Agatha All Along S01E09 Review: No One Mourns The Wicked

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 9: Maiden Mother Crone

And now, for the season finale. Whereas the previous episode gave us the big superhero-vs-supervillain punch-up, "Maiden, Mother, Crone" takes a bit of an interesting twist on the superhero show formula by giving us an emotional end... and a superhero's origin story. Done far more effectively than the rather embarrassingly shoehorned attempt they did more recently in Echo, with the simple fact that for a show whose original performance hinges almost entirely on the actress's performance as a secondary character in a previous show, Agatha All Along has managed to hook me along the journey down the Witches' Road. 

I don't think it's a perfect show like what a lot of Agatha All Along's most vocal supporters have been hailing this as. There's still a fair bit of questionable decisions and underdeveloped characters. But it most certainly delivered more than what I expected. Which is a huge win, especially with the recent state of Disney-Marvel. It was far more entertaining than Echo, than She-Hulk, than What If season two, and most certainly than Secret Invasion.

Of course, we still do have to talk about this final episode, which is a bit of a flashback and a coda to the previous episode. I did complain last episode that one of the show's bigger weakness was that in a bid to keep Rio "Lady Death" Vidal mysterious, she remains frustratingly a cipher. And... we get a flashback to 1750-era Agatha Harkness, who's about to give birth in a random forest when Rio shows up. The two are already familiar with each other, and Agatha begs, begs for all she's worth for Rio to please let his child live. Rio gives Agatha's child time, and then she's gone. 

And we go through a bit of a slow montage as Agatha's child, Nicholas Scratch, grows up. Nicky is used by Agatha as a way to get into witch covens, to lure witches out of taverns, to pose as a sickly mom and her child... before she kills witches to absorb their power. Nicholas is young, but even as a young boy he is sometimes confused on why they can't just hang around with the witches. Agatha's response, of course, is to immediately respond that no, they have to kill the witches before they kill her. As the show seems to heavily imply, it's more of a defense mechanism that Agatha herself refuses to entertain the thought of ever shutting off... which may or may not be true, really. 

We also get the genesis of 'The Ballad of Witches' Road', because it's apparently a song that Agatha made up for his own son to sing... with the important distinction that some of the words were there to refer to the two of them -- 'coven two', instead of 'coven true', for example. It's... it's the third episode in a nine-episode season that relied on the song as a climax, which really kind of made me wish that one of the previous iterations of the song hadn't been a full performance in a way. 

And the two are happy... but then at some point death's extra allotted time is up, and while Agatha sleeps, Rio takes Nicholas away. A peaceful death, which elicited a reaction that was anything but from Agatha. But as Agatha buries Nicholas, a young witch shows up... and apparently Agatha's traipsing across the countries have led to a distorted myth spread all across the witch community that there is such a thing called the Witches' Road, and that is where Agatha is trying to gain ultimate power. And Agatha uses this... to kill more and more witches. This was how she got as powerful as she was circa-WandaVision, and this was exactly what she was planning to do in the season premiere before the Witches' Road actually manifested. 

And... again, it's a story that doesn't really hold up, I think, under scrutiny. Agatha and Rio's interaction in episode one is perhaps the biggest question mark I have that can only be handwaved with 'they're exes, eh?' and I also find it rather hard that no one's ever fact-checked that the Witches' Road is real or not... but it does explain a lot of Agatha's irreverence towards the Road compared to the other witches, and it's a neat enough twist. 

Of course, in the present day, Wiccan is visited by the ghost of Agatha. Because of course you can't keep a good main character down, and while the show is vague on whether this was a deal that she made with Rio/Death or if it's something else, she's a ghost for now, spotting a more traditional-comics accurate appearance. Wiccan is horrified at the idea that he made the Road and led indirectly to the deaths of Alice, Lilia and Sharon... but Agatha gives a rather backhanded reassurance that Wiccan actually saved Jen in a certain point of view, since Agatha would've killed all four of them without a second thought if the Witches' Road didn't appear. I like that at least Agatha's psychopathy is kept around, even when she's in this more cooperative form. 

Wiccan attempts to banish Agatha with her magic, which could also be a good closing to this series, to have Agatha be punished, in some way, for all of her villainy. But she refuses to go, seemingly by nothing but sheer force of will... and in perhaps one of the few honest lines she's had this series, she yells that she can't face 'him', or Nicholas. Wiccan is shaken just a bit by that... but Agatha immediately turns around and offers her services as a spirit guide. They could, after all, make a good team to continue Wiccan's journey to find Tommy, wherever he ended up. They set off together into a glowing portal, and the series ends. 

