All the Easter Eggs and Fan Theories from the 'Agatha All Along' Series Premiere

By Brian Richards | TV | September 23, 2024 |

Previously on WandaVision: Wanda Maximoff created an alternate reality in the town of Westview to resurrect Vision and live her best life in which she and Vision are married and raising two young boys. Her nosy next-door neighbor, Agnes, revealed herself to be Agatha Harkness, and she made it clear that Wanda (whose possession of chaos magic and reality-altering abilities made her the mythical “Scarlet Witch”) has immense power that Agatha wanted for herself. The two witches battled, and not only did Agatha lose that fight, but she lost her powers, as Wanda trapped Agatha in her ‘Agnes’ persona and left her to remain in Westview as a regular-degular person. Wanda also lifted her spell off of all of Westview’s residents, and was no longer invading their minds, or forcing them to be a part of her life with Vision and their children, before flying away and making her exit.

All of which was then followed by Wanda seemingly learning nothing from her behavior in WandaVision, and then showing up in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness as a ruthless supervillain willing to destroy anyone and anything that stood in her way of becoming a mother once more to her nonexistent children, partly due to her being manipulated by the Darkhold. The film ended with Not-Jean Grey sacrificing her life to destroy all copies of the Darkhold in every section of the Multiverse and dying as the Darkhold Castle collapsed entirely and crushed her to death.

THE STORY SO FAR: Agatha Harkness is now Agnes O’Connor, a detective with the Westview Police Department whose suspension for punching a suspect has been lifted, so that she can investigate the murder of a Jane Doe whose body has been found in the woods. She is joined in the investigation by FBI agent Rio Vidal and also has to deal with a teenage Goth boy breaking into her house while she and Rio are discussing the case and taking him into custody to find out what he is looking for. Agnes slowly realizes who she is, who the dead body is, and what really happened to her right before she becomes Agatha once again, and Rio is actually another witch who has a history with her and wants her dead. Agatha convinces Rio to turn off her bloodlust until she’s back to her old self and capable of putting up a good fight.

To do that, she and Teen recruit three other witches (and Agatha’s neighbor, Sharon Davis, mainly because she has an impressive green thumb and because one more person is needed to complete the coven) to access the Witches’ Road, a pathway that will grant a witch anything that their heart desires if they survive all of the trials that attempt to prevent them from making it all the way across. Agatha and company succeed in arriving there, but they now have to deal with being hunted by the Salem Seven, a group of witches determined to stop any of them from getting what they want.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT THIS EPISODE?: The opening credit sequence, which references True Detective, The Killing (the original Danish version, and the American remake that is responsible for me hearing “Yo, Linden!” in my head whenever I see Joel Kinnaman onscreen for any reason), and Mare of Easttown. Kathryn Hahn as Agnes O’Connor, channeling Kate Winslet as Mare Sheehan and Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden, and doing a predictably terrific job. In the scenes between Agnes and Rio, we see pieces of Agatha struggling to break free and Rio curiously watching and waiting for it to happen. Agatha has little to no patience when dealing with anyone, least of all, Teen. Agatha sees the empty lot where Wanda created her home and her reality (now covered in graffiti expressing the town’s hatred of Wanda) and spits at the ground before she leaves. The interactions Agatha and Teen have with each witch they’re trying to recruit: Lilia (who sees right through Agatha’s fake Southern accent and lies about finding her dead husband’s hidden gold bars), Jennifer, who is this close to ending up in jail for not having as much good luck with her beauty products as Gwyneth Paltrow. (“Sisterhood of the Traveling Kegels? No? No?”), and Alice, who ends up fired from her job due to Agatha making Teen look like a shoplifter and causing him to get flying-tackled. Sharon Davis is very confused about the party that Agatha has invited her to, and her noble attempt at singing along with the other witches during “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road,” even though she doesn’t know a single word of it.

WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD ABOUT THIS EPISODE?: Other than the fact that we didn’t get to see Agatha eating any sandwiches from Wawa while working as a detective, nothing really comes to mind.

DO ANY OF THE AVENGERS APPEAR IN THIS EPISODE?: Other than the (possible) corpse of Wanda Maximoff? No.

HOW COME WE DON’T SEE WANDA’S FACE WHEN HER CORPSE IS FOUND?: 1) Elizabeth Olsen is too busy working on other projects to appear for a ten-second cameo in a television series where she doesn’t get to say or do anything. 2) To quote What Up with That? host Diondre Cole when he told Samuel L. Jackson to stop cursing on his show: “That costs money!”

ANY EASTER EGGS WE SHOULD WATCH OUT FOR?: Agnes hums “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” as she drives to the Jane Doe crime scene. The way her partner, “Herb,” pronounces the word “water” as he and Agnes walk to the crime scene, is seen as a reference to how Mare of Easttown was teased for the accents used by its actors. Herb quoting The Wizard of Oz when asked by Agnes if Jane Doe is deceased: “She’s really, most sincerely dead.” (To which Agnes replies, “You never know.”)

