Key Takeaways
- Agatha All Along faced challenges with delay but sparked discussions and ranked high in fan rankings.
- The showrunner explains Agatha’s decision not to reunite with her son post-death due to guilt and shame.
- Lessons from Agatha All Along should reflect in the rest of the MCU in terms of fiscal approach and character development.
Agatha All Along is now at an end, and many fans are conflicted about the call made in the final episode surrounding the titular lead’s decision going into the future. However, the show’s visionary head is here to explain the deeper reasoning behind this choice.
Agatha All Along spent a long time on the backburner before releasing in 2024 despite being a direct follow-up to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first major Disney+ project, 2021’s WandaVision. The original series had seen Agatha left defeated by the Scarlet Witch and while Katheryn Hahn’s stellar performance and the character’s powerful comic book origins gave the announced spinoff a lot of potential, the long delay didn’t seem helpful. As the promised release date drew nearer, it became even more apparent that the MCU’s Agatha spin-off needed to be perfect to succeed after years in production and the downturn in fan confidence following the franchise’s record low performance in 2023 and the relative disinterest in Echo, the only other Disney+ show the MCU released in 2024.
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While no project actually is perfect, Agatha All Along managed to top at least one Marvel ranking and get fans talking about it through the course of its 9-episode run, which ended with a plethora of shocking reveals, including fans learning the tragic tale behind Agatha’s son and her demise at the hands of Death. This blow was softened somewhat when Agatha returned in spectral form and revealed that she didn’t want to see her son, a decision that many fans found strange considering the potential for a reunion with her son in the hereafter. However, showrunner Jac Schaeffer would clarify the thought process behind this decision in an interview with Deadline. When queried about whether she didn’t want to see her son because of her failure to save him or her devious behavior since his passing, Shaeffer confirmed that both those motivations were at play. “It’s both,” she explained. “It’s the fact that she couldn’t save him, that she couldn’t find the knowledge or the power to save him, and it’s the fact that he always leaned good. He didn’t want to kill witches. He didn’t want to live her lifestyle. Instead of rehabilitating herself on his death, she doubled down, and as you said, she used his song to become essentially a mass murderer. I think there’s so much shame for her in that.”
Shaeffer also points fans to where in the show’s closing act this sentiment is made manifest, as well as how it ties Agatha to Billy. I watch that final sequence that we call ‘Agatha through time,’ where the camera’s swirling around and she’s conning and killing witches through the ages, and what I see is someone grieving. She can’t get full. She can’t fill herself up, and so she’s just eating and eating and eating. I find it really heartbreaking. I think she has so much shame because she knows, but that’s part of her connection point with Billy. Obviously, he reminds her of Nicky, and she can get close to their goodness, but she’s not quite there herself if that makes sense.” Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that Agatha All Along purposefully eschewed the MCU-standard post-credits scene, which would have usually been the vehicle for some sort of clarification on the final plot points or even the setup for a second season or different MCU appearance.
Now that the show has come to an end, there’s actually quite a lot going for what was once considered the MCU’s most unneeded project. For one, the fiscal approach taken is a lesson that the rest of the MCU’s Disney+ rollout needs to learn from Agatha All Along, and if the franchise builds on the bombshell revelations the show left in play, it could also serve as a masterclass in character introduction and placement. With Agatha All Along not being listed as a limited series for award season, there might just be more of the same on the way in the future, and hopefully, there won’t be a three-year waiting period this time.
Agatha All Along is available to stream on Disney+.
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Source: Deadline