And... that's it for Agatha All Along. It's an unconventional end to an unconventional series. It's experimental, it's weird, it's not perfect, but you could really feel that it's made with passion and care. That the actors wanted to be there, that they knew which parts of the story they wanted to tell the audience. I wasn't particularly optimistic about this show when I came in to it, but at the end of it, I was pleasantly surprised. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Agatha's ghostly appearance at the end -- in a purple dress with white hair -- is how she looks in the comics, both in the older comics and in modern, post-WandaVision ones. She also served as a ghostly spirit guide (albeit a much more traditional and less snarky one) to Scarlet Witch in the comics. 
• Nicholas Scratch is Agatha's grandson in the comics. However, unlike his relatively harmless appearance here, comics!Scratch is a full-blown villain. 

Agatha All Along S01E08 Review: Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 8: Follow Me My Friend; To Glory At The End

It has been the formula for Marvel TV shows to have the final episode be a substitute to the big (often CGI-laden) punch-up between the main hero and the main antagonist. That worked for some shows -- for WandaVision, for Moon Knight, for Hawkeye, for the first season of What If?... but it didn't, for some. Ms. Marvel's huge emotional and narrative climax happened in its penultimate episode, and the big fight in the final episode felt superfluous. She-Hulk attempted to subvert this by explicitly refusing to do a huge punch-up with the antagonists that it tried to set up, but whatever the She-Hulk final episodes are, they most certainly aren't a satisfying conclusion. 

Agatha All Along's first season, meanwhile, has what's basically a two-parter conclusion, and I am genuinely surprised to see that the big action scenes are done and dusted in the penultimate one. And... it's an interesting way to tackle the ending of one of Marvel's more unconventional shows. 

Which is why we're starting with the supposed 'focus' character of this episode, Rio Vidal, a.k.a. the Green Witch, a.k.a. the cosmic entity Lady Death. We start off with her walking and escorting Alice to the afterlife, showing that despite her over-the-top mannerisms and taunting, she is still the cosmic manifestation of death. Terrifying, but ultimately also the friend that greets you at the end of the road that is life. 

After Lilia's death at the end of the previous episode, Rio and Agatha finally confront each other after Rio's brief absence. Rio gives us her motivation -- she wants the 'scales balanced', because Wiccan is an 'abomination' that shouldn't be alive. As a cosmic entity, Rio refuses to let him roam around in the world of the living... much less summon another thing that should not be alive in Billy's brother. However, there is a bit of a complication. Thanks to the uniqueness of the magic that created the entity that is Wiccan, he can't exactly die. He has to come willingly with Death, otherwise he'll just continue reincarnating to the next corpse and the next corpse.

And throughout this episode, the main focus and character lynchpin is Agatha Harkness herself, which is quite appropriate. Throughout her run in this show and in WandaVision, Agatha has been defined by her sheer 'gives no shits' attitude. She doesn't care about any of her coven, she views everyone else as stepping stones to her ambition... but Wiccan is the one sole exception that she seems to care about. And, of course, Agatha gives the easiest self-defense as Rio demands Wiccan... "take him". They make a deal, with Agatha not ever wanting to see Rio ever again (and even when she dies long, long in the future, she doesn't want to see Rio's face). In a cool bit of magic mindfuckery, Rio uses her knife to cut the sky as if it's the background in a stage show, and walks through it. 

With only three members in the coven left, Agatha, Wiccan and Jennifer continue the trial. They end up at the beginning of the Road, discovering that it's a circle. Wiccan throws a temper tantrum, putting the shoes he took off out of respect for the Witches' Road back on... and they end up in a morgue, struggling out of body bags. This is the episode's very short trial, which is supposed to be assigned to the 'earth' or 'green' magic of Rio.

As everyone panics while the timer counts down, Agatha accidentally lets slip the fact that she was the one behind Jen's curse 100 years ago, although Agatha never knew the target of the spell. Jen grabs Agatha's hair, chants an unbinding spell, regains her power and disappears from the Witches' Road. It's... it's really bizarre. It is a conclusion to Jen's story arc, I suppose, but the character has been on the sidelines so much that I barely mustered caring about her. We get to see her float off all alive and well into the distance at either the end of this episode or the next one, and I really don't care all that much, unfortunately. She just got interesting here, and I really would've liked this revelation to happen earlier in the season -- maybe episode 3 or 4 or something, and then we could've had an antagonistic Jen for the second half of the season... but it really did feel like the showrunners just wanted her out of their hair while we focus on the primary three protagonists.

