At the end of WandaVision, while Agatha Harkness had clearly become a fan-favorite character there was one thing about the duplicitous witch that was without question: she’s not exactly the good guy. Sure, Wanda had the residents of Westview trapped in her hex, but Agatha was no innocent, having sent a fake Pietro into Wanda’s life, killed Sparky, and even tried to take Wanda’s magic and powers for herself. Agatha’s status as not exactly being a witch’s witch was made even more clear when we got to Agatha All Along, given the way the other witches reacted to her and alluded to her past devious acts. But while it’s clear that Agatha has a less than positive reputation and has done some questionable things, four episodes into Disney+’s Agatha All Along we’re starting to see a different side of the witch, one that calls into question what exactly she’s done in her past and how it may impact her now. These subtle revelations beg the question: is Agatha All Along a redemption story for its titular witch?
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From the very first episode, Agatha All Along begins to paint a slightly more sympathetic picture of Agatha. While still under Wanda’s spell, we start to see Agatha as human. There’s a moment in the premiere where she looks sadly at a child’s bedroom, suggesting that she’s suffered some sort of loss of a child. The idea of losing a child is brought up again in the third episode when Jennifer Kale cautions Teen not to trust Agatha because the witch had previously traded her child for the Darkhold and we later see Agatha hallucinate a crib but, instead of a baby in it, it’s the Darkhold. It’s something that unsettles Agatha and we get a further glimpse of her pain.
It’s the fourth episode, however, where we get a deeper idea that perhaps Agatha isn’t the villain we’ve come to think of her as. When the second trial results in Teen being gravely injured and his life at risk, Teen’s situation clearly distresses Agatha who is shown to have a growing bond with the young man. We also are told that there is a complicated history with Agatha and Rio, including that they had once had a relationship that was fractured over something that Rio had to do. And when Rio tells Agatha that Teen is not, in fact, her long lost son, we see that have an emotional impact on Agatha.
All of these elements come together to paint a more detailed picture of Agatha than what we’ve seen before, but they also are starting to show her as a woman with feelings whose motivations for wanting her power back — and for wanting to take Wanda’s power in the first place — could have come from her own place of grief. It’s not impossible that the reason Agatha wanted to take Wanda’s power at the end of WandaVision not to simply be powerful but to use chaos magic to bring back her child. If that is the motivation, it’s one that is similar to Wanda’s motivations in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s also, while not misguided, not unsympathetic – a mother’s grief and need to do absolutely anything for her child is powerful. However, much like the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness saw Wanda realize the error of her ways and thus destroy the Darkhold whilst sacrificing herself in the process, Agatha All Along could be setting Agatha up for a similar redemption.
Because we don’t know the real reason Agatha is on the road — and it is possible she never wanted to walk the road in the first place since she was planning to just take the powers of the other witches she assembled for her “coven” — as the journey down the Witches’ Road continues and we get further into the trials, it is possible that we will see more and more moments in which Agatha’s humanity will be revealed. Each trial is an opportunity for the show to reveal more about Agatha and potentially put her in positions where she will make choices that are less self-centric and more for a larger good. The end result could lead us to a place where the witch everyone loves to hate ends up being a witch that earns genuine respect – and may come out the other side very different than when we embarked on this journey with her.
If Agatha All Along is ultimately a redemption story for Agatha Harkness, it is something that would be very much in keeping with stories not only in comics writ large, but in the MCU as well. Many of the characters in the MCU have had, to varying degrees, redemption arcs where we’ve seen them go from either very flawed characters to genuine heroes or outright antagonists who have become something more. Giving Agatha a redemption story would also leave the door open for the character to have a larger role in the MCU going forward as well. There’s simply a lot more one can do with a character when they aren’t just a villain. Whatever the case, the deeper we get into Agatha All Along, the more we learn and while there is a great many mysteries remaining one thing is for certain: it’s interesting to see where the road leads.
Agatha All Along is now streaming on Disney+ with new episodes arriving Wednesdays.
