9 episodes after its premiere, Agatha all the time delivered a double Halloween gift that confirmed it as one of the best Marvel TV shows ever made. As with the opening 2 episodes, Marvel Television chose to release both episodes 8, “Follow Me My Friend/To Glory At The End”, and 9, “Mother, Maiden, Crone” together, creating a sort of special event, and answering a multitude of questions.
After Agatha all the time – episode 7The finale of Lilia Calderu and the Salem Seven, and finally revealed Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal is Death, the penultimate episode quickly begins with the aftermath. Showrunner Jac Schaeffer had promised that something huge would be revealed about Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha, and there was, of course, the matter of Billy Maximoff’s plans at the end of Witch Road, and the looming shadow that Scarlet Witch must deal with.
Agatha all the time followed the same configuration as the mystery box of WandaVisionweaving a deliriously creative story around Hahn’s irresistibly charming antihero. The ending isn’t as good as episode 7, the best of the season, but this may very well be the best live-action Marvel TV episode ever made, so it was always a high bar. And fortunately, the final two episodes are not that far from reaching the same heights.
How Agatha All Along’s Final Episodes Tie Up Loose Ends
It’s a shame that the episode’s double drop means that episode 8 will be somewhat forgotten – or at least robbed of the week-long autopsy period that has been so fun. ‘Follow Me…’ ends on a huge cliffhanger that builds on a theory that many Marvel fans have floated for weeks, and the final scene really deserved a full seven days of Reddit threads, social media clips, and the like. type. of creative gap-filling that made Agatha such a rewarding experience.
That said, because the ending itself goes back in time, the episodes work well together. This is partly because the pacing of “Mother, Maiden, Crone” may have ended up feeling like too sharp a turn compared to its predecessor, where more action takes place. But the least flashy episode isn’t a huge drop in quality, because it gets back to the heart of the series. Without spoiling too much, in 2021, WandaVision the finale captured some of the MCU’s most devastating stories of all, and Agatha all the time final episode follow suit.
Crucially, Agatha’s story was completely reinvented, which – I admit – was something that worried me a little. Villain-focused spin-offs have a terrible talent for humanizing great forces of evil at the expense of their initial impact, but in the broader context of the Scarlet Witch Saga, this actually works in a big way. Agateplease. The series draws an ingenious parallel between Agatha and Wanda that recontextualizes them both into a larger story that feels immaculately planned even before. WandaVision.
Everything is won in the Agatha ending all the time
As with all the best mystery box stories, Agatha all the timeGoogle’s great achievement is in its deception, but there is a crucial balance here that works incredibly well in its favor. Zoom back a little and every conversation will be about how and when Scarlet Witch would return: how Teen’s identity would be fueled; how The Witch’s Road would set this up; what would happen next… And Ultimately, it was all just a kind of mistake.
All of these story details remain important and, in some cases, delightfully unresolved, but the ending reveals a long con that brings everything back into focus. It was just Agatha the whole time. Schaeffer toyed with the audience from the moment those silly working titles were revealed, and after 9 episodes, and the twists resolved only in deeply satisfying ways, it all makes sense.
The most satisfying thing here is that Agatha all the time It doesn’t have any broader service that distracts from someone else’s story or a misdirection agenda to just make Wanda’s resurrection music. If that were the case, the entire intricate narrative would have cost very little considering the prestige of the trick. You really have to give up Schaeffer: she did as little Marvel as possible with Agatha all the timeThe e ending made this delightful and surprising show even better.
The final three cast members of Agatha All Along are excellent
Coven may have shrunk, but focusing on a smaller cast works well
Agatha all the timeThe cast of has been almost uniformly excellent: even the Salem Seven – who were glorified as costumers, let’s be honest – have brought a wonderful Cirque du Soleil weirdness to their physicality. But with most of the hastily assembled clan after Agatha was dead, the final two episodes give greater focus to the highest-rated cast members: Hahn, of course, Joe Locke’s Billy and Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal/Death.
After episode 7 revealed Vidal’s poorly guarded secret identity, Plaza really gets into her act as Death, going crazy. His death is a chaotic joke, much more cartoonish and kitsch, with Rio’s reins removed. The image of her straddling Agatha’s roof, cackling with laughter, will long remain in the memory. Locke continues to be excellent, avoiding any whiff of the Scrappy Doo problem that many new younger characters accidentally face in sequels and prequels. He’s had his big Wiccan moment and it’s worth the wait.
Hahn’s performance, especially at the end, is more subtle and sincere than the rest of her time as Agatha, as we learn more about what made her the way she is. It had also been pretty pantomime up to this point – with great payoff, obviously – but the flashback sequences are genuinely very sad, and managed to do what I thought was impossible: make me actually like the one thing I didn’t like about this show – the insistence on focusing on the balladry of The Witches Road. She deserves an Emmy for that alone.
So what comes after the end of the witches’ road?
How Agatha always deals with the future
This being a Marvel Cinematic Universe story, there’s always one big question at the end: the question of legacy. In other words, what’s next? While Agatha all the time it avoids being open about some of its possibilities, but it ends on a very firm note that this is just part of an ongoing story that will be resolved elsewhere, and refreshingly, that doesn’t feel disappointing.
At the beginning of the year, Dragon House Season 2 received a lot of criticism when it was perceived as little more than an extended trailer for Season 3 (at least in the most cynical readings). Agatha all the time does something similar by not delivering one of the more telegraphed story details, but does so in a way that still allows these nine episodes to stand as Agatha’s story. For a while, it seemed like we might be heading towards the reality that the show should have switched titles midway through to center Billy Maximoff, but again, the mistake throws things off the edge.
When the dust settles, there will definitely be some things I wish we had more of. I already yearn a little for more from the Salem Seven, who simply appeared and were removed just as quickly, and not every question is answered with the same attention to detail. For example, I’m not sure I learned anything about Agatha’s motivation after her son’s death, or what led her to obtain the Darkhold, but at least we know there’s more to come later. Agatha all the timeand you wouldn’t bet that Jac Schaeffer already has something up his sleeve to deal with any loose ends…
All 9 episodes of Agatha all the time are available to stream on Disney+ now.
Agatha Harkness, after the events of “WandaVision”, seeks to recover her magical powers. Joining forces with unexpected allies, including the son of a former adversary, she battles new mystical threats while uncovering secrets hidden in the magical realm.
- Kathryn Hahn’s performance gains much more depth.
- The writing deftly ties Agatha into the broader Scarlet Witch saga.
- As with WandaVision, Jac Schaeffer knows exactly how to extract emotions.
- Episode 8 deserved more space to be appreciated and separated.