The spin-off we’ve all been waiting for, after the success of Disney + miniseries WandaVision, Agatha Harkness became a fan favourite. Now, telling her own story we see as Agatha is on the hunt to regain her lost powers.
Her newly found coven must navigate the treacherous witches road and its trials to find their magic again. Each trial has a distinct connection to each witch, represented through a number of decade specific and pop culture aesthetics.
Although unique and based around a truly likeable character, I found Agatha All Along (2024) to be incoherent and scattered. For me, the story was trying too hard to shoehorn new characters and new adventures into each episode; it became overwhelming and therefore each episode was underwhelming. We barely knew anything about Agatha from WandaVision and I wanted to see more of her rather than being lost in a sea of other witches. In my opinion, this series should have been a predecessor of ‘WandaVision’ rather than an attempt to add another strain of narrative to the MCU abyss.
Episode 1 catapults us into an alternate version of reality, Agatha is detached from her true form and believes she is a small town detective, slowly decoding the clues around her to discover herself. I found this episode to be intriguing, as Agatha is dragged through the remaining affects of Wanda’s spell she relives the stages of the curse. This was a fun way to bring this show up to date with ‘WandaVision’ but the show slowly declined after this.
Episodes 2 through 4 were forgettable and only deflated by expectations for the rest of the series, these episodes needed to build story and character but instead felt like lazy place holders until the ‘real’ action starts later on. I didn’t warm to any of the additional characters and instead found myself wishing for more time with Agatha.
Episode 5 takes a surprising turn, upping the anti and finally building in momentum. Each episode before this was borderline boring but finally we got a creepy, bewitching adventure that revealed more about Agatha’s past.
Episode 6 keeps the momentum of the previous episode, giving us the backstory we’ve been waiting to see. Joe Locke’s character of ‘teen’ discovers his true identity with the help of a familiar face, Ralph Bohner, which was easily one of the best scenes of the whole show.
Episode 7 is one of the more compelling, it shows us Lilia’s backstory as a witch and it was beautifully told. Revolving around tarot this episode had plenty of fun easter eggs and a truly cinematic ending which led beautifully into the finale…
Episode 8 is the official introduction to Death and everyones relationship with death. Honestly, this episode was the most gripping of all because it was a chance to see Agatha’s true self, her true intentions and the addition of a brilliant twist ending. This episode revolved around ‘death’ in a number of subtle ways and I thought this theme made the episode cohesive.
Episode 9 was simply boring, attempting a tragic backstory for Agatha which reveals how she made up the ‘witches road’ to begin with. This episode should have been moving and closed the chapter of Agatha’s story but instead it transferred the story over to Billy. Setting up another adventure for Agatha and Billy to find his brother Tommy, sadly for me this is a typical trope of the MCU. Not letting a story end, this series needed to take more inspiration from ‘WandaVision’; the show that made this show possible. ‘WandaVision’ was categorically incredibly as a series and ‘Agatha All Along’ didn’t come close to making the same impression on me.
Overall, it is hard to write this review and not be raving about the show. I was incredibly excited to watch this series, Agatha became a character I was fascinated by and I was excited to learn more about her and her journey but the execution of the ‘Agatha All Along’ felt lacklustre and it was hard not to compare it to ‘WandaVision’. The cast all delivered fun, unique performances but nonetheless, they couldn’t save the feeling I had of detachment from the story. I wasn’t invested in the stakes and I wasn’t invested in their journeys, I only wanted to watch Agatha but she got lost in the mixing pot of personalities.
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Finally, I cannot write this review without commenting on the biggest mistake made by production. In WandaVision, Agatha had an iconic theme tune which made the world fall in love with her; the absence of this theme song was so bizarre and I still don’t understand why they chose to leave it out. Some may argue ‘Down the Witches Road’ stepped in as a new ‘theme’ for Agatha but for me, it didn’t hold a candle to original song.
Probe Points
★★☆☆☆
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