In the final stretch of WandaVision, we finally found out who’d been messing up everything for Wanda Maximoff in the TV-glitching town of Westview – with Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes revealed to be… well, Agatha all along. Agatha Harkness, that is, the Marvel witch who’s long meddled in the comics realm, and kept a close eye on Wanda under the guise of a friendly neighbour. (And she killed Sparky, too!) Come WandaVision’s end Harkness was overpowered by the Scarlet Witch, and found herself trapped in Westview. But she’s conjuring up some new tricks in her own series, Agatha All Along – a spooky, kooky spin-off from WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer, with Hahn ready to cackle up a storm again in the MCU.
And she won’t be alone. As you’ll see above in our exclusive first-look image, Agatha All Along will see Harkness joined by “a disparate, mixed bag of witches” – including Patti LuPone’s Lilia, Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer, Debra Jo Rupp’s Sharon, and Ali Ahn’s Alice. “What they have in common is that they’re covenless witches,” Schaeffer tells Empire. “Witches are defined by deception, treachery, villainy and selfishness. What do you do when you have a group of witches who [demonstrate] those notions and you need them to work together?” A whole bunch of chaos magic, you’d expect.
While details about the show are largely being held under a magical seal, it’s been reported that ‘Agatha All Along’ songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez have penned fresh ditties – and the show, according to its creator, will riff on all kinds of witchy lore. “[Where] WandaVision played with the form of classic TV sitcoms, [here] we do a lot of playing with what the assumptions about witches are,” Schaeffer explains. “Like, what are the shorthand visuals for witches?” But, expect, too, to find some of the emotion that permeated WandaVision. “We certainly didn’t want a one-dimensional nasty witch,” says Schaeffer. “We will have moments where we see Agatha’s true heart.” Maybe it won’t be entirely pitch-black after all.
Read Empire’s full Agatha All Along story – speaking to Jac Schaeffer about what to expect from the MCU’s next streaming series – in The Rings Of Power Season 2 issue, on sale Thursday 4 July. Pre-order a copy here – choose the Galadriel cover, or the Sauron cover. Agatha All Along streams on Disney+ from 19 September.