Agatha All Along

Last Wednesday, the season finale of Agatha All Along was released on Disney+. Agatha All Along follows Agatha Harkness after regaining the memories that the Scarlet Witch took from her. She soon encounters a mysterious teenager. The two must form a coven to travel on The Witches Road to find their deepest desires. I was a bit skeptical of this show at first but was hoping it would win me over in the end.

This show had a decent amount of elements that worked well for it. I liked the overall spooky and horror feel to it. It had a similar tone to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. I enjoyed it in that movie and enjoyed it here. It feels very much like an accessible entry-level horror show. It has some spooky and frightening elements but not enough to scare off the casual watcher. To put it into perspective, my wife does not like horror movies at all but she had a good time with this show. I also liked the show's structure towards the middle. The show got into the zone of having multiple trials that each of the witches will have to push through and grow as a person. They each had their own vibe to them as well as some horror elements (one was a haunted house, one was a possession, and one was a monster attack). These three middle episodes were where the show found its groove. I also liked how self-contained the story was. It had some elements that connected to the greater MCU but in general, it was a pretty standalone witch story. The standout performers here were Kathryn Hann as Agatha and Aubree Plaza as Rio. Both actresses seem to go all in with their characters and are great every time they are on screen together. Finally, the Witches Road song is great and I loved that it kept popping up in the show.

However, I'm not sure the TV show totally won me over. I felt that while individual episodes were good, the show as a whole did not work for me. The show did seem a bit unfocused at times. Agatha was supposed to be the main character of the story but I felt that in a few of the middle episodes, she was just kind of there. The show also sets up the Salem Seven as the big villains of the show but then just kind of abandons them about halfway through. We get no explanation as to who they are and why they are after Agatha. They are just kind of there until they aren't. I also thought the that final episode kind of undermined the events of the whole season. What they did in the finale moments kind of made everything else in the season seem pointless. I also thought that the last episode was a bit tacked on. Everything was resolved in episode 8 but then there was still one more episode to go. The finale also chose to have a super long flash back which is just a bizarre thing to put in a finale episode. It really belonged in the second to last episode. The biggest issue I had in the show was that it just had no reason to exist. Not once, when I watched WandaVision, did I think "You know Agatha could really use her own TV show" and the show never really convinced me of that.

Overall, while there are a lot of really solid elements here. I thought the show as a whole was a bit clunky and unnecessary. However, I seem to be in the minority on this as a lot of people really seem to like it.

Score:6.5/10 Grade: B- Recommendation: It is worth checking out. A lot of people seemed to really like it. I seem to be in the minority here.