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[COLUMN] Agatha All Along isn't Nearly Magical Enough | by Darren Mooney
🕑 Added 2024-09-20 14:00:13 +0000 UTC
Note: This piece contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Agatha All Along, now streaming on Disney+.
There is something at once absurd and appealing about the launch of Marvel Studios’ Agatha All Along this week, the latest streaming show set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the MCU).
On the surface, the premise of the series seems vaguely ridiculous. It is a nine-episode event show focusing on Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn). Agatha is, to put it bluntly, a minor character within the grand tapestry of comics history. She has never, for example, headlined her own title. Agatha’s most notable contribution to pop culture is that she served as the de facto villain of WandaVision, establishing her bad guy bona fides with a catchy jingle in the show’s antepenultimate episode.
While Deadpool and Wolverine was a massive commercial success, there is a faint sense that the modern superhero boom might be wearing itself out. Over the past two years, there have been a steady stream of superhero flops – Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Flash, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, Madame Web, The Crow. Whatever the reason, and allowing for exceptions, it’s very hard to dispute the reality of “superhero fatigue.”
A cynical observer might argue that there’s a sense of these companies and conglomerates scraping the bottom of the barrel. Do audiences really want a movie about Kraven the Hunter (Aaron Taylor Johnson)? Were fans clamoring for a show about Agatha Harkness? Allowing for the inevitable recycling of the Fantastic Four and X-Men franchises into the MCU, there is perhaps only so much material that can be mined before supply outstrips demand.
However, there is also something potentially interesting in this. After all, Agatha All Along is no less inherently unnecessary than other recent live action superhero-adjacent shows like Peacemaker and The Penguin. Both of those turned out to be delightful, pleasant surprises that demonstrated the perceived “necessity” of a given story is much less important than the skill with which it is told. It is nice to get into the corners of these superhero franchises, exploring new facets of the universe.
The low profile of its lead character, and the fact that Agatha is really only tangentially related to the overarching narrative of the gigantic shared universe, perhaps affords the show some liberties. Agatha is a supporting character from a show about another supporting character in the larger Avengers franchise. Writer and executive producer Jac Schaeffer, carrying over from WandaVision, presumably has much greater freedom with Agatha than she did with Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen).
Agatha All Along certainly has a unique angle. Like Loki, it is a villain-centric show and so has the potential to meaningfully interrogate some of the underlying assumptions of the shared universe. More than that, perfectly primed to lead into the Halloween season, Agatha All Along is a show about witchcraft and magic. Sure, Wanda was “the Scarlet Witch” in WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but Agatha All Along looks to get properly witchy.
Indeed, the most interesting aspects of the show are focused on this idea of witchcraft. Even the show’s closing credits offer something of a wry history of witches in popular culture, including ample material from parent studio Disney and its subsidiaries. The idea of witchcraft has long been used to brand and punish women who refuse to conform to societal norms, and Agatha All Along is the story of Agata as a disempowered woman travelling “the Witches’ Road” to reclaim her stolen magic.
As such, Agatha All Along is clearly constructed as a feminist parable. Central to the show is the tension between Agatha’s inherent self-interest and the necessity to construct “a Coven” of other witches to navigate the metaphysical realm. The show’s second episode, “Circle Sewn with Fate Unlock Thy Hidden Gate”, finds Agatha putting together a team to help her on her quest. In doing so, she assembles a group that transcends the witchy stereotype of “maiden, mother [and] crone.”
There is the potion master, Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), who has had her power taken from her and now works as a lifestyle coach selling “probiotic candles.” There is the diviner, Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), who hustles as a clairvoyant and longs to return to “the glory days.” There is former police officer Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), who serves as protection. There’s New Jersey suburbanite Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp), dragged into the Coven against her will.
Agatha herself is assisted by an anonymous gay teenager (Joe Locke), who serves as one of the show’s more infuriating mystery boxes. Having learnt nothing from WandaVision or the subsequent streaming shows, Agatha All Along refuses to even reveal the name of the character who is functionally the series’ second lead. Still, the inclusion of a male teenager in the witches’ coven speaks to this idea of diversity and inclusion, the idea that this group is in it all together.
This is an interesting premise in a number of ways. Within the specific context of the MCU, placing Agatha in a situation where her desire to acquire vast amounts of power is dependent on her accepting her role within a larger community is a nice interrogation of the franchise’s tendency to lean into rugged individualist power fantasies. More broadly, it’s a nice metaphor for intersectionality, women fighting back against the erosion of their rights by sticking together.
It's also interesting to see a Marvel production squarely focused on the idea of magic and mysticism. Much has been made of how “faithful” the MCU is to the comics, but the franchise has always been a little uncomfortable delving into the mystic arts. This is perhaps because the franchise is worried about how mainstream audiences would react to more abstract or metaphorical ideas, concepts that can’t be “grounded”, to use a criticism that is rarely applied but generally applicable to the MCU.
