Agatha All Along hastened her journey down the 'Witches' Path'

When Agatha all the time was first announced in 2021 as a music-heavy sequel by WandaVisionIt was difficult to imagine how showrunner Jac Schaeffer could recreate the magic that made the original such an inspired piece of storytelling. WandaVisionThe show-within-a-show premise and clever use of practical effects, as well as being one of the first Disney Plus series, helped set it apart from previous Marvel projects. But Schaeffer also used WandaVision to weave beats from the franchise's most popular films into a cohesive narrative that helped bring the entire MCU in its multiversal era.

Since its first episode, Agatha all the time did everything possible to show us that, even with WandaVisionThe lead ran out Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madnessThere was still plenty, and perhaps too much, meat for Kathryn Hahn's Agatha Harkness to chew on. The show's two-part finale stuck the landing by living up to its title in more ways than one. Although the MCU's interconnectedness has felt increasingly shaky afterWandaVision, Agatha all the time ended in a way that seems poised to get (at least part of) the franchise back on track. And with another follow-up series already in development, it seems Marvel has figured out that these specific stories are the ones it has the best chance of knocking out of the park.

This piece contains spoilers about Agatha all the timeIt's final.

WandaVision He briefly referred to covens in a flashback to the 17th century when Agatha killed her mother Evanora (Kate Forbes) and her group of witch sisters. But Agatha all the time goes deeper, introducing characters like Agatha's ex-lover Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) and a mysterious teenager who can't share his name (Joe Locke). Because Agatha herself was already framed as a unique threat to magic users, it was difficult to discover what kind of dangers lay in wait for the coven while she and the teenager recruited a fortune teller. Lilia Caldero (Patti LuPone), Potions Master Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), protective witch Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn) and everyday Jersey woman Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp) to their ranks.

But Agatha all the time established a very clear focus for all its actors. The “Witches’ Path”: a kingdom entered by covens that sing “The Ballad of the Witches' Path” – and her ability to grant wishes to those who passed her tests gave the witches a reason to work together. And similar to how Agatha all the timesending Easttown Mare It was a callback to WandaVisionIn comedy parodies, Witches' Road felt like the show's biggest way to emphasize the power of practical effects.

The Road, with all its hand-painted leaves and trees that transformed the stage into an otherworldly forest, highlighted how Agatha all the timeThe creative team was cleverly using their small budget to create magic that seemed more real than its predecessor. And The Road's horror-movie-inspired tests to test witches' abilities gave the show a narrative structure similar but distinct enough from WandaVisionis to make it seem Agatha all the time it really was the second chapter of a trilogy of stories rather than just a spin-off.

As is often the case with genre television shows with large casts, Agatha all the time From time to time he struggled to keep all his plates spinning at the same speed as Agatha's. Each witch got a chance to shine as they faced a different trial, but some of their backstories, especially those of Jennifer and Alice, felt rushed and largely unexplored. Some of the tests themselves were a bit complicated. (At one point, the witches prepare an antidote to the poison by throwing a bunch of ingredients into a sink.) Agatha all the time However, he was also sometimes willing to kill off characters with purpose which helped him become sharper as the season progressed.

There were still some doubts about what Agatha all the timeThe big bad could end up happening mid-season, when Sharon and Alice had already bit the dust. But all the pieces of the show's puzzle began to fall into place in episodes five and six when it was revealed that the teenager was Billy Maximoff/William Kaplan, one of the Scarlet Witch's sons, who had possessed the body of a dead person.

One of the most impressive things about WandaVision It was how he managed to rework some of Marvel's most convoluted Scarlet Witch and Vision comic arcs into a story that was concise and compelling enough to constantly keep people who weren't readers of the comics engaged. Much of Billy's comics lore (he and his brother end up having their souls reabsorbed by the demon Mephisto before being reincarnated as outsiders) is even wilder than his spiritual mother's. But Agatha all the time made quick work of incorporating many of those beats with a story reminiscent of WandaVision's “We Interrupt This Show,” which cleverly broke out of the series’ sitcom conceit.

Unlike Alice and Sharon's arcs, it was clear from the beginning that Agatha all the time He was teasing something important with Lilia's many moments of confusion stemming from her power to see the future. What was much less obvious, however, was that the show was using her to set the stage for a time-jump episode that would provide key context for some of the show's most satisfying twists: Rio was actually the personification of death in disguise.

Of all the Marvel characters that could appear on a Disney Plus show, it was really surprising to see Death given that, in the comics, she is a cosmic entity most often associated with Thanos (and occasionally the Spider-Man clone). But the arrival of Death also brought a fascinating gravity to everything that happened in the coven. It added some context to the show's increasing body count and a new layer of intrigue to Agatha and Rio's romantic past, another topic that could have benefited from further exploration. Death gave Jennifer, Billy, and Agatha a clearly defined enemy to rally against as they approached the end of the Path. And although the witches' final battle against Death wasn't much to write home about, it brought Agatha all the timeThe story itself and its deepest connections with WandaVision in a much clearer focus.

Agatha all the timeThe final two episodes establish how, until Agatha and Billy's coven sang the ballad together and created a gate, the Witch's Path never really existed. It was just a myth that began in Agatha's early days as a witch and new mother to her son. Spreading the idea of ​​the Path's existence gave Agatha an easy way to lure witches into the forest under the guise of opening a portal, just to steal their magic. That was her plan all along with the current coven, and she probably would have gotten away with it too. But in the show's final episode, Agatha returns as a ghost to tell Billy that things turned out very differently in this case because of her wish that the Witch's Path was real.

That plot point and Agatha's insistence on staying with Billy as a spectral mentor crystallized the degree to which Agatha all the time was really continuing WandaVisionThe history of Marvel: pushing its characters and also what a Marvel show can do.