“Agatha All Alongside embraces the identical clunky writing tendencies as so many different MCU reveals and films, however it’s buoyed by its gifted ensemble forged and Kathryn Hahn’s terrific lead efficiency.”
Execs
- Kathryn Hahn’s astonishing star flip
- A likable forged of supporting characters
- A delightfully spooky sense of enjoyable
Cons
- A number of compelled exposition dumps all through its midseason episodes
- A probably repetitive episodic construction
- A drained, tonally out-of-place concentrate on overcoming emotional trauma
As soon as upon a time, the tv facet of the Marvel Cinematic Universe appeared shiny, new, and surprisingly promising. That point looks as if a distant reminiscence now — regardless that it was solely three years in the past. In early 2021, WandaVision ended the MCU’s pandemic-enforced yearlong break and ushered in what appeared like a brand new period for the multimedia franchise. A cross between a character-driven superhero story and a love letter to tv historical past, WandaVision actually wasn’t like anything that Marvel Studios had made earlier than. Equal components humorous, tragic, and form-breaking, the collection inspired theory-crafting and stored viewers entertained on a week-to-week foundation, all whereas spotlighting a efficiency from Elizabeth Olsen that felt spell-binding and genuinely revelatory.
For a quick interval, WandaVision made the MCU’s future appear brighter than ever. That promise hasn’t simply dimmed since then however altogether burnt out. It’s nonetheless admirable to observe Marvel’s newest TV providing, Agatha All Along, attempt to rekindle it. Throughout its first 4 episodes, the WandaVision spinoff does its finest to each name again to the previous and carve a brand new path ahead for itself and its witchy characters. Whereas the collection reminds one in its finest moments of WandaVision‘s intelligent, tongue-in-cheek sense of formal enjoyable, although, it can also’t escape most of the flaws which have dragged down different current MCU efforts. It’s an odd mixture of outdated and new, energetic and clunky, and it’s stored afloat by a bunch of actors who — in an more and more uncommon prevalence for the MCU — truly look like they need to be right here.
In what must be one of the playful and financial bits of MCU storytelling in years, Agatha All Alongside spends its opening minutes concurrently answering fan questions, cracking jokes, and creating clear threads between it, WandaVision, and 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This prolonged prologue, the main points of that are finest left unspoiled, sees WandaVision and Agatha creator Jac Schaeffer working at a stage of confidence as a author that feels instantly refreshing. In contrast to the cockiness of Deadpool & Wolverine, which is used to cowl up a few of the most inelegant storytelling within the MCU’s historical past, Agatha All Alongside‘s confidence is generally earned, too. It is a collection that — even when it’s contorting itself to appear to be one other — is aware of precisely what it’s.
There are lengthy (excuse the pun) spells in Agatha All Alongside‘s first two episodes through which it appears content material to let itself and its lead, Agatha Harkness (a commanding Kathryn Hahn), have as a lot enjoyable as attainable. The sense of narrative house in these sections has turn out to be arduous to search out within the MCU, and so Agatha All Alongside feels, at first, like a much-needed change of tempo for its franchise. Issues get uneven and a bit wonky, nevertheless, as soon as the collection is compelled to desert its preliminary, laidback cool in favor of extra on-the-nose plotting and MCU-flavored motion. It isn’t lengthy earlier than Hahn’s Agatha has awoken from the spell that Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff trapped her in on the finish of WandaVision. When she does, she’s horrified to find that her magical powers are gone. Sadly for Agatha, that leaves her weak to the vengeance of all of her many witchy enemies.
With nowhere else to show, Agatha is compelled to stroll the legendarily harmful Witches’ Highway to attempt to get her powers again. So as to take action, she should assemble a coven of equally determined witches to stroll the Highway together with her. These kooky eccentrics change into Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), a divination witch who has grown bored with making pennies studying different individuals’s fortunes; Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), a sorceress and potions grasp who misplaced entry to her powers years in the past; Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), a burnout “protector witch” who’s haunted by the demise of her magical witch mom; Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), a harmful witch who shares a shady historical past with Agatha; and Sharon Davis (returning WandaVision star Debra Jo Rupp), a traditional human girl residing in Westview whom Agatha coerces into strolling the Witches’ Highway together with her. A mysterious, magic-obsessed goth drifter recognized solely as “Teen” (Joe Locke) additionally convinces Agatha to let him tag alongside for the trip.
On the finish of the Witches’ Highway lies a effectively of wish-fulling energy that Agatha and the members of her coven will have the ability to divide up. That’s, in fact, if they’ll survive the trials that lie between them and their prize. These assessments are custom-fitted for every coven member, they usually require them to beat — via typically zany means — the traumas of their previous. Stylistically, these pit stops give Agatha All Alongside an opportunity to alter its look each episode and concentrate on a unique member of its supporting forged. Additionally they require Schaeffer and her writers to do a whole lot of telling as a substitute of displaying, which leads to in any other case endearingly humorous characters like Ahn’s Alice and Zamata’s Jennifer explaining the main points of their backstories — generally whereas we’re additionally seeing them visualized onscreen.
Agatha All Alongside‘s trials, subsequently, really feel clunkier than the remainder of the present. They power it to ceaselessly depart its Witches’ Highway set behind as effectively, which is superbly rendered by the collection’ manufacturing crew and fits Agatha All Alongside‘s spooky story higher than any of the Highway’s supernaturally conjured prisons. These detours are, frankly, much less enjoyable than all the pieces else Agatha All Alongside has to supply. The collection works higher when it’s letting its actors joke, wander, and — in sure cases — sing collectively. Its writing and characterizations are crafted at an over-the-top pitch that completely fits actors like Ahn, Zamata, Plaza, LuPone, and Hahn.
Zamata and LuPone, specifically, show to be formidable scene stealers over the course of Agatha All Alongside‘s first 4 episodes, and their introductions provoke a few of the collection’ greatest laughs. They’re the standouts in what is likely one of the finest supporting casts in current MCU historical past. That mentioned, Agatha All Alongside is primarily held collectively by Hahn, who manages to show a Marvel-produced superhero present into one more well-deserved showcase of her many skills. The actress simply slides again into her WandaVision position — leaning once more into Agatha’s theatrical villainy whereas additionally giving her extra emotional depth than her final TV collection was prepared to supply.
As Agatha, Hahn is believably fierce and but tender, maniacal and endearing. The actress’ comedic expertise have seemingly solely sharped through the years, and even when she’s sharing the display screen with a succesful performer like LuPone, Hahn by no means helps you to doubt who the highlight belongs to in Agatha All Alongside. Its lackluster motion and stretches of compelled, in-your-face exposition ceaselessly drag the collection down, and it lacks — maybe a bit inevitably — each the magnificence and freshness of its guardian present. The largest factor Agatha All Alongside in the end has in frequent with WandaVision is that its biggest power isn’t its welcome humorousness or ever-evolving model, however its central efficiency.
Like Olsen earlier than her, Hahn has taken an costly addition to an already unwieldy franchise and made it her personal. That’s a magic trick price celebrating — even when Agatha All Alongside ceaselessly struggles to stay as much as its star’s greatness.
The primary two episodes of Agatha All Alongside are streaming now on Disney+. New episodes premiere weekly on Wednesdays. Digital Developments was given early entry to the collection’ first 4 installments.
