What You Need to Know Before Watching ‘Agatha All Along’
In the black-and-white premiere of WandaVision, the first person to visit Wanda and Vision’s dream home in Westview, New Jersey, is their “nosy neighbor,” Agnes. As the series continues and the mystery beneath the world’s sitcom sheen is uncovered, Agnes reveals her true name: Agatha Harkness.
In the seventh episode of WandaVision, Harkness is unveiled as the show’s true villain. She even gets a catchy jingle to mark the occasion. And that song was catchy enough—and the series so successful—that its name now serves as the (actual) title of WandaVision’s new spinoff: Agatha All Along.
On Wednesday, Agatha All Along debuts on Disney+ to become just the second MCU TV show to sprout from another MCU TV show, after Echo was released as a follow-up to Hawkeye in January. Much like its predecessor, the new limited series will open with a two-episode premiere before settling into a weekly release format for the remainder of its nine-episode run. With WandaVision head writer Jac Schaeffer returning as showrunner and Kathryn Hahn reprising her character for what is now the lead role, Marvel Studios hopes to re-create the magic of its first TV show. Given the recent struggles the studio has faced with its streaming titles in particular, this may prove to be a challenging task.
WandaVision concluded over three years ago, and Agatha hasn’t been seen or mentioned in the MCU since. Ahead of her return in Agatha All Along, here’s a refresher on where her story left off at the end of WandaVision, along with everything else you need to know before diving into the new series.
Previously on … WandaVision
The penultimate episode of WandaVision begins with a mini origin story for Agatha Harkness. “Previously On” opens in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1693, during the infamous Salem witch trials. Agatha is being put on trial, not by paranoid humans, but by her peers: her coven of witches. With her own mother leading the way, Agatha is accused of stealing knowledge above her age and station and, more importantly, practicing dark magic. Although Agatha pleads innocence, her coven turns on her, and Agatha responds by draining them of all their power, killing them in the process.
As Agatha explains to Wanda in the present day, the centuries-old witch played the role of Wanda’s innocuous “nosy neighbor” in Westview to understand how she created such an elaborate tapestry of spells in this unsuspecting New Jersey town. Unlike all the captive Westview residents who were forced into Wanda’s world, Harkness put up with the former Avenger’s sitcom fantasy as she worked through her grief after Vision’s death in Avengers: Infinity War, manipulating her all the while as she waited for Wanda to reveal her secrets. When her patience finally wore out, Agatha forced them out of her, taking a trip down memory lane through some of the defining moments of Wanda’s life: the day Wanda’s parents were killed in Sokovia and she unwittingly used her magic to save herself and her brother; when the Mind Stone amplified her powers while she was being held captive by HYDRA; that time that love persevered, as Wanda fell for Vision; and the day she discovered Vision’s corpse being stripped for parts by S.W.O.R.D., before she unleashed her grief—and her chaos magic—to create a new life in Westview.
Once Agatha discovers that Westview is a product of reality-altering chaos magic, she realizes what Wanda truly is: the Scarlet Witch. As Agatha explains, more than just a nifty nickname, the lofty title describes a mythical being who is capable of spontaneous creation—except Wanda is no myth, just a dangerous witch who could have benefited from a lot of therapy. (The last living Avengers really dropped the ball on this one, too. Like, they really just let one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse ride around in her Buick and never considered what she’d do by herself in a post-Endgame world?) And so Agatha decides to steal Wanda’s absurd wealth of power—and untapped potential—for herself.
Of course, it doesn’t work out that way for Harkness, even with her centuries of witchcraft knowledge and experience. In the flashy (and rather uneven) MCU spectacle that was the show’s series finale, Agatha and Wanda duke it out in Westview, and the Scarlet Witch comes out on top by turning one of Harkness’s lessons on runes against her. Agatha’s powers are absorbed by Wanda, just as she once absorbed the life out of her entire coven, and Wanda leaves her with a fitting final gift: a distortion spell that puts Agatha back into her old role as Agnes.
