Latest news with #Witches'Road
Tom's Guide
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
This is the one Disney Plus show I'm watching this Pride Month — and it's a binge-worthy witchy adventure
Happy Pride Month! Over the past decade, streaming services have increasingly become home to many, many LGBTQ+ movies and TV shows. Whether they are romantic comedies or spy thrillers featuring queer characters in leading or supporting roles, I love the variety available. But as a lifelong Marvel Cinematic Universe fan (I've got two MCU-specific tattoos), I've wanted a queer Marvel show for years now — and it finally came in the form of "Agatha All Along" last October. And I've been obsessed with it ever since. Not just because it's the sequel to "WandaVision," a show I absolutely adore, but because it's got fantastic storytelling and, best of all, solid queer representation that I find very relatable. If you need a show to binge-watch and, like me, love a witchy adventure, then "Agatha All Along" should be right up your alley, and it's streaming on Disney Plus right now. Here are the reasons why I'm watching the show for the ninth time. Also, if you haven't watched the show yet, I'll be discussing minor spoilers in this article; you have been warned. "Agatha All Along" takes place three years after the events of "WandaVision" when Agatha Harkness (played by the ridiculously talented Kathryn Hahn) breaks free from the Scarlett Witch's spell. Along with Teen (played by Joe Locke, and whose real identity is a mystery until the season's midpoint), three other witches, and Rio Vidal (played by Aubrey Plaza), Agatha assembles a coven to take on the trials of the infamous Witches' Road. Each episode focuses on a trial tailored to the coven's members, and the prize at the end of the Road is glory, power, anything the victor's heart desires. With beautiful set design and a banging ballad with several versions, "Agatha All Along" is a captivating adventure with twists and turns... and major reveals. When I watched "Parks and Recreation" ages ago, I always wished Kathryn Hahn's and Aubrey Plaza's characters interacted more — and the universe works in funny ways. I knew "Agatha All Along" was going to be a hit (in my eyes anyway) when Plaza was cast opposite Hahn. And neither actress was a let-down. As the coven walks the Witches' Road, the tension between Hahn's character Agatha and Plaza's character Rio is palpable. Rio's role in the story isn't fully revealed until the penultimate episode, so I'll leave that for you to uncover. But what we do know for the start is that Rio and Agatha have a past — and Hahn and Plaza play the part of exes extremely well. So well, in fact, that their chemistry has seen the birth of many fan edits on TikTok and Instagram Reels. Before filming the show, Hahn and Plaza kept themselves apart from each other and they exchanged love poems and music over text to build the tension, and it clearly worked in their favor as I felt like I could cut the tension with a knife while watching. Of course, Agatha and Rio aren't the only queer characters in "Agatha All Along." Joe Locke, well-known for playing the baby-gay Charlie in "Heartstopper," plays Teen, whose real identity is one of the biggest mysteries. Teen is also canonically queer, sporting painted nails and heavy eyeliner, and gushing about his boyfriend and coming very close to saying the L word. It's all very, very cute. Teen and Agatha make a formidable team, with both quipping as they make their way down the Road. There are a few dialogues that stuck with me since I first watched the show. I loved Agatha's "Hey, if you want straight answers, ask a straight lady" line so much that I got a jumper with the text printed on it. Locke also improvised the fantastic "I don't want to go back into the closet" line that gets a chuckle out of me every time. When Lilia, the Divination Witch, asks who the querent is during one of the trials, Locke hits back with, "I guess I'm the queerant!" There are other subtle ones, and all of them stick with you in one way or another. When "Agatha All Along" came out (pun intended), it opened to mixed reviews with critics and audiences disagreeing. Today, the show has an 84% critics score and 83% audience score — balance has been restored. For me, and this is a personal preference, "Agatha All Along" is one of the best MCU series. It's fun, quirky, beautifully produced and written, and it's unapologetically queer. The last of those reasons is what has quickly made it one of my most-watched shows. Aside from our three protagonists being canonically queer, it's implied that others, like Jen and Alice, are too. But what's also great about "Agatha All Along" is that the story never focuses overtly on the characters' queerness. Queerness isn't over- or hypersexualized, and you can tell the show hasn't been written for the male gaze. The characters are messy and often unhinged, and this is the queer representation I've always wanted to see in Marvel. As someone whose teenage years were heavily moulded by movies like "The Avengers" and predominantly straight characters, I can finally see a character like me on screen, and when you get that kind of accurate representation, you're left wondering, "Why hasn't this been the case all along?" I can only thank the casting directors for bringing Aubrey Plaza and Joe Locke on board because both have added a vibrancy the MCU lacked. And Kathryn Hahn becoming known as a queer icon amongst the lesbian community wasn't on my bingo card, but we're all better for it. "Agatha All Along" is available to stream on Disney Plus. For more Pride Month recommendations, check out the best drag movies.