Agatha guides Wiccan to look for what he wants from the Road. Jen wanted her power back, and Wiccan wants his brother back. Agatha coaches Wiccan as he looks for a suitable body, which, of course, coincidentally is a dead boy who's also called Tommy (most likely from a family called the Shepherds) who's drowning in a pool due to a terrifyingly irresponsible prank. Wiccan is confused about it all, asking Agatha if he's killing this other boy so his brother can live... but he never gets to hear Agatha's answer as he blips out of the Road. So yeah, Speed at some point in the future, I guess. 

Agatha manages to figure out something to get life to grow or whatever, pulling out a dandelion seed from the locket with her son's hair that she's been wearing all season, and manages to unlock the doors to the trial room and she explodes out of the cellar door in her Westview house. Rio/Death is waiting for her, and here we have the final battle. Rio is pissed off that she didn't get Wiccan, so she's attacking Agatha with some magical blasts. Agatha dodges an initial kill-shot thanks to one of Lilia's last parting words, before Wiccan arrives in his full suprehero outfit glory. Which... is... all right? It's not the best Disney+ superhero outfit, but it's all right for what it is. 

Wiccan fights Rio a bit, but then they realize that Agatha needs her magic back. And this is what the show has kind of building up to throughout the season. Is Agatha capable of not being a selfish prick for once in her life? Wiccan, always a nice bleeding heart, unleashes his magic on Agatha, knowing very well that Agatha could do the same parasitic drain she did on Alice. But despite some moments where it looks like Agatha's about to betray Wiccan, she doesn't. Agatha Harkness returns in her full glory, dressed up in her WandaVision climax outfit. And then we get a bit more of a fight before they realize that Lady Death is way too powerful for them, and one of them needs to die.

We get a darkly comedic sequence of Bugs-Bunny-ing, as Agatha offers to sacrifice herself, then Wiccan offers himself... and Agatha agrees almost immediately. The heartbreaking expression on Wiccan's face is perfectly acted, and this seems to be the next in a series of moments in this episode on the question of whether Agatha Harkness can care at all. Agatha walks away, with her full power, willing to leave Wiccan in the tender hands of Death... and then Wiccan asks a bombshell of a question. "Is this how Nicky died?"

We've had hints of Nicholas Scratch throughout the show, although frustratingly never anything concrete. It's clear that there's a bit more than meets the eye instead of just Agatha sacrificing Nicholas for power. And we get again, another very well-acted dialogueless scene of Agatha going through so many emotions in her mind as she tries to process this accusation. She doesn't try to defend herself, not with her usual biting sarcasm or any kind of earnest pleading... but she did finally change. She walks up to Rio, kisses her in the mouth, and allows Rio to kill her and spare Wiccan. 

Boom. The final fight. Agatha Harkness, the titular character, dies in one episode before the end. Our main antagonist Lady Death flutters off, her goals accomplished. We get a short scene of Wiccan returning to his house and explaining to his parents (mostly offscreen) what he's been doing in the past couple of days... before he walks into his room and sees a lot of suspiciously familiar things in his room. The heavy implication, of course, just like how Scarlet Witch was behind the creation of everything in the Westview shows, Wiccan was the creator of the Witches' Road unconsciously. And then he gasps in an admittedly lame cliffhanger, and we cut to credits.

And... there are some complaints that I do have about this show so far. The antagonists just aren't that interesting, with the Salem Seven being taken off the board before they even had the chance to be interesting; and the establishing of Rio as Death being so rapid that we never really learn too much about her. Oh, and the rules of witch magic is always frustratingly vague as ever (didn't Agatha gain some power from killing Alice?), and I had my complaint about Jen earlier. But I do feel like the show did a great job at building up the Agatha/Wiccan relationship, as well as establishing just what a gigantic douchebag Agatha is and how willing she is to normally kill people and leave a trail of dead witches in her wake. Having this climactic finale an episode before the end of the season is pretty well-done, and while it's not a perfect climax, I felt that it's one that fit the show almost perfectly. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Wiccan's costume is based on his most iconic outfit from Young Avengers, albeit with a tiara that resembles his mother's and an additional hoodie. 
• Right before she dies, Agatha wears her outfit from WandaVision, symbolizing her coming to full power. 

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. 

