If you’re a fan of “Agatha All Along,” my biggest piece of advice for you is: Don’t watch “The Penguin.” It blows this show out of the water and makes every one of its flaws glaringly obvious. “The Penguin” is something special; for all it does right, “Agatha” just can’t compete with it.
In order to enjoy “Agatha,” you really have to view it through the lens of likewise Marvel projects, which it’s an above-average example of. It rises firmly above “Secret Invasion,” “Ms. Marvel,” and “She-Hulk,” and has been almost on par with “WandaVision,” which was also helmed by “Agatha” showrunner Jac Schaeffer.
Why bring this up? I think it’s important context. “Agatha” is not a bad show — it’s just been forgettable going into the finale. It’s not a complete failure — it just hasn’t reached the same quality of Marvel TV’s upper echelons, like “Daredevil” and “Loki.”
The “Agatha” finale is broken up into two parts. In Episode 8, we get our final Witches’ Road trial Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), Billy Maximoff (Joe Locke) and Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) must brave before facing the series’ big bad, Death/Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza). Episode 9 serves as an epilogue to the series, where a big twist awaits.
Spoilers, obviously.
Episode 9 also provides a muddied resolution for Agatha’s character arc. Spoilers: Despite some false starts and some genuine chemistry with the witches on the road, she had bad intentions from Day 1 — except in regards to Billy.
As previously revealed, Agatha has had something of a romantic relationship with Plaza’s Death, in which she would lure unsuspecting witches to their deaths in order to satisfy her lover’s appetite for souls. But we learn in Episode 9, it came at a great cost — the life her son, Nicholas Scratch (Abel Lysenko).
This devastates Agatha and changes her for the worst. But she sees Billy as something of a replacement for Nicholas, which leads to her changing her ways for him.
Despite Hahn’s at-times over-the-top portrayal of Agatha, she never truly comes off as a bad person who takes pleasure in others’ pain. She’s a reluctant villain that has grown apathetic when others eventually meet their ends at Death’s hand.
The broad strokes of Agatha’s arc works in the sense that it provides a satisfying conclusion — we see this incredibly lonely person find a kindred spirit in Billy, even if it means the destruction of her physical body (spoilers: Death wins, but Agatha lingers as a ghost to mentor Billy). But it utterly fails in its shorter beats, like Agatha and Death’s relationship, which is disappointingly undefined and is so devoid of nuance and detail that it comes off as cookie cutter. It’s not a well written romance and it only exists so Schaeffer can twist our arms with it.
The show’s other twist — that the Witches’ Road was fake from the start and was a lie created by Agatha in order to lure witches into Death’s embrace — was novel, but doesn’t really hold up on a second watch. Agatha is a great bullshitter, but for something like this to work, it needs a few more plausible clues scattered behind that culminate into a eureka! moment that never materializes here.
A twist like this is a great writing challenge because it demands that the big reveal be hidden just enough where it can be overlooked by viewers, yet fleshed out sufficiently where everything adds up not only on subsequent viewings, but also as the series shows its hands and viewers start to backtrack in their heads.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a dearth of talent and lack of cohesion in this writers’ room. The show’s premiere and finale being very high-octane and focused, whereas its middle Witches’ Road episodes are uninspired and boring. With little consistency on who penned these episodes week-to-week (which is common in TV), this series feels like it was pulled in many different directions, likely a result of its delays. And when it has the opportunity for a big moment, it does the bare minimum to make it work.
“Agatha All Along” fails to surpass “WandaVision,” even if its finale was arguably stronger, due to its lack of consistency week to week. It’s an overall middling experience that doesn’t have me clamoring for a Season 2, or any further adventures with Agatha and Billy.
“Agatha All Along” Episode 8 and 9 get an 8/10
“Agatha All Along” Season 1 gets a 7/10
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