Agatha All Along S01E03 Review: Zelda Dungeon

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 3: Through Many Miles / Of Tricks and Trials

We're finally in the show, and it's a lot more fun after we get into the actual Witches' Road. This magical realm treats and displays itself as this almost video-game-esque (or, I suppose, a fairy-tale-esque) realm of dungeons and tricks. The visuals being made of practical effects instead of bad CGI like so many recent Marvel projects also helps. As the other witches continue to call Agatha out for her insane choices -- like bringing a muggle into their midst -- the Witches' Road continues to do the wacky fantasy realm thing of having hoses pop up where there wasn't one before, punishing people who stray off the road with mucky goop swamps, and, most importantly, creating customized trials to test each individual member walking down the road. This feels like a part of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and I actually like this aspect of this show!

Of course, Jen brings up a flaw -- all of the witches, except maybe Lilia -- don't actually have their powers or aren't actual witches, so how are they going to survive this? Both Agatha and Not-Wiccan (I refuse to call him 'Teen' in these reviews) try and play it off as them being able to draw upon their experience, which... at least in the potions-making trial, works. Our potions expert Jennifer is able to draw upon their experience in identifying the poison and the required antidote. 

Before that, though, we get a nice reminder that Sharon is a complete muggle who doesn't understand what's going on by a near-death experience thanks to a swamp, and an internal revelation to the rest of the party of Not-Wiccan's censorship sigil. Later on, Jennifer gets Not-Wiccan into a private conversation, offering her own theories and dropping the 'maaaybe it's true' rumours that Agatha apparently traded in her own son for the Darkhold, something that is a nice little possible origin for Not-Wiccan. With how obvious Jennifer is making it be, I'm very sure that this is a red herring, but I wonder how it'll be taken in-universe by Not-Wiccan. 

And the trial happens in a fancy house, with some WandaVision-style makeovers to put our coven in period-appropriate outfits. There's glass of wine that our coven (except for the underage Not-Wiccan and the suspicious Agatha) drinks, before the riddle ends up becoming a ticking clock as the wine is poisoned with a magical poison called Alewife's Revenge, and Jen needs to brew the antidote or the poison will kill them all. 

The actual process of brewing the antidote is just some excuse for hijinks as our witches go around trying to figure out the meanings of the over-the-top ingrdients (petroleum being the answer for a millennia-long dead corpse of an animal or whatever, for example) and gives some nice opportunities to split the group up and have the characters interact with each other. More fun, however, this ends up with some rather disturbing hallucinations for our primary cast. Sharon has been played for laughs as just an ordinary housewife that got stuck with the madness of a witch coven, but she gets a rather sad sequence with her experience under Wanda's control, and I think it's as much confirmation that Wanda's powers actually did kill "Mr. Hart". 

The flashbacks still don't make a whole ton of sense without context, other than Agatha's -- she hears a baby crying, and she is clearly disturbed by it. When she investigates the creepy crib that appears out of nowhere, she is greeted by the ominous sight of the Darkhold. Meanwhile, Alice sees her mother apparently killing herself; Jen gets attacked by a man drowning her in a sink; and Lilia sees her younger self speaking in Italian. 

Ultimately, however, they break past the illusions and start to brew the antidote, and... well, for an episode that's supposed to be about Jennifer, we still know so obliquely little about her other than the confirmation that, yes, she did use petroleum in her skincare products, as Agatha and Lilia guessed. That is perhaps, so far, the biggest weakness of this show where almost everyone's backstories are kind of ciphers. It works for what the show is trying to do, but it also makes a lot of moments like Agatha's pep talk towards Jennnifer ring a bit hollow. 

As the wacky Witches' Road trial continues to tick down with an entire ocean about to break through the glass windows of the house, the coven drinks the antidote and escapes through an oven, Hansel and Gretel style. But it's too late for Sharon, who drank the wine first and drank multiple glasses. They pour the antidote down her throat, but she's dead by the time they recover from the flooding house, with Agatha's "who?" at them saying Sharon's real name instead of Mrs. Hart being the punchline to finish the episode. 

It's... it's a fun bit of black comedy, and Sharon herself is kind of a joke that would've been grating if she stayed too long. Giving her around one and a half episodes' worth of comedy before she defies the 'comedic relief protection' clause and kicks the bucket is nice. Again, I'm still not entirely sure about the show, but it sure is fun if nothing else! 

(As a side-note: a lot of the Agatha stuff were pre-written in October. I'll probably be busy again for the rest of the year, so around half of the season, plus Bleach episodes, will be rather delayed. I am also taking some time to slowly fix some older articles.)

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Jen name-drops Marvel comics' main demonic antagonist, Mephisto.