Series Review: Agatha All Along
Film Reviews
Agatha All Along
Creator: Jac Shaeffer
Marvel Television
Episode 1 and 2 Streaming on Disney 09.18
When you consider the dwindling returns we have been seeing due to “Superhero Fatigue” and “Horror Fatigue,” it seems more than a little iffy to do a Marvel show about witches. Agatha All Along is certainly not a guaranteed hit, because it doesn’t fit into any traditional mold—and that’s exactly why it deserves to be one.
Following the events of WandaVision, Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn, Captain Fantastic, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) awakens in Westview, New Jersey, stripped of her powers. A mysterious goth teenager (Joe Locke, Heartstopper), helps free Agatha from a spell that distorts her reality, much like the false worlds in WandaVision. The teen then talks a reluctant Agatha into guiding him down the fabled Witches’ Road—a treacherous magical path filled with trials that promise to restore the “witch” that was lost. Intrigued, Agatha agrees, and together with the enigmatic teen, they assemble a ragtag coven of witches. There’s Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata, Saturday Night Live), a potions expert; Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone, Summer of Sam, Beau is Afraid), a 450-year-old Sicilian witch, skilled in divination; Alice Wu-Gulliver (Alli Ahn, Raising Dion, The Diplomat), a protector witch and Sharon Davis (Debra-Jo Rupp, That 70s Show), a neighbor from Westview. Together, they embark on the perilous journey to reclaim their powers.
The first episode is a bit sluggish, spending nearly half of its runtime with Agatha trapped inside a television program that is a thinly disguised parody of Mare of Easttown. While it’s done well and starts out amusing enough, the stuck-inside-a-TV-show routine was comprehensively done—and fully resolved—in WandaVision, and here, where we know exactly what’s really going on, spending a full 20 minutes watching Agatha thinking she’s a small town homicide detective feels like bewilderingly pointless. Thankfully, once she regains her awareness of who and where she is, the show takes off running and develops a distinct flavor of its own. It’s hard to read this plot description and not let it instantly conjure images of Harry Potter, though tonally it’s quite different. It’s certainly not a traditional superhero show, and if it didn’t have the Marvel name attached, you wouldn’t be thinking about superheroes at all. If anything, with a lot of very amusing comedy and some fantastic musical numbers, Agatha All Along plays a bit like a new variation on Hocus Pocus, but one which actually features good acting, a smart sense of humor, and an actual plot. The show gets both more exuberant and darker with each episode, and by the time the second was over, I was hooked.
Hahn is sublime in the title role, with an impeccable sense of comic timing and a charisma that shows that a star vehicle like this is long overdue. Locke is utterly lovable as “Teen,” a charming and endearing queer character who may be the most welcome addition to the MCU since Iman Vallani’s Kamala Khan, and the interplay between Hahn and Locke is terrific. Aubrey Plaza (Safety Not Guaranteed, Ingrid Goes West) has a recurring role as Rio Vidal, a witch from Agatha’s past who shares a complicated history and an antagonistic attitude, and while she disappears for too long, she makes every moment count. LuPone adds a great deal, though I give the Broadway legend her biggest praise for surprising me with her willingness to help lift up the ensemble in the songs—especially variations on one killer original song, written by the Frozen team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez—while letting Hahn shine brightly in the spotlight, rather than pushing her way to center stage as a diva of her stature certainly could do. Zamata and Ahn are delightful, as is the ever-reliable Rupp, who unfortunately doesn’t get enough screen time.
While Marvel only made the first four out of eight episodes available for review, unless the series takes a rapid and significant decline in quality in the remaining episodes, Agatha All Along is poised to be a terrific Halloween treat with a few tricks in store, offering a freshness and originality that Marvel has been struggling with as of late. Agatha casts an enchanting spell and gets a strong recommendation for me. —Patrick Gibbs
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