Buzz Feed
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
"Agatha All Along" Creator Jac Schaeffer Confirmed This Controversial Fan Theory, And 11 Other Behind-The-Scenes Secrets We Learned From The Cast
This weekend, some of the Agatha All Along cast reunited at PaleyFest to answer fan questions, share behind-the-scenes stories, and reminisce on the fan-favorite Marvel show that aired this past fall. While Joe Locke and Patti LuPone weren't in attendence, the panel included (left to right) Ali Ahn, Sasheer Zamata, (Creator, Showrunner, Director & Executive Producer) Jac Schaeffer, Kathryn Hahn, and Debra Jo Rupp. Here are 12 facts, BTS stories, secrets, and details about the show we learned straight from the cast themselves: 1. Jac Schaeffer was invited to work on another Marvel project after the success of WandaVision, but didn't immediately know that it was going to focus on Agatha. When playing around with characters and plots, Kevin Feige noted that Agatha always wormed her way in somehow, so he suggested that she do an Agatha spin-off. And so, Agatha All Along was born. 2. In the show, it's revealed that Agatha's signature necklace is actually a locket that holds a clipping of her late son Nicky's hair. Coincidentally, Kathryn also wore a locket with locks of hair from her two kids, Leonard and Mae, which her family gifted to her. She wore it right under Agatha's necklace. "It felt like I had double amulets on," she said. 3. Jac revealed that her favorite Easter egg in the show is this tiny detail in Episode 1, where we get a sneak peek of Nicky's bedroom. For a split second, you can see a first-place choir trophy he's won for best vocals. This is, of course, a nod to him and Agatha being the ones behind the ages-old "The Ballad of the Witches' Road." 4. Debra Jo Rupp joked that when she joined the project, she thought she was going to play a witch, too. As we all saw, not only is Debra's character Mrs. Hart not a witch, but she also dies fairly early on into the show. 'The phone call I got was 'We'd love you to join this project, you're gonna be a witch!'... I get there, and no one is looking me in the eye.' Marvel Studios In response, Jac joked that Marvel's timeline is non-linear, so there's always a chance she'll come back! 5. Early on, it was decided that the show would use only practical effects where possible. The bloated faces they donned during the poison trial wasn't CGI at all — they were prosthetics. The Witches' Road itself was also an actual set and only used minimal CGI. Because of all this, it has the lowest production budget of any Marvel movie or show thus far, rounding out at approximately $40 million. Marvel Studios The cast revealed that they had an absolute blast in the prosthetics and couldn't stop giggling at each other, though Kathryn felt she didn't look all that different in them. Sasheer also shared that it was like magic watching the crew make adjustments to the set between scenes, noting that even the smallest of changes made it look and feel like they were in a totally different part of the path. Kathryn actually cried when she first walked onto the set. 6. Kathryn revealed that her biggest challenge while filming the show was crawling out of that swamp in Episode 6. Marvel Studios 7. Since the beginning, Jac intended for the show to be some kind of spell in and of itself. Between that idea and the need for a catchy song like "Agatha All Along" in WandaVision, they came up with the idea to make the Ballad a spell. 8. Kathryn and Joe Locke immediately hit it off when they first met. They were two peas in a were even wearing the same shoes. According to Kathryn, she felt very maternal towards him. 9. In a don't-think-about-it-too-hard-or-you'll-cry turn of events, while working on Agatha All Along, the writers really understood that Agatha is a natural teacher and mentor, and "got kind of a perverse thrill out of the idea that Agatha kind of ended up being more of a guide to Billy than Wanda has [ever] been." Marvel Studios Billy and Agatha's relationship also directly contrasts Wanda and Agatha's relationship in WandaVision, in which all Agatha wants from Wanda is connection, and Wanda isn't interested. While Billy/Teen is the one seeking that out in Agatha All Along, Agatha does eventually reciprocate, because she is at her strongest as a mentor and can't help but to guide the coven. 10. Here's a fun lil fact: in the '80s throwback trial, the retainer Jennifer Kale wears is actually Sasheer's own. Marvel Studios 11. If you've ever shared an Agatha theory on the internet, there's a good chance Sasheer or Kathryn have actually read it. Sasheer revealed that she's a huge Marvel fan and Kathryn thought the fan theories were awesome. 12. And finally, speaking of fan roll, please! Jac confirmed a hotly debated fan theory, which speculated that Rio (aka Death) is Nicky's father. Marvel Studios Speaking on the theory, Jac joked, "When we were developing it, we — executive producer Mary Livanos and I — got a lot of questions. 'Who is the dad, who is the dad?' And we were like, 'Why you wanna know?'" Kathryn, who played opposite Aubrey Plaza's Rio in the show, chimed in, "They don't need dads!" Jac continued, "That was just something didn't wanna answer the hows and whys of it, because it's witches, but it was just something that was important to the writers and to me and just felt like something special. So it was really lovely to have something that the fans said that we can confirm."
