I have really been enjoying Agatha All Along since it first dropped and, the further I got into the series, the more I got into it. With the drop of the final episodes this past Wednesday, I can now look back over the parts that stood out the most for me.
WARNING: The rest of this article contains spoilers for Agatha All Along, WandaVision, and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness. Kathryn Hahn is definitely a comedic force that should honestly get more attention and screentime in general. Agatha Harkness is a larger-than-life character; she’s also a villain. Some actors are just so good at what they do that you don’t love them in spite of being a villain (Agatha killed Sparky the Dog), but you love them because they are a villain. Some part of us wants to see Agatha change and be good, the other part of us doesn’t believe she can do it and were just waiting for those moments when the evil flared up (like when she drained Alice’s magic and killed her). The rumors about what she’s done aren’t all accurate, and the true revelations make her a complex character indeed.
Joe Locke as Billy Maximoff. Many fans saw it coming from miles away that Teen was like Billy Maximoff/Wiccan. How he got to where he is and why he sought out Agatha to get to the Witches’ Road was the big question. The episode that I probably loved the most was the six one where his entire back story was revealed. The original Billy was actually William, a young man celebrating his Bar Mitzvah on the same night that the Westfield Anomaly ended. We finally get answers about his sigil too. William was always drawn to magic stuff and there was a lot of that woven into the reception portion of his Bar Mitzvah. There was even a fortune teller, Lilia, hired for the job. Lilia catches that William’s life line is divided into two parts and realizes tragedy is coming for him soon. She sets the sigil and as a result even she forgets that she did so.
We get just enough of a peek at William to feel for the fact he’ll be gone soon. The Westfield Anomaly causes an evacuation and his family gets into a crash that is fatal for William. The timing is super convenient for Billy though because as his mother releases the magic that created him and Tommy, his magic latches into William’s body as a now available host (with an accident created scar for an accent). At first, Billy doesn’t know who he is and everyone thinks it’s just amnesia, but three years later he knows something is off. As he looks more into the events of that night he realizes he’s Billy Maximoff and, while Wanda and Vision are gone, he wants to find Tommy and believes traveling the Witches’ Road will let him do so.
He’s angry and powerful and we watch him lash out with his magic leaving us wondering just how he’ll use his powers.
Aubrey Plaza as Ro Vidal. Aubrey Plaza is one of those fan favorite legends in her own right, but she is absolutely in her element as Ro Vidal. Scene stealing and cackling all the way, some fans were theorizing that she might actually be Death and has come along for the adventure and ability to claim those that are lost to the Road. Those suspicions were confirmed and we should have seen it coming, as Jen pointed out, Ro told them exactly who she was from the start when she said she was the Original Green Witch. Green Witches are all about the life cycle which includes death.
The stakes become very real. The very first episode on the road is also the first episode that takes out a member of the coven with the death of Sharon. Sharon was the “Normie,” though, so how are we to know if that means the others are much more prepared for what lies ahead and their ability to travel the Road? The answer comes swiftly in the fifth episode. The Road isn’t the only danger, it’s also those that they travel with. Alice saves Agatha only for Agatha to drain her magic so hard it kills her. Was that an accident or not? Agatha wants us to believe she can be good, but she drained and took out her own Coven in a previous life and death situation. How on purpose those choices were, and how justified, may be debated for a very long time. Billy isn’t having it, though, and his magic flares up as he tries to drown Agatha in the sinking mud, a fear every child who watched The Neverending Story probably still carries. In a second shocking move, he throws in Jen and Lilia too. Agatha gets out but the audience is left wondering if they are really gone as well. Jen and Lilia do manage to return, but Lilia’s final episode, the revelation on how she sees events out of order and forgets them, and her big sacrifice, are moments fans are still talking about.
The soundtrack is amazing. Excuse me, but this is my new October playlist thank you very much. I loved the use of “Season of the Witch” at the end of the first episode, but “Heads Will Roll” is also a strong contender and the use of “You Should See Me in a Crown” when Teen is revealed as Billy Maximoff was an absolute *chef’s kiss* moment. Geek fans might also recognize that composer Christophe Beck was behind the scores of several Disney/Marvel offerings as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The final test and Agatha’s choice. The penultimate episode had huge moments. Jen discovers Agatha bound her and reverses the spell, regaining her powers and letting her complete her journey. Agatha leads Billy through guiding Tommy into a new body, that of a boy who is about to drown. Agatha, all alone, reveals what is in her locket: a lock of her son’s hair. She plants it, waters it with her tears, and escapes. It’s not over though. Ro shows up because Agatha promised to get Billy to turn himself into her. He’s living on a second life and that’s disrupting the balance of things. In a tense scene it goes back and forth for a bit with Agatha and Ro until Billy shows up in the full Wiccan costume. For a moment we aren’t certain if Agatha will sacrifice herself or Billy. Billy gives her some of his power and she stops herself from taking it all, almost gives him over, and surrenders herself at the last moment. What a trip, only it’s not quite over yet.
The finale and truth about the Road. The clues were there are along, Agatha is supposedly the only known survivor of the Road but she claims it doesn’t exist. The door catches her by surprise when summoned, and she didn’t anticipate that the Road would be a circle. The Road and its song came from Agatha and her son as they traveled killing witches as a way to delay Ro from claiming Nicholas. Nicholas develops a conscience about this though, and the one time he derails Agatha’s attempts to kill for him, Ro comes to claim him. Another Witch approaches Agatha about the Road while she’s at Nicholas’s fresh grave to inquire about the Road. It seems other witches think it’s a thing, and Agatha takes advantage of this. Agatha gathers covens of foolish witches and taunts them when the Road fails to appear so that they attack her which is what lets her drain them in turn. During a montage, we watch her drain covens over the years until we see the coven we know oh so well. Billy’s magic is so similar to his mother’s, so powerful, that he willed the Road into existence as a way to discover how to get to Tommy. The things they faced were pulled from pop culture magic and legends.
Agatha has become a ghost as she can’t bring herself to face Nicholas yet. Billy struggles with the lost lives and his part in things. The two are an interesting team but the battle for what Billy’s magic will turn him into as a person is far from over. His next quest though, is to go find Tommy and it looks like Agatha just might tag along.
