“Agatha All Alongside embraces the identical clunky writing tendencies as so many different MCU exhibits and flicks, however it’s buoyed by its gifted ensemble forged and Kathryn Hahn’s terrific lead efficiency.”
Execs
- Kathryn Hahn’s astonishing star flip
- A likable forged of supporting characters
- A delightfully spooky sense of enjoyable
Cons
- A number of pressured exposition dumps all through its midseason episodes
- A doubtlessly repetitive episodic construction
- A drained, tonally out-of-place give attention to overcoming emotional trauma
As soon as upon a time, the tv facet of the Marvel Cinematic Universe appeared shiny, new, and surprisingly promising. That point looks as if a distant reminiscence now — regardless that it was solely three years in the past. In early 2021, WandaVision ended the MCU’s pandemic-enforced yearlong break and ushered in what appeared like a brand new period for the multimedia franchise. A cross between a character-driven superhero story and a love letter to tv historical past, WandaVision actually wasn’t like anything that Marvel Studios had made earlier than. Equal elements humorous, tragic, and form-breaking, the sequence inspired theory-crafting and saved viewers entertained on a week-to-week foundation, all whereas spotlighting a efficiency from Elizabeth Olsen that felt spell-binding and genuinely revelatory.
For a short interval, WandaVision made the MCU’s future appear brighter than ever. That promise hasn’t simply dimmed since then however altogether burnt out. It’s nonetheless admirable to observe Marvel’s newest TV providing, Agatha All Along, attempt to rekindle it. Throughout its first 4 episodes, the WandaVision spinoff does its finest to each name again to the previous and carve a brand new path ahead for itself and its witchy characters. Whereas the sequence reminds one in its finest moments of WandaVision‘s intelligent, tongue-in-cheek sense of formal enjoyable, although, it can also’t escape most of the flaws which have dragged down different current MCU efforts. It’s an odd mixture of outdated and new, full of life and clunky, and it’s saved afloat by a gaggle of actors who — in an more and more uncommon incidence for the MCU — really appear to be they wish to be right here.
In what needs to be one of the crucial playful and financial bits of MCU storytelling in years, Agatha All Alongside spends its opening minutes concurrently answering fan questions, cracking jokes, and creating clear threads between it, WandaVision, and 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This prolonged prologue, the small print of that are finest left unspoiled, sees WandaVision and Agatha creator Jac Schaeffer working at a stage of confidence as a author that feels instantly refreshing. Not like the cockiness of Deadpool & Wolverine, which is used to cowl up among the most inelegant storytelling within the MCU’s historical past, Agatha All Alongside‘s confidence is usually earned, too. This can be a sequence that — even when it’s contorting itself to seem like one other — is aware of precisely what it’s.
There are lengthy (excuse the pun) spells in Agatha All Alongside‘s first two episodes by which it appears content material to let itself and its lead, Agatha Harkness (a commanding Kathryn Hahn), have as a lot enjoyable as doable. The sense of narrative area in these sections has grow to be exhausting to search out within the MCU, and so Agatha All Alongside feels, at first, like a much-needed change of tempo for its franchise. Issues get uneven and a bit wonky, nonetheless, as soon as the sequence is pressured to desert its preliminary, laidback cool in favor of extra on-the-nose plotting and MCU-flavored motion. It isn’t lengthy earlier than Hahn’s Agatha has awoken from the spell that Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff trapped her in on the finish of WandaVision. When she does, she’s horrified to find that her magical powers are gone. Sadly for Agatha, that leaves her weak to the vengeance of all of her many witchy enemies.
With nowhere else to show, Agatha is pressured to stroll the legendarily harmful Witches’ Street to attempt to get her powers again. So as to take action, she should assemble a coven of equally determined witches to stroll the Street together with her. These kooky eccentrics become Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), a divination witch who has grown uninterested in making pennies studying different folks’s fortunes; Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), a sorceress and potions grasp who misplaced entry to her powers years in the past; Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), a burnout “protector witch” who’s haunted by the dying of her magical witch mom; Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), a harmful witch who shares a shady historical past with Agatha; and Sharon Davis (returning WandaVision star Debra Jo Rupp), a traditional human lady dwelling in Westview whom Agatha coerces into strolling the Witches’ Street together with her. A mysterious, magic-obsessed goth drifter recognized solely as “Teen” (Joe Locke) additionally convinces Agatha to let him tag alongside for the experience.
On the finish of the Witches’ Street lies a effectively of wish-fulling energy that Agatha and the members of her coven will be capable to divide up. That’s, in fact, if they’ll survive the trials that lie between them and their prize. These exams are custom-fitted for every coven member, and so they require them to beat — by typically zany means — the traumas of their previous. Stylistically, these pit stops give Agatha All Alongside an opportunity to alter its look each episode and give attention to a distinct member of its supporting forged. In addition they require Schaeffer and her writers to do plenty of telling as a substitute of displaying, which leads to in any other case endearingly humorous characters like Ahn’s Alice and Zamata’s Jennifer explaining the small print of their backstories — typically whereas we’re additionally seeing them visualized onscreen.
Agatha All Alongside‘s trials, subsequently, really feel clunkier than the remainder of the present. They pressure it to steadily go away its Witches’ Street set behind as effectively, which is fantastically rendered by the sequence’ manufacturing workforce and fits Agatha All Alongside‘s spooky story higher than any of the Street’s supernaturally conjured prisons. These detours are, frankly, much less enjoyable than all the pieces else Agatha All Alongside has to supply. The sequence works higher when it’s letting its actors joke, wander, and — in sure situations — sing collectively. Its writing and characterizations are crafted at an over-the-top pitch that completely fits actors like Ahn, Zamata, Plaza, LuPone, and Hahn.
Zamata and LuPone, particularly, show to be formidable scene stealers over the course of Agatha All Alongside‘s first 4 episodes, and their introductions provoke among the sequence’ greatest laughs. They’re the standouts in what is without doubt one of the finest supporting casts in current MCU historical past. That stated, Agatha All Alongside is primarily held collectively by Hahn, who manages to show a Marvel-produced superhero present into yet one more well-deserved showcase of her many skills. The actress simply slides again into her WandaVision function — leaning once more into Agatha’s theatrical villainy whereas additionally giving her extra emotional depth than her final TV sequence was prepared to supply.
As Agatha, Hahn is believably fierce and but tender, maniacal and endearing. The actress’ comedic abilities have seemingly solely sharped through the years, and even when she’s sharing the display screen with a succesful performer like LuPone, Hahn by no means enables you to doubt who the highlight belongs to in Agatha All Alongside. Its lackluster motion and stretches of pressured, in-your-face exposition steadily drag the sequence down, and it lacks — maybe a bit inevitably — each the magnificence and freshness of its guardian present. The largest factor Agatha All Alongside in the end has in frequent with WandaVision is that its biggest power isn’t its welcome humorousness or ever-evolving type, however its central efficiency.
Like Olsen earlier than her, Hahn has taken an costly addition to an already unwieldy franchise and made it her personal. That’s a magic trick price celebrating — even when Agatha All Alongside steadily struggles to stay as much as its star’s greatness.
The primary two episodes of Agatha All Alongside are streaming now on Disney+. New episodes premiere weekly on Wednesdays. Digital Tendencies was given early entry to the sequence’ first 4 installments.
