Welcome back to the blog readers. It has been so long since I got to talk to you guys about a Marvel series (I did not watch What If...?'s second season (2023) or Echo (2024) yet but those will be coming), and I have been very much looking forward to this series. Kathryn Hahn as the character of Agatha Harkness was freaking awesome, as was the series she was in: WandaVision (2021). Would we get something like that in the first of the two episode premiere, titled "Seekest Thou the Road," written and directed by Jac Schaeffer? Stick around to find out.
NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the episode.
Now before I get into this review, I do want to begin with a disclaimer. I do not expect these singular episode reviews to be as long as the ones I am doing for series like House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (both 2022-). There seems to only be one story and not many characters, so there will not be as much to say. With that being said, here are my thoughts on the first episode of Agatha All Along.
Like I said in the introduction, I loved loved loved LOVED WandaVision and the weekly theorizing we would do based on what would get revealed. Although I got burned when we all expected Mephisto and instead got Ralph Boener, it was still fun. But I was a bit hesitant because I did not really have an expectation as to what would happen quality-wise with this series, but I do believe we got a very solid premiere episode that features delightful performances by Kathryn Hahn and Aubrey Plaza, and a story that so far poses more questions than answers (and yes, in a good way for now).
I first want to start by talking about the performance of Kathryn Hahn as "Agnes O'Connor"/Agatha Harkness. As the character of Agatha, she has been absolutely delightful. And props to the people who figured out that she was Agatha in WandaVision. But in this first episode, she delivers a two-pronged performance that delivers the goods in both facets of that performance. More on this later, but the first three quarters of this episode take place in a True Detective (2014-)-esque crime drama, and Agatha is playng the role of a decorated detective. I think she pulls this role off perfectly and it actually makes me want to see a series where she plays a hardened detective, especially in the scene in the "police station" with Joe Locke. This is no Emmy-winning performance, but damn is it good. Then, once the other shoe drops, we see Hahn flip a switch and become absolutely ruthless as Agatha. This is what I have missed since WandaVision and I hope we can get more of this rage and anger in future episodes.
Next, I want to talk about Aubrey Plaza. I have truthfully not seen a whole lot of her work, but her performance (and the other performances too) were totally dreadful in Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023). So I was curious as to what kind of performance we were going to get from her in this series. And I have to say I was very impressed with what I got. As with Hahn, Plaza gives a two-pronged performance. In the True Detective-esque crime drama, Plaza plays a member of the FBI that is looking to aid "Agnes" in her investigation but she is so much fun here. There is a form of sincerity in her performance that is almost infectious. When we move over to the real thing and the other shoe is dropped, Plaza plays a bitter and vicious...well what I assume to be a witch that does not like Agatha very much. There was also a hint of sexiness to this other performance that I really enjoyed watching, and hope we get some more of that in the future.
Now I would like to talk a bit about the story of the episode. This episode picks up three years after the events of WandaVision, in which Agatha has been trapped in Wanda Maximoff's spell this entire time and Wanda is long gone. The first three quarters of this episode is presented as a True Detective-esque crime drama called Agnes of Westview that sees "Agnes" trying to uncover the case of the "Jane Doe" who showed up in Westview killed, all while being interrupted by FBI agent Vidal, who she does not like. After Vidal crashes at her house, "Agnes" finds herself face-to-face with a goth teen who is attempting to steal something from her and is eventually "arrested" and taken down to the police station where he is interrogated and kind of tortured. He winds up speaking some sort of ritual which takes "Agnes" to the morgue, where she discovers the body belongs to Wanda Maximoff and her name is Agatha Harkness. The spell is lifted and Agatha finds herself face-to-face with Vidal, who is a witch who is out to kill her, and she only backs down when Agatha convinces her for her to regain her powers. Turns out, Agatha also kidnapped the teen. I will save my speculation for something we have not seen in a while from me, but I do like where I think we are going.
That was my review of the first episode of Agatha All Along/Agnes of Westview. But I thought, for this series only, we should bring back something that we only experimented with last year, and that thing is THEORY TIME. Theory Time is something I experimented with for an episode or two of The Mandalorian's (2019-) third season (2023) but it really didn't make sense for me to do it then. This is the perfect time for us to bring this back because this is the perfect show for it. What we will do is take a few points of speculation about the show and theorize what I believe we are headed towards.
The first point of speculation, and arguably the biggest point of speculation, involves the identity of Joe Locke's character (currently credited as "Teen"). Locke is a regular on the British Netflix series Heartstopper (2022-) (I personally will not be indulging because that show is not for me), but speculation has been rampant on who exactly he is playing. Marvel themselves are not helping the cause as in trailers his mouth is blocked by a hex of some kind that prevents him from speaking his name. So this might be the big mystery of the series. People have been guessing he will be playing the character of Wiccan, who is Billy Kaplan (aka Wanda Maximoff's son). Do I believe that is the direction Marvel will be going with this character? I would not be surprised if it is, but I do believe he will be playing a different character. I don't know much about the comics to be able to pinpoint who I think it will be, so I will keep the possibility of Wiccan in the back of my mind.
The second point of speculation revolves around the identity of Aubrey plaza's character (currently credited as Rio Vidal). I have seen some online chatter about who people have been throwing around as potential names for her character. I personally do not know who her character would be, but I certainly do not think she is playing a reincarnated version of Wanda Maximoff. That would be too convenient in my opinion, and I do not think based on what we see in this first episode that this conflict between Vidal and Agatha does not have its roots in Westview. I do believe that maybe her character has like a nickname, but she is Rio Vidal and that is her character. There is nothing special about her, if I have to be honest with you.
Finally, and you knew I was getting to this one, the last point of speculation. And this is the one you all knew I would get on because of the nature of it. Do you know it yet? It involves our favorite demon that we wrongly speculated on three and a half years ago. Yeah, it's Mephisto. I remember all the fan speculation every week when apparently there was another clue about Mephisto appearing in that series as its ultimate secret villain. Although I would have lost my mind if that did happen, it probably makes sense that he was not in WandaVision using hindsight. But damnit, we will be speculating that he will show up again and I will not even be mad at Marvel if he is not. I will be more mad at myself for believing it again. We do have no clues or evidence that this will happen, but at least let a man dream.
That wraps up Theory Time for this episode, and I will see you in a few days for Theory Time for the second episode.
Agatha All Along premieres a very solid premiere episode, with a new twist on the WandaVision macabre, solid performances from Kathryn Hahn and Aubrey Plaza, and a story that is very promising to say the least. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.
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