Marvel Cinematic Universe entry Agatha All Along is a semi sequel to WandaVision debuting on Disney+ on September 18, and at D23 IGN sat down with the cast and crew, including star Kathryn Hahn, to discover its impact on the larger MCU, just how horror and high stakes it gets, and much more.
Agatha All Along takes place after WandaVision, with Kahn's Agatha Harkness left imprisoned by Wanda Maximioff and fighting to get her powers back with the help of a “suspicious goth teen,” according to the official synopsis.
“Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down the road.”
It Wasn't Agatha All Along After All
The series was far from guaranteed though, and Hahn said she was “gobsmacked” when she got the call from Marvel to ask if she'd return.
“I was excited to find out how she was going to get her powers back,” Hahn said. “I couldn’t wait to explore other facets of her besides greed, revenge, hilariousness, and also just fabulousness. I was excited to see what lay beneath all of that luster.”
Agatha All Along showrunner and director Jac Schaeffer echoed Hahn’s words, confirming there was originally no plans to countinuing WandaVision or Agatha's story through a spin-off show. “It sort of took us all by surprise that WandaVision and Agatha were successful and that they were embraced the way they were,” Schaeffer said.
“It wasn't until much later when I was developing several different ideas for Marvel and I was trying to figure out what another series could be that it became so obvious to me that it was meant to be Agatha. There was so much more story to tell and so much to explore about her character that it's almost like Agatha herself was like, ‘It’s me!’
“In my early pitch for WandaVision, I wanted to do one of the later episodes as a CSI procedural and I could never really get over that idea because we couldn’t make it work in that show,” Schaeffer said.
“In thinking about doing Agatha All Along and how we could pay tribute to WandaVision but also do something new, I was like, ‘well, she's got to be a lady detective in a prestige true crime drama, obviously!’ And so we went through different kinds of incarnations of what the larger Agatha show would be, but that piece… They were never going to tear it out of my hands. I'm like, ‘this is what the pilot is.’
This CSI bit looks to echo the sentiment of WandaVision, of a bizarre mystery determined to bend minds while remaining wildly entertaining. But Schaeffer knew she couldn’t just do WandaVision again.
“I really just wanted to give the audience that same hit they felt from WandaVision, but then you can't just duplicate it, right? You can't just replicate what you did before,” she said. “Kevin Feige really enjoyed that when I pitched it to him, that we're doing this misdirect as a pilot and after that it will break open. And he was like, ‘I’m on board!’”
Westview to the MCU
Schaeffer and the team also had to decide how Agatha All Along would fit into the endlessly expanding MCU. Would it be a story that Marvel fans need to know? Do viewers need to know the rest of the MCU to enjoy it? Will White Vision or Wanda Maximoff show up?
“With WandaVision and Agatha All Along, they are both in their own little universe, and to me it's tied to Westview,” Schaeffer explained.
“I'm a Buffy fan. The idea of a town being sort of like a vortex of supernatural energy is pretty cool. In that, we wanted them to have their own contained stories. And, in regards to this new series, Agatha is an outlier, right? She's totally an outsider. So I don't see her as being this joiner of the MCU. The storylines obviously intersect, but she's over here doing her own thing.
“Sure, it’s all part of the same kind of universe, so there are touchstones and illusions and that kind of thing, but Agatha is territorial and this is her show. So, it's really about Agatha Harkness and the people that she encounters.”
Executive producer Mary Livanos insisted that MCU fans will be rewarded despite the self contained nature of Agatha All Along, however.
“I would say, first and foremost, that Agatha All Along is an incredible story in and of itself,” Livanos said. “It's all about Agatha and we get to learn more about her and I think folks will really love her journey. But what I can also say is that there are ramifications for the larger MCU.
“However, we also introduced an entirely new slate of coven members who are brand new to the MCU. If you don't know much about Marvel, you can drop in and enjoy this completely original story. But if you're a fan of WandaVision and the MCU, I will say there is a ton paid off in this series.”
