I’m absolutely loving Agatha All Along so far. But full disclaimer: I really liked She-Hulk. (Sorry, not sorry.) In fact, I’ve largely been a fan of the MCU TV series -- with a few exceptions, so I’m not surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying the absolutely charming Agatha Harkness as portrayed by the fantastic Kathyrn Hahn.
The second episode saw Agatha’s coven finally stepping onto the witch’s road, each with their own motivation for taking on the deadly task. Included in the activities was poor Ms. Hart–I mean, Sharon Davis–as portrayed by That 70’s Show’s Debra Jo Rupp. In fact, after almost dying right at the start of their journey, Sharon has a breakdown which ultimately doesn’t turn out too great for her.
The Witch’s Road promised us all sorts of “tricks and trials,” and this episode showed what these tricks might look like going forward. Keeping in the same spirit of Wandavision, when confronted by a trial, the witches' clothes and the decor all change to match. Someone on Discord described this latest episode as “Saw meets Desperate Housewives" and that is extremely apt. To me, it brought to mind a Dungeons and Dragons campaign: each Witch has their own specialty (ie, class), and they have to go through a series of trials (sounds like a dungeon crawl to me). There are even DM tricks, like the ominous and unexplained timer to build tension. If the writers aren't already Dungeon Masters, they should really consider it.
In this trial, Agatha’s Coven are trapped in an upper-middle class house, decked out in preppy clothes, and greeted by a bottle of wine on the dining room table. Sharon, absolutely destroys a glass of the red before anyone else even has a chance to digest the situation. It turns out the wine is poisoned, everyone has to drink, and they have less than 30 minutes to come up with an antidote. That’s where the potions witch Jennifer Kale portrayed by Sasheer Zamata gets to use her prowess.
This episode really took its time to highlight how much of a cheat and a monster Agatha is. The story of her sacrificing her own child for possession of the Dark Hold is confirmed to mysterious “Teen” (Joe Locke) who, at first, doesn’t believe it. But after witnessing Agatha dodging the poison test, Teen started to see Agatha for who she really is.
There are some interesting takeaways from this episode. For one, the rest of the coven aren’t able to discern Teen’s identity either–all of them seeing the same sigil over his mouth when he says his name. Agatha says, “we’ll crack this nut later” suggesting that they have (probably dangerous) ways of undoing any such sigils. I really love Teen, even though his dialogue sounds a little “fellow kids”
There was also that Mephisto name drop that came in so casually, but must have fans reeling with excitement. I’m sure after all of the fan theorizing about Mephisto’s involvement in Wandavision the writers had to feel an obligation to at least acknowledge MCU’s devil.
We can't wait to see what the next few episodes conjure up. Agatha All Along is streaming now on Disney+.
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