Agatha All Along S01E02 Review: Gathering the Party

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 2: Circle Sewn With Fate / Unlock Thy Hidden Gate

That is a lot better than the first episode. I was a bit worried that this was going to be yet another MCU TV show that I didn't enjoy, but "Circle Sewn With Fate, Unlock Thy Hidden Gate" is a lot more fun than I expected it to be. It's a bit more basic, but not being stuck with a confused protagonist for half an episode, and giving me the 'Kathryn Hahn chews the scenery like she did the corn dog in that one scene' that they promised is a lot more palatable to watch. 

So we very quickly establish that Agatha is going to team up with the mysterious "Teen", who all Marvel Comics fans know is either Wiccan or a gigantic red herring. Not-Wiccan can't actually speak his name, however, with some mysteries involving an inky signature that replaces his mouth when he tries to say his name, as well as a loud droning noise that blots out his attempt to explain his backstory to Agatha. So we've got that mystery, all the while the two of them go and recruit a Coven to access something called the Witches' Road. I'm still not very sure why Not-Wiccan wants to hang out with Agatha beyond fanboyism, but Agatha just wants power, and she goes on a 'time to recruit my wacky team' montage. 

Which... I always have a weakness for a good recruitment montage, so that part of this episode is quite enjoyable. The actual characters themselves are a bit of a mixed bag. Agatha is fun, and Not-Wiccan is... servicable. He's a bit over-the-top sometimes in his fanboyism, and I don't really know if that's intentionally annoying as part of what his character should be, or just bad direction. 

Meeting the witches gives us some context to just how badly Agatha has been viewed by other contemporaries, since we've not seen any other witches other than the coven in that WandaVision flashback. Of course, Agatha's just recruiting some has-beens, but she did talk about getting a 'divination' and a 'potions' and all these Dungeons & Dragons terminology that... feel a bit weird coming out of the very dismissive-towards-everything-else Agatha. 

The three witches we got are... interesting? The elderly Lilia Calderu initially seems to be a crystal ball fate-reading huckster, but turns out to actually be the real deal. She's on a bit of hard times, and was convinced to join in, and scribbles down four names on a paper that will form Agatha's coven. The second witch they recruited is Jennifer Kale, who's a more modern witch who sells... hippie bullshit candles, I guess. She runs a business that's fallen on a lot of hard times. She's the one that didn't give much of an impression to me, with the highlight of that scene being Not-Wiccan and Agatha kind of high-school-girl-mocking her for the lawsuits that she's in trouble with. Rounding up the group is Alice Wu-Gulliver, who's a 'blood witch', which is a child born to a witch. She just feels grumpy, but I do like her "I was a cop, remember" blasé reaction to everything, and seemingly having a connection to a major witch does give her a bit of a backstory. 

(Agatha and Not-Wiccan also totally fuck Alice up by causing her to lose her job, which isn't nice but Agatha is also not meant to be nice.)

They're all... all right. There's only so much you could do when you rapid-fire introduce a bunch of characters one after the other, and it's clearly meant to be an ensemble cast for the rest of this 9-episode TV show. I'm... cautiously optimistic. Just because they aren't really based on well-established Marvel characters (most of them have like 2-3 issues' worth of appearance, and the one that doesn't, Jennifer Kale, is an in-name-only adaptation) doesn't mean that they can't pull a Phil Coulson on us. Out of these three witches, only Lilia get a fair bit of characterization -- you could feel the exhaustion and defeat radiating off of her after surviving things like the Salem witch trials. 

Eventually everyone convenes in Agatha's house, and the other witches note that they need a 'green witch'. Agatha had previously very immaturely swallowed the prophecy paper when questioned by Not-Wiccan. Lilia also rather ominously note that she didn't write a name, but a 'black heart', which is most certainly a reference to the Marvel comics' demon Blackheart... but Agatha just waltzes out and picks up "Mrs. Hart", or rather, Sharon Davis, who's one of the recurring characters from WandaVision. 

I actually find Sharon to be the most ridiculously weird of the cast, and I can't decide whether I like her inclusion or not. She just pulls on her purse and is just so happy to be included in something that she goes from questioning if this is a 'drug cult' to just singing along with the Ballad. Which takes up a chunk of the climax -- Agatha and her new coven start singing this Ballad, and... it's okay. They open up a door in the floor that the party (and Not-Wiccan) go through, and of course after the door is closed, it disappears, locking them into this alternate dimension. 