Heart of the Matter
Agatha will be joined on her journey to the Witches' Road by a group of witches and other allies, one of whom is Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer Kale.
“This show is a dream,” she said. “It's about witches and there's magic and there's so many women involved. It just feels so good. I haven't been in many work environments like this before, and I think what I was most surprised about was how collaborative it was and how comfortable they made people feel to have ideas. We really got to greet these characters together with the writers and producers and I felt like I really had a say in what was happening and that doesn't always happen.”
As for Ali Ahn, who plays the witch Alice Wu-Gulliver, many of the feelings her character experiences are an “echo” of her personal life, especially when it comes to singing songs like The Ballad of the Witches’ Road.
“Alice’s relationship with music is very much like my own,” Ahn said. “It was so scary for me to sing and to have to do that and to know that so many people are going to watch it. I actually felt like I had to be brave. It was really scary. I didn’t have to fake that part. It was genuine terror.”
Joe Locke, who plays the mysterious goth teen who frees Agatha from her hex, had a similar story to tell. His character very much feels like the Agatha All Along version of Kamala Kahn — a superfan who gets to live out their dream with those they admire. And that mirrored Locke's reality.
“I mean, that part of it, I did not have to act,” Locke said. “That was all completely true. The excitement of that and being in the coven and going on the Witches’ Road was completely just me. That was just how I felt being a part of it.”
The desire to make its characters feel real seeped into the rest of the show too, as the team put an emphasis on practical effects and sets.
“We actually take almost an entirely practical approach to the filmmaking with this series,” Livanos said. “We utilize backdrops and miniatures and special creature effects. Everything that you see is absolutely 100% in camera and there isn’t a blue screen in sight. So, it was just really magical for the actors and for us behind the scenes as well.”
Twists, Trials, and Laughs
As for the story, fans who think they have it all figured out should perhaps think again. Sharon Davis actress Debra Jo Rupp said with a big smile that “fans may think they know what’s going to happen next, but they don’t. That I can assure you.”
Her character returns from WandaVision as she gets wrapped up in the coven which aptly takes her to unexpected places.
“This was completely different,” Rupp said of Agatha All Along. “Sharon, in WandaVision, didn't really know anything about witches. All of that was happening out there. She had bigger problems. Now she's actually a part of this witch thing and she's a fish out of water.”
Schaeffer couldn’t help but laugh when talking about Rupp, saying her character was so important to balancing out the horror elements of Agatha All Along as “there’s no stopping the comedy there. Even if I was like, ‘be serious,’ that woman is funny no matter what she’s doing.”
The comedy aspect was very important as Agatha All Along will dive into some heavier subjects the coven undergoes myriad trials on the Witches’ Road. Schaeffer called them “witchy escape rooms” that will challenge the characters and force them to grow and work as a team.
“They really were trials,” Hahn said. “Some of them were very difficult and the stakes were so high and each one was literally life or death. This is a show where not everybody actually lives, so it's not all fun and games. However, I think that’s what is so fun about those trials is that they mean something.”
Livanos said the show has a “Wizard of Oz vibe, where our characters are on a journey in search of whatever it is that they may be missing. This show celebrates the golden age of fantasy and horror and different eras and styles of fantasy and horror like WandaVision did with different sitcom eras.”
Fans will similarly be rewarded upon a rewatch, the cast said, as many elements will seem completely obvious or different after experiencing the whole show. “There are details in every Witch’s costume that, once you see the whole thing, you’ll realize it was there the whole time,” Hahn teased.
Those who can't wait for the show's premiere can check out IGN's deep dive into what Agatha All Along is actually about and our explainer of the WandaVision’s ending to get all caught up before the witchy chaos begins.
Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/agatha-all-along-has-wizard-of-oz-vibes-life-and-death-stakes-and-ramifications-for-the-larger-mcu