The dead body’s black fingertips are similar to the magical aftereffect of black fingers seen on anyone using the Darkhold. The broach that Agnes finds at the Jane Doe crime scene is one that belonged to her mother, which she wore right before Agatha killed her and took her magic. The scoreboard that is shown during the Agnes of Westview opening credits features a sports team called the Blue Devils, which could be referencing how blue magic was used against her by her mother’s coven attempting to kill her and burn her at the stake. (FYI: I’m referring to actual blue magic, not the R&B group from the Seventies or the type of heroin being sold by Frank Lucas.) The painting seen in the interrogation room as Agatha regains her memories and true identity is the same painting displayed in her home and is called “Macbeth and the Three Witches” by Francesco Zuccarelli. Agatha asked both Teen and “Dottie,” the librarian, where they were between 1 AM and 3 AM, which is viewed as a time of night known as the “witching hour,” when supernatural events often take place. (Before you ask if “demon time” is the same thing, just know that it has nothing to do with the supernatural, and everything to do with very bad and very nasty things happening at night.)

Despite the Disney Plus captions saying that Rio was speaking Spanish whenever she would finish speaking to Agatha and make her exit, the phrase that Rio says to Agatha whenever she makes her exit is “Te veo.” (Spanish for “I see you.”) This just seems like yet another unfortunate case of bad closed-captioning, much like when the Disney Plus captions for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier stated that Ayo was speaking Wakandan to Bucky when she detached his cybernetic arm, when what she said to him in English was, “Bast damn you, James.” The name of Agatha’s son, Nicholas Scratch, is a common nickname for Satan, which may give fans yet another reason to assume that Mephisto will soon appear in the MCU. Teen not being allowed to say his name to Agatha, or anything that reveals his true identity, which is reminiscent of how The Bride’s real name is always bleeped out in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 until the film was ready to reveal it. According to the “Welcome to Westview” sign, the town’s population has gone from 3,892 to 2,251 since Wanda (as well as Agatha) wreaked havoc there. Sharon stands in a circle with all of the witches and responds to Jennnifer saying, “Who’s going high?” with “No thank you, I don’t take drugs,” which is a callback to her role as Kitty Forman on That 70s Show, where the teenage main characters regularly went to the basement and sat in a circle while getting high on the Devil’s Lettuce.

ANY FAN THEORIES SPREADING LIKE WILDFIRE ACROSS THE INTERNET BECAUSE OF THIS EPISODE?: The “Under Repair” sign that was seen near the shelves in the library burned to a crisp, representing the Darkhold being destroyed: was the sign hinting at the Darkhold piecing itself back together so that it could return in some form, or that Wanda herself would be returning in some form, or both? The piece of hair found in Agatha’s broach/locket belongs to her son, Nicholas, as a reminder of the child she possibly sacrificed to achieve her power. Teen is Nicholas reincarnated, and Agatha doesn’t get to hear or know who he really is until she reaches the end of the Witches’ Road. Teen is Billy Kaplan, a.k.a. Wiccan, and also known as one of Wanda and Vision’s sons. The clocks in several scenes read 3:33, which is one half of 666, which means that Mephisto is coming!

ARE THERE ANY SCENES DURING THE CLOSING CREDITS?: No.

DO WE GET TO SEE AGATHA AND RIO MAKE OUT?: No. And it’s highly unlikely that we ever will see that happen, because it’s Disney, and they allow the MCU to have all of the heat and sex appeal of a Progressive Insurance commercial. But it did give us these moments for the Internet to replay and obsess over, so there is that.

Despite Aubrey Plaza saying in interviews that she signed on for Agatha All Along because it would be the gayest thing that the MCU has ever done, it would be a really good idea to remember that when it comes to expecting two members of the same sex to hook up and make out in an MCU project, remember these classic tweets:

DO WE ACTUALLY SEE KATHRYN HAHN NAKED IN THESE EPISODES?: Yes, though we don’t see her breasts, as they’re concealed by her hair, and her butt is seen in a brief shot from a distance. So don’t get too excited or upset.

TO SUM IT ALL UP: A very impressive start to the series, and as much as I’m enjoying Kathryn Hahn reprising her role as Agatha Harkness, as well as her scenes opposite Aubrey Plaza, Joe Locke, and the rest of the cast, it’s also not a good sign that I’m wondering just how long it will be before Agatha All Along does like nearly every other Marvel show on Disney Plus and f-cks things up by completely fumbling the ball as they get closer to scoring a touchdown at the end of the season. Has Marvel Studios truly learned their lesson when it comes to making television shows by making them like actual television shows, and not like nine-hour-long movies to get the audience excited for whatever project they’ll release next in theaters? We have seven more episodes to go until that question is answered.

P.S. I’d like to take this moment to congratulate Sasheer Zamata, who recently came out of the closet as a lesbian. I’m truly happy for her, and I hope she can live her very best life now that she has embraced this part of herself. I’d also like to take this moment to say that if you’re a f-ckboy or Pick-Me who hated seeing Black lesbian witches on The Acolyte (for reasons that have nothing to do with racism or misogyny, of course), your anger and discomfort at seeing a Black lesbian playing a witch on Agatha All Along will bring nothing but joy to my cold, black, misanthropic heart.

The two-hour series premiere of Agatha All Along was brought to you by “You Should See Me In A Crown” by Billie Eilish: