Agatha All Along: Marvel's Most Bewitching Post-Endgame Project

I have just finished Agatha All Along, and I suppose I should not really be surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

The headline - Agatha, a witch trapped inside a spell, is broken free by "Teen" and they must assemble a coven to go down the "Witches Road", overcoming a series of trials along the way, to reclaim their power. Add a dash of magic and a hefty dollop of camp - together with Kathryn Hahn hamming it up at every available opportunity. Count me in.

It is no secret that Marvel has been in a slump in the aftermath of the multi-billion dollar grossing Avengers Infinity War and Endgame duology - flops like Captain Marvel, Ant Man 3, and a multiplicity of mediocre Disney Plus shows weren't just financial failures, but largely creatively bankrupt.

WandaVision was a shining beacon of hope in the midst of all that drudgery. It had a wild creativity - how a sitcom that leapt ahead by one decade every episode (so that you were watching a black and white show with a laugh track one week and a Kardashians-inspired reality programme the next) was greenlit by the same studio that made the turgid Secret Invasion (how do you make Samuel L Jackson boring?) is beyond me. It had an intriguing mystery at its core which slowly revealed itself week-by-week, and whilst the finale may have been a let down, it was head and shoulders above where Marvel was and has been since.

This was followed by Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness; a somewhat mediocre flick salvaged by Sam Raimi's inimitable directorial style and a final act so unhinged that I worry the writers' room may have had their water supply spiked with bath salts.

Enter Agatha All Along, ostensibly the successor series to WandaVision (it was produced by the same creator, Jac Schaeffer) and the capper to this TV cross-silver screen trilogy. It had much to live up to - and it by and large succeeded. This show is fantastic. It's not just the gayest Marvel has ever been on screen, it is also provides some of the best acting, writing and moments from anywhere across the MCU. It can probably be watched on its own, but is most definitely enhanced with at least a cursory understanding of the events of WandaVision.

When I finished WandaVision, off the back of by far the most memorable performance in the show, I distinctly remember turning to my now flatmate and saying, "Hollywood should just put Kathryn Hahn in everything." It turns out at least one director was listening (perhaps through my smart speaker) because she has since appeared in Rian Johnson's Glass Onion, a who-dunnit mystery in which, again, she is utterly mesmerising. I cannot get enough of Kathryn Hahn - and she dazzles as Agatha in this. Whilst she is frequently the cackling, moustache-twirling (I could not think of a better adjective) anti-hero, her arc in this show is one of the best in the MCU, constantly undulating between the hope that she might have reformed to the realisation that she is still pure evil. The audience is kept constantly guessing as to her true motivations. 

Her chemistry with the supporting cast is excellent, most especially with Joe Locke, who plays the mysterious "Teen" whose identity is slowly unfurled as the season progresses. Having not seen Locke in his most famous outing, Heartstopper, sheerly owing to the disorienting cognitive dissonance between my own experience of high school vs what is shown on screen, I was impressed with his performance and hope to see him return to the MCU down the line, perhaps in the new Avengers films.

The rest of the cast is equally stand out. I particularly enjoyed Aubrey Plaza (who I adore from Parks & Rec and The White Lotus Season 2) as the even-more-sinister-than-all-the-rest witch Rio Vidal. Her spark with Kathryn Hahn is as undeniable as it is sublime. Her performance is sadly absent from the majority of the show, leaving the development of that spark to be slightly unconvincingly, but much as with Locke I hope we will see her reprise her role in the future. Google has just informed me that she is 40. Her skin routine must be some kind of witchcraft.

The references to witches in popular culture are equally satisfying, with fans of the occult well served by allusions to the Wizard of Oz, Snow White and even Angelina Jolie's Maleficient. The costume department alone deserves all the Emmys I imagine are already on their way. The show manages to adapt tropes from the witch mythology to serve its narrative and tonal needs - one of the many clever slight of hand tricks it plays.

Another brilliant contribution to the Marvel canon is the "Ballad of the Witches Road". This damn song has been stuck in my head for nearly four weeks now, and it only gets better with every play (my Spotify Wrapped this year is going to be even more embarrassing than usual). Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez once again knock it out of the park (Agatha All Along being the title of their hit from WandaVision), but what else do you expect from the couple that wrote the songs in Frozen?

My issues with it are largely limited to how some of the supporting cast are not necessarily given the proper time to shine, which I cannot discuss too much without delving into spoilers, that leaves some of their storylines feeling rushed. Similarly, the constrained run time of these episodes mean that some of the trials of the Witches Road fail to impress upon the audience the jeopardy the characters may be in due to a lack of set up and fast resolution.

I am also relentlessly frustrated with Disney's weekly release model for these shows (which I appreciate is not something you will have to worry about if you are considering watching it following this review). Of all the streaming shows, I think Netflix's half at once, the other half a month later, balances the competing interests of my desire to consume a show all at once whilst simultaneously allowing time to discuss developing storylines and theorise on where things may be going next. Strangers Things Season 4 was the high point of this. I often find these Disney Plus shows to lack the engaging writing needed to keep me coming back week to week (although, admittedly, this was not something Agatha suffered from).

With credits as long as they are in the modern Disney Plus show, it is always difficult to single out who to praise for the success of a show. That Jac Schaeffer's name is on this however, in addition to being on WandaVision, probably means that she is one of Marvel's top creatives at the moment. This is a studio that has struggled to give their creatives the necessary space to create projects with their own identity, and yet this is a show that knows what it is - a campy witch adventure.

Unlike other Marvel shows, indeed WandaVision suffered from this, it is not a "genre" show crammed into a super hero story. It is confident in its identity to avoid the tropes that usually accompany this kind of show - Schaeffer has been able to thread that needle where many others have failed. To that end, it revels in its camp and totally fulfills any expectation you may have of the premise.

All this would fall apart without great writing. Thankfully, and unlike many other Marvel shows, it has this in spades. Admist its cast of cackling witches, it convincingly develops the relationship between "Teen" and Agatha, subtly deals with the former's sexuality, maintains the latter's status as an iconic anti-hero, and provides satisfying arcs for all of its central characters. This might seem quite basic for most TV shows - but we have been without this for some time in the MCU. Those final episodes are outstanding - I will say little for fear of spoilers - but you are in for a treat (or trick?).

This is a show that re-energises the Marvel canon with something genuinely different. Kathryn Hahn should be enough to get you in the door, and if not I can assure you, dear reader, that the Witches Road is an enchanting delight. And it is gay. Very gay.

8/10