Before Agatha fully embraces her Westview persona, she warns Wanda about the danger she’s unleashed by fully transforming into the Scarlet Witch. After their battle, Wanda borrows the Darkhold—the ominous “Book of the Damned”—from Agatha to find a way to use dark magic to save her sons, who both disappeared with the rest of Westview when Wanda finally lifted the hex that had been placed over the town and its residents.
That narrative thread continues in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness; Wanda’s use of the Darkhold sets her on a villainous path as she tries to reunite with her children. By the end of the film, the Scarlet Witch finally manages to find her children in an alternate dimension, but they aren’t really her boys: They belong to another version of herself in the multiverse. Reuniting with them would’ve required robbing them of their true mother. And so she tears down Mount Wundagore, the source of the Darkhold’s power, and destroys every version of the Darkhold across the multiverse. But in doing so, the Scarlet Witch seemingly dies under the rubble of the mountain. (Of course, by not showing her actual corpse, Marvel leaves the door open for her return.)
Heading into Agatha All Along, Agatha’s captor appears to be gone, and the Darkhold with her. But the now-powerless witch still remains in Westview under Wanda’s spell, trapped in the same kind of illusory world that she once held the grieving Maximoff in.
The Return of Agatha Harkness
As the first teaser for Agatha All Along suggests, the show begins with Agatha believing herself to be a detective in Westview, living within a crime procedural or murder mystery, just as Wanda once lived in a sitcom. The clip even shows another one of Wanda’s Westview neighbors, Herb (David Payton), playing a new role as a detective alongside her as they investigate a murder. And the victim of the crime is none other than Wanda Maximoff herself. But Detective Agatha can tell that something isn’t quite right with this case or the world that she’s living in.
“Is this really how you see yourself?” Rio (Aubrey Plaza), a warrior witch, asks Agatha. “That witch is gone, leaving you trapped in her distorted spell. Claw your way out.”
Agatha’s official logline teases that Harkness is “down and out of power after a suspicious goth Teen helps break her free from a distorted spell.” They form a coven that features another familiar face from WandaVision—Debra Jo Rupp’s Sharon Davis, who appeared as Mrs. Hart in the pilot—along with new characters to the MCU, including Plaza’s Rio, Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), and others. In addition to Payton and Rupp, Agatha will include several other returning Westview residents: Emma Caulfield Ford’s Dottie, David Lengel’s Phil, Asif Ali’s Norm, and Amos Glick’s Dennis.
After Marvel initially billed Hahn’s Harkness as simply the “nosy neighbor” for WandaVision, it seems as if the studio is doubling down with the discreet approach for this so-called “suspicious goth Teen,” who’s portrayed by Joe Locke. Setting aside the incredibly silly descriptor, the true identity of this teen is already generating speculation among Marvel fans online. The most popular theory is that he’s Billy Kaplan, whose comics history is so convoluted that it required an entire primer of its own back when I was covering WandaVision, but it boils down to him having the soul of Wanda’s son. Given the actor’s resemblance to the character, Billy’s natural ties to WandaVision, and the fact that he becomes the magic-wielding Wiccan in the comics, it would be more surprising if he’s anyone other than Billy. WandaVision may be over, but its spirit of mystery remains: Mephisto theories are alive and well.
Together, Agatha and her coven will embark down the Witches’ Road, which is described by Marvel as “a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing.” The road was first introduced in James Robinson’s Scarlet Witch (2015) nos. 1-15, published as part of Marvel Comics’ All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch. The series features Wanda Maximoff and the ghost of Agatha Harkness traveling the Witches’ Road to investigate the source of what’s corrupting witchcraft around the world. Although the context of the upcoming Disney+ series is very (all?) different, it seems likely that Agatha will be using it as a source of inspiration.
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With Schaeffer leading the new series, and even directing several episodes this time around, Agatha looks to build on much of what worked so well in WandaVision. Although director Matt Shakman is a notable exception, many of the cast and crew are returning alongside Schaeffer. And just as WandaVision incorporated horror into a TV show that was part sitcom and part MCU spectacle, Agatha may also be blending genres—particularly horror and comedy—as it weaves a new tale around a new titular witch. (Based on the show’s trailers, it’s hard to tell how scary the series is attempting to be, despite targeting its release around the Halloween season.) Without Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany’s Vision to anchor the cast, it remains to be seen how invested audiences will be in watching this new story unfold.
