As is standard with every TV project that’s emerged from the MCU, there’s been a clutch of mysteries that’s swirled around Agatha All Along since episode one that allowed avid viewers to agonise over the various question marks that hang over some of the characters identities like a vast neon sign. The main one that’s come down the pipe is the true nature of Joe Locke’s Teen who, on one hand, has been heavily rumoured to be the one of Wanda Maximoff’s make believe children, Billy, who somehow has become real and grown. However, on the other, heavy hints have been dropped that he could also be Nicholas Scratch, the long lost son that Agatha once traded to a powerful demon for the powerful spellbook known as the Darkhold.
Well, it’s time for the show to start showing its cards and while it might not be a gargantuan surprise (virtually everybody called it despite Marvel’s best efforts) the way it’s pulled off will no doubt give long time Marvelites the requisite chills. Of course, we’ve an entire episode to get through first, so luckily Agatha’s decided to turn up the horror.
As Agatha’s ragtag coven make their way to their next task, they get a timely reminder that it’s not only the road that wants to see them dead. Remember the Salem Seven? The cluster of demonic she demons who’s most noticable attributes including screeching and body popping unnaturally like the little girl from Ringu? Well, it seems that someone left the door open when everyone escaped to the Witches’ Road in the first place and they’ve managed to catch up to their quarry as the shape-shift into various woodland creature to close the gap. While it’s revealed that the Seven are the vengeful children of the witches Agatha drained of their lifeforms and magic during the Salem Witch Trials, the coven manage to make their quick getaway by falling back on an old witches’ trick that many spellcasters font like resorting to these days – flying broomsticks. While fashioning their escape vehicles from sizable branches, they manage to make it to their next challenge by the skin of their teeth.
However, upon entering this newest house and receiving the expected costume change (80s sleepover), their newest task seems to be to fiddle around with a oujia board to commune with a dark spirit who makes one simple request: punish Agatha.
However after a quick spot of demonic possession and the sort of chaos that usually comes with it, it’s revealed that it’s the spirit of Agatha’s dead mother who is demanding that her coven sacrifice her for their own ends.
However, in the aftermath, another member of the coven lies dead and in the wake of all this betrayal, an outraged Teen finally shows his true colours and the familiar head gear that goes with it. But does this mean that one of the Scarlet Witches’ children truly lives?
So, while there’s a lot to unpack with that ending, there’s a hell of a lot stuff that leads up to it that ensures it’s not just another episode that’s enlivened by sticking a huge reveal at the end. For a start, we finally get to spend more time with the nebulous Salem Seven who are revealed to not only have to ability to change their form into various animals, but their origin stems from the act of betrayal that caused Agatha to drain all the magical power from both her mother and her entire coven. However, while this is a neat little wrinkle, it still doesn’t change the fact that they’re just a dark, freakish, evil force that’s purely in place to raise the stakes early on in the episode. Still, they galvanise the coven to adopt the most famous form of witch-based travel that exists when they break out the broom sticks for a quick getaway and it’s the most blatent example to date of the fun the showrunners are obviously having skewing the general misconceptions about Witch life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But after a quick run down of the reasons why witches hate riding broomsticks (co-opted by commercialism for Halloween, brooms are a symbol of female domesticity), it’s up-up and away as we get a rare moment for the show where we get anything close to a large, MCU style, special effects sequence that comes complete with the coven whizzing past a blood red moon and a classic, witch-like cackle from Aubrey Plaza.
However, when it’s time to get back to solid ground, the show takes a sharp turn into the deepest the MCU has been into horror territory since last year’s Werewolf By Night and if you thought the Salem Seven were bad, wait until you see what happens next. Taking the form of an 80s, girl’s sleepover that stretches as far as to see Jennifer Kale kitted out in bunny slippers and braces in her teeth, the coven has to deal with the classic horror convention of a ouija board that goes through the usual motions after Agatha feels the need to pretend to be possessed by the spirit of the late lamented Sharon Davies purely to be a bitch.
However, when she eventually gets possessed by a real ghost, the movie shifts into Exorcist territory with Agatha sporting a ravaged visage and spider-walking all over the place, but it has to be pointed out that the sequence also takes on the energy of a Sam Raimi Evil Dead movie which is a sweet touch as the show connects so closely with Raimi’s Doctor Strange Sequel.
It all comes to a head when the reveal that the spirit is Agatha’s vengence crazed mother means that the coven finally begins to crumble in on themselves in order to save their own skin. But tragedy raises it’s head when Alice, the protector of the group uses her magic to force the spirit out and finds out the hard way that Agatha’s main ability is to drain the powers of anyone who uses their powers on her. By the time the Teen manages to snap Agatha out of it, Alice is nothing more than a withered husk and the coven us down yet another member. It’s a shrewd move hobbling the coven by another member because it proves to be the last straw for the Teen who’s idealised views of witchdom is shattered by watching his idol essentially murder one of his friends. While you could argue that Agatha was being possessed for some of it, this is the exact thing she’s been hoping for since she got her memory back.
This tees up the final reveal nicely as an enraged Teen as he suddenly whips out some muscular magic of his own, mind controls Jennifer and Lilia and has them hurl Agatha into a muddy bog where she promptly sinks from sight. But the Teen isn’t done there as casts the other two members of the coven into the bog with her and as he does so, nor only does he have blue magic crackling about his hands, but he manifests blue head gear as he does so that looks suspiciously like the crown of the Scarlet Witch.
So I guess we were all right and the Teen is Billy Maximoff after all, but how? Why? What has he done to his coven and where was Rio all the way through this? Agatha All Along us starting to spill its secrets at a faster rate the close we get to Halloween and hopefully we get a motherload next week – but until then, Marvel has been savvy to deliver an episode that stands on its on feet rather than just being filler to an epic reveal. More please – if it’s not too much toil and trouble.
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