“Agatha All Along” Seeks to Find Identity
I’m hopeful there’s enough “WandaVision” magic left over in Westview
Spoiler-free thoughts on Agatha All Along two-episode premiere
Much like the residents, we just can’t leave Westview. After WandaVision toured through the decades of sitcoms in the town only to rip our hearts out in the end with a lesson on grief, Agatha All Along has everyone there embodying a wider array of genres.
Narratively, the show bounces through true crime, horror, mystery, musical, and supernatural in the first two episodes. Similarly, Agatha Harkness herself is seeking to discover her identity. In one sense, there’s a balance between the show and lead character, but the disorientation could quickly engulf the audience.
Agatha All Along doesn’t start with the same levels of intrigue as WandaVision, but that would be almost impossible. We’re now three years into the MCU’s foray into TV shows on Disney+, so the possibilities don’t seem so vast. And, WandaVision reached a brilliance that has rarely been matched by Marvel since.
Despite knowing the show will veer away from my cultural perspective and values, I’m hopeful there’s still enough Scarlet Witch magic left over in Westview to allow me to enjoy Agatha All Along.
Spoilers for Agatha All Along two-episode premiere
“Hello, neighbor.” Hearing Herb say those words to open Agatha All Along takes us immediately back to WandaVision. But instead of the greeting being said in a cheery voice while trimming some bushes, Herb says them in an exasperated voice from behind police tape. That’s Agatha All Along. We’re in conversation with WandaVision, but the tone is different.
Instead of beginning in a black-and-white sitcom, Agatha All Along starts the journey in the crime drama genre, specifically Mare of Easttown. Agatha, known again as Agnes, comes to investigate the murder of a young woman outside of town.
Of course, though we never see her face, we are led to believe the woman is Wanda Maximoff. She was crushed and has soil samples under her nails from Eastern Europe, calling back to the Scarlett Witch’s apparent demise in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
In her investigation, Agnes discovers it’s connected to the Darkhold, the evil magic book she and Wanda had been fighting over. Realizing everything wasn’t as it seemed, she went to the morgue to see the body. There, with another witch named Rio, she realizes who she actually is.
A teenage boy helps to free her from Wanda’s spell. He asks her to take him down the Witches’ Road, so he can get power. Agatha tries to learn more about him, but his mouth is magically covered whenever he says his name and his voice becomes muffled when he shares his background.1
To actually go down the road and reclaim her own powers, Agatha has to bring together a coven of other witches. Of course, she has her own bad reputation to overcome. None of the other witches want to help her, but each one of them has their own issue to overcome. The two-episode premiere ends with the group opening the door to the Witches’ Road as Agatha just escapes the Salem Seven, who have come to kill her according to Rio, who is seemingly Agatha’s witch nemesis.2
It's fitting that a show following up WandaVision is centered on the idea of identity. Agatha All Along gets to play with genres but also must establish its own.
The fairly quick move out of the crime drama façade during the first episode was a wise decision. It was bordering on annoying and tilting into spoof territory just before the shift happened. That’s part of what made WandaVision so amazing; it carefully walked that line throughout the show.
It would be too much to ask Agatha All Along to stay on that tightrope beyond the opening. I fully expect the show to revisit various worlds of TV and movie genres but with everyone in on the concept.
I also expect Agatha All Along to touch deep and poignant cultural questions centered around identity. And I expect them to answer those questions differently than I would.
While she’s still under Wanda’s spell and in the morgue, Agatha complains about being hot and starts peeling off layers of her clothes. She keeps taking off more only to reveal another set underneath. Finally, she takes off the last layer and stands naked (literally) in Westview.
I couldn’t help but think of Eustace’s undragoning scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, as we’re in the middle of that book for our C.S. Lewis read-along. In this show, Agatha is able to free herself, with some prodding by a few others, and rediscover her true identity. In Dawn Treader, Eustace tries and tries to peel off his dragon skin, but he can never remove it on his own. Aslan must cut deep and remove the outer dragon to reveal the true Eustace underneath.
That gives us the fundamental question that I feel Agatha will miss. We can’t find our true identity with enough hard work on our own. We can’t even find it by surrounding ourselves with people who will walk with us on our journey, though that will get us farther than if we go alone. No, we need one who made us and knows us more deeply than we know ourselves to strip away all the baggage we’ve placed on ourselves.
Starting the Witches’ Road with Agatha, I have to understand the path will lead to answers I recognize as unsatisfying. I can still enjoy the journey and appreciate some of the stops along the way, but they’ve already told me what to expect.
On the purple carpet premiere, Variety’s correspondent seemingly asked every cast member and creative from the show how they feel about the show being the “gayest Marvel project ever.” That didn’t bode well for The Acolyte being dubbed the “gayest Star Wars” project, but here we are again.
The difference to me, however, is that The Acolyte was set up as a Star Wars show for everyone but failed to be entertaining, even as it never established itself as overly concerned with sexual orientation. With Agatha, however, the show seems designed to appeal to a gay-friendly audience, more so than a general audience.
When Variety asked Aubrey Plaza, playing “Rio,” about Agatha being the gayest Marvel project, she said, “It better be, ‘cause that’s what I signed up for.” That’s what we’re signing up for as the viewer. As a conservative Christian, I’m under no illusions I will agree with the fundamental perspective of the show. We both agree that identity is important, and we should seek to discover our true identity, but we’re looking in completely different books to find it.
Overall, the two-episode premiere was enjoyable. I’m intrigued enough to keep watching, just with the understanding the show and I are following two different paths.
If you’re curious about why I will watch a TV show or movie with a different value system than my own, read the series I did on C.S. Lewis’ An Experiment in Criticism.
It seems almost too obvious that “Teen” is Wanda’s son, Billy, who becomes Wiccan in the comics.
There are lots of theories about Rio’s identity. When Agatha lies to her about “stealing evidence,” and she says, “You’re only lying to yourself,” I wonder if she’s some other part of Agatha herself. Others have a good theory that she’s “Blackheart,” the child of Mephisto.