Agatha All Along‘s Best Episode Gives Its All for Patti LuPone

When last we saw Lilia she was being sucked into a bog, but Agatha All Along‘s seventh episode (titled “Death’s Hand in Mine,” oh no!) begins with the character—now dressed as Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz—falling through a black void. The scene fades as we return to Agatha and Billy/Teen/William traipsing through the fog-strewn set of the Witches’ Road, as they wait for its supernatural architects to construct another pop culture-savvy death trap for them.

In their downtime, Billy/Teen/William wisely asks Agatha some burning questions: “Where’s Rio?” and “Is Wanda Maximoff really dead?” Agatha is evasive on both accounts, refusing to answer the first and teasing “Yes…no!…maybe…” to the second. She saw Wanda’s body, but it’s “hard to say” whether another person could corroborate her death, quipping, “if you want straight answers, ask a straight lady.” Marching forward, they stumble upon a castle in the distance and recognize it as their next trial. 

Upon entering, Agatha is transformed into the Wicked Witch of the West (or Elphaba, if you’re fancy) while Billy/Teen/William becomes Maleficent. While this dress code seems to confirm a fantasy-themed trial, the surviving coven is instead asked to interpret a deck of tarot cards and provide readings for each other. Billy/Teen/William reads for Agatha, first drawing “The Chariot,” but fails to provide an accurate interpretation of its meaning.

It turns out that for each card the player gets wrong, a sword drops from the ceiling. Next drawing the Seven of Swords reversed, BTW suggests Agatha must be truthful, drawing them both closer to death with another plunging sword. Suggesting the tarot is just a “con” with no “skill” or “magic” involved, Agatha takes the reins, causing five additional swords to plummet from above just for her attitude. At this moment, we discover our heroes are trapped in a room with a descending ceiling, adding an additional ticking clock element to the proceedings. 

© Marvel

As BTW wishes the tarot-reading Lilia were here to save them, we learn she and Jennifer survived the quicksand, but fell through the ground and into a subterranean tunnel. Having another one of her spells, Lilia is confused by her surroundings, so Jennifer tells her “you very clearly said we had to follow this gross tunnel and look for shelving,” without knowing what she meant by that. We learn Lilia’s frequent odd asides are actually her experiencing time non-linearly, bouncing back and forth through different moments of her life like Picard in the Star Trek: The Next Generation finale, or Desmond in Lost.

Lilia then mentally recedes to the moment from her childhood she learned to read tea leaves before bouncing back to the present. She admits her reveries are becoming more frequent, and concludes she must be “close to the end” of her life. At that moment, the two of them are (seemingly) transported to the castle to compete in the latest trial alongside Agatha and BTW.

Now back in the game, Lilia is dressed as Glinda, as previously mentioned, while Jennifer is the Evil Queen from Snow White in her alternate witch form (though I thought she was the Man Behind Winky’s from Mulholland Drive, at first…). Lilia’s memories return and she confirms remembering BTW from his bar mitzvah, as we saw in last week’s Agatha All Along; he immediately apologizes for dumping her in a bog. Lilia reveals she cast the sigil on him knowing he’d “need time” to find himself after dying in a car accident and having his corpse hijacked by a magically birthed sitcom character. So… I guess that makes sense? 

Now that they have their tarot reader, things should be moving more smoothly—were it not for Lilia’s complex relationship with the flow of time. As her mind suddenly snaps back to the tunnel with Jennifer, she reveals she consciously put an end to her time dalliances back in childhood since, “all [she] saw was death.” At that, they find the “shelving” they were looking for: an actual bookshelf that doubles as doorway to the particular room of the castle Agatha and BTW are struggling to read tarot cards in. 

Back in the game for real this time, Lilia reshuffles the deck and reveals BTW his fortune. Though the coven would prefer he ask the cards how to escape the death trap of falling swords, he instead asks, “am I William or am I Billy?” She gives him a six card reading, drawing the Magician and the Sun before another flashback to her childhood.

We discover she had a vision the coven who raised her were doomed to die in a plague, and though she warned them, she’s spent the rest of her life traumatized for being ignored. Her mother tells her death ain’t nuthin’ but a G thang, basically, and that its inevitability is what everyone has in common. Lilia, it seems, has always known she’d die in a fall. Her mother figure shrugs this off, asking, “What will you do in your remaining time?” 

Once again, Lilia’s mind palace takes her back to the tunnel and we discover the Salem Seven are hot on their heels—though walking backward, in a legitimately eerie visual. Returning to the tarot trial, Lilia suddenly understands that as this is her trial, she’s meant to give herself the reading. She pulls the Queen of Cups, diving it must represent herself, and the Three of Pentacles, which she recognizes as her coven. The Knight of Wands was Alice (RIP), the High Priestess is Jennifer, the Three of Swords for Agatha, the Tower reversed for BTW, and Death for the still conspicuously absent Rio—who, we discover, is not actually “Rio Vidal” at all, but instead the Marvel Universe’s embodiment of Death, itself! 

© Marvel

Having completed her trial in the nick of time, the ceiling retracts and a nearby iron maiden opens, revealing the exit. While the others make their escape, Lilia decides to stay behind and handle the encroaching Salem Seven, who enter the room in their way-too-cute animal forms. Lilia reverses the Tower card, which somehow causes the entire castle to flip on its head, impaling at least five of the Salem Seven on the swords below. Embracing her destiny, Lilia falls, too, and in her final moments, she’s brought back to the very moment in time she began to study witchcraft. 

© Marvel

I think it’s safe to say this was likely the best episode of the series’ to date, wrapping up Lilia’s arc in a far more satisfying manner than Alice’s. We really didn’t know too much about Madame Calderu before this episode, but we definitely got a handle on her before the end.

Though it gave Lilia a reason to nobly sacrifice herself and add to the overall body count, I felt like this was a fairly ignominious exit for the Salem Seven, who ultimately didn’t amount to much—especially considering they’re set to be replaced by Death as the series’ main antagonist going forward. I guess their vendetta against Agatha for killing their parents and causing them to raise themselves as family unit of semi-feral shapeshifters must end here.

Hopefully, Death’s reasons for hating Agatha and getting involved with the coven are revealed to be half as interesting. (Still, I only counted five bodies among them, so maybe she’ll keep a couple Salem henchman and we’ll get to seem them do something besides skulk about eerily, after all? That would also give both BTW and Jennifer someone to fight in the finale.)

Speaking of, Rio’s absence and subsequent reveal… kinda sucked? Rio’s been MIA for two full episodes now, so to have her true identity revealed in the character’s own continued absence is a puzzling choice. Especially since this very show is titled after the memorable villain reveal of its parent series, WandaVision. The final two episodes will really have to put a lot of work in to justify almost everything about Rio’s inclusion so far—not to mention why the elemental Death chose to pose as a woman named Rio Vidal in the first place.

Fingers crossed Agatha All Along lands on its feet with its two-part finale next week. See you then.

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