Agatha All Along: Marvel’s Death, Explained

Agatha All Along checked off another big fan theory in Episode 7 “Death’s Hand in Mine” (SPOILERS!) by revealing that Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) is Death itself! Like the reveal that “Teen” (Joe Locke) is the reincarnated Billy Maximoff, Plaza as Death is a “surprise” that many Marvel Cinematic Universe fans saw coming early on. If the casting alone didn’t spark theories, the many breadcrumbs that Agatha All Along dropped along the Witch’s road certainly seemed to lead that way.

So now that we know Rio Vidal is the MCU’s personification of Death, let’s break down the character’s history and role in the Marvel Universe.

Marvel’s Death, Explained

Marvel Comics’ “Death” was co-created by Jim Starlin and Mike Friedrich and first appeared in Captain Marvel #26 in 1973. She is personified as a cosmic being that can take on a myriad of physical forms and appearances, but most often appears as a cloaked woman or skeletal head on a female body. She has infinite knowledge, power over time and reality, and can take or restore life at her whim; as an abstract entity, she cannot be “killed” or harmed in any traditional sense. In the Marvel Cosmic hierarchy, Death is the sister of Eternity (who MCU fans met in Thor: Love & Thunder) and helps form the natural balance of life and death.

In Marvel lore, Death is most often remembered as the would-be paramour of Thanos, who originally gathers the Infinity Stones into the Infinity Gauntlet to kill half the universe as a romantic gesture to Death. Through years of expanded Marvel lore and retcons of canon, it’s been established that Death had a fascination with Thanos since he was a boy and often appeared at key points in his life to steer him toward conquest and murder.

Death has been present (as a witness and/or influencer) at several key cosmic events in the Marvel Universe, like the first Infinity Gauntlet War and Annihilation War. At one point Death tried to “retire” in a mortal form with no memory of her cosmic power; a resurrected Thanos tracked her and restored her memories, but when she rejected him, he trapped her inside a new Infinity Stone, the Death Stone, where Death tried to still resist his whims.

Agatha All Along has introduced Death, and will reveal her ties to Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), but it will be interesting to see if Marvel Studios expands Aubrey Plaza’s role from there – even revealing she was really behind the Infinity War with Thanos, all along.

Agatha All Along is streaming on Disney+.