Agatha All Along S01E07 Review: Death Thirteen

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 7: Death's Hand in Mine

So yeah, this is a pretty interesting episode. I've talked about how the first half of the series has been quite happy to pretend that it's a typical "focus on one character per episode" type of ensemble show, and we've got focus episodes for some of the newly-introduced characters. Alice had a fair bit of intrigue intrinsically thanks to her background, but she was also dealt with very quickly once the narrative gave her focus. Jennifer... she sticks around and she gets comedic moments, but ultimately I don't think we got quite enough out of her for me to really care about her that much. With Agatha, Billy and Rio being obviously set up for something larger for the two-part climax, this leaves the divination witch Lilia Calderu as the one that hasn't got a trial before Billy "kills" her two episodes ago. 

Of course, that's not the end for either Lilia or Jennifer, who was swamped alongside her. The main plot is still about the coven going through the Witches' Road, of course, and the next trial finds Billy and Agatha transported to a tarot reading table while swords fall down from the ceiling all around them if they make the wrong reading. And since Agatha shares my worldview that you can fortune-tell anything by drawing vague connections from what a card is supposed to mean and experiences in your life, the Road... doesn't appreciate that too much. 

(Oh yeah, this episode's costuming theme is all about fictional witches, which is probably the costume changes in this show that actually made me giggle the most)

I would also like to note that this episode is told in a rather non-chronological order. It's not hard to follow, but it is a nice showcase of just how Lilia's world works. She isn't just a divination witch, but she's also constantly traveling through time due to... some reasons? It doesn't really matter, but we have seen Lilia actually zone out and say cryptic shit all throughout the series. Both the cast and the audience probably handwaved it as her just being a weird fortune-teller, but it's actually Lilia traveling back through time briefly. We see Lilia as she jumps back even all the way to her youth, meeting her teacher and discussing about the nature of her power. We get to see a confused Lilia in the present day walking through an underground corridor with Jen, who nonchalantly notes that when Lilia zoned out a couple minutes ago, she had explained a bunch of stuff... and we actually get to see this exchange happen later on. 

The episode was also very thick at hanging a figurative narrative knife over Lilia's head, with her noting that the 'end is near'... of course, Jen thinks she means the Road, but it's pretty clear that Lilia's not making out of the episode alive. We get some nice flashbacks that helps to ground things, removed from all the chaos and bluster of the Witches' Road, every time Lilia is transported to centuries past when she's supposed to be learning divination of tea leaves from her Maestra, which I thought was a nice decision to give us something removed from the Witches' Road saga.

I don't want to tear down every single scene since that would also involve me going back to the past 6 episodes to point out all the moments that Lilia's spoken to the cast from the future, but it definitely is pretty smartly done and foreshadowed quite well. (The coolest -- and most tragic -- is having Lilia's "Alice, don't try to save Agatha" advice be cut up in two halves that the words that Lilia says right before Alice's death ends up just being the last four).

The actual narration and progression of the story is essentially "Agatha and Billy get into trouble, Lilia and Jen shows up, Lilia does a reading and realizes some things about herself, Lilia then sacrifices herself to take down the bad guys". A nice bit of plot progression, but it would've been bland without the character work they did for ol' Lilia.

In addition to all the continuity nods, and the explanation for all the times Lilia randomly blurts out Tarot readings throughout the past six episodes, we also get a lot of themes about Lilia falling through the void, and she also describes her experiences unbound in time as something similar. It's a nice metaphorical, thematic visualization of how she views her power and her life, but also a nice foreshadowing of what happens in the future... and the past.

As the episode reaches its climax and Lilia travels through time and does her readings of her journey over and over again, Lilia pulls out the 'Death' card. No ominous tarot reading is ever complete without Death showing his face! Or rather, her face. Lilia travels back through time to the moment when she and Jen wakes up after being swamped, to see Rio hovering ominously in the distance... with her face transformed into a skull. Which... yes, Rio is Death. The literal, cosmical, magical manifestation of Death, a character that is quite prominent in the Marvel comics and was adapted out of that whole Thanos duology. I guess I kind of wanted more gravitas to this revelation since Rio with skull makeup doesn't quite hit as hard as I felt it should? It is admittedly nice to give some context to Rio beyond "Agatha's psycho ex". 

Which also kind of sets up Rio as the final antagonist of the show. Well, what about the previous antagonists that have been chasing our heroes all through this? Lilia pushes her three friends out as she locks the door behind them, and then with a declaration of "I loved being a witch", she spins the Tower card upside-down. Disaster, destruction, sudden upheaval. As the Salem Seven enters the tower, it gets spun around alongside the card. Which I actually thought was a cute way to acknowledge how the orientation of cards in a Tarot reading is important. The room flips upside down, impaling the Salem Seven on the swords. Lilia falls -- which gives us the falling scenes from previous parts of the episode -- and dies, a life full and content .

And... I do think this is my favourite episode of Agatha All Along, even having watched all the way to the end. I do feel like the show isn't quite as well-constructed as some of its most ardent fans claim it is -- and the Salem Seven's execution (and even inclusion?) is a huge proof of that. Another is Rio's build-up as Death, and yet another is Jennifer in general. But Lilia's story, and how it was literally interwoven into the narrative of the previous six episodes? That was really well done, and this is a very powerful episode and a great sendoff for her. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the Marvel comics, Death personified as a female figure is a recurring cosmic entity, most often associated with Thanos and Deadpool, both of whom are enamoured with her.
  
• It seems like in this show has basically replaced adapted parts of Thanos being in an unhealthy relationship with Death (depending on the writer it goes either way) and transplanted it to Agatha. 
• The song "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce was previously used in a different Marvel project, X-Men: Days of Future's Past, with Quicksilver's iconic super-speed sequence. Whether on purpose or not, Evan Peters reprises his role as Ralph Bohner/Fake Quicksilver last episode.
• Not exactly Marvel, but Marvel-adjacent since Disney owns them now, but Billy is dressed up as Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent and Jen as the Evil Queen's hag form from Snow White. Meanwhile, Agatha is dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz and Lilia as the good witch Glinda.