Death's Hand in Mine
Agatha and Billy continue down the Witches’ Road to the next trial. Meanwhile, the fates of Lilia and Jen are revealed after being tossed off the road. Plus, Rio’s true identity is unveiled in the latest episode of Agatha All Along.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Down the Witches’ Road
With only Billy and Agatha left on the road, the pair start walking to the next trial. Now that Agatha knows Teen is Billy Maximoff, she’s dropped the motherly tone she had previously taken with him when he had the sigil. Meanwhile, Billy doesn’t want to be with Agatha anymore. He questions if she’s ever been on the road previously, which raises some questions. Whenever Agatha has been asked about the road in the past, she’s been very vague, and her answers always harken back to the song about the road. She’s believed to be the only known survivor of the road, but it’s possible she allowed a lie to become myth and myth to become legend.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Billy makes his disdain and distrust for Agatha clear when they reach the trial which is Tarot. As each trial puts the participants into new costumes, Agatha becomes the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. She claims to be the inspiration for the character and Billy responds, “Prove it!” Billy has his mission, Agatha has hers and they pair need each other, but Billy has reached a point where he doesn’t want to need her anymore.
Under the Witches’ Road
After Billy tossed Lilia and Jen off the Witches’ Road at the end of episode five, the pair slipped through the road to the underneath. They weren’t able to pull themselves back onto the road like Agatha did, but being off the road gives them a choice. There’s an exit to leave the road and a path that will take them to the next trial. Lilia and Jen decide to head to the trial with Lilia recognizing that Agatha and Billy will need her help.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Nonlinear Storytelling
This is Lilia’s episode to shine and Patti Lupone makes sure to chew up every bit of scenery in her scenes. Lilia has been randomly shouting phrases throughout the episode. “The flow of time is an illusion,” is the most important statement from this entire episode. Viewers learn that Lilia doesn’t live life in a linear fashion. She is jumping from scene to scene which explains why she’s constantly shouting phrases and different points. She’s trying to warn her coven about what lies ahead, because she has already lived the future.
Tarot
The trial takes place at a table with a tarot deck. Billy and Agatha reach the trial first and Billy tries to read Agatha but a chandelier full of swords starts making its way toward them with each card they get wrong. During the time-jumping Lilia is going through, she and Jen find their way to the table, and Lilia immediately jumps in to help. Lilia needs Jen to guide her as sometimes she’s cognizant and lucid and other times she comes across wispy and kooky.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Lilia begins reading Billy who asks if he’s Billy or William. But as she’s reading, the swords keep making their way to the coven. She figures out that she’s the traveler who must be read and starts her own reading. As she slowly regains her power and figures out where she’s at she completes the trial and discovers Rio’s true identity.
Rio Vidal
While time-jumping and completing the trial, Lilia realized that Rio Vidal is the physical manifestation of death. Agatha admits to the coven that she knew all along and admits “I like the bad boys.” Lilia makes this realization when she goes back to when Billy threw her and Jen off the road and she seeps through, she sees Rio as Death. This is telegraphed by the Death card being the final card of her Tarot reading. Lilia realizing that “all roads lead to Death” makes a decision to help the coven the only way she sees fit.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
The Salem Seven
Lilia ushers Agatha, Billy and Jen out the door before telling them, “I really enjoyed being a witch.” She then shuts the door and turns around to face the Salem Seven. She is staying behind to sacrifice herself to allow the rest of her coven time to escape. Using her newly reacquired powers, she flips the Tower card in the Tarot spread which flips the entire room upside down.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
The Salem Seven in the room with her fall from the floor to the ceiling where they are impaled on the swords that once threatened the coven. Lilia hangs on to the table long enough to see her sacrifice work before letting go and falling to her own death. Just before she hits the swords, she is taken back to her very first tarot lesson as a witch completing her nonlinear loop.
This scene raises some questions while calling for praise. I only counted five members of the Salem Seven in the room falling on the swords. Does this mean there are still two more chasing the coven? Meanwhile, it can be stated enough how perfect this ending was for Lilia. Sharon Davis/Mrs. Hart was a woman not a witch who got dragged along and died due to the trial. Alice fought to regain her powers only for Agatha to suck them out of her during the next trial. Both deaths were unceremonious. This is the definition of a ceremonious death. Lilia goes out as a witch fighting to protect her coven.
Pop Culture Witches
The best part of this episode was the costumes provided by the trial. As mentioned earlier, Agatha was dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. However, Billy was dressed as Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, Jen looked like the old hag witch the Evil Queen dressed up as to give the apple in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Lilia was dressed like Glinda the Good Witch. It was great as Lilia has been very vocal in the series about not giving in to pop culture’s views of witches. She hated the idea of making brooms and hates being dressed like a character from The Wizard of Oz. Of course, this is punctuated with Jen’s joke that they needed to complete the trial and could be “culturally offended later.”
Of course, these costumes also foreshadowed the ending of the episode. Agatha, Billy and Jen are all dressed as villains from their stories, but Lilia is dressed like one of the heroes of hers. It illustrates why Agatha, Billy and Jen will continue on the Witches’ Road while Lilia’s journey ends here with her sacrificing herself for the welfare of others.
Rating
This is, by far, the best episode of this series. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting to like this series as much as I am, because I didn’t see how Agatha’s story fit into the current MCU. But the creators have found a way to take a side character who was popular but didn’t seem to be a major part of the plans and turn her into the star of her own series. Every step of the way, Agatha’s coven has stepped up making sure her story is one of the best Marvel has put on Disney Plus.
I always hoped to see more of Agatha after the events of WandaVision, but this series and this episode makes me want to see more of the entire mystical side, in general. Give me more of Billy/Wiccan. I hope there’s a way to bring Alice and Lilia back at some point. This series has knocked it out of the park.
Check out Agatha All Along exclusively on Disney Plus.
Article Written By: Jeremy Brown for Stelmach Brown Media 2024
Add comment
Comments