Agatha All Along – First Impressions

Agatha All Along Takes Some Time To Get Started

Agatha All Along has two episodes to watch at the time of writing, with a third on the way—and I must say, I’m excited for that third episode. I was shaky on this series, unsure of what to expect, but now I see the vision. Now I see what this show actually is.

It’s a heist. A magical, witch heist, where the goal is to “break into” the end of a magical road. Each character has a reason to go, and any of them could die. There’s also the added fun of most of the heist members not trusting Agatha.

But—in a brutal cliffhanger—we don’t actually know what the Road is like in the first two episodes. It’s all set up so far. And the setup is a little awkward, a little rushed, and doesn’t really set the tone in ways I would’ve expected.

Agatha All Along Condenses Its Story Very Heavily

I loved the opening, to be clear. Of course, we start with Agatha inside a genre piece, unaware of her true reality. But the commitment to it, even including a fake intro sequence, made me wonder if we were instead getting some sort of flashback scene. I was genuinely fooled for a time. And the reveal being tied to her “solving” the fake mystery episode is just good writing. Somehow, I didn’t catch the anagram until the story pointed it out. Somehow, it didn’t occur to me who had died. I honestly would love to see Marvel tackle a crime thriller series like this for real sometime. What If…? already had a great episode like that, but I’d like to see it in the main continuity.

But then the true reality, the Agatha All Along reality, returns. And with it, we get into that rushed setup. And it’s rushed because, by necessity of the ticking clock, Agatha just kind of talks her way out of things. Thinking back, it’s a series of very quick conversations. She somehow convinces a character not to kill her. And then three other people—one who actively hates her—agree to embark on a quest that apparently is super-lethal for most witches, let alone people without magic. Granted, she also full-on lied to the last one of the group, the fifth person, but that actually makes more sense.

Agatha Is Way Too Effective At Convincing People

Now, to those who might complain, I know genre conventions. I know Agatha All Along needs everything to be expedited for the show to happen. Three whole episodes devoted to finding the other witches and slowly convincing them is not a good idea for a pulpy series. But Agatha could’ve done a little more scheming and lying. The only reason these scenes didn’t completely throw me out of Agatha All Along is because of the acting from everyone—and the mysteries. The dialogue might be rushed, but at least it’s fun. Agatha is unrepentantly mean and rude to people, and it’s delightful. She and the character whose name we literally can’t know yet are a great duo. I even laughed a few times at the dialogue.

But, as I said, Agatha All Along only comes together properly when everyone is present, when the quest heist is clear, and the stakes are tangible. It feels like a show with intent, with a burgeoning team dynamic and interesting different types of magic at play. In short, an adventure. The Road could have any level of danger. The Road could be an exploration of each character’s history, faults, and fears: it’s up in the air for now. I just hope—please, please, please—that it’s not a series of “spooky” CGI monster attacks where the characters mostly have to run away. Agatha All Along is already a very different type of Marvel show from most, so let the creativity shine!

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