Agatha All Along S01E06 Review: Wiccan

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 6: Familiar By Thy Side

So yeah, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the previous episode revealed that 'Teen', who I've been calling 'Not-Wiccan' throughout these reviews, is actually Wiccan, a.k.a. Billy Kaplan, a.k.a. Billy Maximoff, a.k.a. the magical son of Scarlet Witch. The question is... how? 

And this episode takes us back to the end of WandaVision through Billy Kaplan (or, well, Billy Maximoff's) point-of-view as we get the huge lore dump that ties together all of the continuity questions we've been having. And for once in phase five MCU, it's actually not handwaved aside!

And this episode's review is a bit shorter than my usual MCU/Disney+ stuff, but that's because I've actually written this review a couple of times before my laptop ate it. But honestly, 'Familiar By Thy Side' is also an episode that isn't exactly the most important for a breakdown since so much of it is just us getting to know and see the tragedy and the conflict brewing within Billy's life in the last couple of years. 

The backstory of the Maximoff twins are kind of convoluted in the comics and it's something that I find it hard to even summarize, and I thought that the streamlined version we got here was pretty neat. We open up with William Kaplan, an average teenager who is celebrating his bar mitzvah. He's got loving parents, a lot of loving friends, and he's got an entire life in front of him. We get a surprise appearance of Lilia Calderu in the past, showing up as a palm reader in Billy's magic-themed bar mitzvah, and when Lilia sees the broken lifeline, we get the revelation that she's the one that seemingly places the sigil on Billy. 

And then, just as things seem to be going nice, Billy and his family get caught up in a car accident during the fateful hours that the battle between the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness is happening in the final episodes of WandaVision. It's some nice continuity to see the memories of Westview coming back to the civilians, and then to see the massive magic-dome looming in the distance. 

While the mechanism is not made exactly clear, William Kaplan seems to have died in that car crash, and the spirit (???) of Billy Maximoff somehow got transported to the conveniently newly-evacuated fleshy vessel. And the episode does dwell on this part quite a bit, showing just how utterly confused this brand new 'Billy' is. The 'Maximoff' memories aren't quite back yet, but he sure as hell isn't William Kaplan. The doctors explain it away as trauma-induced amnesia, and we get to see the rather heartbreaking scenes as the Kaplan parents try their best to accommodate their seemingly-amnesiac child's confusion. It doesn't help either that Billy inherited magic powers, allowing him to read his new foster parents' minds and get even more confused.

For the sake of the Kaplan parents if nothing else, Billy kind of just pretends to be their child for the couple of years between WandaVision and Agatha All Along, which is kind of heartwarming and fucked up at the same time... but it's not like Billy's got anywhere else to go. He doesn't have memories of either Billy Maximoff or William Kaplan, and he just goes around trying to research what's going on. 

The initial scenes are probably the most effective for me, seeing how hard the Kaplan parents try to accommodate what they thought was an amnesiac child, while Billy is just... utterly confused about everything that's going on. 

But then we kind of jump through the years to a short period before Agatha's first episode, where the Kaplans have a functioning relationship, and Billy's found love in his boyfriend Eddie. Billy reveals to Eddie that he's got a secret, and he's been looking for the strange memories he's been having. This leads to them meeting Ralph "Fake Quicksilver" Bohner, who spends a good amount of time recapping the events of WandaVision to Billy. I don't mind this sequence, personally, since it's been quite some time since WandaVision aired, and we get to see just how utterly screwed some people's life had became. Billy's slow realization on what's going on, no matter how crazy it sounds, is also done well. 

(Also, the other coven witches show up at various points in Billy's life; Alice is the police officer that arrived on the car crash, while Jen... uh... Billy watches Jen's skincare videos? Uh-huh. Okay.)

But even if Wanda is kind of accounted for, what happens to Tommy Maximoff's spirit, if it's still even around? To this end, Billy decides to look for Agatha, who Ralph Bohner notes is still in Westview. We then get around a 10-minute recap of the first episode of Agatha All Along... only it's from Billy's POV. It's kind of funny, although I still wonder who was the person who taught Billy the basic magic spells that he has in his little book. Again, Kathryn Hahn hamming shit up is 90% of the reason this show was made in the first place, so yeah, why not. 

The final shots of the episode snaps back to the 'present' day, where Agatha crawls back from the mud -- of course she's not dead (and while they're not seen in this episode, Jennifer and Lilia are also of course not dead). She confronts Billy, and Agatha notes that she's managed to piece the clues together basically the whole time... or so she claims. Billy reveals to Agatha that it's his brother Tommy that he is looking for at the end of the Witches' Road. The two argue a bit, with the sullen Billy revealing that all of his fanboying has been essentially an act, but Agatha also is able to call Billy's bullshit, showing that he's not able to control his powers as much as he wants Agatha to believe, and the two walk down the road uneasily. 

