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WandaVision’s creative method to mixing completely different storytelling genres made it some of the compelling items of tv Marvel has ever produced. The present turned appointment viewing week after week because it fleshed out its central thriller in a approach that was enjoyable to observe together with. And for some time, it felt like WandaVision’s story was a part of an formidable plan to push Marvel’s movies in an fascinating new route.
Marvel seemingly misplaced the thread of that plan someplace between WandaVision and Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity — a follow-up movie that glossed over the present’s juicy emotional beats in favor of dizzying spectacle and extra explicitly horror vibes. However Agatha All Alongside, Disney Plus’ latest MCU sequence from showrunner Jac Schaeffer, looks like an indication that the studio has discovered a number of beneficial classes from its messy multiversal experiment.
Set a number of years after the occasions of WandaVision and Multiverse of Insanity, Agatha All Alongside picks up the story of its titular sorceress (Kathryn Hahn) at a time when all the things about her world seems to be coming undone but once more — albeit underneath barely completely different circumstances . Though nearly everybody remembers what went down the final time witches confirmed up in Westview, New Jersey, the city’s truly a reasonably peaceable place the place folks have discovered to maneuver on with their lives.
Whereas of us like Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp) have gotten used to scurrying previous the vacant lot the place the Maximoff / Imaginative and prescient household used to dwell, their collective trauma retains them from saying her title out of concern that she would possibly come again. But it surely additionally makes it straightforward for them to simply accept Agnes / Agatha Harkness (Hahn) as an extraordinary, if eccentric, girl who’s attempting to deal with one thing they’ve all gone by. To say, Agatha’s temper swings and insistence on being referred to as “Agnes” are simply quirky coping mechanisms. However in fact, these are a few of the first indicators of Agatha turning into conscious of the magical jail she turned trapped in once we final noticed her.
Agatha All Alongside looks like it is angling for a gradual burn at first because it drops you right into a WandaVision-esque send-up of crime dramas (moderately than sitcoms) like Mare of Easttown and True Detective. However the present rapidly switches gears in a approach that reads like Marvel understanding the present’s want to maneuver previous its predecessors’ impressed gimmick. It is not lengthy earlier than Agatha snaps again to her senses with the assistance of former lover Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) and a magically adept teen she calls Teen (Joe Locke). With all of Agatha’s powers now gone, nevertheless, she has to type a coven and journey on the Witches’ Street as a way to restore herself to her former glory.
Whereas WandaVision solely actually turned correctly witchy in its previous couple of episodes, Agatha All Alongside dives proper into the magic because it focuses on portray a extra detailed image of who Harkness is and the way witchcraft (which is distinct from Physician Unusual’s entire deal) works. WandaVision alluded to Agatha’s treacherous previous, however the brand new present explores how her centuries-long path to buying energy made her a reviled villain within the witch group lengthy earlier than she ever set foot in Westview.
Sitcom Agnes / Agatha was a spotlight in WandaVision, the place her unhinged vitality helped promote the present’s idea and left viewers guessing as to who was actually pulling everybody’s strings. However Agatha All Alongside offers Hahn much more room to flex and vamp as Agatha’s hunt for a coven leads her to different witches like wellness guru Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), fortune teller Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), and safety guard Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn) — all of whom see her as a menace. They know Agatha’s killed members of her personal coven earlier than and that there is one thing off about the way in which that Teen is unable to inform them something about the place he comes from. However the Witches’ Street can provide every of them one thing they desperately need in the event that they be part of Agatha on her quest.
Though it is fascinating to see extra of Marvel’s extra “grounded” magical world fleshed out by Agatha All Alongside’s new characters, the present has a pronounced “I am placing collectively a rag-tag staff” vibe that makes its beats really feel formulaic in moments. Teen — a gothic Agatha fanboy Locke performs with allure and with a noticeably difficult-to-place accent — is supposed to be one of many present’s compelling mysteries. However he is additionally an viewers surrogate whose inquisitive exchanges with the opposite witches typically come throughout just like the present taking a second to overexplain plot factors that do not actually need spelling out.
Each little bit of worldbuilding lore the present establishes — inside a three-mile radius, there are at all times sufficient “witchy sufficient” folks to type a coven, as an example — is adopted up with a reiteration of why everybody’s following Agatha. Often, it makes the present really feel unsure of whether or not it is introducing an excessive amount of lore. However when Agatha All Alongside leans into its weirdness and trusts you to piece issues collectively, the sequence turns into way more of a spooky joyride that feels reflective of Schaeffer as soon as once more attempting to carry a genuinely distinctive vitality to the MCU.
You may really feel and see this clearly as soon as the gang is definitely on the Witches’ Street — an otherworldly realm the place they face a sequence of trials meant to check their data of magic. Just like the way in which WandaVision embodied the kinds of varied sitcoms, Agatha All Alongside looks like an ode (music options largely) to horror classics like Rosemary’s Child and extra lately like American Horror Story: Coven.
Though a few of the trials skew a bit tacky — at one level, the witches combat a generational curse — they every spotlight simply how a lot of Agatha All Alongside’s magic is virtually produced to go with the present’s intricate units. It makes the present stand out in comparison with Marvel’s common CGI-laden tasks and really feel like a stable instance of the studio prioritizing artwork over whizbang spectacle.
Agatha All Alongside continues to be a late-stage Marvel present, which means that there are moments the place your appreciation of what it is doing will hinge on how acquainted you’re with the bigger cinematic universe’s most up-to-date occasions. However for viewers who’ve been following alongside and holding out hope for the studio to get again into placing out genuinely bizarre and playful riffs on the comics moderately than hyping up the following large occasion, Agatha All Alongside must be a delight to look at — particularly as soon as it begins revealing its large secrets and techniques later this fall.
Agatha All Alongside additionally stars Paul Adelstein, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Okwui Okpokwasili, Emma Caulfield, David Payton, Kate Forbes, and Asif Ali. The sequence’ first two episodes hit Disney Plus on September 18th.
Agatha All Alongside evaluation: a wild joyride by Marvel’s world of magic
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