At one point I kept thinking there’d be another reveal with her…like she was an elderly but powerful witch that Agatha or someone else mind-wiped because she became unstable so she was put there as a kind of rest home.
In a way the fact that Agatha just dragged an innocent person into something that she didn’t understand and got her killed without a second thought was entirely in keeping with the rest of the show. Although given that she wasn’t actually a witch, one wonders how Agatha had planned to deal with her at the end of the song if a door didn’t appear. It’s not like she was going to zap Agatha with magic powers.
Also still wondering about the “boyf” - if he’s supposed to be the Hulkling, that would suggest he’s a Skrull, no?
Finally, the main offputting thing about the ending was the odd teamup at the very end. “She’s the ghost of a centuries-old,mass-murdering witch! He’s a mind-reading magical construct in the body of a dead teen! Together they travel the country solving mysteries and looking for Billy’s missing brother!” It could all go very wrong very quickly.
By the way, do we know how Agatha came by her power absorption? I feel like I might’ve missed something there…
I was really hoping this show would break what I perceive as the D+ Marvel shows not being able to really stick the landing in the finale curse. I leave each show, (yes, even Loki), a little disappointed, not “OMG WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE?” Which is what one wants. I don’t regret the time I spend watching them but I’d like to finish one being wowed. The second to last episode was so much better. I wasn’t going to watch both but it was so good I had to hit play for the last one. Why not have it be one full episode and do the flashback stuff earlier? I mean, I do not care about the bummer of a backstory of a character who’s already dead. And it wasn’t anything unexpected. I had some theories confirmed but it wasn’t really anything shocking and new and just was a weird vibe to go out on.
And while the episode was technically released on the 30th, it was 9pm on a work/school night for many of us. It was really frustrating to try to squeeze two in on Halloween. I just don’t get what they were doing here with these two episodes at all as far as pacing and releasing.
I loved episode 7. I liked episode 8. I very much disliked episode 9, which was both boring and infuriating.
I would encourage those who have not seen episode 9 to simply skip it.
Somehow the writers managed what should be impossible, making me absolutely not care about a mother losing her young child. I mean, I don’t think they were trying to do that, but that’s what they did.
I kinda think that the revelation that Agatha and her son made up the Witches’ Road song and that the Road never existed before now and that she’s just been using it to sucker witches for centuries is a big deal and recontextualizes the whole damn series.
I wasn’t really sure how The Witches’ Road came to be such an accepted fact among witches just based on a preteen boy traveling around singing about it. And there’s not really anything in the song about getting whatever you want at the end, is there? They sang something about “glory at the end,” but that’s a far cry from saying basically “you get your heart’s desire.”
I do have to wonder why in the world Agatha thought trying to find The Witches’ Road would save her from the Salem Seven, when she was the only one who knew the Road was completely made up. Maybe she thought sucking the power from the other witches (except Mrs. Davis) would make her strong enough to overcome them? Otherwise she’d have been better off trying to run away.
I dunno. This was one of the more enjoyable Marvel series, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions for me. Not as dumb as Falcon and Winter Soldier, or as frustrating as Secret Wars, but still … it’s bothersome.
That’s how legends start - a kernel of reality filtered through several layers of wishful thinking and storytelling. Even now.
I mean, one day Art the wandering peddler finds a rusty knife in a puddle, and a few hundred years later King Arthur gets Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake…
This. She thought she could fight them off.
And this. The Witches’ Road was an urban legend before there was an urban.
Personally, as I told ZakSon at the conclusion, I think of Ep. 9 as one extended post-credits scene for the whole series.
I’m so disappointed in you for calling your child Zakson and not Zaxxon.
Good Lord, I had completely forgotten about that game! I was much more of a Galaga guy. Until they were stolen from my dad’s detached workshop/shed, I had that, Joust, and an Eight-Ball Deluxe pinball machine.
Yeah I think revealing the Road was a con all along had to wait until the end but I had seen some chatter online about rumors that they did make changes to how the Flashbacks were shown implying maybe some of them would have shown up earlier but the bug reveal still at the end.
And yeah I don’t think they ever do explain why Agatha alone absorbs power. It’s just comic book logic I guess.
I liked that they didn’t try to redeem Agatha. She’s not a good person from start to finish. I also liked that they left things with Jen with her still hating Agatha. A lot of shows would have had them reconcile before the end.
I vaguely remember it being a Purple Magic thing from WandaVision. Does/did anyone else but Wanda have Scarlet Magic?
How to deal with a harmless old lady? Probably just send her back to her garden i would imagine.
When Agatha looking at her dead said “I didn’t know you had it in you” was her actual reference to Billy, that his creation would kill an innocent bystander who is getting any of their lifelong desires achieved (with the price of death for all but one). Or somehow to her. If so in what way?
Interesting tidbit from the showrunner:
I didn’t know that the character of Blackheart was a thing from the comics, so it’s possible that people might have been hanging onto Blackheart, all the way to the Death reveal
I suppose she would have just mind-wiped Mrs. Davis and sent her home. Does explain why she never bothered to learn her name - Agatha didn’t care about a non-witch at all.
The last-episode reveal explained Agatha’s change in attitude towards Teen in episode 2 - she didn’t have any interest in him until she realized that he was the perfect way to hook in a coven to steal powers from, and after the Road manifested, she got very protective of him, since if he died, the Road might collapse around her
So the serial killer’s MO was:
- Popularize a song written by a ten-year-old.
- Although she doesn’t have any friends (having treated charisma as her dump stat) somehow build a nationwide or worldwide legend among witches based on this ten-year-old’s song.
- Although nobody except Agatha has any experience with the Witch’s Road, somehow convince entire covens to risk their lives traveling it.
- When it doesn’t work, insult the covens, because apparently witches uniformly respond to mouthy assholes by straight-up murdering them for being mouthy, and also they always choose basic witch blasting as their murder weapon, and that’s lucky for Agatha, because any other murder method would murder her.
- Kill all the witches and leave their mummified but recognizeable bodies behind, relying on nobody over the course of centuries saying, “Hey, weren’t these witches talking with Agatha right before they all died?”
I was off-and-on with the show for most of the run, but this centuries-long murder spree was too stupid to tolerate. Between that and Wiccan’s inexplicable shrug at the end – “YOU TRICKED ME INTO MURDER but oh well we should team up together”–I ended up kind of hating the entire series.
I almost always have no issue with Marvel writing. But I have a problem with Agatha choosing to be a ghost. How does that profit her? She did all this to get her power back so why did she give that all away? Why sacrifice herself for Wiccan despite her saying she didn’t do it for him.