Oh, just to make sure that there's some threat, Not-Wiccan, while in the process of playing with Agatha's bunny, walks out to see the Salem Seven show up. And... the Salem Seven is a dark-hooded lady that can split into seven, and there are some basic spooky effects like loud droning music, mist, stuntmen contortion and sudden jump-scares. Oh, and there's the implication that all the animals that has been spying on Agatha (crows, rats, a wolf) are the familiars of this Salem Seven. They're a'ight, certainly a fair bit more Halloween'y than anything in the first episode. 

Again, this is pretty all right in that it's fun and doesn't take itself too seriously. I also kind of like that the show is happy to highlight Agatha's very self-centered motivations, very much willing to blackmail, gaslight and even cause people to lose their jobs to get what she wants. Oh, and recruiting some random civilian to join her coven, too. Again, it's not super engaging, but it's no Secret Invasion or She-Hulk -- it's at least fun enough to keep me around for a while. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Jennifer Kale is a supporting character in the 70's Man-Thing comics, a woman who had a psychic link with Man-Thing. During the many escapades, she would learn sorcery, and would eventually recur in multiple other comics, including X-Force, Ghost Rider (she's a cousin of Johnny Blaze) and Midnight Sons.
  
• The other two witches borrow names from minor witches in Marvel history., whose appearances number in the single digits. Lilia Calderu is a minor Dr. Strange antagonist who briefly was the lover of Baron Mordo. "The Wu", a.k.a. Alice Gulliver, is the policewoman and daughter of a magician, and briefly aided Scarlet Witch. 
• Alice's mother in the comics had the title of 'August Wu of the Coral Shore'. In this show, 'Coral Shore' was instead the band that she played in. 
• Lilia mentions the term 'black heart' with the show zooming in to seemingly emphasize it. Blackheart is the son of Mephisto in the Marvel comics, and a constant antagonist for mystical characters.
• The Witches' Road is a magical dimension that only magic-wielding witches can access, and was first introduced in the 2016 Scarlet Witch run. 
• The Salem Seven appearing as a single witch that splits into seven is a reference to, ironically enough, Ultimate universe Agatha Harkness. 

Let's Play New Pokemon Snap, Part 13: Rivers and Badlands

All good things come to an end, and what a good thing New Pokemon Snap has been. I've honestly been very, very surprised both at the game design of this game and the amount of content in it! When I first wanted to write blog posts for New Snap, I thought the game would take five, maybe six posts, tops. The fact that it's given me so much, and it's even driven me to grind the game a little to unlock specific Pokemon and to level up the areas. At the time of writing this post... not all the areas are maxed out, but they're all level 3 whenever possible.

And honestly, it's been pretty great. Granted, I did go in with no expectations at all, and there were definitely parts of this game that could've been improved, but the game as a whole has been so wholesome and really was what I needed. It really did make me appreciate a lot of Pokemon that I don't necessarily did before, like Sawsbuck and Liepard and Clamperl. A lot of surprisingly deep secrets and interactions that flummoxed me -- in a good way. This particular part of the blog is going to chronicle my reactions as I go through the higher levels of the two DLC locations. As I mentioned in a previous post, I consider myself having 'completed' this game after I completed the Photodex, and that's what I did at the end of this. I just thought I'd open up with a nice little speech about how wholesome and how nice the whole game experience has been. 

And I think the first time around is the River, which I had already been farming a bit even in previous segments. One of the coolest bit was showing Arbok swimming and gliding through the river, poking his head up and down until you Illumina Orb him. We always think of snakes as slithering through trees and shrubs all of the time, but snakes can swim! I don't think we've really ever seen them depict Arbok or Seviper or any of the other snakes like this, though. I mean, I'm sure the anime probably showed one of Jessie's snakes swim in a river at some point...

The Arbok, by the way, is how we 'rescue' Psyduck. I was wondering how I can get the three Aipoms to stop bullying Psyduck, since neither the apples conking the monkeys' heads or using an Illumina Orb on Psyduck did anything, but turns out all I had to do was to get Arbok to move from his starting position and this causes Arbok to hiss and intimidate off all the Aipoms. 

I love this, by the way. I love that a Pokmeon that's most well-known for being utilized as an antagonist's primary Pokemon in the cartoon ends up doing something pretty wholesome and protecting cute little Psyduck. That's why I adored that one episode with the evil psychotic Togepi in one episode of the anime.  