It's... it's a pretty neat revelation episode. I do like some of the scenes here, particularly the early scenes that highlights the tragedy of Billy Kaplan's fate. The revelation is also suitably heavy for a 'yeah, fans, it's kind of obvious that this is Wiccan from the comics' twist. I do think that the episode does get a bit recappy while jumping through some aspects that I wished they explored a bit more, but ultimately I thought it was a fine episode. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the comics, thanks to magic stuff (and many, many editorial retcons), Wanda and Vision's children were actually sent back in time and reborn/reincarnated into two children born to different families, with Billy Maximoff being born to the Kaplans in the past as 'Billy Kaplan'. 
• It's a comic-book thing; different writers had different visions (heh) for the twins, and the end result is quite messy. All things considered, the MCU's take on it streamlines a lot of the events that happened.
• The events of the last two episodes of WandaVision is seen in the parts of Billy's initial flashback, and some parts of it take place in this season's premiere, but seen through Billy's POV. 
• Ralph Bohner, a.k.a. the civilian that was brainwashed by the Scarlet Witch's spell to think that he's Quicksilver, was last seen in WandaVision's first season, played by the actor that played Quicksilver in the Fox X-Men movies. 
• Billy's boyfriend is named "Eddie", which is extremely close to the alter-ego of his comic-book counterpart's boyfriend, Teddy Altman, a.k.a. Hulkling.
• The Westview incident was covered up by the government as an 'Avengers training exercise', a term that was used by Rhodey to cover up the Iron Man incidents in the first Iron Man movie. 

Agatha All Along S01E05 Review: Witch Brooms and Ouija Boards

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 5: Darkest Hour, Wake Thy Power

Okay, this is a surprise change in tone. After the two-episode setup, Agatha All Along seems to be pretty intent on keeping the next couple of episodes be rather formulaic, pretty 'easy-watching' and episodic sequences focusing on the three secondary characters. Alice got a pretty nice one last episode, Jen got a serviceable one, and surely this would be Lilia's, and then we can wrap things up with the two clear authors' favourites, Rio and Not-Wiccan, right? 

Apparently, wrong. This episode ends up having Agatha's trial in more ways than one, as it's not just the Witches' Road that puts Agatha on trial, but also her new coven and a member of her old one. It is pretty unexpected, but considering this is supposed to be the Agatha show, it has been admittedly rather light on heavy Agatha moments. She's there, of course, in every episode, hamming things up and chewing the scenery, but her character isn't really being explored all that much. 

The faceless antagonists, the Salem Seven, finally show up after their context-less appearance in episode 2, appearing as animals that apparently found their way in because their summoning of Rio left the door open. Rio gives us an explanation of who the Salem Seven are -- they are the children of the witches that Agatha killed in the 1600s, which leads to Agatha's gem of a punchline: "The moral of the story, kids, is to finish what you started". We also get a comedic moment where all the witches complain about Not-Wiccan's suggestion to escape on broomsticks, with Lilia in particular being very incensed that they are perpetuating a hurtful stereotype. 

The sequence here is intentionally campy and low-budget, but honestly, with most of what's going on in the Witches' Road, the fact that it's all magic -- and partially personalized magic at that -- it's way more forgivable and far more fitting to the tone of the show compared to something like She-Hulk or Secret Invasion. 

The coven escape the Salem Seven member that has the horrifying ability to burst into a swarm of murder hornets and enter another cabin in the woods, which puts them all into... uh... I don't exactly know what this theme is, or how it relates to it being Agatha's trial. But it sure is supposed to be? The cabin none-too-subtly forces the coven to play with an Ouija board, and despite the other witches pointing out that it's obviously Agatha that has to do stuff, she's as usual evasive and flippant. We get to see her pull off a rather fun impression of "Mrs. Hart", which doesn't actually turn out to be the plot twist. The actual Ouija spirit turns out to be 'Death', who wants to 'Punish Agatha', and we get something finally halloween-worthy as Agatha gets possessed by the spirit of her mother Evanora Harkness, pulling off some moves that would make the makers of The Exorcist proud. 

