Agatha All Along Finale Explained: Agatha’s Ghost

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Agatha All Along episode 8 and 9.] Ding dong — the witch is dead. The two-episode Agatha All Along finale ended with centuries-old witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) receiving her prize at the end of the Witches’ Road: the return of her powers, which were stolen from her by the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in the WandaVision finale. Wanda Maximoff’s son, Billy (Joe Locke), reincarnated as Wiccan, returned Agatha’s “purple” so they could fight Rio/Death (Aubrey Plaza) and stop her from taking Billy, who stole a second life and is disrupting the sacred balance by inhabiting the body of William Kaplan.

Rather than get Billy to turn himself in to Death as they agreed, Agatha died sacrificing herself to save the son of the Scarlet Witch. Her corporeal form then rapidly aged and decayed, and the series ended with Agatha’s return from the grave — as a ghost. Billy initially attempted an incantation to banish ghost Agatha to the afterlife, but when she tearfully confessed that she couldn’t face her son Nicholas Scratch (who was taken by Death in the 1700s), Billy let her stay in this realm.

With spirit as his guide, Billy and Agatha then set off to find his twin brother Tommy as a Coven Two. Although Agatha All Along ends with Agatha in her spectral form, Agatha has died and returned to life in the comics.

The Death of Agatha Harkness

[RELATED: All the Clues That Rio Was MCU Death All Along]

In 1977’s Fantastic Four #186, Agatha’s adult son, the warlock Nicholas Scratch, had his children return their grandmother to New Salem, Colorado: a secret community of witches that Agatha left to live among mortals in the 17th century. Calling themselves the Salem Seven, the supernatural squadron of Vertigo, Brutacus, Gazelle, Hydron, Reptilla, Thornn, and Vakume tried to execute Agatha for allegedly revealing New Salem’s existence to the mortal world. But the Fantastic Four saved Agatha, and Scratch was banished to the Dark Realm by the witches and wizards of New Salem. After Salem’s Seven returned in 1979’s Fantastic Four Annual #14, Agatha stripped them of their powers and sent them back to New Salem.

Salem’s Seven returned once more, this time in 1985’s The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #3, and burned Agatha at the stake. Agatha cursed the coven now led by the priestess Vertigo, who then attempted to sacrifice the Scarlet Witch to a winter god after she and the Vision happened across New Salem while talking about starting a family.

The Ghost of Agatha Harkness

The Agatha Harkness ghost appeared for the first time from beyond the grave when she helped Wanda channel her magick powers to defeat the Seven. After Wanda wielded her probability-altering Hex powers to become pregnant, Agatha’s ghost reappeared in The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4 to warn Wanda about a threat arriving on Halloween, when the veils between the mortal world and the spirit world are thinnest.

On Halloween night, a pregnant Wanda used an incantation to summon Agatha’s spirit in The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #5. The undead Salem’s Seven captured Wanda and, in the dead realm of the demon Samhain, who sought to obtain life through Wanda’s magick and the life she created: her child. It was in this realm that Agatha, in her human form, sent Samhein’s dark forces into the corpses of Salem’s Seven to prevent the demon’s transfer into the body of Wanda’s unborn child. Agatha then passed on to her “long-awaited rest in peace.”

The Resurrection of Agatha Harkness

After the events of Vision Quest — where Wanda’s synthezoid husband had his memory wiped when he was dismantled and put back together as the emotionless, all-white Vision — Agatha returned in the flesh in 1989’s Avengers West Coast #50 to assist in governing Vision and Wanda’s twin sons, Tommy and Billy Maximoff (who were born in 1986’s The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #12).

In Avengers West Coast #51, a resurrected Agatha told Wanda that death was a “terrible inconvenience” for a true witch such as herself. Agatha explained she returned because she was concerned about the twins, and it was revealed that the children disappear from existence whenever they’re not in Wanda’s thoughts. Because Wanda’s powers couldn’t create true life, she unconsciously snared souls for the twins — fragments of the demon Mephisto. When Mephisto reabsorbed his missing pieces into himself, effectively erasing the twins from existence, Agatha defeated Mephisto and wiped the twins from Wanda’s memory to spare her the grief of losing her children.

Wanda eventually remembered her children, causing her to suffer a mental breakdown that disassembled Earth’s mightiest heroes in 2004’s Avengers #500. In Avengers #503, it was revealed that Wanda killed Agatha for erasing her children. Wanda attacked the Avengers when her former teammates confronted her about the fantasy she conjured to bring back Billy and Tommy, and Doctor Strange used the Eye of Agamotto to show Wanda the truth.

After an amnesiac Wanda atoned for her crimes and reunited with Billy and Tommy — who reincarnated as the Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed — during Avengers: Children’s Crusade, Agatha’s ghost returned as Wanda’s spirit guide in 2015’s Scarlet Witch #1.

The Trial of Agatha Harkness

When Wanda discovered that Witchcraft was broken, the Scarlet Witch and her ghostly mentor set off down the Witches’ Road, a plane of existence where only witches can tread. There they encountered the spirit of Wanda’s biological mother: Natalya Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch before her.

Natalya later revealed that Chaos — a cosmic entity whose being is at the heart of her chaos magic, the oldest form of witchcraft — was the cause of Witchcraft’s sickness.

As Maiden (Wanda), Mother (Natalya), and Crone (Agatha), the trio healed the goddess of witches when Natalya sacrificed her soul to save Witchcraft. She then resurrected Agatha once more, returning her to life in her more youthful form in Scarlet Witch #14.

All episodes of Marvel’s Agatha All Along are now streaming on Disney+.