In another run of the river level, Arbok is sleeping coiled up on a branch overlooking a river. And... I can cause a Magikarp to jump up and bonk Arbok right in the nose and cause him to fall into the river. Poor Arbok. I feel bad for him, but he can probably swim. 

There is a massive waterfall that I'm sure is meant to be there to summon Gyarados to climb up the waterfall. I managed to figure out that there's a hidden Crystalbloom at the foot of the waterfall, and I managed in later levels to gather some Magikarps there, but I never managed to get Gyarados to spawn... not in this waterfall, at least. In one of my runs, Gyarados just randomly shows up swimming next to me in the final level as Psyduck floats on by, and I got a shot of him there. 

The night-time river is pretty calming. There's a bunch of fun interactions I can do with Feraligatr as it stalks on top of a cliff and later on jumps down into the river, knocking my vehicle into a shore where a bunch of Ariados-es and Quagsires are hanging out on. Even Pokemon that have shown up in older areas got a fair bit to do! Woopers and Quagsires alternate between sleeping and piddle-paddling in the river, and there's a cliffside where it seems like there's only one Aipom but there's actually a troop of a half-dozen damn dirty apes. 

At level 2 of the night river, I manage to find the little cave behind some hanging plants that I have to scare some Beautiflys away from. In the cave are some unexpected faces... there are Drillbur! And we get to see them go all Transformers and turn into their spinning bullet drill form and dig down into the rock. I'm not sure how wise it is for these Ground-types to be doing it right next to a river, but there you go. Most adorably (and unexpectedly) are a bunch of Cleffa just hanging out in this cave. What... what are you doing in this cave, Cleffa? Your big brothers and sisters are hanging out in the underground cavern like two islands away. 

Unlocking this secret cave in the night also unlocks it in the day... but I think it's only open at level 3, because at level 2 River Day I keep getting knocked to the little island where the Tropius are when Quagsire jumps his fat ass into the river. In the day, the Cleffas are waving their tiny nub-hands and practicing Metronome, that's adorable. 

In level 3 of the rivers, we finally get to see the enigmatic Ursaring that the claw marks on the tree trunks have been foreshadowing all game long... and the Ursaring is the one who shows up and roars to scare off the Aipom from bullying Psyduck. So whether I intervene with Arbok or not, Psyduck will always get saved at some point. It also seems to be an alternating thing whether it's Ursaring or Arbok that sleeps on the log, but whoever sleeps there I can always use an Illumina Orb to summon Magikarp to conk the sleeper into the raging rivers. Another part of the level has Ursaring lurk next to the river, like a bear trying to catch salmon. Except it seems like this particular Ursaring's prey of choice are the poor Magikarps!

A lot of smaller changes happen in level 3 of the river, but the most significant and the most adorable one is... a Tropius flying over the final part of the area... WITH A WOOPER ON HIS HEAD.

I say that again, a Tropius is giving a happy Wooper a ride on his head as he flies around. 

That is so fucking wholesome. 10/10 game. 

Anyway, Ursaring was the last Pokemon I needed for the Belusylva full sticker. And maybe it's a function of being designed as a DLC, and maybe it's because the river actually moves a fair bit fast at some places that it's hard for me to do what I want to, but I felt like the river content is so densely packed with content that I have barely scratched the surface of what's in here.

And... I am sorry to say that I just don't really find the Badlands all that interesting. Tepig, Shinx and Torchic's little adventure is cool (and I finally figured out that they're a Lion King reference... a bit hard to tell when Torchic really doesn't resemble Timon the meerkat) but I felt like it's just not quite as interesting as the river? I am admittedly guilty of not finding desert locations super-duper interesting, so there might be it. 

There are a couple of fun interactions you can do in both the night and day Badlands, including a point where you can goad Tyranitar to beat the shit out of a random Crustle and tip it over. There's a lot of stuff to do with Diglett, too, and I think if you time it right you can get them to knock over the giant boulder? That bit really is a bit puzzling, since my apples can do it in the day, but put like five butterflies on it and suddenly I need help from so many Digletts to tip it over? Hmm? Diglett is pretty fun in this level in general, with them popping up all over the place and basically invading the Onix holes in the canyon at the end of the level... which is very lore-accurate.

I do really like the Gliscors hanging upside-down like the psychotic scorpion-bats that they are, though. One of the Gliscors I can wake up flies right into a part of the area that gets pelted by a ton of Miniors, the poor sod. 

