A "magical romp of a show", this WandaVision spin-off veers from "playfully spooky to genuinely scary". It is three years since Agatha Harkness was revealed to be the Big Bad of WandaVision , a show that riffed on classic sitcoms as it proved that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was capable of more eccentric storytelling than its formulaic movie output might suggest. While Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff was finally confirmed to be the legendary Scarlet Witch, it was Kathryn Hahn's Agatha (and her much-memed wink ) who stole the show as "Agnes", Wanda's nosy neighbour who was in fact a centuries-old dark witch herself.
And now the fan favourite has her own solo outing in the form of Agatha All Along, also helmed by WandaVision's showrunner, Jac Schaeffer. Fittingly, for a spin-off of a spin-off, Agatha All Along initially follows its predecessor's lead in delivering a story wrapped inside another story. The sort-of sequel follows in Wandavision's genre-bending footsteps, picking up after Agatha's attempt to steal Wanda's powers left Agatha herself powerless and trapped inside her Agnes persona.
Where Wanda processed her trauma via sitcoms, Agatha's entrapment has led her mind to a darker alternate reality: prestige crime drama. It opens with Agatha as a straight-talking small-town detective in a Mare of Easttown parody called "Agnes of Westview". As with WandaVision's sitcoms, the show-within-a-show is both knowing and exceptionally well-executed, with "Agnes" as a no-nonsense.