Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.
Agatha All Along finally won me over in its final three episodes, and not a moment too soon.
I watched Marvel‘s witchy show each Wednesday, hoping that I’ll become one of the diehard fans who breathlessly wrote about it on Threads. I never became one of those fans because, despite being interested in the storyline each week, I found something slightly off, whether that was a character decision or yet another moment to break out in The Witches’ Road anthem. Other fans seemed to fully understand the show in a way I wasn’t. What wasn’t I getting?
Finally, the series rewarded me and other likeminded fans with some answers. And those answers finally led to me seeing the entirety of what Agatha All Along wanted to do.
A circular tale
Part of the beauty of the series is that it is fully invested in creating a circular story. In fact, it has several circular stories nested into each other–Billy dying in the collapsing hex before finding a way to come back through William’s body; Lilia living and reliving her life and death, only to forget it again; Agatha replaying her Witches’ Road con over and over while also running from Death/Rio over and over.
Even the Road itself is a circle within a circle–the Road is a loop that brings the remaining witches back to the starting point, but within that, the Road is Billy’s own version of a hex, similar to the one his mother, The Scarlet Witch, created during WandaVision.
The idea of the circle can mean different things to different people. To me, the theme of circular conclusions in this series can be taken as the series investigating how even though people might change over time, they also don’t change at all, especially if they refuse to work through their own damage. Agatha, who was ousted by her original coven and condemmed by her mother continued living as a magical scavenger, even when other avenues–such as being a part of a proper coven with true sisterhood–were open to her. Even in death, she scavenges in a way by becoming partners with Billy, all so she doesn’t have to face her son, the one person she wished she could save.
Another meaning is how life itself is circular. Rio, who represents growth and decay, represents how cyclical the nature of life is–things are born, they grow, they die, and then they become fodder for new things to grow. Agatha’s con helped Rio keep the cycle going, which is why she loved her.
However, when it comes to staying stuck because of unrleased trauma, there is a way to get off the Road.
Owning your power
Perhaps Agatha’s fatal flaw is that, as much as she relishes in her power, she doesn’t really feel she has ownership or mastery over it. She can’t make her own power; she can only take from others to become powerful. She symbolizes what it can feel like when you are bragadocious to the world, but have terrible self-esteem–she’s constantly running from herself and instead wants to live in the lie she’s allowed people to believe about herself.
Agatha’s self-inflicted harm leads her to harm others, and not just through taking their power. She’s the epitome of “misery loves company.” No one can be happy around her or experience sisterhood without her trying to ruin it and siphon that energy for herself. This largely because she was never taught how to be in sisterhood with anyone. But she’s also someone who gets a kick out of seeing everyone as miserable as her. Feeling miserable is the only way she can relate to other emotions.
However, we see Agatha’s foil in Jennifer. They are opposites from the outset, with Jennifer and Agatha hating each other because of some centuries-old feud. But Jennifer is also the most realized out of all of the witches in the coven. She has a business, a flourishing social presence, and even with being bound, has made a name for herself. But she doesn’t reach her full potential until she faces her fear of being bound. She’s able to regain her powers and escape the Road with a new lease on life.
Facing your fears was a huge part of the Road’s trials, and everyone succeeded, including Agatha, whose biggest fear was dying. (Yes, she did become a ghost, but still…)
Jennifer’s biggest fear was finding out who put the binding spell on her, and when she finally found out it wasn’t some big bad doctor, she was both relieved and livid. Relieved because her binder wasn’t some centuries-old warlock who was more powerful than her. Livid because it was Agatha.
The meaning of sisterhood and feminism
Several viewers online found Jennifer’s unbinding ritual on Agatha to be a powerful social commentary on how sisterhood has historically meant different things to white and Black people.
I remember listening in on the first White Women for Harris Zoom call, and one of the guest speakers said something important that I as a Black woman only theorized about but didn’t have confirmation of. She said how white women don’t know how to be in sisterhood with each other because they have been primed to see each other as competition. She said she wanted to learn from Black women, particularly those who were a part of the group Win with Black Women, about how to be in communication and sisterhood with other women without turning things into a competition.
I think that sentiment makes Agatha a great allegory for white feminism as a whole. Agatha wants sisterhood, but her inability to have it was passed down from her mother and her original coven, who refused to embrace her for her differences. Agatha, in turn, took pleasure in busting up other covens who did have sisterhood. She doesn’t see her fellow witches as sisters in the craft, but as competition or, at worse, prey.
Marvel’s attempts at taking on race relations is hit or miss depending on the director, and Jac Schaffer does seem to skirt around some of the racial problems in early New England in the flashbacks to Agatha’s life. (I will not dive into a huge tirade about how even though there were free Black people, slavery was already a thing by 1750.) But, Schaffer succeeds at showing how Black women have had to reclaim certain powers and rights from white women by forcibly standing their ground. Remember that the Suffragettes initially weren’t fighting for Black women’s votes, and Black women had to fight for themselves. That’s just one instance of white women using their race and status to keep Black women down.
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Agatha embodies white feminism’s weaponization of race and class by admitting to Jennifer that even though she didn’t know it was her she was hired to put the binding spell on, she did it because women at that time (the ’20s or ’30s) were being silenced by men all over. She said it was “bind or be bound.” Again, Agatha shows no sisterhood, but she’s also showing no recognition of the racial differences that allowed her to be hired by (presumably) white men and why those white men wanted Jennifer, a Black woman, silenced. She’s victimizing a Black woman for her white lady gain.
Therefore, Jennifer’s cry of “You hold nothing!” has become a rally for Black women and femmes on the internet, reminding them that no one holds power over them. It’s a comforting statement that teaches we can take our power back at any time and nothing–some women’s learned pettiness or society’s racial tensions–can take it from them.
Final thoughts
I still don’t get certain elements of Agatha All Along, like how Alice’s mom’s version of The Witches’ Road served as a protection spell, or why we didn’t see more of Jen’s backstory. I also wish we could have seen Patti LuPone one last time.
However, the final three episodes helped me see what I was missing throughout the season, and of course, it was by design. We were supposed to be along for the ride, believing one thing until we’re sideswiped by the deeper truths at the heart of the characters. I’m interested in rewatching the series now that I have this knowledge. But for now, I can definitely say that Agatha All Along stuck the landing, paving the way for a very interesting potential second season.