“Agatha All Along” gave us a simply perfect season finale and sets the stage for more episodes to come

It would be almost impossible for me to rank my favorite Marvel TV shows on Disney+, but I can easily name my top three shows: WandaVision, Loki and now Agatha all the time. However, it would be impossible to just rank these three as they are all excellent in their own way. However, I will do my best to rate their finals. Spoilers follow.

First, I have to participate Loki, That hit the mark so hard that I still think about it sometimes. Loki's fate not only held the timelines together incredibly well (and was cleverly – almost miraculously – linked to the first). Captain America film), the rest of the characters also had such satisfying endings. The final scene of Mobius made me downright emotional.

Secondly, I'm going with you Agatha all the time. Overall I think WandaVision To me it might still be the winner, if only because it was so new at the time, but this show fizzled out in the end. Agatha all the time The best comes last. I'm honestly so impressed with how this show put everything together that I'm determined to go back and watch the whole thing again. The big twists revealed in the two-part season finale will shed a whole new light on the events that preceded it.

On the windy road

Of all things witchy there are three, and so we have three great revelations in Agatha all the time Final:

• First, after Agatha perishes in a major showdown with Death, we discover that Witch Street was Billy's creation. It was an accidental curse that he cast when the Seven of Salem attacked and the witches below were singing “The Witch's Road.” Everything that happened came from his own imagination and the various posters and memorabilia scattered around his room. Of course, Billy is devastated by the deaths this causes and shows genuine remorse. “I planned to kill them all in my basement,” Agatha insists (I’m paraphrasing). Nevertheless, Billy cast a spell that resulted in several deaths. Not even Wanda's Westview curse was that deadly.
• Second, we learn that the Witch Road was just an invention of Agatha's, part of a scam to trick witches into attacking her so she could absorb their magic. This was also their plan at the start of the show, but it was foiled by the emergence of a real magical road. It was also at this point that Agatha realized who Billy really was. “You’re so similar to your mother!” certainly has more resonance now. In a heartbreaking twist, we learn that the song itself was written by Agatha and her son Nicholas Scratch as they wandered together through the 18th century New England countryside. It was initially The windy road and was just The Way of the Witch when Agatha incorporated it into her witch-killing plans – something she involved her young son in, even though he had an aversion to killing. (We also learn why she named him Scratch, since she didn't use magic to create him but rather created him “completely from scratch.”)
• Eventually we learn that Agatha did not, in fact, trade Nicholas' life for the Darkhold spellbook. She begged Death, her lover, to spare him, but Death only promised more time. In the present, Billy – deeply shaken after finding a body to put his brother Tommy in – asks Agatha if he killed a boy to save his brother. “No,” answers Agatha. “Sometimes boys just die.” That's the hard truth she didn't want to tell anyone. Agatha would rather people believe that she traded her son's life for power than know how much she loved him. She would rather continue to play the monster than reveal any weak points. In the end, she can't keep the secret from Billy. He is too similar to her son.

This is all really great and the two-part format worked wonderfully. We discover the truth about Billy's curse at the end of Part 1 and then learn the true nature of the road in Part 2. Layers upon layers of revelations, all of which completely change our perspective on the earlier episodes, much like last week's episode revealed Lilia's true powers and how this changed the tone of what came before. WandaVisions Big reveals were better in some ways, but this series does an equally good job of refocusing the narrative, and I'm surprised they pulled it off so deftly again. I certainly didn't see any of this coming, although I had a much better idea of ​​what was to come WandaVision. (Still, Wanda has a hard time processing her grief in the face of sitcoms, and the “It was Agatha all along!” reveal was so great in that show, too.)

I'm also glad that Billy's quest revolved around his brother and not some big Wanda resurrection. This was always a red herring, and here it just works better to not have Wanda at all. There's such a thing as too many witches in the coven – at least that's what Agatha seems to think, having killed hundreds, if not more, of them over the years.

If I had to complain about anything, it would be the somewhat clumsy showdown between Agatha and Death. The “hit the deck” part went wrong. It would have been more effective if Lilia's prophetic words had not only given Agatha a timely evasive maneuver, but perhaps also helped her save Billy. It was also strange that Billy gave up on himself and then acted so surprised when Agatha said, “Yes, take him!” I didn't like that Billy asked her (by telepathy), “Is this how Nicholas died?” “ to make them sacrifice themselves. I would have preferred if she had given up on Billy without him offering himself, and if he had said so. Or, if he had given up on himself, let her reach this realization on her own and not with Billy's voice in her head. Maybe death could have said something about Nicholas.

Jennifer Kale's storyline also ended pretty quickly when she realized that it was Agatha who had tied her up in the first place, locking her powers while she freelanced for extra work. Why would Agatha bind her when she could steal her power like every other witch she encountered? That felt a little strange. I think Jennifer's death would have made more sense in the context of this story; There was really no reason to kill the other witches and let them live, at least from a story standpoint.

However, aside from these relatively minor issues, I really enjoyed this finale. It fundamentally enriched the series overall. This is exactly the opposite of WandaVision This was so great until the lackluster, overly Marvel ending. The payout was much better this time. Agatha's transformation into a ghost was also perfect, as she fulfills her comic role as a ghost mentor (although more for Billy than Wanda). And if the two of them work together – after he almost banished them – to find Tommy, that means we may have a third series on the (windy) way from creator Jac Schaeffer. Hopefully.

I know some people were hoping for more backstory on the relationship between Agatha and Death, but I think we're better off leaving that to our imaginations. Not everything needs to be explained.

Billy's belief in Agatha's goodness is touching, as is her line: “It's moments like this when you remind me so much of him.” It's almost as if she's been given another chance, another chance at redemption, although this time the son belongs to her former rival Wanda Maximoff. Whether she deserves this chance is another question.

My colleague Paul Tassi wasn't as impressed with the finale as I was. So if you're looking for a different perspective, read his review here.

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