Not A Review Of “Agatha All Along”

So the other day, we sat down to watch the first episode of the new series Agatha All Along on Disney+:

My wife was super enthusiastic about it.

Me: “Hey, do you want to watch Agatha All Along?”
Wife: “Well, I guess we said we would try it, right?”

Oh yeah. She was totally stoked. Anyway, we started the first episode, which—as all Marvel shows/movies do—began with a big banner that said “Marvel”.

My wife knows what the “Marvel” banner means.

Wife: “Is this show going to be about superheroes?”
Me: “No no, they’re witches. Although it’s in the Marvel universe, so it’s superhero-adjacent.”
Wife (looking askance at screen): “Hmmm.”

Much like WandaVision, Agatha All Along starts in what appears to be the real world (more or less), in this case presenting a damp, dreary mystery show where Agatha—currently known as Agnes—is a detective investigating the murder of a blonde woman who seems to have simply materialized out in the woods.

Wife: “You can’t just pick up evidence with your bare hands! Haven’t you ever heard of gloves?”

As the show went through the motions of being a Mare of Easttown knockoff, my wife began to get a bit antsy. She had been told this was a show about witches. What was all this police procedural stuff?*

Wife: “Which one is a witch?”
Me (indicating ‘Agnes’): “She is.”

Things started to pick up when Aubrey Plaza** appeared as a Federal agent, here to take over Agnes’s investigation. Or something.

Me: “Wow, I hardly recognized Aubrey Plaza, they slathered so much makeup on her.”
Wife: “Who is Aubrey Plaza?”
Me: “Oh you’ve seen her in tons of things! She was in that time travel movie? Where she accosted the guy in the convenience store? She was holding a can of soup?”
Wife: (blank look)
Me: “And she was also in that movie set in the Adirondacks where it flipped back and forth between …” (noting wife’s continued blank look) “Okay you don’t remember that either***. She was also … You know what, let’s just watch the show.”
Wife: “Yes, let’s.”

So things went on in the mode of Agnes of Westview for a while; there was an attempted burglary, and the attempted burglar attempted to escape, only to get run over. Who did he get run over by? My wife knows!

Wife: “Hey, it’s Foreman’s mom!”
Me: “It is Foreman’s mom! Son, you didn’t get by a car because you’re unlucky; you got hit by a car because you’re a …”
Wife: (points at me expectantly)
Me & Wife: “Dumbass!”

Anyway, eventually, of course, Agatha has to remember that she’s Agatha, at which point she remembers that she and Aubrey Plaza’s character, Rio, are, apparently, enemies. This is when a brief magical battle between them ensues, which is largely indistinguishable from a super-hero battle; and, since the battle did not involve Tony Stark, this is also when my wife checked out of the show.

Me: “So it seems like you lost interest in Agatha All Along.”
Wife (playing on phone): “Yep.”

Although it didn’t put my wife to sleep, it might as well have, so Agatha All Along commanded about 30 minutes of her attention. Maybe she’ll look at the next episode, where, perhaps, things will be more witchy and less super-hero-y, but we’ll see. In the meantime, though, the next day, she did finally retroactively recognize somebody other than Foreman’s mom.

Wife: “Agatha from Agatha All Along … Was she in that other show?”
Me: “Maybe …. ?”
Wife: “You know, the one with the woman and the guy and it was in black and white at first?”
Me: “WandaVision. Yes, she was in that. She played Agnes.”
Wife: “She was a neighbor?”
Me: “Well she was actually a witch and she was responsible for the whole …” (wife’s eyes begin to glaze over) “Yes, she was a neighbor.”
Wife: “Okay. I thought I recognized her from somewhere.”
Me: “Oh she’s been in lots of stuff you’ve seen.” (begins rattling off Kathryn Hahn’s appearances that my wife has seen, most notably as Andie’s friend in How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days.)
Wife: “Yeah I don’t remember any of that.”

* My wife is fine with police procedurals, but she was here for the cackling and the pointy hats.
** AKA the real reason I’m watching this show.
*** My wife saw and enjoyed both Safety Not Guaranteed and Black Bear, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to burn valuable space remembering them.