Especially for Marvel projects, my opinions evolve over time, and that’s especially true in the context of weekly episode reviews. Sometimes when I write right after an episode airs, I’m completely taken aback by a work, and that fades with time.
This is certainly the case for “Agatha All Along” Episode 7. Spoilers ahead.
Coming off the heels of last week’s backstory-building episode for Billy Maximoff (Joe Locke), the show had some momentum at its disposal, especially as Billy and Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) were thrown into a trial they couldn’t hope to beat without a coven.
And then lazy writing rumbles in like “Godzilla” and tears everything this show has carefully nurtured to shreds by resurrecting Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone) and Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Agatha’s coven mates who were seemingly killed a few episodes ago by Billy.
It was a profoundly sloppy and unfortunate move that veers the show away from being an interesting antihero drama into familiar Marvel territory, in which Agatha is cleared to transcend her previously established character flaws by ignoring them, and her previously transgressions are glossed over.
Lillia and Jennifer are barely shocked by the betrayal and are quick to forgive. But showrunner Jac Schaeffer needs to give us something enticing, and so he digs into Marvel’s tired bag of tropes and pulls out one of its most overused ones yet.
Lillia has a change of heart and decides to stay behind after the group inevitably passes their trial, but are ambushed by the Salem 7. Her sacrifice even includes one of the worst door scenes I’ve seen (the moment where the martyr figure locks the door in the faces of the protagonist[s], as they bravely fight off the threat for a little bit in order to buy time for our heroes).
The episode does introduce an interesting concept through Lillia that had incredibly potential, though it was unrealized: She experiences her life out of order, which is an intriguing twist for a fortune teller. Unfortunately, that concept really needed to either be subtly hinted at throughout the season or executed perfectly in one episode to work, neither of which it did.
When I first watched this episode, it had me. Maybe it was the reveal that Aubrey Plaza is really playing some version of death, or the fact that Lillia’s last scene is shot really well despite its inherently cartoon nature (impaled on swords). But it doesn’t fix the show’s amateur scene progression leading up to that point or its profound lack of imagination.
Bad Marvel projects rely on small soundbites or isolated scenes geared towards fans that go viral online. But they’re built on shaky foundations that ultimately make them forgettable.
For me, that’s the case for “Agatha” Episode 7 and much of the show.
It started as a low-key romp with Hahn and company that I was completely sold on. But it’s devolved into one of the least inspiring MCU projects since “Secret Invasion,” a project that extinguished my interest in the cinematic universe and is a big reason why I sat out on a few of its releases.
I choose what I review and that independence is primarily why I established this site. I don’t review everything new that comes out, nor does everything I watch warrant one.
So far, “Agatha All Along” isn’t giving me much reason to review future Marvel projects. It’s not a terrible show; it’s just thoroughly uninteresting because of how cookie-cutter it is, especially its Witches’ Road trials.
It’s TV junk food that is not spectacularly good nor bad.
“Agatha All Along” Episode 7 gets a 6/10
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