Evanora demands they leave Agatha behind and they can go off an finish the road. Jen is very quick to throw Agatha under the bus, but surprisingly, Rio -- who was okay with killing Agatha -- panics and refuses to leave Agatha to the clutches of Evanora. We don't really get much context for why Evanora hates Agatha so much, but maybe there isn't any context. Agatha sounds genuinely hurt when she asks Evanora why she still hates her, and Evanora just says stuff about her being 'born evil', and that she should've killed Agatha the moment she was born. 

As the climax builds up, it is Alice who ends up shooting some brand-new protection magic abilities to drive Evanora out... but then Agatha ends up ripping this orange magic from Alice and in a rather brutal and drawn-out scene, kills Alice while the rest of the cast -- most especially Not-Wiccan, who's been bonding and befriending Alice over this episode and the previous one -- scream in horror. It's been kind of set up early on that at some point Agatha's going to drain the power of any witch that shoots magic at her, but the way this scene plays out it almost looks as if Agatha did so involuntarily... or is that what Agatha wants to pretend to be? 

Oh, and there's a brief moment where the Ouija board spells out 'Nicholas Scratch', which seems to be another spirit whose voice breaks Agatha's murder attempt. Nicholas is the name of Agatha's son -- both in the comics and implied through various background stuff throughout the first couple of episodes. Also also, Rio just kind of disappears through all this, and I'm not sure where she is after Alice's death. Presumably she's scuttled off to do something? I like Aubrey Plaza, but I don't really care for Rio all that much, I'm sorry. 

Regardless, Alice is dead, which honestly isn't that big of a surprise since her character arc was kind of wrapped up with a bow last episode. It's a fair bit more shocking this time around, though, because Alice's developed a proper bond with the rest of the cast (or at least with Not-Wiccan) instead of just being a meme. 

Not-Wiccan is absolutely distraught at losing Alice, demanding the other witches do something to bring her back, but while Jen and Lilia are pissed off, they're more pissed off for the principle of Agatha betraying them moreso than Alice's actual death. They are, after all, witches. And Agatha's reaction is... interesting. It's really unclear whether she's telling the truth or not here on whether Alice's death was an accident (her expressions during the scene do seem surprised) but then she goes straight to what she usually does -- cruel comedy and personal attacks. And this personal attack goes into something that most fans have guessed the moment Not-Wiccan shows up on the show... Not-Wiccan is actually Wiccan. 

And Agatha pushes Not-Wiccan a couple of steps too far, saying that he is 'so much like [his] mother' and calling him a 'pet' one more time. And then Wiccan's fingers crackle with energy, and he takes control of Jen and Lilia, have them drag a screaming Agatha and toss them into the swamp-muck that killed Sharon... before blasting Jen and Lilia into the swamp too. As the witches scream and drown (they're totally not dead, but it's dramatic enough), we zoom up upon Wiccan's face, showing him with a blue version of the Scarlet Witch's crown. End scene, in a pretty fun revelation. 

So... yeah. Shaking up the formulaic one-character-per-episode sequence with the arrival of the villains and a death was pretty fun. But the highlight is obviously the pretty cool dramatic entry for Wiccan. He sure is Wiccan. The question is... how? Some boring Multiverse bullshit, or is there something that would suitably be magical and dramatic for this setting? How much did he know before seeking Agatha out, and how much of his fanboy persona is fake? Who put the sigil on his mouth? Did he just regain his power right now because of emotions, or was he just pretending to not be able to cast spells before? I honestly don't care for some of the stuff around this show -- the show hasn't really given me too much reason to care about the Salem Seven beyond them being a nebulous threat, but the Wiccan mystery definitely is a nice wrinkle. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Obviously, Wiccan's appearance at the end is based a bit on the MCU's take on the Scarlet Witch tiara as seen in WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness. But, y'know, blue.
• Also, Wiccan's thematic outfit for the Ouija board cabin is almost identical to the outfit that little Billy wore in WandaVision, with a blue headband, and a red-blue-white shirt with the red parts extending from his neck down to his sleeves. 
• Evanora Harkness and the scene seen in the recap of the previous incarnation of the Salem Seven killing Agatha was seen in WandaVision. 

Agatha All Along S01E04 Review: Musical Time, Go

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 4: If I Can't Reach You / Let My Song Teach You

So this episode is Alice's trial, and out of Agatha's coven, I felt like Alice Wu was always the one whose 'D&D backstory' was already told to us in the debut. Something about her dead mother, something about finding answers and stuff. It's simple, but it's also done relatively well here to give the whole thing a little 'witchy trope' bent. 

