Marvel’s ‘gayest offering yet’

A “magical romp of a show”, this WandaVision spin-off veers from “playfully spooky to genuinely scary”.

It is three years since Agatha Harkness was revealed to be the Big Bad of WandaVision, a show that riffed on classic sitcoms as it proved that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was capable of more eccentric storytelling than its formulaic movie output might suggest. While Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff was finally confirmed to be the legendary Scarlet Witch, it was Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha (and her much-memed wink) who stole the show as “Agnes”, Wanda’s nosy neighbour who was in fact a centuries-old dark witch herself. And now the fan favourite has her own solo outing in the form of Agatha All Along, also helmed by WandaVision’s showrunner, Jac Schaeffer.

Fittingly, for a spin-off of a spin-off, Agatha All Along initially follows its predecessor’s lead in delivering a story wrapped inside another story. The sort-of sequel follows in Wandavision’s genre-bending footsteps, picking up after Agatha’s attempt to steal Wanda’s powers left Agatha herself powerless and trapped inside her Agnes persona. Where Wanda processed her trauma via sitcoms, Agatha’s entrapment has led her mind to a darker alternate reality: prestige crime drama. It opens with Agatha as a straight-talking small-town detective in a Mare of Easttown parody called “Agnes of Westview”. As with WandaVision’s sitcoms, the show-within-a-show is both knowing and exceptionally well-executed, with “Agnes” as a no-nonsense, flannel-shirt-wearing maverick cop faced with a gleefully trope-filled Jane Doe case.

But the first layer of Russian-doll storytelling is shed early, with Agatha freed from the spell by the arrival of a witch-obsessed fanboy played by Heartstopper‘s Joe Locke, who persuades her that the route to regaining her powers (and saving herself from the wrath of the terrifying Salem Seven) is to walk a gauntlet of trials known as the Witches’ Road. Here, Agatha All Along shifts away from WandaVision and, in the first four episodes made available for review, begins to take its own shape: a puzzle-box show that employs real horror elements alongside the adventure fun of Scooby-Doo and the high camp of Hocus Pocus to unravel its mysteries. 

Needing a coven to access the Road, Agatha must forgo her lone-wolf tendencies (or at least mask them for the time being) and embark on a recruitment drive straight out of a heist movie. The bunch she rounds up is pleasingly ragtag – misfits even in an ancient community of outsiders. There is Patti LuPone as Lilia, a fortune teller with money troubles, Ali Ahn as Alice, daughter of a legendary witch rock star, and Sasheer Zamata as Jen, a witch-turned-wellness maven hawking retinol creams and jade eggs.

Most attention-grabbing, though, is Aubrey Plaza as Rio Vidal, a green witch with whom Agatha shares a spiky history and frankly outrageous sexual tension. First appearing as a federal agent in Agatha’s detective drama fantasy, Rio taunts, teases and tries to kill Agatha before joining the coven as its resident chaos agent. Plaza could not be more in her element.

The pair’s sizzling chemistry sits at the heart of what cast and creators have proudly touted as Marvel’s “gayest” offering yet, a claim backed up by multiple queer characters, musical numbers and a series of extravagant makeovers for the coven. But the show’s queerness resonates more deeply than the surface-level gayness of a scene where LuPone flamboyantly performs as a one-woman percussion section (majestic though it is). Its themes of otherness, identity, persecution and chosen family will speak as much to the LGBTQ+ community as they do to the show’s concern with the cultural history of witch representation.

And the witchiness of Agatha All Along cannot be overstated: this is a show that is true to its pre-Halloween release schedule. Veering from playfully spooky to genuinely scary, it both argues that witches are more complex than pop culture would have us believe and delivers on certain expectations: sisterhood, summonings, generational curses and eye of newt (a fancy name for mustard seeds, apparently). 

Mostly bereft of their inherent supernatural powers, the coven must rely on the “craft” part of witchcraft and put in the hard work to overcome the Road, but the quest element of the show is underpinned by bigger mysteries that already have fans theorising: the real identity of Locke’s character known only as “Teen”; whether or not Wanda (last seen sacrificing herself in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) may yet be alive; and what really happened in Agatha’s past, specifically regarding her absent son. 

By virtue of being hidden in plain sight in WandaVision, Agatha and thereby Hahn had been restricted to the periphery of the show. Here, both the character and actor seize their chance to shine, with Hahn pulling off Agatha’s snarky self-interest as well as revealing her vulnerabilities (and demonstrating the value of employing truly gifted comedic actors to deliver funny lines). 

If there is occasionally a chilliness to Marvel productions – the green-screen work and sprawling spectacle distracting from character and emotional heft – Agatha proves that there’s no substitute for good old-fashioned chemistry. This is a cast that is deeply – and often literally, thanks to the songs – in tune and evidently delighted to deliver a magical romp of a show that is as willing to get silly as it is dark.

★★★★☆

Agatha All Along is streaming now on Disney+.