As much as Agatha All Along will serve as an extension of WandaVision, Schaeffer has emphasized that the new series belongs to Agatha, not the Scarlet Witch. “Agatha is not a character who’s going to stand in anyone’s shadow,” Schaeffer recently told Entertainment Weekly. “This is emphatically an Agatha Harkness show. However, we are in the WandaVision corner of the universe, so Wanda’s legacy has threads in this narrative.”
The WandaVision Trilogy
Aside from Loki, which concluded its second and likely final season last fall, Marvel Studios has historically limited its live-action TV shows to single seasons. But with WandaVision, which was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards in 2021, the studio is taking a slightly different approach. Although the show featured only one season, Agatha All Along is the first of two expected WandaVision spinoffs, with Vision Quest anticipated to arrive sometime in 2026, forming something of an anthology-style trilogy.
While details on Vision Quest are sparse, there have been some significant updates on the upcoming spinoff in recent months. The project was originally reported to feature Schaeffer again as head writer, with Bettany returning as Vision in a comics-inspired story that would likely focus on the synthezoid after he was rebuilt as White Vision near the end of WandaVision. But with Schaeffer busy working on Agatha All Along, Star Trek: Picard executive producer Terry Matalas is stepping in to replace her as showrunner for Vision Quest. Additionally, Emmy-winning actor James Spader, who portrayed Ultron in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, was announced to be reprising his role for Vision Quest in late August, reuniting the villain with Vision after being an integral part of his and Wanda’s introductions to the MCU.
Even though Schaeffer will relinquish her showrunning duties to Matalas for Vision Quest, Marvel TV head Brad Winderbaum says that the series will still strive to continue what Schaeffer started with WandaVision.
“[Matalas] and Jac have talked, and that show is really a love letter to everything that Jac built before and also continues on in a way that’s unique to that filmmaker,” Winderbaum told Entertainment Weekly. “There is a long tradition in Marvel, whether it was Shane Black taking the baton from [Iron Man and Iron Man 2 director] Jon Favreau for Iron Man 3, or the Russos taking the baton [from Joss Whedon] in Avengers. Just like the comics, these franchises benefit from different storytellers, different artists playing with the material in new ways.”
Vision Quest still has a long way to go before following Agatha All Along as the third part of this unofficial WandaVision trilogy, and there’s no telling what will happen with it given all of the change happening behind the scenes at the studio and the number of MCU shows expected before then. In 2023, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Marvel Television was revamping its production process to adhere to the traditional TV-making model after projects experienced creative issues and diminishing returns in streaming numbers and critical acclaim. But with Marvel hiring a showrunner for Vision Quest—a traditional TV title that previous MCU series eschewed, using film executives to run them instead—and the studio looking to stick with creatives like Schaeffer for multiple seasons, it seems as if it’s actually following through with that creative decision.
Before Vision Quest arrives in 2026 to continue Vision’s story, Agatha All Along will further establish witchcraft in the MCU (something that didn’t really exist in it until WandaVision). “I feel really lucky to have been given the task of defining witchcraft in the MCU,” Schaeffer said in the same EW piece. “That was the thing: Wanda’s the Scarlet Witch, but she kind of knows nothing about witchcraft. So then to go to the show and be like, ‘Here’s where we define it for you,’ it was a real honor. As a fan, I am very hopeful that is the jumping off point that we will get to see more, which is more magic and more of the Westview community and this corner of the MCU in other properties.”
A lot is changing at Marvel Television right now, and the success of Agatha All Along will likely influence how the studio continues to recalibrate its TV approach. There could be more anthology-style series in the image of this impending WandaVision trilogy, or traditional multi-season runs like Loki, in the years to come. Schaeffer already helped lead one of Marvel’s most-watched and critically acclaimed series to date. Over the next eight weeks, we’ll see if she—and Hahn in a bigger role—can do it again.