But before we get to the trial, we get a burial scene of Sharon. Not-Wiccan and Alice are a bit more somber about this, and even the two 'senior' witches Jen and Lilia are somber, but Agatha is as flippant as ever. But due to the fact that they needed a green witch later on for the trial, Jen and Lilia push Agatha and get her to summon a new green witch. Which... is kind of hilarious when it seemed like they accidentally zombified Sharon and everyone, even the more experienced witches, panic the shit out. It's a simple line, but Lilia complaining about the small font in Not-Wiccan's spellbook is probably one of the funnier lines in this show. 

Instead, the person that crawls out of Sharon's grave is Rio Vidal, who makes her reappearance after the first episode. She clearly has some history with Agatha, and the rest of the coven isn't quite sure what to make out of this more outright-psychotic witch (as compared to Agatha's thinly-veiled sociopathy) other than that she looks nice. The episode later basically confirms that Agatha and Rio used to be involved romantically, and that there was some betrayal that Agatha did. 

But we don't have time to process any of these yet, because we go straight into the next trial, with a different house, a different phase of the moon on the door, and a different set of clothes for our coven, where everyone is dressed up as rock groupies. Alice is clearly uncomfortable with the setting of the house, and it's quickly revealed that the interior of this house is filled with music recording stuff, and many of them correspond to her mom, Lorna's, band. 

We get a couple of moments of Rio trying to seduce Agatha and get her to betray the coven, but Agatha """accidentally""" activates a microphone that broadcasts Rio's proto-betrayal to the rest of the witches. There's also a brief moment where Lilia lapses and gives some ominous premonitions which she herself doesn't seem to understand why. All of this ends up getting put on the backburner as Not-Wiccan plays a record which spins backwards (of course) and starts burning random members of the coven with Exorcist-style pain. Jen is hilarious in this sequence, demanding Alice make a protective circle preemptively and refusing to move out of it. Eventually Alice reveals that her family has a generational curse that hits all of the women in their family, giving them terrible luck. 

Through some dialogue and handwaving, the coven discovers that the solution is to play Lorna's version of "The Ballad of the Witches' Road", which is an excuse to have our heroines just do a rock cover of that song. Okay! I can respect that. The witches discuss how this very popular song is actually a form of a protection curse, and since Lorna made it quite widespread, it's being played at any given moment in time somewhere in the world, which keeps the protection aura around Alice active. Does it make 100% sense? Not really, but it's quite heartwarming and it does kind of fit the common horror trope of someone embedding satanic messages in rock music. 

Halfway through the song, the Curse manifests itself as a demonic harpy-like creature, which is not CGI but traditional makeup and/or puppetry, which I can appreciate. Alice manages to banish the curse, but Not-Wiccan ends up getting impaled through the gut during the process and collapses at the end of the episode. It is very interesting to see just how uncharacteristically panicky Agatha was throughout this whole sequence. Jen manages to ultimately heal Not-Wiccan, but it's clear that Agatha's control over the coven -- not that it's ever that powerful in the first place -- is starting to slip. Rio hammers down another line to really shake Agatha's world... "that boy isn't yours", which, while it isn't a surprise for me as a watcher, is probably going to shake Agatha's motivations so far. 

Overall... yeah, I think that the witches' interactions with each other are quite fun, even if it's clear that the main characters in the showrunners' mind are Agatha, Not-Wiccan and now Rio. Jennifer didn't get quite as much focus last episode, though it is understandable considering that she's the first trial. Alice gets some rather basic storytelling motions, which I do appreciate, but it also feels like most of what the show is going to do with her has been ticked off. It's a nice story, I suppose, and as an episodic part of a season I suppose I don't have much to complain about.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Agatha mentions having fought, and is implied to have killed, a superhero team called the Daughters of Liberty. They are a minor group of superheroes in the comics, which, ironically, comics Agatha was affiliated with.

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. 

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. 

Agatha All Along S01E01 Review: Witches, Oh My

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 1: Seekest Thou The Road

Happy Halloween! I wanted to wait until Agatha All Along was over before watching any of its episodes, but it also kind of lines up rather nicely with Halloween and the end of my coverage of the first season of What If. So we're starting off with the first episode now on Halloween. 

(Yes, I know I haven't done Deadpool vs. Wolverine yet. Someday.)

And... it's nowhere as spooky as I thought it would be, nor is it an 'unsettling' kind of spooky like WandaVision's initial episodes were. Agatha All Along acts as a sequel to WandaVision, where we follow the antagonist of that show, Agatha Harkness, as she breaks out of the imprisonment that Scarlet Witch put her in, and fights against other witches that she implied to have betrayed before. 

