"Marvel's Agatha All Along Starts Strong, but Dark Omens Loom Ahead."

Agatha Harkness, portrayed by Kathryn Hahn, who oscillates between villainy and vulnerability. The initial episodes are marked by clever storytelling and a nostalgic nod to classic sitcoms, establishing a strong foundation that resonates with viewers familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). However, beneath this vibrant exterior lies an undercurrent of darkness that foreshadows potential challenges for Agatha's character arc.

WandaVision wowed us with the way it parodied different eras of television to tell Wanda’s story of building a family, and Agatha All Along continues that trend to catch us up with Agatha. She’s been trapped in a variation of the TV world Wanda created for herself, forcing her to act out the life of a fictional character with no memory of who she actually is. Spoofing Mare of Easttown is an inspired choice, because it allows us to follow “Agnes of Westview” as she investigates a murder, which also forces her to investigate the cracks in her bizarre new reality. Hats off to Hahn for truly nailing Kate Winslet’s junk-food-eating, line-cutting, hard-nosed investigator whose hair has never known the touch of a comb. The show’s murder mystery elements are utilized well, too, to set up a chilling moment about the former owners of the ancient book of dark magic known as the Darkhold.

 Jac Schaeffer, Agatha All Along opens with a reprise of that series, Marvel’s first and still best foray into episodic television. Instead of a 1950s sitcom, Agatha—or Agnes, as she’s briefly called—is trapped in a prestige TV drama, where she’s a loose-cannon detective with oily hair who finds a dead woman’s body lying face down in the woods. The Mare of Easttown knockoff is fine as far as it goes (and I will admit to chuckling at “Based on the Danish series Wandavisdysen” in its fake opening credits), but it goes on long enough to make you wonder if it took three and a half years to come up with the idea of replicating WandaVision’s serial pastiches in a different genre. But the cosplay peters out after Agatha makes her way to the morgue and discovers the identity of her mysterious corpse—per the toe tag, one “W. Maximoff,” aka the Scarlet Witch.

The actress loved diving headfirst into the comic-book history of Agatha, a centuries-old personality who first appeared in a 1970 issue of “Fantastic Four.” Over the decades, the character showed up on the page as a mentor or a nanny, protector or mother figure. Sometimes she’s an old woman, other times not so much. “Clearly there was a moment in time where every Marvel heroine had to be in a bodysuit with big cleavage. I was like, ‘Can we bring that Agatha back?!’” Hahn jokes.

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Sarah H

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