"I'm exceptional," Kathryn Hahn's titular lead tells her new pal Teen in Marvel series Agatha All Along, after he insists that the notorious Witches' Road can't be that perilous if she's walked it before. It's one of many giggle-inducing glimpses at the sorceress's campy confidence in the moment, but she could just as easily be talking about the show itself. To put it plainly, the latest Disney Plus outing, which is a follow-up to Marvel's acclaimed series WandaVision , is dark, fizzing with energy, and rather remarkable, as it sees Agatha break free from Wanda's glamour and set off on a dangerous journey to regain her power.
Much like how The Wizard of Oz's Dorothy rounds up the Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow to accompany her as she skips over those famous yellow bricks, Agatha finds herself having to rustle up a coven in order to walk the Witches' Road, a mythical path that puts those who traverse it through several increasingly difficult trials. (The writers and showrunner Jac Schaeffer are acutely aware of the similarities, clearly, with Agatha referring to Teen as 'Toto' in one scene and the Road looking suspiciously like the one that leads Judy Garland away from Munchkinland.) If you make it through the lot, "what's missing awaits you at the end"; be it power, freedom from a binding spell, a fortune-related do-over, or answers to your mother's disappearance – Agatha's rag-tag teammates Jennifer (Sasheer Zamata), Lilia (Patti LuPone), and Alice (Ali Ahn) hope, anyway.
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