Hogan Reviews

I have to say that I wasn’t all that excited about “Agatha All Along” going into it, in fact I didn’t start watching it until a few weeks in, but suddenly the last three or four episodes really pulled me in, and by the time it finished it was one of the better MCU TV efforts in general. Go figure! Let’s take a closer look…

The series’ main focus in on Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) and a teen who to begin with is just referred to as “Teen” (played by Joe Locke), as the latter arrives in Westview and breaks Agatha out of the curse Wanda had put her in at the end of WandaVision and asks her to take him down the “Witches Road” so he can gain power. A powerless Agatha isn’t initially interested until the teen tries to speak his name and its covered up by a hex… plus she ends up being chased by a group of assassins called the “Salem Seven” as well as Agatha’s crazy ex Rio Vidal (played by Aubrey Plaza) so any excuse to leave the area is a good one. In order to “travel the Witches Road” they need to be part of a coven so they assemble one comprised of divination witch Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) a potion sorceress whose powers have been bound, Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn) who is a “protector Witch” whose family has been cursed by a demon for generations, and finally the entirely innocent Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp) who is roped in to act as their “Green Witch” despite not knowing what was going on. It’s quite the fun group actually, and they bounce off each other well, bonding mostly over a complete lack of trust in Agatha due to her rep of killing members of her previous covens, as well as a rumour she gave up her own child to gain power.

The main cast, but which witch is which? (sorry, an oldie but a goodie!)

Agatha and her coven manage to summon the path to the Witches Road and head down it, beginning a run of several episodes in the middle of the series where they do a variety of trials often involving a change of clothes to match the scenery and a time-based puzzle. During these adventures Sharon is killed off, leading to Rio becoming their green witch, Alice is also killed off shortly after seeing her family curse lifted at last (typical!) and the teen is revealed to have strong powers, strong enough to seemingly banish or kill off the other coven members, though they all actually survive. Agatha figures out his identity as Jennifer and Lilia bond, with the latter revealing she is currently experiencing time in a non-linear fashion and has seen the future.

Agatha’s ex, who is also…

The seemingly final trial sees Lilia sacrifice herself to take out the Salem Seven and we find out that the Teen is actually Billy Maximoff, one of Wanda and Vision’s invented kids who managed to inhabit the body of a recently dead teenager called William Kaplan back when Westview was reset, which we see during a long flashback that also included the reappearance of Ralph Bohner (Evan Peters) of all people. His real goal in walking the road is to find his brother Tommy and help him, but he has no idea how. This makes him the MCU’s version of Wiccan, so it’s nice to see more Marvel comics characters make an appearance, though as we soon find out he’s not the only person hiding a comic-based alternate identity…

Overall Thoughts:

Agatha goes “old school” in one of the later trials.

Agatha All Along was low on my “exciting up-coming shows” list but ended up surprising me, especially with its great final few episodes. MCU TV shows with Agatha Harkness in them have certainly set a high bar, in part thanks to Kathryn Hahn’s great performance. Now the whole series is there to binge, I definitely recommend it, which is a pleasant surprise to type.

The actual final trial soon happens and we find out Agatha had accidentally been the one to seal Jennifer’s powers and she manages to unblock the seal, getting her wish and being freed. Billy is then shown by Agatha how to find Tommy’s soul and guide it to a recently deceased teenage body, getting his wish and also being freed. Agatha herself then gets free, but has to face off with her ex, who was revealed to be the MCU version of Death. So we finally got a female Death after all, but too late to do the classic Thanos storyline, ah well. The two fight but Agatha sacrifices herself to save Billy, whose inhabiting of a dead body was a no-no in Death’s eyes.

End of the road… but not the series, I don’t have a picture from then though, so… sorry.

This leads to the final episode, which sees an extended flashback showing that Agatha’s child was due to be claimed by Death at birth but as they were in a relationship and all she gave Agatha a few extra years. During this time Agatha and her son made up the Witches Road song and the lyrics just as they went along cheerily singing, until one night Death came for her child and Agatha woke up to find his lifeless body. This changed her, and soon someone asked about the Witches Road and that Agatha was the only one who knew about it, so she played along and over many, many years gathered a coven to walk the road only to steal their powers for herself. The fact that there was an actual Witches Road in the series was due to Billy, whose Wanda-like powers conjured the whole ordeal. Billy heads back to Westview, seals door he created and is visited by the ghost of Agatha, who he initially tries to banish, but ends up sympathising with, the two heading off to find his brother Tommy as the credits roll.