A spooky storyline, stellar acting, and a dash of comedic charm: Agatha All Along is here, just in time for autumn.
We all know that the Marvel machine has been struggling in recent months – something the runaway success of Deadpool & Wolverine has only seemed to highlight.
But the newest addition to the MCU - starring Kathryn Hahn as the titular Agatha - showcases a sort of deliberate storytelling that has been missing recently. The series is a spin-off of WandaVision, one of the best Marvel shows, and offers viewers more of the same deliberately off-beat energy.
The story is set in Westview, New Jersey, and picks up right where WandaVision left off. Kathryn Hahn chews scenery like her life depends on it as the wonderfully unhinged Agatha Harkness, a powerful witch who had it out for Wanda (and spawned her very own meme) but ended up trapped by one of her spells at the end of the series. Now, Agatha lives her days out as the nosey neighbour-turned-troubled-cop Agnes, trapped in Westview and in her own mind (as if to underline this, the show credits cheekily start off as a Scandi-flavoured cop show, ‘Agnes of Westview’).
So is she trapped? Looks like it, until the spell is broken by a young witch wannabe (a heavily-kohled Joe Locke, in a nice departure from his Heartstopper role). As it turns out, the witch community is gunning for Agatha after she lost the Darkhold (a book of evil magic) to Wanda, and the only way to protect herself is to walk the Witches’ Road: essentially, a gimmicky, dangerous trial which will let her regain her lost powers.
And so the scene is set for a thriller of sorts, as Agatha, Locke’s character (only ever described as ‘Teen’) and a newly-formed coven set off on the Road, hotly pursued by their enemies. Amusing as this is, sometimes it feels like its trying to be all the genres at once (thriller, horror, fantasy, sci-fi), too wrapped up in its cleverness to worry about things like plot or coherence.
When it does find its footing as a compelling dark fantasy, though, the show shines. Its characters are all intriguing. Joe Locke is great the sarcastic, outspoken Teen. And the show also has Aubrey Plaza who does a characteristically off-beat/ menacing turn as the warrior witch Rio Vidal. And the show is by far the queerest MCU outing yet: a welcome change.
Agatha All Along is mostly easy to follow as a standalone and the few times it feels confusing, it’s clearly intentional. But it’s impossible to escape the sheer weight of backstory involved: you can’t come to a show like this cold anymore. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) was heavily criticised for needing viewers to watch multiple other movies and shows set in the MCU to be able to follow the plot, and the same applies to Agatha – this doesn’t make a lick of sense without watching WandaVision first.
Nevertheless, as the nights draw in, Agatha All Along offers the kind of dynamic, gripping fantasy that still feels relatively fresh for Marvel. Like many of its fellows, the new series will have to actively avoid giving a lot at first and then falling short towards the end – but for now, it delivers a Hocus Pocus-like charm that makes it the perfect choice for an autumn evening TV session.
