Previously on Agatha All Along: After burying Sharon/Mrs. Hart, Agatha and company summon another green witch (who turns out to be none other than the Green Witch herself, Rio Vidal) to complete their coven so they can continue their trek down the Witches’ Road, and face another deadly trial that will push all of them (especially Alice) to their physical and emotional limits. The witches must work together to save one of their own. This time, the life they’re attempting to save belongs to Teen, and Rio breaks the news to Agatha that Teen isn’t her son.
THE STORY SO FAR: Agatha and company realize that the Salem Seven are on their trail and must rely on desperate measures to escape their grasp and move on to the next trial. Once they do, they soon discover what the Witches’ Road wants from them: the punishment of Agatha Harkness, and even her long-departed mother, Evanora Harkness, is willing to show up so she can be a part of it.
WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT THIS EPISODE?: Agatha, Teen, and the other witches argue about having to perform Hexenbesen (and how it’s been co-opted by the holiday industrial complex as an offensive representation of witches and their culture) on exposed tree roots to use as brooms so they can fly away and escape from the Salem Seven. Teen: “Oh, God! Oh, God!” Lilia: “Try praying to the Divine Mother, kiddo!” Jen uses a bunch of leaves as a sleep mask before Lilia wakes everyone up. Rio is even more unhinged than usual and takes pleasure in things that none of the other witches are, whether it’s laughing hysterically as all of them are crashing back down to the Witches’ Road from hundreds of feet in the air or laughing out loud when it’s revealed that Death is with them. Agatha’s impression of Sharon/Mrs. Hart when they’re all using the Ouija board.
The look on everyone’s faces when Agatha asks why Evanora hates her so much, and she responds by telling Agatha that she has always been evil, and should’ve been killed the moment she was born. Agatha stating that the other witches turning against her and trying to punish her as part of the trial is exactly the reason why she doesn’t have any female friends.
The way Agatha turns to look at Rio as they’re mid-flight.
Agatha begs the other witches not to leave her alone or leave her behind with Evanora. The way Agatha completely turns on Teen, with not a drop of kindness anywhere to be found, and not only does she taunt him about what he’s willing to do to gain power as a witch, she then tells him that he’s just like his mother, right before calling him “Pet” once again as if she’s spitting out a profanity. Teen’s response to Agatha, which is to summon his magical powers to force Lilia and Jen to grab hold of her and toss her into the swampy ground that quickly swallows her up, and then doing the same to Lilia and Jen before the camera cuts back to Teen, whose powers and sudden appearance of his very own crown have revealed that he might be Billy Kaplan, a.k.a. Billy Maximoff, a.k.a. Wiccan, son of Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch.
(The fact that Billie Eilish singing “You Should See Me In A Crown” on the soundtrack as we watch Teen reintroduce himself as Billy Maximoff? *chef’s kiss*)
WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD ABOUT THIS EPISODE?: Unfortunately, this appears to be the last we see of Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), after she attempts to save Agatha from the evil presence of Evanora Harkness, only to end up having her power and life force drained from her by Agatha as a result.
DO ANY OF THE AVENGERS APPEAR IN THIS EPISODE?: No.
DOES WANDA MAXIMOFF APPEAR IN THIS EPISODE?: No, but her presence is most definitely felt in the form of her son unleashing his own magical powers much like how she would if she were still alive.
ANY EASTER EGGS WE SHOULD WATCH OUT FOR?: The shot of Agatha, Teen, and the witches flying their brooms with the blood moon in the background is of course a reference to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Rio’s laugh as she and the other witches are crashing down from the sky sounds very much like the Wicked Witch of the West’s laugh from The Wizard of Oz. The obsidian stone that is picked up off of the ground by a member of the Salem Seven is the same obsidian stone that was placed there by Lilia when she and the rest of the coven were summoning a green witch, who of course turned out to be the Green Witch known as Rio. The outfits that Agatha and the coven are rocking during this trial are all 1980s-themed, hence nearly all of them look like camp counselors in a Friday the 13th movie. (Or Sleepaway Camp, if that’s your preferred summer camp-themed horror franchise. And if I just jogged your memory about the first film’s surprise ending, and its accompanying final shot that is guaranteed to haunt the dreams of anyone who has seen it, myself included? You have my somewhat sincere apologies.)
Teen’s outfit of a blue headband and a shirt with long red sleeves looks an awful lot like Wiccan’s costume in the comics and like the Halloween costume that young Billy wore as a Halloween costume on WandaVision. The bracelets worn by Agatha as part of her Eighties outfit are the same colors as the Lesbian Flag, as confirmed by Daniel Selon, the show’s costume designer, on Twitter. Agatha’s demonic appearance when possessed by Evanora makes her look like Linda Blair in The Exorcist (though she also looks a little like a Deadite from The Evil Dead), and if the reference isn’t clear enough, we then get to see her do a spider-walk when she drops from the ceiling to the floor. (Which is still better, and a lot more family-friendly than Agatha-as-Evanora telling the coven that their mothers all suck c—ks in Hell.)
