As Agatha All Along rounds the final corner toward it’s final, two-episode climax next week, it’s probably a good time to quickly go over how versatile that show has been. I say this, because after last week’s shake up that saw Billy Maximoff’s back story take centre stage, Episode 7 manages to do something more different still as Patti LuPone’s Lilia Calderu takes centre stage to help deliver what might genuinely be Agatha’s most satisfying installment yet.
This is particularly rewarding as the show has come under fire from some quarters from having a lower budget that some of the other shows that Marvel’s put out since Phase 4 opened the flood gates of televisual content, which is utterly baffling to me as a lower budget often means that the people involved have to be far more creative in order to keep things fresh, entertaining and moving while being unable to simply turn the money hose on it. Thus we get a show that relies more overly on sets than we normally get and weird inversions on familiar themes – such as numerous different renditions of The Ballard Of The Witches’ Road, or the fact that the road itself is just one set filmed from multiple angles. However, where Death’s Hand In Mine truly excells itself is a time bouncing plot that makes sense of the past while setting up the future.
Now that we’ve finally sorted out the identity and backstory of Billy Maximoff (aka. the artist formally known as Teen), it’s left to him and Agatha to continue on with the Witches’ Road alone as everyone else from their thrown together coven is either dead or missing. However, we soon find that despite being mind-controlled and hurled into a sinking bog by an enraged Billy, both Lilia Caulderu and Jennifer Kale have survived their muddy ordeal and are now under the Witches’ Road with the Salem’s Seven hot on their trail.
Up above, Agatha and Billy enter their next trial to find that their latest wardrobe change has cast them as various witches from popular culture with Harkness clad as the Wicked Witch Of The West (“She was based on me, you know.”) and Billy all done up in the garb of Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent, but the task they gave in front of them seems simple enough: to deliver a reading from a pack of Tarot cards. Of course, there’s always a catch and with every wrong card laid, a sword drops from the ceiling to thud heavily into the floor and it soon becomes apparent that Billy and Agatha don’t have the sufficient skills to avoid getting shish kebabed eventually.
The one person who can get them through the trial is Lilia, but despite being trapped underground in a magical dimension, it seems that her increasing breaks of reality is becoming somewhat vital to success. You see, the reason for Lilia’s frequent fugue states and random outbursts is that she hasn’t been living her life in chronological order and her consciousness has been zig zagging backward and forwards in time from when she was a little girl to covering the last couple of days. It’s exactly this type of time hopping knowledge that will be key to getting out of this rather spiky trial alive – but before the end, more truths will out and yet another member of the coven will fall…
When you look back over the past six episodes of Agatha All Along, it’s actually quite impressive how varied the show has been. I mean, think about it; we started off with a WandaVision style blurring of reality with Agatha living in a reality straight out of True Detective, we then went into a Dirty Dozen type of hiring section as this coven of chaos was assembled, we’ve had numerous, life threatening trials like something out of a queer coded version of Saw and we’ve even had puzzles to solve as the identities of some of the players weren’t readily available from the start until we got a flashback episode to lay out some of the finer points of the Kaplan/Maximoff drama. Well, Agatha All Along has once again managed to stir its contents into something new while still managing to stick the basic formula of the show (frantic puzzle solving) and the secret this time is the decoding of virtually everything Patti LuPone’s Lilia has said and done since the show has started.
Of course, time skips, flashbacks and revelations are great for keeping us on edge and engrossed, but before we delve into this, we first have to talk about the most radical costume changes the show has featured since it began. While it may sound like low hanging fruit to kit everyone out in classic, pop culture witch refinery, it’s also pretty damn cool too and while Agatha and Billy are the Witch from the Wizard Of Oz and Maleficent, Lilia and Jennifer also get to appear as Glinda the Good Witch and the hagged up verson of the Witch from Snow White respectively.
Also, while we’re still a little vague on the details, it’s now finally revealed that Aubrey Plazza’s Rio (who is still suspiciously AWOL) is actually the personification of death itself which could prove to be huge revelation to the MCU moving forward, but the shot of her posing menacingly with her lower face being a skull is nothing short of awesome as we still patiently wait further details. Has Agatha actually had a romantic relationship with Death herself, what does it mean for character as we move forward and – possibly mist crucially of all – what on Earth would you get Death for an anniversary present?
Anyway, getting back to the focal point of the episode, the show weaves all of Lilia’s weird turns or outbursts into this episode which proves to be something of a minor masterpiece in nonlinear storytelling. Not only is LuPone’s character giving us vital exposition and backstory out of order that still pretty easy to follow, but it gives us an overview of the character that sets us up perfectly so when she ultimately sacrifices herself at the end of the episode to kill the Salem’s Seven, it proves to be honestly and genuinely moving.
In addition to this, it helps elevate all the other plot lines that are waiting in the wings. For example, Agatha hasn’t had really much to add over last couple of episodes other than some bold fashion choices and her trademark line in bitchy one liners, but in the the brief moments when it’s just Kathryn Hahn and Joe Locke alone, the actress manages to squeeze out little bursts of empathy by delivering lines that display hidden sadness under the cruel barbs – she nay remind Billy that she was once his babysitter in a mocking tone, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Similarly, it’s not really expanded upon, but you could argue that Wanda Maximoff’s Doctor Strange era breakdown actually could have been averted if Lilia hadn’t put the sigil on Billy that made him invisible to witches, so her subsequent sacrifice comes with some extra pathos at no extra charge – which is always nice.
Some TV episodes tend to drop the ball when they gave to drop numerous large moments in a single episode, but Death’s Hand In Mine manages to give each moment the weight it deserves while still importantly remaining light on its feet.
With both the last two episodes dropping next week, the finale will soon be upon us and to the show’s credit, I literally have no clue how it’s going to end, but with possible other connections including ties to the Young Avengers, Marvel Satan Mephisto and a possible explanation about whether the Scarlet Witch is truly dead, Agatha All Along would do best to follow it’s character’s lead and stick to the road at hand.
Greatness may very possibly await.
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