Recap: ‘Agatha All Along’ Finds Its Footing In Episode 2

That was more like it, right? Episode 2 of Agatha All Along – wordily titled “Circle Sewn With Fate / Unlock Thy Hidden Gate” – is a big step up from the mostly wasteful premiere, with Agatha assembling a dysfunctional coven of all-singing all-dancing witches. The jokes are here, there’s a promising freshness to the new characters, and the whole thing is much more pacey and coherent.

The absence of Aubrey Plaza is felt a little, of course, but you can have too much of a good thing, especially right out of the gate. But otherwise, the signs are promising, which is a remarkable development given how mixed Episode 1 was.

Teen Spirit

With Rio having left the premises after the premiere’s climactic fight, Agatha is left with Teen, who remains something of an enigma. When he tries to say his real name aloud his mouth seals shut and some strange script is drawn across it – Agatha sees this, but he doesn’t seem to know it’s happening – and whenever he attempts to divulge personal information about himself, everything mutes so Agatha can’t hear the details.

But he’s still her only ally at the moment. He’s a big fan, especially of her Salem days, and his enthusiasm for Agatha’s exploits compels her to listen to his advice about heading for the Witches’ Road and regaining her powers – not to mention imbuing him with his own, since his efforts to learn magic thus far have proved largely unsuccessful.

But accessing the Witches’ Road requires a coven, which Agatha doesn’t have anymore. Luckily, there’s a rule that within any three-mile radius, there will always be enough witches to form one. They’re kind of like rats in that sense, I suppose. This gives us our setup for Agatha All Along Episode 2: A recruitment drive.

Lilia Calderu

First on the agenda is Lilia Calderu, who is eking out a meager living as a psychic but isn’t doing well enough at soothsaying to not have an eviction notice on her door. Maybe she saw it coming.

Either way, Lilia’s profound powers of prognostication have led to her being driven out of everywhere she has tried to settle – after all, who wants to keep someone around whose only function seems to be accurately predicting their doom? This means that Lilia also knows exactly who Agatha is, despite her and Teen elaborately cosplaying a Southern woman and her son.

But Lilia isn’t keen on the idea of forming a coven with Agatha, who is notorious for stealing the powers of other witches and has earned her infamy. But needs must. There’s a show we need to be getting on with, and debilitating visions don’t go away by themselves.

Jennifer Kale

Next up is Jennifer Kale, a potions expert – is there a proper name for one of those? – who is similarly reluctant to join forces with Agatha, whom she openly hates. It does seem like Agatha’s reputation for power-stealing, child sacrifice – yikes – and general unpleasantness precedes her, and her currently desperate Darkhold-less state doesn’t endear her to her fellow witches.

Luckily, Teen is a deft hand at cattily manipulating and blackmailing people who rely on Instagram for their marketing. A mention of fraud here and of superficial burns there makes the point quite clear. And witches aren’t exactly known for being reliably represented in legal proceedings (this is a very good joke, by the way.)

With two down and just one to go – if Agatha is to be believed, which she isn’t – we move on.

(L-R): Teen (Joe Locke) and Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.

Alice Wu-Gulliver

By comparison, Alice is easy to recruit, especially after Agatha’s meddling gets her fired from her mall security job.

But to be fair, Alice has bigger reasons than the others to be swayed by Agatha’s pitch. She’s the daughter of the witch, Lorna Wu, who wrote the most famous version of “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road”, and while she’s a fed-up ex-cop who doesn’t strictly believe in the legend anyway, she’d quite like to find out what really happened to her mother, which Agatha promises to find out for her.

Alice is interesting because she represents something important to Agatha All Along that Episode 2 does a much better job of highlighting than the premiere did – there’s real mythology to explore, with characters and connections currently unrevealed that may yield good comedy and drama down the line. Her presence is a nice reminder of that.

Agatha Is A Bad Guy, Remember?

What it’s also useful to be reminded of is that Agatha Harkness is a villain. This isn’t immediately obvious when she’s charismatically fronting her own show, but it becomes clear again in the climax of “Circle Sewn With Fate / Unlock Thy Hidden Gate”, when it’s revealed that her new coven was assembled under slightly false pretenses.

After getting together for a sad party at Agatha’s house and heading down to the basement with Mrs. Hart, the completely clueless and non-witchy woman from next door who Agatha subs in for the “black heart” on Lilia’s list rather than acknowledging that it’s clearly referring to Rio, the gang attempts to open the Witches’ Road by holding hands and reciting the song.

It’s unsuccessful, obviously, but that’s the point. Agatha was hoping that the failure and her subsequent insults would make them all so angry that they’d attack her with their powers, allowing Agatha to steal them (this was foreshadowed earlier when Agatha told Lilia that she couldn’t steal powers unless they were used against her.)

A classic villain maneuver, though an unsuccessful one. Luckily, the arrival of the Salem Seven, who have been lurking around all day in various animal forms, provides sufficient motivation. A trapdoor opens and they all disappear down a staircase, the way back closed to them. Finally on the Witches’ Road, a lush-looking practical set, the coven remove their shoes and proceed forward, with Agatha quipping, “I never doubted us for a second.”

That’s a bit like me reversing the position I had after the premiere. Funny how that all works.

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