Disney+’s Agatha All Along Is the Kooky, Queer, Witchy Side-Quest the MCU Has Desperately Needed
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Since the debut of WandaVision in 2021, Disney+’s Marvel television experiment has been chasing that same high. Unfortunately for them, each subsequent series has failed in increasingly worse ways to capture that lightning-in-a-bottle show’s magic, from the scattershot Loki to the woefully dull Echo. And even though Agatha All Along doesn’t quite fill WandaVision’s big shoes, it gets pretty damn close.
Agatha All Along picks up three years after the events of WandaVision, where, if you’ll recall, the formidable Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) left the dastardly Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) under her compulsion as Westview’s nosy neighbor. But after the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness left Wanda seemingly crushed (taking the Darkhold down with her), Agatha remains trapped in a decaying hell of her nemesis’ creation. With the help of the mysterious Teen (Joe Locke) and sinister witch Rio (Aubrey Plaza), Agatha steps out of Wanda’s curse and into the light, ready to take back her power. The only catch? To do so, she must walk down the deadly Witches’ Road, and if she wants to survive, she’ll have to bring a coven. Filling that role are the down-on-their-luck, disparate witches Lilia (Patti LuPone), Jen (Sasheer Zamata), and Alice (Ali Ahn), each of whom has their own reasons for seeking the power The Witches’ Road promises.
While Agatha All Along is not a full-fledged love letter to television like its sister series was, creator Jac Schaeffer infuses all the right lessons from WandaVision‘s success into this series. WandaVision was structurally boxed into an episodic format with its weekly TV tributes, and while Agatha takes a page from that playbook for its Mare of Easttown-inspired premiere, once Agatha sheds Wanda’s spell, the series takes on an identity all its own. Like its Marvel television peers, Agatha has hints of the “eight-hour movie” structure, but the series makes a concerted effort to remain episodic, and embraces episode-long arcs that make each outing stand out as their own distinct story within this overarching journey. It’s the bare minimum, sure, but it’s beyond refreshing to watch an MCU series that doesn’t seem to actively hate the medium it’s utilizing, and that actually harnesses the strengths of the format to elevate its goals; imagine that!
From the very first episode, Agatha’s stakes are immediately clear and compelling, foregoing the twisted multiversal threats we’ve grown accustomed to from recent Marvel romps in favor of a more personal journey. While Agatha is absolutely an arrogant, eccentric jerk, she also has shades of a sympathetic loner under her sweeping coats, and that layered take on this now-iconic character makes her someone you can’t help but root for despite her ultimately selfish aims. And the connections Agatha forms while on the road are just as rewarding, especially since her history with each member of the coven offers various challenges in every episode.