Agatha All Along: Season 1, Episode 4 recap

Sorry, Mrs. Hart fans: It looks like Sharon really is dead. At least dead enough to be buried. The first scene in “If I Can't Reach You, Let My Song Teach You” begins right where the previous episode left off. After escaping the flooded beach house, Agatha, Teen, Jen, Alice and Lilia are back on the road trying to regroup after their near-death experience. The teenager digs a grave for Sharon, Agatha complains about the time wasted, and the coven tells Agatha that she needs a new green witch. (Technically, this would be her first green witch, since Sharon wasn't actually a witch, but with an episode running time of under 40 minutes, there's no time for little details like that.) It's all pretty standard table setting for the next attempt.

However, it seemed strange to me Agatha all the time makes it a point to show the Circle at Sharon's funeral. It doesn't seem like a particularly important plot point. If this episode had continued, say, with the group heading off to their next trial, with a brief explanatory dialogue implying that they had buried her before moving on, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid shrugged. Walk and talk, people. Let's get going. We still have four exams ahead of us. Instead, this focus on arguments and funerals makes for a lackluster beginning, as if they're just waiting for something to happen.

A few moments later, however, it becomes clear why the episode began this way. After the coven performs a spell to summon a replacement green witch – the details of how this is even possible are unclear and, frankly, not worth going into – Rio crawls out of Sharon's grave. Here it is, the beating black heart that Agatha always knew should complete her circle. If the show hadn't been about showing Teen digging Sharon's grave, Rio wouldn't have such a dramatic revival. It's admittedly fun, but it's also extremely obvious that everything that happened from the beginning of the episode to this moment was superficial. Instead of the characters' actions and dialogue serving the story or advancing the plot, they were simply trying to buy time.

In advance Agatha all the timeWhen Rio premiered, one of the biggest questions was Rio's identity. Her character was created specifically for the series, but fans were convinced that she was actually the Green Witch, a gender-swapped version of Emerald Warlock from the comics. It turns out that this is at least partially true. In the first few episodes, it became clear that “green witch” refers to a witch who draws her power from the earth. It's an archetype, not a specific person – unless, of course, you're the most powerful thing there is. Rio explains the difference to Alice: “(I am) less A green witch and more The Green Witch,” she says as her voice becomes deeper and more demonic. Okay, then! As expected, Agatha is not pleased to see Rio, but the others are delighted. “Honestly, I don’t know how to feel,” Jen says. “Do I hate her? Or do I want her phone number?”

The show's inherent strangeness was a big talking point for the cast. “It’s definitely in the bones of the show,” Hahn said Total film before the premiere. However, there is a delicate balance that must be maintained when portraying queerness in the media: between recognizing that representation matters and acknowledging that queer relationships are no more novel or worthy of comment than heterosexual relationships. The latter approach is more reflective of reality, but also runs the risk of feeling like alibi or queer-baiting. “I think it's almost like people keep referring to it as the next level of representation. We've had these incredible shows that have brought queerness to the forefront of the characters and the plot, and now it's great, we can just have queerness as a part of it,” Joe Locke said in the same context Interview. It is clear that this is the manner of representation Agatha all the time is trending, but I was worried after the exchange between Agatha and Rio in the first episode where Rio tells Agatha that she prefers her.horizontal … (dramatic pause) … in a grave.” The sexual tension between them is palpable, but everything is carefully wrapped in innuendo. Is this just a joke or do the two actually have a romantic history? And if so, will Marvel explicitly acknowledge this or leave the implications unspoken?

In the second episode, we see the kind of explicit but understated portrayal Locke was talking about when Teen gets a call from his “boyf.” Now in its fourth episode, that clipped sentence from Jen is further evidence of the show's commitment to integrating queerness into the fabric of its world. Later, Agatha and Rio also talk about putting aside their differences and spending another night together. This discussion still lacks a bit of specificity, but I think that's probably more a symptom of the writers wanting to keep the details of Agatha and Rio's story a secret for a few episodes longer than evidence that the series points out queerness without fully committing to depicting it. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this understated portrayal in the context of the MCU as a whole – the franchise, for better or worse, is extremely loud and straightforward in its themes, so this seems like a bad choice – but it works in this particular show.

Now that the circle is actually complete, let's get started to see the magician for experiment no. 2. This appears in the form of a hut in the forest. The front door depicts a waxing moon, a phase of fire, representing a time of growth and reconstruction. Inside, everyone gets another costume change to match the interior. This time it's full on 1970s rock star vibes, with faux fur, plush carpets and vintage instruments littering the lavish recording studio they're in. Alice's reaction makes it clear that this is her test as she immediately shuts down emotionally and tries to get everyone to leave. It seems like she recognizes this particular location (as opposed to Jen's trial, which was more symbolic in nature), but she doesn't elaborate.

The rest of the group wears her down until she finally reveals what's so shocking to her: her family has a generational curse. It affected her mother, who died mysteriously, and it also affects her in the form of unique bad luck. This time Agatha has the solution: “The only way to end a curse is to face it,” she says. Given her surroundings, Agatha correctly guesses that encountering the curse means an epic jam session in which the coven must perform Lorna's (Alice's mother) version of “The Ballad Of The Witches' Road.” It is the most famous version of the song and differs from the traditional song in an unspecified small but significant way, as Lorna's version is actually a protective spell that has protected Alice from greater harm all these years. It doesn't really make much sense in the moment and holds up even less under scrutiny, but the show doesn't take the time to elaborate on it, focusing a good portion of the episode on a conversation between Agatha and Rio in the recording booth instead. Rio believes this is a private conversation, but Agatha secretly turns on a microphone for everyone else to listen in when Rio suggests that she believes Agatha doesn't care about the rest of the Circle and is just using them to to get to the end of the street. Which, well, but it still hurts for the others to hear it so bluntly.

Similar to Jen in episode three, Alice is left out even though this is supposedly her episode. All the big moments belong to Rio and Agatha. Agatha even sings the ballad's main vocals, relegating Alice to the piano. And look, I'm not going to pretend the performance isn't extremely cool, from the setting to the costumes to the cast. But this is the second time in just four episodes that the climax involves the coven singing the same song. The scenes are visually and tonally different, but thematically the same: the characters sing the same song to achieve a goal that can only be achieved by working together. How often will the show use the ballad as a crutch?

During the performance, the curse continues to cause trouble and Teen is thrown through a glass window. He is seriously injured as they complete the trial and escape back to the streets, although it looks like he will survive. In this episode I wanted more background information on Alice. After her initial rejection of Agatha, it seemed like she didn't even believe in witchcraft, but she was performing protection spells here, so perhaps she was just lying. I'd also like more details about what it means to be a guardian witch, but as the credits rolled, I was more concerned with something Rio said to Agatha about Teen: “That boy isn't yours.” She seemed to agree to be pretty sure.

Crazy observations

• • Aubrey Plaza is small The Wizard of Oz The scarecrow style hopping as she skipped down the street was a nice touch.
• • We received another unexpected Tarot reference from Lilia: “Three Swords.”
• • I stand by my previous prediction that Teen is Wanda's son, not Agatha's. It feels like Rio is implying that Teen can't possibly be Agatha's son because Agatha's son is dead, and it seems like she said that more as a wake-up call than out of cruelty.
• • Agatha performs lead vocals, Lilia performs backup vocals, Alice performs piano, Jen performs bass, and Rio performs drums during the performance of the ballad.
• • I have to admit that I was fascinated by the demon hanging in the rafters of the house. When was the last time we saw such extensive makeup and practical effects in the MCU?