This is most obvious with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and the Asgardians. In the comics, these characters are literal gods – “living stories, creatures of pure symbol and metaphor.” However, those ideas might unsettle some viewers, so the Thor franchise adopts the most generic framing of the concept. The Asgardians are ultimately just aliens, with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) even referencing Arthur C. Clarke by asserting that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
The shared universe gestured again towards magic with Doctor Strange, a character (Benedict Cumberbatch) literally branded as “master of the mystic arts.” However, in the character’s first movie, such mysticism seemed to consist largely of science-fiction tropes, opening portals like those from Portal and folding space like in Inception. These sorcerers primarily concerned themselves with “temporal manipulations”, “unstable dimensional openings”, “spatial paradoxes” and “time loops.”
Sam Raimi did a much better job capturing the sense of magic as something uncanny in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but even that movie was built on a familiar science-fiction premise as the characters hopped between a number of alternate dimensions. It really does feel like the MCU is afraid of embracing the idea of magic and mysticism, instead preferring to use these elements as a framework for more pseudo-rational concepts like space travel and the multiverse.
This is a real shame, because magic is central to mainstream superhero comics, particularly over the past forty years or so. This trend was largely driven by writers who arrived as part of the British Invasion. Alan Moore has declared himself “a ceremonial magician.” Grant Morrison famously invited readers to participate in a magic ritual to save their run on The Invisibles. Neil Gaiman has talked about his frustration with Hollywood’s need to “explain the rules” of magic rather than accepting that magic is about irrationality.
Many of the best comics about magic have come from British writers: Moore, Gaiman, Morrison, Delano, Ennis, Spurrier. Even in terms of Marvel continuity, British writers like Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing have written stories about magic in comics like Journey Into Mystery, Loki: Agent of Asgard, Immortal X-Men and more. Magic is ultimately just the act of storytelling. It is the ability to take a word or an idea and impose it upon reality through sheer will, to make something impossible real. It’s unsettling because it doesn’t adhere to pseudo-scientific and pseudo-rational principles.
As such, it’s exciting to see Agatha All Along leans so hard and so heavily into the idea of magic and the occult. It’s also deeply frustrating that the show lacks any real commitment or confidence. Once again, magic is just technobabble. It is a series of rules articulated at length and in great detail. There is a precise distance in which a Coven can be formed. There is precise elemental mapping that a Coven must have to journey to the Witches’ Road. Characters spout clumsy exposition like “earth magic is arguably the most important skillset for an attempt at the road.”
It's a shame, because there are moments when it seems like Agatha All Along might become truly magical. The show features a couple of genuinely impressive original compositions from Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, including The Ballad of the Witches’ Road. It is weird, original, haunting, and unlike anything else in the MCU. It’s a beautiful harmony that builds to a powerful crescendo. There is a sense that the production might actually be taking this seriously.
And then, in true Marvel Studios fashion, that moment is immediately undercut by a joke designed to appease any potential audience member who might think that this is “silly” or goofy.” The show’s designated comic relief, Sharon Davis, interrupts the harmony to ask, “Am I supposed to know this song?” There’s another comic beat a few moments later, as Westview resident John Collins (David Payton) notes a spectral arrival on the street, deadpanning, “Are you seeing this?”
It's a shame, as there is a good reason to build a streaming show around a marginal character like Agatha Harkness. Agatha All Along could be a window into a version of the MCU that has yet to be explored. It could approach the MCU from a fresh and exciting angle, embracing the magic and mysticism familiar to comic readers. Instead, the show forces these new ideas to conform to a familiar template. It doesn't matter what shape the peg is if the hole is round.
Every time the magic seems to be building, Agatha All Along can’t resist breaking the spell.
Comments
Tim Wilson
I've started to get passingly into Marvel comics in the past few weeks with my other exposure being the movies and some games but I was really struck by how big a part magic and theology plays in it. But ~I don't think it's ever going to be something the MCU dares lean into. Can you imagine if Drs Strange and Doom teamed up to save his mother's soul on screen from the literal devil? Or the Hulk fighting the One Below All, or the One Above All aids the Avengers? They'd be too scared of the Christian Right reacting, and I think it's that same fear and inability to trust the audience that stops them really delving deep into magic. It's what made The Sandman wonderfully surreal and unique by comparison, a show that just said 'Yep, this has happened because of magic, keep up or leave, just roll with it.' It wasn't the easiest watch but when done well it's captivating.
Darren Mooney
I think the only Pratchett book I've read was "Good Omens." And that was decades ago. Liked it, though.
Darren Mooney
I think the problem, then, is that I'd need to consult a rule book while watching. (Indeed, there is something video-game-y about the logic of the show that becomes clearer in later episodes. And I don't mean that as an insult, but I do also think those mechanics are easier to understand for a player than a viewer, if that makes cense?)
Darren Mooney
Not a bad hook!
