Agatha All Along

If you look carefully at the poster for the TV series that accompanies this review, you will see that it says at the top, “From the twisted minds that brought you WandaVision”. Never a truer word…

I’m sorry Agatha, I know this show has your name in the title, but it was never about you. It was always about her. About Wanda.

If you have followed my Mavel Cinematic Universe reviews over the past few years you will have noticed a common theme: the slow but inexorable drive towards a Young Avengers movie. Many of the pieces are already in place, but some are still missing.

As part of her domestic fantasy in WandaVision, Wanda created two children for herself and Vision: Billy and Tommy. Billy took after his mother with an aptitude for witchery. Tommy inherited speedster powers from his uncle Pietro. At the end of WandaVision, both boys were presumed dead. Ha! Even in my review I was confident that wasn’t true.

In the comics the two boys end up as prisoners of Mephisto. The MCU goes away from that. Instead we have this TV series which is ostensibly about Agatha, but also features a mysterious teenage boy who is a) gay, b) is played by one of the stars of Heartstopper and c) has a talent for magic. If you spend 5 minutes thinking about it you should guess that this is Billy.

There is, however, a TV show to build around that revelation. It is done through the conceit of the Witches’ Road, a rite of passage for covens which is supposed to lead to “glory at the end” and give the triumphant witches their heart’s desire. Anecdotally, Agnes is the only witch to have survived the journey. It would be a massive spoiler to tell you why that is true.

So as supporting cast we get a bunch of washed up witches who want their powers back. In many ways they are the more interesting parts of the show, though not all of them will live through it. I particularly liked Lilia. The star of the show, however, is Aubrey Plaza as Rio Vidal. I do hope that she gets a place in future MCU productions.

The Road plot allowed the scriptwriters to build each episode around a test on the journey, each of which was associated with some aspect of witchery: potions & poisons, Ouija boards and so on. It was a clever structure and it worked well, but it was always only padding to get us to the end of the Road and the big reveal of Billy’s identity.

We also learned a lot about Agatha during the journey. Much as I’d been looking forward to seeing Kathryn Hahn in the role again, I have to admit that I thought this series stretched her a bit too far. Agatha is an incredibly complex character who flips rapidly between being charming but duplicitous, traumatized and vulnerable, and downright wicked. The role is a tough challenge.

That challenge also afflicted the ending. Many people seem to have disliked it. I didn’t, but then I kind of expected it. Marvel has a deeply ambiguous view of witchcraft. On the one hand characters such as Wanda and Billy are heroes. On the other, their powers stem from forces that are inherently evil, and this warps everything they do. This is something that will doubtless cause much heartache for Billy in future MCU appearances.

Anyway, the job has been done, another member of the Young Avengers is on the board. And by all means let’s go look for Tommy. But I would much prefer to see Billy go look for Teddy, his Skrull prince boyfriend, because cuteness will ensue.