“Agatha All Along” is Disney+’s latest series addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and while it is full of charisma and personality, the show’s weakness is a meaningless ending.
The series follows the witchy Agatha Harkness, played by a mischievous Kathryn Hahn, as she breaks free from a spell placed upon her by Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and gathers a coven to travel down The Witches’ Road. Legend has it that if a witch can reach the end of the road, they are granted a prize of their own desire.
After Joe Locke’s character, mysteriously called “Teen” for the first half of the show, gets the idea to travel down the road, Agatha makes an attempt to get her stolen power back.
At the end of the series — albeit, sparing you some details — it is revealed that Agatha created the con of The Witches’ Road so she could suck the powers out of other witches, thus killing them. The point? There is no real Witches’ Road. That is until “Teen,” later revealed to be Billy Maximoff, subconsciously creates the road in Agatha’s basement.
Alongside the newly recruited coven, Agatha and Billy then travel down the road. We discover later that this foils Agatha’s plans to drain her new coven of magic, but in the moment, we are led to believe that she does actually know what is happening on the road and that she has traveled down it before.
Among Agatha’s coven is Patti LuPone’s Lilia Calderu, Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer Kale, Ali Ahn’s Alice Wu-Gulliver, Debra Jo Rupp’s Sharon Davis (or Mrs. Hart, if you are Agatha) and Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vadal, who is later revealed to be Death, which is important.
Rio is Agatha’s ex and was only summoned to the road after Mrs. Hart fatally dies in the road’s first trial, thus prompting the coven to summon another witch; there is one trial per witch and each is to test their specific witch abilities, therefore, without her, they were missing her specific brand of witch (a green witch).
Throughout the venture down, down, down the road, various members of the coven die, including my personal favorites — Lilia and Alice, both of whom, in my opinion, have the most fully developed and human journeys.
When Rio comes to collect Alice’s body, Alice pleas for more time and breaks down after dismantling her family’s curse. Regardless, Rio denies her more time.
Then, when Lilia passes in a beautiful full-circle moment in the show’s best episode (episode seven), there is this touch of completeness that makes me okay with it.
During the final showdown in episode eight, Agatha and Billy are fighting Rio, but our protagonist shares the notion that we cannot defeat death. Agatha then offers herself to Rio, finally ending the cat-and-mouse game the two have been playing for years.
Agatha dies. It beautifully, yet tragically, summarizes the whole point of the show, which is that death is inevitable.
And then, Agatha comes back to life as a ghost, which defeats the purpose of the villain, story and main focal point of the entire show. On top of that, the effects that make Agatha a ghost are repulsive to the eye. Bluntly put, she looks ridiculous.
So not only have we ruined the beauty of life and death assurance but we do so in a matter that is unappealing.
Marvel’s decision to bring her back as ghost only further cements that Agatha was merely a stepping stone for another project in the future and sadly leaves this show with no real point.
As a “WandaVision” super fan, I was enthralled to hear about “Agatha All Along.” Early critics when the show was announced asked, “Who asked for this?” and “Why do we need this?”
Unfortunately, as a person who asked for it, I have no answer to the second question.
