A worthy successor to WandaVision
The final two episodes of Agatha All Along released on Disney+ last week, and I have to say, I’m impressed. It is rare for the MCU's shows to get better in their third act. Indeed, the most common gripe about WandaVision—arguably Marvel’s most popular and successful show—was that it ended with multiple energy beam/light show fights that were somewhat at odds with the practicality of the story up to that point.
Agatha All Along proves that Marvel can learn from their mistakes, though. This is going to be a spoiler-filled review of the whole season, so be warned. If you haven’t watched it, do. Even if you haven’t been keeping up with Marvel lately, but liked WandaVision, I do think this show is worth your time.
With all that out of the way, let’s get into it.
Billy All Along
So, it turns out that my biggest issue with Agatha All Along was a feature, not a bug. While I was having fun with the characters, performances, and overall style of the show, I did complain a few episodes in that it felt like the plot was spinning its wheels.
Agatha All Along follows the trials of the de-powered witch Agatha Harkness, her teenage familiar, and her hastily procured coven as they travel the ‘Witches' Road’ in search for power. While the trials themselves were fun, the end-goal was vague, and each witch in turn being challenged personally by the Road started to feel a bit rote.
Again—it wasn’t bad—it just wasn’t as gripping as I would’ve liked. Then along came episodes 8 & 9. One of my all-time favourite narrative turns is an ending that forces you to re-evaluate everything that has come before it (I think this is a big reason why Arrival is one of my favourite movies, and why Mistborn: Secret History is one of my favourite stories).
The reveal that the Witches' Road was a construct unknowingly created by Billy Maximoff was just brilliant. Equally wonderful was that entire notion of the Witches' Road was something Agatha and her son unintentionally created centuries ago.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The trials of the Road feel circular and repetitive because they are. They are a fabrication. I mean, the road literally loops on itself. The concept is a bit of a double-edged sword, though. Yes, it’s an extremely fun twist, but it did push me to start questioning the quality of the plot about halfway through. I’m glad I stuck with it though.
The real reason why this worked so well though was because it made sense on a character level. Billy didn’t create the Witches' Road ‘just because’. He did it because he wanted a way to find his lost brother. Although the Road couldn’t offer anything of substance, his quest ultimately paying off by him forming a genuine relationship with Agatha was quite satisfying.
Watching the two of them bond and fight throughout the season was where it was the most fun, and Agatha’s backstory as revealed in the final episode was where it was the most tragic. The viewer is literally forced to watch Agatha give birth, beg Death not to take her child, watch him grow into a young child, then get sick and die anyways.
It's as dark as the MCU has ever been.
The Witcher
This is so much more compelling than anything Marvel Comics have done over the years with Agatha Harkness and her son, too. There was a bit of a ‘who asked for this’ vibe to the discourse around the show before it came out, and I’m so glad that the sheer quality of the writing and complexity of the characters were able to prove the naysayers wrong about their perceptions of the show.
I love how it presented Agatha, too. She is, undoubtedly, a villain. She was killing witches before her son was born—both for their power and, presumably, out of her love for Death. The show doesn’t attempt to gloss over this, even when it’s humanising her.
She gets her comeuppance. Agatha dies. Sure, she’s persisting as a ghost, and maybe there’ll be space for some hardcore redemption in her future, but for now I’m satisfied with how the writers walked the tightrope of making a sympathetic protagonist out of a villainous character.
Til Death Do Us Part
I was a little less convinced by some of the supporting characters, though. I think all of the actors did a good job, but didn’t quite connect with Alice, Sharon, or Jen. Patti LuPone as Lilia was the exception, though. Her arc drove the events of the seventh episode, which was one of the most profound and emotionally impacting of the series. Lilia was a pure and heroic presence in a show that centred on some tense and murderous personalities.
Aubrey Plaza as Rio/Death has dominated a lot of the discussions around the show. I think she was great, and her costuming and design was excellent. Some might have expected more from her past romantic relationship with Agatha, but I think we got all that we needed to know. I feel like the someone being in love with the personification of death is a concept that would fall apart under too much scrutiny.
Overall, Agatha All Along was a great season of television. I might’ve preferred if it had released all at once in order to relieve some of its plot issues, but now that it’s all out there, new viewers likely won’t suffer the same issue I did.
Vision Quest, a mini-series that won’t be released for a few years, is set to conclude a trilogy of Wanda-related series. Likely, we won’t be seeing Billy or Agatha again until then, but I’m happy to say that it’s something I’m greatly looking forward to.
Thanks for reading my review. If you liked it, consider checking out my wishlist or buying me a cup of coffee at https://ko-fi.com/kieranobrien or below.
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