Agatha All Along is filling out the magical world of Marvel

When WandaVision first dropped the Agatha All Along beat in episode 7, the character was just being introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and few could have known what kind of a role the witch would have within the MCU. Fast-forward three years and you have an actual series titled Agatha All Along. Director Jac Schaeffer, the principal writer on WandaVision and Black Widow, serves as showrunner and director of Agatha All Along, in addition to writing several episodes. The show has done a tremendous job of fleshing out Agatha’s backstory, providing a more rounded magical cast, and explaining how magic works within the MCU. 

If you’re not overly familiar with Agatha Harkness, I’ll give you the Comics Explained summary right now. Harkness originally began as a character within the Fantastic Four comics. She was the caretaker of one Franklin Richards. The First Family originally has no clue what she is until the Frightful Four decide to break into the Baxter Building and are immediately waxed by this ancient granny taking care of a child. Seeing the jig is up, Harkness reveals her powers to the Fantastic Four and remains on staff as Franklin’s governess and I promise there’s a purpose to all this backstory. 

It’s after this that Harkness leaves to form the secret magical community of New Salem. After Harkness leaves New Salem, her son Nicolas Scratch takes over. He then fathers seven children with various witches and these children go on to become the Salem Seven. He then uses the Salem Seven to turn the residents of New Salem against Agatha by convincing them Agatha has betrayed them all and must be put to death. See, I told you it would all come together.  

This is why we see many references to the Salem Seven and Nicolas Scratch in Agatha All Along and the rabbit Senior Scratchy in WandaVision. I really do feel the need to stress one thing rather strenuously; Agatha has never really been a villain to the Marvel characters. She’s always been a magical ally and someone they can turn to when things are getting hairy. It’s rather strange to see Agatha being catty and villainous in this show given her background. If I have one complaint about the show, it’s this.  

But my one complaint is not what this column is about. Instead I want to highlight how great this show is and how we’ve long needed a show to explain the magical depth of the MCU. Yes, we’ve had Doctor Strange films and we’ve had more than enough Wanda exposition within the films and WandaVision, but we’ve never really gotten much outside of Kamer Taj or Wanda’s story. The Witches Road in Agatha All Along at least gives a strong foundation for a source of magic other than the Ancient One, since, obviously, everyone can’t have learned from Kamer Taj.

The reveal of Teen being Billy aka Wiccan has long been anticipated but it was nice to see his actual reveal along with the color of his magic. We now have orange magic (Eldritch), red magic (Chaos), purple magic (Witchcraft), and now Wiccan’s blue magic. There are other forms of magic within the MCU, but these stand out as the most defined and important forms of magic. Other examples include the magic from Ta Lo, Asgard, Divine Magic, Dark Dimension Magic, Dark Magic, and Earth Magic (Green), which also appears in Agatha All Along. As someone who has always loved the magical characters of the MCU, it is very cool to see these magical powers being fleshed out. 

The show is also supposed to reveal the character of Death, played by Aubrey Plaza. Death is one of the cosmic entities within Marvel. While many people view Death as a villain, she’s really anything but. She is the opposite of her brother Eternity, but her importance to the cosmic balance of things has long been determined within the comics. Death of Death by Jason Aaron and Al Ewing is a story where Death is summoned to face the Living Tribunal after the Five and the Green Door raised the prospect of whether or not Death was even necessary. If you want to know more about the Five and the Green Door, Google has your back and they’re pretty easy to understand. It’s just that both are beyond the scope of what we’re doing here, so I won’t go into detail on them. After Jane Foster as Valkyrie and Doctor Strange argue on Death’s behalf, it is decided that Death is an extremely important aspect of the cosmic balance since death is what gives life meaning. 

Death is currently the newest Infinity Stone in the comics, but that’s a story for a different day. Even with Death’s rich backstory, it remains to be seen how much of it will be included in Agatha All Along or the MCU. Death is a rather interesting character but she also has some rather morbid stories that I struggle to see Disney greenlighting for future projects. If they do greenlight a story around the Death character, especially if they bring back Josh Brolin and Thanos for said story, I would fully expect it to be toned down to a significant degree. In other words, do not expect to see Thanos vivisecting his mother on Disney+ anytime soon. 

We don’t have much on Death’s backstory with Agatha beyond her quest for power through the Darkhold. I hope to see more of this explained in the four remaining episodes and I expect the show to provide us more information and backstory of the character of Billy, and why he currently has a sigil preventing him from revealing anything of importance. Marvel has a history of hanging onto characters and information until the very last episodes and then trying to resolve everything all at once to the disservice of the viewers. They have four episodes left, this is plenty of space to have everything worked out and plotted evenly. 

Agatha All Along and Jac Shaeffer have a chance to land the plane and strut down the stairs to applause and acclaim. Hopefully, the criticism WandaVision received for trying to resolve too much at the end will have provided Shaeffer with the requisite institutional knowledge of how to avoid the same pitfalls on her second Disney+ show. I have enjoyed everything I’ve seen from Agatha All Along to this point, even the worldbuilding and side characters. I’ve listed my only complaint about the show earlier in this article and I feel confident it has a strong chance to remain my only criticism. 

If you haven’t watched Agatha All Along yet, you have plenty of time to catch up and can even set yourself up to enjoy the Halloween Night two-episode finale, which I will be live-streaming. I hope to see you in the tweets.