Lucasfilm may have been cowed by the worst kinds of so-called fans into not renewing The Acolyte due to its daring to feature gay witches, but thankfully Marvel might have just delivered the biggest “hold my beer” they had in reserve. Agatha All Along, a semi-sequel to WandaVision, features LGBT subtext – and actual text – galore in a mirror-universe Marvel take on The Wizard of Oz, one where the witches are the protagonists following a road of glowing bricks in hopes of obtaining the things they believe they’re missing. The “all along” in the title even suggests a potentially similar resolution in which they may realize they already had what they needed.
The first episode is so much fun it’s a bit of a shame the series takes a significant turn by the end of it. Initially very much in the spirit of WandaVision, it uses the tropes and iconography of a completely different TV show as misdirection. To reveal too much about that would spoil the fun; suffice it to say that by episode 2, we’re on a more conventional “assemble the team” track, while episodes 3 and 4 establish what will likely be a pattern for the rest of the 9-episode season, throwing the characters into Freddy Krueger-meets-Jigsaw scenarios where they find themselves in, essentially, a surreal nightmare escape room. There is a solution each time, designed to test each witch’s special power specifically, but it might take a lot out of them to get it. The first – a dark satire of Real Housewives shows – is a lot more fun than the second, which riffs on ’70s rock band archetypes and Stevie Nicks witchcraft accusations.
Witches, Psychics, and Goths, Oh My!
As trailers have already spoiled, the primary narrative involves The Witches’ Road, a dangerous supernatural quest that offers one’s heart’s desire at the end of it all. Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), we’re told, has already done it and survived, but ever since her arch-enemy Wanda Maximoff and the powerful Darkhold spell book got crushed under a mountain in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, she has no more powers, and naturally wants them back. Road rules insist she can’t go it alone, however, so she has to assemble a coven of the nearest available witchy women, however pathetic their gifts may be. These include psychic Lilia (Patti LuPone), potioner Jennifer (Sasheer Zamata), protector/second-gen blood witch Alice (Ali Ahn), and neighbor Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp), who is such a gifted gardener she’ll have to suffice as their “green witch.”
There’s also a mysterious, as-yet nameless goth teen (Joe Locke) who’s an Agatha superfan and a major nerd about witches and spells, despite apparently having no actual magical abilities himself. Every time he tries to say his name or discuss his backstory, all sound drops out; the first four episodes offer some seemingly obvious clues to his identity that seem so obvious they surely must be red herrings. And working multiple angles, perhaps, is Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), who may or may not be both an ex-lover and arch-enemy of Agatha. Plaza fans be forewarned: it’s clear her asking price was high enough that she doesn’t appear in every episode.
Visionary Changes
The first three episodes are quite distinct from one another, yet also from the MCU, except, perhaps, to the extent that Agatha’s own cynical sense of humor is akin to Tony Stark’s. These characters know they’re on the margins in the real world; once they enter the other dimension, vibrant and surreal colors, as well as a handful of jump-scares, conjure a real ’80s horror vibe, not just from the Elm Street movies but other reality benders like Brain Dead (the Bill Pullman one) and horror TV shows like Monsters, Tales From the Darkside, and especially Freddy’s Nightmares, the underrated Twilight Zone rip-off positioned as an Elm Street TV spinoff. (Sure, it’s cheesy now, but to a kid in the ’80s, it was perfect nightmare fuel in the right way.)
Hahn’s versatility perhaps needs no further praising, but she brings out many different shades of a character who could have been simply a Margaret Hamilton caricature as initially depicted. The show, at least thus far, never goes quite as far as to present her as a victim, but we root for her at least inasmuch as we want to know what’s really going on as well. Zamata and LuPone bring the right mixes of huckster and victim; it is perhaps no accident that in the MCU (and reality), men with their personalities, like Stark or Stephen Strange, can succeed on a grand scale while they run small-time businesses with varying levels of integrity, dreaming of far more.
If I Only Had the Nerve…
While seeming to finally settle on a tone, the fourth episode leaves me with some worries – the ’70s rocker stuff feels indulgent and never quite clicks, though perhaps it may with older viewers or the more retro-inclined. The episode 3 escape room works better because it’s much clearer what they need to do, and how it relates to witchcraft specifically. Minor and obligatory Wanda mentions in the first episode aside, this doesn’t seem like a show designed to shoehorn in cameos or launch new Avengers; whatever mysteries the anonymous teen contains seems to be of a personal nature to the characters, rather than a universe-shattering revelation every comic fan will know immediately. That Agatha dubs him “Toto” simply makes the obvious allegory into one absolutely unmissable even to imbeciles. Locke plays him, at least, as a relatable kid.
Plaza, on the other hand, is in full fatal seductress mode. As someone who has used “evilhag” as her Twitter handle all these years, she seems meant for the deadly, hot witch part. There’s a whole lot of promise here for her character and the show, and here’s hoping they don’t mess it up. The road is often more interesting than the destination, and rather than all our hopes melting at the end, we want to feel like, once again, there’s no place like home in the MCU we love. So far, they’re at least 75% on the right track.
Grade: 3.5/5
Agatha All Along begins September 18 on Disney Plus