The legendary Pokemon in the Badlands is Zeraora, who's just sleeping in the background near the beginning of the level. I have to pelt it with apples to get it to run around the terrain like he's cosplaying Naruto or something. I really don't have anything noteworthy to say about Zeraora, honestly. He sure runs around the cliffsides and jumps and somersaults and stuff, but it also feels a bit... off? He doesn't feel as integrated into the ecosystem the way some of the other legendaries like Shaymin, Manaphy, Celebi or Lugia are. Then again, I guess it's hard to find a 'proper'place for an edgelord lightning cat-man. 

This is a wholesome game and I feel bad about badmouthing Zeraora, so I do enjoy a lot of the other interactions going on here. Swalot gets a lot of mileage out of the animations that the animators pull with his big mouth, and there's a fair bit more Silicobra than I thought there is in the level... again, I never visualized them hiding under the sand that way, with the tip of its mouth poking upwards. I always thought that they'd hide under the sand like, well, like real desert snakes, where they just burrow under the sand horizontally. 

The Scolipedes lumbering around the poison swamp are obviously very cool, and I love how at one point a Silicobra spits some sand at Scolipede and causes the big centipede monster to chase them down. Stupid, suicidal sand snakes. 

You would think that Zeraora is the last Pokemon for me to take a photo off, and that I could close this Photodex... but no, it's not Zeraora. It's actually... Salazzle! Which is such a random Pokemon to make show up in the final level of the Badlands, but why not? I have to lure it out with the music box from the rock behind Mandibuzz, which has the Salazzle come out and do a little dance. I mean... okay, Salazzle. Sure. 

And with that bit, I have obtained the Voluca island's sticker and completed my Photodex. It's been an absolute blast as I go through this calming and unexpectedly fun journey. I do know that there's probably a lot more that the game still has to offer -- and I'm sure that I could write a lot more posts about this. But it is a nice enough stopping point. See you guys on the next review series!

Random Notes:

• I do plan to put down New Pokemon Snap for a while, but it's going to be a game that, if I'm bored in the next couple of years, I can just pop in and try and figure out how to get the missing star pictures or a side-quest for some Pokemon, y'know? It's a very 'arcade-y' game, so to speak.
• Shout out to the TCG artwork, by the way. Making these blog posts really did end up causing me to go through and appreciate a lot of Pokemon TCG art, and that's always a nice thing. 
  
• Doing a starter count now that the game's over... and it's interesting! Obviously all 3 Kanto starter lines are represented in both their first and final forms, and all 3 Galar starters are represented in their first forms. But it's interesting to see who got left out! We have a representation of all 3 Johto and Sinnoh starters... but we're missing the Treecko line from the Hoenn starters, the Oshawott line from the Unova starters, both the Litten and Rowlet lines from the Alolan starters and surprisingly, no one from Kalos showed up to play. Really? I thought Greninja'd be a shoo-in!
  
• Which actually makes me appreciate this game a bit more, particularly the whole Sawsbuck spiel I did in the previous post. You'd think that some of the rather obvious 'superstar' evergreen Pokemon like Jigglypuff, Lucario, Zoroark, Mewtwo, Dragonite, Togepi, Ditto, and some others would be given prominence... but even some super-classic Pokemon like Snorlax, Psyduck and Gyarados are relegated to DLC! It does really speak to how much the game designers tried to make this a full Pokemon experience instead of just the all-stars that we get a lot of stuff from more obscure Pokemon like Vivillon or Lanturn or Tropius or Shinx! 
• My reflexes are not fast enough to hit the Crystalblooms as we go down the waterfalls. I can hit one of them, but never two of them in quick succession. I assume that's related to how I summon Gyarados.  
• There is, surprisingly, no legendary in the river? The Badlands had Zeraora, and the other DLC area, the secret path, is connected to the nature reserve and Shaymin hangs out there. But with how well-hidden a lot of the legendaries in these other areas are, I'm surprised level 3 didn't unlock a legendary for the River area. I don't know what would work here... Zarude, maybe, swinging through the treetops? That monkey would've been new at the time that this game was released, right? 
• Psyduck eating an apple is adorable.
• Honestly, the highlight of the Badlands is seeing the nonsense that Torchic, Tepig and Shinx get up to as they run around and wander everywhere and poke in and out of the Onix holes.