Marvel’s Most Surprising Show Sticks The Landing Without Any Cheap Tricks

9 episodes after it debuted, Agatha All Along delivered a double-headed Halloween treat that confirmed it as one of the best Marvel TV shows ever made. As with the opening 2 episodes, Marvel Television chose to drop both episodes 8, “Follow Me My Friend/To Glory At The End”, and 9, “Mother, Maiden, Crone” together, creating something of a special event, and answering a multitude of questions.

After Agatha All Along episode 7‘s ending killed off Lilia Calderu and the Salem Seven, and finally revealed Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal is Death, the penultimate episode picks up quickly with the fallout. Showrunner Jac Schaeffer had promised that something huge would be revealed about Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha, and there was, of course, the question of Billy Maximoff’s plans at the end of the Witches Road, and the looming shadow fo Scarlet Witch to deal with.

Agatha All Along followed the same mystery box set-up as WandaVision, weaving a deliriously creative story around Hahn’s irresistibly charming anti-hero. The finale isn’t quite as good as the season-high of episode 7, but that might well be the greatest single episode of live-action Marvel TV ever made, so it was always a high bar. And thankfully, the final two episodes aren’t actually all that far off hitting the same heights.

How Agatha All Along’s Final Episodes Wrap Up The Loose Ends

It is something of a shame that the double episode drop means that episode 8 will be overlooked a little – or at least robbed off the week-long autopsy period that has been so much fun. “Follow Me…” ends on a huge cliffhanger that plays into a theory a lot of Marvel fans have thrown about for weeks, and the final shot really did deserve a full seven days of Reddit threads, social media clips, and the kind of creative gap-filling that has made Agatha such a rewarding experience.

That said, because the finale itself skips back in time, the episodes work together well. That’s partly because the pacing of “Mother, Maiden, Crone” might have ended up feeling like too much of a harsh swerve compared to its predecessor, where more of the action happens. But the less flashy episode isn’t a massive dip in quality, because it comes back around to the heart of the show. Without spoiling too much, in 2021, WandaVision’s ending captured some of the most devastating MCU storytelling of all, and Agatha All Along’s final episode follows suit.

Crucially, Agatha’s story is completely reinvented, which had – admittedly – been something I was a little worried about. Villain-focused spin-offs have an awful knack of humanizing great forces of evil, to the cost of their initial impact, but in the wider context of the Scarlet Witch Saga, that actually works in Agatha‘s favor. The show draws an ingenious parallel between Agatha and Wanda that recontextualizes both of them in a wider story that feels immaculately plotted from even before WandaVision.

Everything Is Earned In Agatha All Along’s Ending

As with all the best mystery box stories, Agatha All Along‘s great achievement is in its deception, but there’s a crucial balance here that works incredibly well in its favor. Step back a little, and every conversation was about how and when Scarlet Witch would return: how Teen’s identity would feed into it; how the Witches Road would set it up; what would happen next… And ultimately, it was all sort of just deception.

All those story details remain important, and in some cases, deliciously unresolved, but the finale reveals a long con that snaps everything back into stark focus. It was just Agatha, all along. Schaeffer played with the audience from the moment those silly temporary titles were revealed, and after 9 episodes, and twists resolved only in deeply rewarding ways does that all make sense.

The most satisfying thing here is that Agatha All Along has no distracting wider service to someone else’s story or an agenda of misdirection to just make this Wanda’s resurrection song. Had that been the case, all the intricate storytelling would have been for very little in the face of the prestige of the trick. You really have to give it up to Schaeffer: she did the least Marvel thing possible with Agatha All Along‘s ending, and made this delightful, surprising show even better.

Agatha All Along’s Final Three Cast Members Are Excellent

The Coven May Have Shrunk, But Pulling Focus On A Smaller Cast Works Well

Agatha All Along‘s cast has been almost uniformly excellent: even the Salem Seven – who were glorified set dressing, let’s be honest – brought a wonderful Cirque du Soleil weirdness in their physicality. But with most of Agatha’s hastily-assembled coven killed off, the final two episodes give greater focus to the top-billed cast members: Hahn, of course, Joe Locke’s Billy, and Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal/Death.

After episode 7 revealed Vidal’s poorly-kept secret identity, Plaza really steps into her performance as Death by going full ham. Her Death is a chaotic hoot, far more cartoonish and kitsch, with Rio’s reins removed. The image of her straddling Agatha’s roof, cackling will live long in memory. Locke continues to be excellent, avoiding any whiffs of the Scrappy Doo problem that lots of younger new characters are accidentally saddled with in sequels and prequels. He gets his big Wiccan moment, and it’s absolutely worth the wait.

Hahn’s performance, particularly in the finale, is more subtle and heartfelt than the rest of her time as Agatha, as we learn more of what made her the way she is. She, too, had been quite pantomimey up to this point – with great reward, obviously – but the flashback sequences are genuinely very sad, and managed to do what I thought impossible: making me actually enjoy the only thing about this show I disliked – the insistence on focusing on the Ballad of The Witches Road. She deserves an Emmy for that alone.

So, What’s After The End Of The Witches Road?

How Agatha All Along Deals With The Future

This being a Marvel Cinematic Universe story, there’s always a big question at the end: the question of legacy. In other words, what’s next? While Agatha All Along avoids being overt about some of its possibilities, it does end on a very firm note that this is just part of an ongoing story that will be resolved elsewhere, and refreshingly, that doesn’t feel disappointing.

Earlier in the year, House of the Dragon season 2 took a lot of criticism when it was perceived to be little more than an extended trailer for season 3 (at least in the most cynical reads). Agatha All Along does a similar thing, by not actually delivering on one of its most heavily telegraphed story details, but it does so in a way that still allows these nine episodes to stand up as Agatha’s story. For a while there, it looked like we might be heading towards the reality that the show should have swapped titles partway through to center Billy Maximoff, but again, the deception pulls things back from the brink.

When the dust settles, there will definitely be some things I wish we’d got more of. I already pine a little for more of the Salem Seven, who just sort of turned up and then were ushered off as quickly, and not every question is answered with the same eye for detail. For instance, I’m not sure I learned anything about Agatha’s motivation after the death of her son, or what led to her getting the Darkhold, but at least we know there’s more to come after Agatha All Along, and you wouldn’t bet against Jac Schaeffer already having something up her sleeve to deal with any loose ends…

All 9 episodes of Agatha All Along are available to stream on Disney+ now.