Agatha All Along’s Mare of Easttown Parody Explained

Agatha All Along’s season premiere has an extended parody of Mare of Easttown and it might catch some viewers off-guard. Kathryn Hahn’s Marvel character starts out believing she’s Detective Agnes O’Connor instead of the delightful witch we grew to love during WandaVision. For fans who might be unaware, Mare of Easttown is a true crime procedural that ran near the same time as WandaVision. There’s a Jane Doe that Hahn’s detective is trying to identify and she’s working a very funny exaggerated regional accent as she tries to get to the bottom of all this. (David Payton returns as ‘Detective’ Herb from WandaVision along with a bunch of the other townspeople!)

If this all wasn’t literal enough, when we see the title card for this episode it’s themed exactly like Mare of Easttown as well. Everything down to the font they use to spell ‘Agnes of Westview’ is set to drill home the idea of this True Crime Universe that Agatha has devised for herself. Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal asks her rival, “Is this really how you see yourself?” The cop show facade is meant to show Agatha Harkness as closed off from the rest of the world. We discover near the tail end of the episode that she’s been running around for 3 years as everyone’s eccentric neighbor. Recently though, she’s gotten even more strange as Joe Locke’s “Teen” has tried to break her out of Wanda Maximoff’s reality spell from the end of WandaVision.

As the episode continues, viewers are probably expecting some more TV homages with changing eras like Elizabeth Olsen’s massive Marvel show. But, Rio Vidal convinces Agatha to claw her way out of the hex and become the witch she was before. Of course, this leads to a treasure trove of WandaVision references for the fans watching at home. Kathryn Hahn costume changes are there in spades with 80s Agatha and her black and white look being standouts. Eventually we have to leave Westview’s morgue and her life as a detective behind. Also, the significance of that mysterious dead woman with red hair that couldn’t possibly be the Scarlet Witch, could it? Agatha All Along is off to a pretty wild start.

Agatha’s Showrunner Talks Mare Of Easttown

Jac Schaeffer is the mind behind WandaVision and Agatha All Along. The Marvel creative also happens to be friends with the showrunner and writer of Mare of Easttown as well. Noticing the pronounced references to the Max drama, ComicBook had to ask if the similarities were intentional. It seems as though Schaeffer was pleased that someone noticed all of these breadcrumbs. She’s well-aware that the awards season race back in the WandaVision era was between these two shows. (Fun fact: Evan Peters is associated with both and actually won an Emmy in 2021 for Mare of Easttown!) So, clearly there’s a lot of affection in the parody, even if Schaeffer had to play coy to start.

“Sorry. What? Yeah, sorry, we broke up there for a second, even though we’re in person,” Schaeffer smirked when we pointed out the references to the HBO drama. “Truthfully, we were on that awards journey with that team. I’m very friendly with the showrunner of that show, the creator of that show, and the idea of doing a true crime procedural episode predates Mare of Easttown.”

“But it certainly put a finer point on my idea and felt it had that sort of cheekiness that Agatha has. Just sort of be like, ‘Oh, we were maybe in competition with this thing, and so maybe we’ll do this thing over here,’” Schaeffer added. “You’re the only one, you’re the only one who saw that.” 

“But it is entirely out of respect,” Schaeffer clarified. “And Evan Peters is in Mare of Easttown, and I adore him. I think he’s a tremendous talent. So I love that show and everything in WandaVision and in Agatha All Along, whatever illusions, whatever pop culture pieces we’re bringing in, it’s out of love. So that’s what we were doing there.”