JR
Sounds like a good time to read/listen to some of Terry Pratchett's witches books again. They are, in my eyes, essential reading for anyone who wants to use and confront witch stereotypes at the same time in order to tell any kind of parable about real people. In fact, one could argue that they do a lot of what Agatha All Along seems to be doing as well in a different "shared universe"... (And, wonderfully, they do so much more. God, I wish, Terry Pratchett was still here to put our recent times' struggles into stories with as much heart as he always did his.)
Moff Muppet
I think you could pull off the whole "magic is just science fiction"-thing... but then you'd have to really lean into it. Make it work like an actual science, with defined laws and stuff. "No Agatha, you can't just mix earth magic and fire magic. According to Merlin's third principle you need a conduit to readjust their wavelengths first."
Jack Philipson
The price of breaking the rules in Witch Hat is purely social and societal which is a really interesting route to go down. Witches can do basically anything but have to give incredible consideration to how they use magic and for whom. The world has previously been harmed by the rampant misuse of magic and the recurrence of this is rightly feared. The rule most important to the story is that magic must never be directly used on the human body, and the harm that occurs through both adhering to the rule and by breaking it is given a lot of prominence. There's a great little incidental moment where someone using magic for voyeurism is directly equated to someone using it to modify a person, because they are both forms of violation, and that is what the rules are there to prevent.
Darren Mooney
Yep. I find magic is a metaphor, and it works best for me when its logic is poetic rather than literal. The idea that comes up frequently in stories about magic that every magic trick has a cost, and that cost isn’t necessarily one you get to determine when you use it. So using it gets you what you think you want, but comes with the expectation that you lose just as much - literally or metaphorically. I quite like, say, Hickman writing Doctor Strange bartering his soul for more magic power. And how that isn’t a price you immediately pay like losing health points, but ends up leading Strange and his colleagues down dark paths to unforgivable places, because he absolutely felt that he needed to power.
Jack Philipson
On the subject of how magic is presented, this year I read and fell in love with the first twelve volumes of Kamome Shirahama's manga Witch Hat Atelier which I think really gets magic right. (Among many other things) There are a few, simple, comprehensible inherent facts about *how* magic is performed, but there is very little apparent limit to what it can actually achieve when put into practice, and the *why* is the stuff of myth. What really works is that there are many socially imposed rules about magic which are not simply abstract or maliciously imposed taboos set to get in the characters' way, but principles that have a clear, logical intent to prevent abuse behind them. Shirahama doesn't shy away from showing the horrific effects of magic applied with malignant intent, but this is carefully balanced against showing how delightful it is to be able to make the impossible possible. The way it includes darkness in general without losing a fundamental sense of warmth is in general very impressive. (There's a promising looking anime adaptation coming out next year so now is a great time to invest some time into this one) I'm also reminded of the rather good BBC version of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell from 2015, which was delightfully weird and used magic as a vehicle to examine ideas about Englishness and masculinity and academic conflict.
Shannon Vanshoon
Definitely an interesting article, especially on a show that I frankly had no interest in watching anyway... given that I was probably one of the few people who tried WandaVision, but never got into it. (Seriously, you have Debra Lou Repp; how do you make a sitcom with her NOT FUNNY?) Anyway, that's actually something else that's bugged me about the MCU and its apparent absolute phobia regarding anything 'magic'-based. The whole deal with Thor and Asgard was definitely something I noticed, and Doctor Strange and its use of 'tesseracts' in terms of how it worked also bugged me. I would also mention the whole duel between Strange and Spider-Man, with Parker exclaiming, 'Wait, I get it; it's all math!' I almost wanted to throw something at the damn TV at that line. Granted, Multiverse of Madness at least started to go in a good direction on that... but frankly it was all brought down by Wanda's entire story-arc. Not that it wasn't an indictment of how the MCO has treated its female superheros in general (Black Widow, for example).
Darren Mooney
I don't know if I agree with that. I think the cost is completely manufactured. I think jokes are good. I like jokes. I think they work well when they are funny, and don't feel like they come from a place of insecurity. I think of the movies of the eighties, which were often very funny, but were very rarely about characters staring down the camera and reassuring the audience that they are absolutely in on the joke. In "Beverly Hills Cop", Axel isn't constantly joking about how unlikely it is that the bullets keep missing him, for example. (The Christopher Nolan "Batman" and Matt Reeves' "The Batman" movies are quite good at that - the Penguin correcting Batman and Gordon's Spanish is lovely, as is the Joker, say, deadpanning "... yes" to "... you think you can just steal from us and walk away?" Those are moments that are funny without having to go, "Don't you think it's silly that the premise of this movie is happening? We do too!")
Matt A
I don't know
Matt A
Counterpoint. I view the jokes as the cost to have the rest. A cost I would rather not pay but will if I have to. I get the sense from previous productions that the executives would really have preferred not to give any money to this project. So maybe there were concessions to be made to get it made at all. And WandaVision being the success it was gives a little more freedom
