Patti LuPone in Agatha All Along is Marvel's finest acting performance

When Marvel ManiaWhen the exhausting, suffocating power grab that has defined much of the last decade of entertainment began, I don't think anyone would have predicted that the best performance we would get in an MCU television series would come from it Patti LuPone. It might have even seemed absurd that the Broadway legend, who is known to set high standards for the work he selects, would even be involved in such a project.

But here we are in the days that followed Agatha all the time aired the great “Death's Hand in Mine” and was still amazed by her masterful performance in this episode.

Agatha all the time is, in my opinion, the 23rd MCU television series. (Give me at least five minutes to shelter before bombarding me with “Well, actually!” emails.) The range of quality in these shows is as wide as… The Hulk's shoulder span? (Look, I'm not a full Marvel person. I'm trying here.) But there's no denying that these shows have produced excellent actors, work that is often dismissed based on genre – a practice I hate!

The particular subset of what is now WandaVision-Verse, which spin-off Agatha all the time is now part of and has featured some of Marvel's best performances. Definitely Elisabeth Olsen and Kathryn Hahn, whose performance was so surprising, deliciously wild and incredibly funny Agatha all the time was originally built around it.

Still, I love that in this universe of hugely popular superheroes and A-list movie stars leading their own shows, it's a supporting role from Patti LuPone as a tarot card-reading witch that people consider to be the best MCU television performance yet is referred to. Give Patti LuPone the Emmy nod, people! (Shockingly and unfairly, it would be her first! A world where Patti LuPone doesn't have Emmy nominations is not a world I want to live in! What is grief?but love is impossible to ever achieve again because Patti doesn't have a nomination?!)

(Update: I was reminded that LuPone is nominated for Guest Actress Frasier. She didn't win, so if you follow this awkward clue WandaVision Quote: The grief continues.)

The best episode of the season focuses on LuPone's character Lilia and reveals her backstory.

The episode jumps back and forth in time, fitting for an episode about a witch with a talent for seeing the future. Sometimes we accompany her as she learned her craft centuries ago. Sometimes we remember the confused state of mind that existed just seconds before.

Although she has just been betrayed by Teen (Joe Locke), her unfolding kaleidoscope of memories points her to her calling: to move on to the next trial, help Teen and Agatha, and bring Jen (Sasheer Zamata) along to reunite the two Circle.

The patchwork of flashbacks serves to understand her erratic behavior, dismissed as just another crazy divination witch. But it also serves to fully understand who Lilia is, a witch who wasn't sure what her life meant or could mean because it was always presented to her in disorder. LuPone is fantastic in these scenes, mourning a life that may have seemed pointless and overwhelmed when she finally realizes what that purpose is.

As she reads the tarot card that will save the witches and enable them to continue on the witches' path, she realizes herself. She draws a Queen of Cups and reveals that she is an “empathetic, intuitive, inner voice, the “you can trust.” The Three of Pentacles indicate what she is missing: a circle, which she now has. The Knight of Wands represents her past as a fighting spirit.

Each card is a moving tribute to the strength of a witch paralyzed by self-doubt. LuPone's portrayal of discovery and emotion is both heartbreaking and hopeful, a masterclass in subtlety—all while wearing a tacky Glinda the Good Witch costume that your friend who likes Halloween too much bought at a mall costume store. (We can't go into every detail of the plot here…)

To say more would be spoiling. But for a genre full of hero's journeys of all kinds, Lilias in this episode is my favorite so far. And that my old gay self is waxing poetic about a damn episode of a Marvel series? Well, that just reflects the message of the episode itself: Never underestimate the power of Patti LuPone.