in Marvel/Disney content. It is the perfect show for autumn with the two-episode finale airing on Halloween. There is a departure from the typical superhero theme, introducing supernatural elements but we still have the epic showdowns and complex plotlines that Marvel is known for.
With Wanda meeting her apparent demise in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, the continuation of the WandaVision story has pivoted to Agatha who remains under Wanda’s spell when we meet her in Westview. She believes she is a detective called Agnes but is really just trapped in the house that she took over from a resident of the town.
Teen comes along and knowing magic is able to free Agatha from the spell and cajoles her into going down the road. We don’t initially know why Teen wants to go down the Witches Road or even what his name is but Agatha is keen to get her magic back especially after a fight with Rio, her possible past paramore.
We get to meet other Witches in the area that are down on their luck and have resulted to mortal pursuits to keep their craft going. We have Lillia who reads fortunes; Jen who can make potions; Alice, a protection witch and Sharon or Mrs Hart with green fingers. All of these characters have complex back stories that gradually get revealed as the show goes on.
With the Salem Seven, a group of witches hunting Agatha on their tails, the coven summon the entrance to the road and start on their journey. The road takes the coven through a creepy wood with various trials appearing to test them. The trials were an interesting part of the journey as they broke up the story and gave the characters an opportunity to change outfits and use their abilities.
The first trial is in a house set in a ‘Big Little Lies’ universe although referred to in the show as Huge Tiny Lies. The group are in East Coast Summer outfits and the trial involves creating an antidote to some poisonous wine testing Jen’s potions’ abilities. Interesting parts of this one included the morphing of their faces done with prosthetics and we see the group start to bond. Unfortunately, it does not end well for Mrs Hart: the least qualified in the coven meets her demise.
The reappearance of Rio clearly rattles Agatha and the group gain a new Green Witch. Entering the next trial, there is a 1970s American rock theme with the coven in a recording studio. The trial focuses around Alice’s past as her mother was a famous singer in the 70s whose version of the Ballad of the Witches’ Road became an international hit. Unfortunately, Lorna Wu died in a hotel fire which is represented by a fire demon, introducing more magical elements to the show. We see the group harmonise together while singing and playing the song and also Rio manages to reveal some of Agatha’s secrets to the group.
The third trial is with an 80s slumber party theme and with Rio revealing that Teen is not Agatha’s son, Nicholas Scratch, we learn more about their relationship and it also deepens the mystery of who Teen could be. With possession and Ouija boards on the menu, the coven start telling each other more than they would plan to otherwise. Agatha loses control and absorbs Alice’s magic, leaving her an empty husk. Rio takes charge and Teen ends up in mortal peril.
After a stereotypical broomstick ride and Rio dispersing after causing chaos, we finally learn that Teen is Billy Maximoff but he was also someone else. In his past, he is a normal Jewish boy living in nearby Eastview with his parents. His name is William Kaplan. Lillia puts a sigil on him to hide his true nature from witches, possibly protecting him from Rio and Agatha. When William dies in a car crash, the soul of Billy Maximoff enters his body just as Wanda is breaking down the hex.
Billy is now in a new body and over the next three years transforms William’s room into a witches’ paradise complete with posters from the Wizard of Oz, The Craft and Houdini. Billy doesn’t remember being William Kaplan but assimilates into his life with his parents and finding a boyfriend. Having the pair kiss on screen is rare but I think was important to show that these characters have many sides to them.
Billy meets Ralph Bohner with the support of boyfriend, Eddie and learns that Wanda had two sons connecting his memory of her to the truth. Ralph has fled Westview after being trapped in Wanda’s spell and Agatha having taken over his house. In the scene where we see that Agatha was just in the house imagining she was a detective, she is wearing a Bohner Family Reunion t-shirt.
Billy then went looking for Agatha believing in the power of the road and hoping to use it to find his brother, Tommy. Rather than being in the police station, Billy was under interrogation in Agatha’s living room.
With this new information revealed about Billy and his new found powers as Wiccan, a character from the comics; the coven face a trial with a famous witches theme seeing Billy as Maleficent, Agatha as the Wicked Witch of the West, Lillia as Glinda and Jen as the witch from Snow White.
Lillia’s odd moments are revealed as her actually experiencing time in a non-linear fashion, something that happened to her as a young witch in Sicily. The trial involves reading a successful tarot or getting impaled by a sword and with Lillia travelling to other scenes in the show she finally learns her fate and sacrifices herself so the others can continue with the road, knowing it is finally her time to meet Death.
The final episodes show the last trial where Jen and Billy are released from the Road and Agatha faces up to her past. We learn of her son, Nicholas and their life in the 1700s. We also learn that the Road was never real and Agatha pretended to take witches down the road and then take their power from them, keeping herself living. Billy unconsciously created the Road and the trials with the clues being dotted around his bedroom. The final showdown goes on between Rio and Agatha, the first having revealed herself to be Death and having a past relationship with Agatha. The pair kiss which made history as the first lesbian kiss in an MCU film or show. She granted Nicholas more life than he was meant to have but claiming his life at seven sent Agatha on her path of absorbing the magic of other witches.
Agatha is defeated but later appears to Billy as a ghost and the two decide to find Tommy with Billy having granted his soul a body when a boy is drowned by bullies at the local swimming pool.
The writing, design and overall production of Agatha All Along was amazing and different to anything Marvel have done in the past. I enjoyed the female-heavy cast given the male-centric nature of the first Marvel films. The casting was great featuring some newcomers such as Joe Locke, in his second ever on-screen role and well-known actresses Kathryn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza and Patti Lupone. The practical sets of the Road and the trials were really well done, not forgetting the added CG elements and VFX.
I think this is a series that will reach a lot of different audience members who do not typically enjoy other Marvel products or want a more inclusive and diverse cast. I watched this show each week when it came out and it would be great to do a binge of WandaVision and Agatha All Along as the two run on from each other. It was not completely necessary to have seen WandaVision before this show but if you want to start following the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I would recommend watching it as well as Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness.
I rate it 5/5 and will be re-watching in the future.
Happy Watching,
Robyn