And... this first episode of Agatha All Along tries, a bit, to capture what made WandaVision work. We get a parody of a particular type of TV show, and then our main character realizes that some of the things going on are a bit creepy and very, very wrong. It just... didn't really work. With WandaVision, starting things out of context and parodying a much older format ended up with something whimsical, and the acting of familiar characters Vision, Scarlet Witch and their supporting characters are so over-the-top cheesy that you're confused... and the horror that they did when Vision's boss choked and died was a huge sudden reminder that, hey, we're supposed to be in a superhero show, something is seriously wrong. 

Agatha All Along's first episode parodies a typical cop show, where Agatha is 'Agnes', a daredevil cop with an attitude and a swagger who chews her gum loudly and argues with her boss and all that... but we're still making shows like that. That's not particularly special, not the way that WandaVision's various TV parodies were. In addition, the horror is almost expected, so when things started to go weird, I go 'oh, finally, we're getting somewhere' instead of actually being shocked. The supporting characters are... well-acted for what they are, but I really didn't give two shits about them, and I'm really just waiting for things to go on. 

It's not as bad as Iron Fist's legendarily terrible first episode where they wanted to make the audience question if Danny Rand is actually hallucinating about the temples and magic chi fists or whatever, but it's also a version of being quite slow where the audience knows, exactly, what happened to Agatha. We saw Scarlet Witch put her in that weird trance. So prolonging it for 20 minutes just really feels pretty bland.

There is also the problem that Agatha Harkness... isn't a particularly interesting character. I'm genuinely a bit baffled why she got a spinoff out of all the side characters from the Disney+ MCU content. Maybe I still feel a bit burnt out on Echo, and I acknowledge that Kathryn Hahn is a fun presence, but I am still cautiously worried that they thought that the huge meme-moment of the Agatha song to actually equate to marketable popularity.

Eventually, in reaction to Scarlet Witch's death, the spell around Agatha seems to unravel. The 'Jane Doe' body turns out to be a (conveniently face-covered) representation of Scarlet Witch and the Darkhold, and some of the people in Westview is starting to ask questions. We get to see the emo blue-jacketed teen who's totally a teenage Wiccan/Billy Kaplan, and the snarky new FBI agent Rio Vidal (played by Aubrey Plaza, previously of Legion fame). Eventually Agnes realizes that she's actually Agatha, reality unravels, and she finds herself in the 'real' world, buck-ass nude and confronting the citizens of Westview who apparently have been okay with treating her as just a slightly loony neighbour for three years. 

And then we get the true identity of Rio Vidal, who's a witch with a knife, and we get an honestly rather tepid little magic fight... but that magic fight was tepid because Agatha doesn't have access to her magic anymore. Rio and Agatha talk a bit, with the implication being that Agatha betrayed their coven or organization or whatever the "Salem Seven" is. Agatha manages to pull off a "wouldn't you rather kill me at my strongest" bullshit to get Rio to walk of. She also has Not-Wiccan kidnapped and tied up in a closet. 

And... again, Kathryn Hahn is a great lead. She unfortunately doesn't get the chance to chew the scenery as much as I expected her to, since she spends so much of the first half in the dour True Detective knockoff, or is just confused in general. It's kind of a shame, but while this is still an enjoyable episode to watch (most certainly better than She-Hulk, Secret Invasion and Echo, three rather embarrassing recent projects from D+/MCU), I didn't find it to be MCU's best work... but with that pesky setup done, hopefully the next couple of episodes would be better!

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Salem Seven are a recurring group of seven animal-themed witches who menaced the Scarlet Witch and the Fantastic Four. In the main Marvel universe, they were actually grandchildren of Agatha Harkness.
• Various call-backs to WandaVision and Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness are made here. Agatha was trapped in that hallucination at the end of WandaVision, various supporting characters from WandaVision return (including the rabbit), the Darkhold is mentioned via the acronym of the book, and when Agatha regains her mind, she goes through a montage of all of her looks from the various television time periods in WandaVision.  
• A cute (if morbid) joke was that the mysterious corpse was 'blunt force trauma' from being 'crushed by a massive object'. Scarlet Witch's end involved her being squished between two halves of a mountain. 
• The book, in addition to being an acronym of DARKHOLD (Dialogue And Rhetoric: Known History of Learning & Debate), is also written by Andrew Ugo, which is an anagram of the mountain "Wundagore". 
• In her illusion, Agatha' room contains an empty child's room belonging to Nicholas Scratch, which is Agatha's son from the comics.