The “Point Reyes” poster in the background of the cabin when Teen is near the stack of board games is a reference to John Carpenter’s film The Fog. The brief shot of a toy robot walking around is a reference to Steven Spielberg’s Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist. When Alice steps forward and suddenly uses her powers to help Agatha, Lilia exclaims, “Knight of Wands!,” which is a tarot card that represents excitement, change, and a desire to take action. Agatha saying “Please! I can be good” to the coven to keep them from leaving her behind is also what she said to Evanora and her coven in 1693 right before they attempted to kill her. Teen on his broom asking the other witches, “How come we haven’t been doing this all along?” is somewhat reminiscent of the persistent question/complaint that is levied against The Lord of the Rings, in that there are fans who have asked why Frodo and company don’t just ride the Great Eagles to Mordor instead of traveling there on foot. When Agatha touches Teen’s face and tells him that he’s just like his mother, there are several notes from the WandaVision theme music that can be heard on the soundtrack.
ANY FAN THEORIES SPREADING LIKE WILDFIRE ACROSS THE INTERNET BECAUSE OF THIS EPISODE?: When Agatha and the coven are told by the Ouija board that Death is present with them, Rio throws her head back and laughs, and is the only one among them to find this funny. This is seen as yet another clue that Rio is actually the cosmic entity known as Death, hence why every life-threatening situation that leaves the other witches feeling terrified and fearing for their lives is nothing but an amusement to her. Much like how Rio (allegedly) used her powers to fling Teen through a plate-glass window because of fun or jealousy, Rio (allegedly) used powers to throw the Ouija board across the road and get Teen’s attention so that he could say Nicholas Scratch’s name out loud and put a stop to what Agatha was doing. (And Teen being able to say the name of Nicholas Scratch out loud was further confirmation that he isn’t Agatha’s son.)
When Lilia said “Alice, don’t!” and “Try to save Agatha!” on two separate occasions, she was trying to tell Alice to not save Agatha because she saw exactly what would happen to her. Teen/Billy’s powers are connected to the sigil, and was somehow made into reality to exist in the 616 Marvel Cinematic Universe by Wanda herself. Teen/Billy’s powers were activated due to his anger at Alice’s death (she was the member of the coven he had bonded with the most), followed by Agatha’s aggression toward him (Was Agatha also trying to provoke him, so that she could take his powers and life force as well? Especially upon realizing that Wanda is his mother?), and both of those factors combined resulted in him taking down Agatha and any other witch who could possibly be a threat to him.
ARE THERE ANY SCENES DURING THE CLOSING CREDITS?: No.
IS IT JUST US, OR WAS THIS EPISODE REALLY SHORT?: It wasn’t just you, as this episode was only 25 minutes long, and that’s before the seven minutes of closing credits.
TO SUM IT ALL UP: For such a short episode, “Darkest Hour, Wake Thy Power” accomplished so damn much and was yet another showcase of how incredibly good Kathryn Hahn is as an actress as we saw Agatha run the gamut of so many emotions: yearning for Rio, begging for mercy and support from her coven against Evanora, having to listen to her own mother tell her that she never deserved to live, her confusion and regret upon realizing that she killed Alice, and the utter malevolence that replaces all of those feelings when she finally sees who Teen really is. The way she leaned in and whispered, “Are you sure?,” and clearly sent chills down Teen’s spine? Not since Agatha confessed to killing Sparky, and then laughed about it, have I felt the need to say “Well, damn!” at someone’s villainy in an MCU project, and that sentence combined with her Slasher Smile as she went in for the kill?
Moments like this make me glad that Disney Plus switched up their game, and released episodes of Agatha All Along on Wednesday nights instead of at 3 AM, as I know damn well that this entire episode would’ve been spoiled, and nearly every scene would’ve been posted all over social media before most of us get out of bed and brush our teeth.
We’re now at the halfway point for Agatha All Along, and if this is what we’re getting with only four episodes remaining, I can only imagine what else Jac Schaeffer and her writers have in store as we get closer to the end of the road. Will this include a surprise appearance from Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch? I honestly don’t know, but it would make a hell of a lot more sense than Reed Richards or Daisy “Quake” Johnson showing up out of nowhere, despite how many Marvel stans out here wanted such cameos to happen.
Agatha All Along Intro – Parks & Rec style #AgathaAllAlong pic.twitter.com/RSiIMtmX7L
— OBCrack (@OBcrack) October 12, 2024
This episode of Agatha All Along was brought to you by “The Killing Moon” by Echo & the Bunnymen:
“Crown on the Ground” by Sleigh Bells:
And “On My Mama” by Victoria Monét:
Agatha All Along recaps
Episodes 1 & 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 |