‘Agatha All Along’ Recap, Episode 3

As entertaining as the primary couple chapters of Agatha All Alongside have been, it appears to be like prefer it’s time to get this present on The Street. With “By way of Many Miles of Methods and Trials,” Agatha All Alongside formally units its characters off on a extra linear journey to self-actualization, glory, redemption, and/or dying. Simply in case we weren’t listening final week, Agatha goes forward and re-explains what The Street and her coven cohorts are all about. As soon as once more, the breakdown goes as follows: Lilia (Patti Lupone) needs to regain her divination abilities, Alice (Ali Ahn) needs to search out out what occurred to her mom, and Jennifer (Sasheer Zamata) needs to reclaim her magic, which has been certain for some as of but untold cause.

Teen, in the meantime, ostensibly simply needs to be taught from Agatha and achieve powers alongside the way in which. However the second he tries to share his identify with the witches, in addition they see the mouth squiggle as a substitute of listening to the reply. It’s apparent to everybody that there’s One thing Else Afoot with this child, and boy, does this episode lay some heavy clues as to what that may be.

We’ll get again to that. For now, it’s time to hitch our witches (plus Mrs. Sharon Davis Hart) on The Street in a jarring new locale: a pristine seaside home with a built-in sauna and a kitchen to die for (poor Mrs. Sharon Davis Hart). “Was that there earlier than?” Alice wonders. “It’s best to cease asking that query,” Agatha replies earlier than I can. You’re all witches! Why do you retain getting shocked by magic??

For a minute, I assumed this mansion may be ushering in a Sensible Magic homage, however nah. That Victorian house of household secrets and techniques and midnight margaritas is so extraordinarily and particularly of New England, all nooks and crannies and classic muddle. This one appears to be like like Grace and Frankie employed Chip and Joanna Gaines to fixer-upper their Malibu getaway. The second all of them stroll in, their total appearances and outfits change to match the vibe, full with all of the luxe linens and beige sweaters of Nancy Meyers’ desires.  (I’m positive costume designer Daniel Selon’s having enjoyable with the sequence’ many style switches, however this one made me miss Agatha’s attractive aubergine coat one thing fierce.) As Teen says in one in all this episode’s a number of strains of meta commentary, “it’s giving very, ‘middle-aged second probability at love.’” He’s right here for it, however Jen is decidedly not.

As she stares at her unfamiliar reflection in one in all many gleaming mirrors, Jen realizes with horror that she’s now sporting a tasteful bob that makes her appear to be “one in all my purchasers.” This specific mansion, well-stocked together with her personal snake oil Kale Kare line, appears to be her personal home of horrors. Based on Agatha, The Street — which stripped the coven of its powers in transit — will check every of the witches on their particular person ability units. It’s a crash course in witchcraft, “emphasis on the ‘craft.’” So when a bottle of pro-offered wine poisons the coven, it’s potions grasp Jen’s flip to whip up the antidote.

As everybody searches the home for numerous components, the episode takes on a little bit of a horror online game vibe. Between its clear-cut mission (Ingredient + Ingredient = Antidote/Escape) and POV photographs creeping round each nook, it’s all too straightforward to think about attending to this stage and clicking across the empty rooms to find every potion part. Neither the coven nor the episode have a lot time to dawdle, however I can’t assist however suppose that this trial would possibly’ve been extra compelling in a Sensible Magic home stuffed to the brim with prospects relatively than a Large Little Lies mansion largely empty of mess or ephemera, apart from precisely the components they want.

Then once more, I suppose, the specifics of this trial aren’t actually the purpose. Because the third of 9 chapters, “By way of Many Methods and Trials” — written by WandaVision alum Cameron Squires — is extra about establishing who these characters are and have been past their supernatural skills. The hallucinations the wine triggers for everybody (besides underage Teen) show particularly revealing. Jen sees a sadistic physician who degrades and makes an attempt to drown her; Lilia will get an invitation from a ghostly Italian aristocrat to see some crumbling skulls in robes; Alice thinks she’s discovered her mom, solely to look at the apparition sob that “it’s my flip, it’s going to kill me.” Large yikes throughout! Every imaginative and prescient is transient, shattering with a scream, however successfully unsettling in leaving new breadcrumbs of foreshadowing.

Earlier than the dangerous journeys begin, although, there’s time for some small(ish) speak. Alice and Teen bond over their trauma circa age 13 — Teenagers’ stays imprecise, however famous — and her tattoo, a protecting image her mom insisted upon throughout a tour pit cease at Colorado’s legendary Purple Rocks venue. Then, mere minutes earlier than the poison makes their faces balloon like dangerous fillers, Jen tries to warn Teen that Agatha isn’t to be trusted. He isn’t all for denigrating Agatha, however nonetheless can’t ignore what Jen says subsequent.

“Do you know she traded her personal youngster for the e-book of the Damned?” Jen asks. No, no Teen didn’t. To be honest, she additionally doesn’t understand it for positive; Nicholas Scratch has develop into a little bit of an city legend over the centuries. So within the current, Jen settles for dropping the largest trace and/or crimson herring in direction of Teen’s true identification but: “I doubt she’d even acknowledge her personal son even when he turned up on her personal doorstep.” The one factor extra apparent than this line is the pointed “Oh actually?” look on Teen’s face as she walks away.

Between that, Agatha’s hallucination of a crying child changing into The Darkhold, and her uncharacteristically protecting intuition to cease Teen from consuming any wine, it looks as if the writers are simply fantastic with us coming to the conclusion that Teen may be Nicholas. It’s because both (a) he is Nicholas, (b) he’s not and so they’re having fun with toying with us, or (c) they’re planning a distinct twist down the road. Given how early we’re within the season, my intestine tells me it’s (c), however solely time and The Street will inform.

By the tip of the episode, Jen efficiently will get it collectively — with assists from a farmhouse sink “cauldron” and sous vide cooker — to brew the right antidote. And regardless that Agatha resists the thought of teamwork so laborious she nearly bashes within the floor-to-ceiling home windows to fling herself out, the thought of dying in such a ineffective method forces her to play ball. She proves particularly useful as she halts Jen’s blooming panic assault with a uncommon (if backhanded) praise. “I’ve all the time hated you,” Agatha admits, “however I left you alone as a result of what you have been doing was necessary.” It’d be nice to know a bit extra about what meaning in the mean time; I’m not often one to ask TV reveals to run longer, however this one’s been shifting at such a brisk tempo that it feels a bit like these 35-minute episodes have been imagined to run 45.

Onward, then! Everybody takes a shot of the antidote earlier than the clock runs out and the home floods (which is now underwater, by the way in which — issues occur quick on The Street). They solely barely bear in mind Mrs. Sharon Hart Davis in time to drive a drop down her throat earlier than time’s up and the oven door flies open as an escape hatch, ostensibly signaling that they’ve overwhelmed the extent and may transfer on … however no.

Sadly for her and all of us followers of Debra Jo Rupp’s pitch-perfect comedic vulnerability, it positive appears to be like prefer it’s Recreation Over for Sharon. She comes out the opposite facet of the oven slide with out a pulse, tinged blue like a fish corpse washed ashore. Even Agatha, who spent many of the episode forgetting she existed and/or writing her off as an inevitable legal responsibility, appears shaken. Nonetheless wacky The Street’s trials may be, they’re undoubtedly not fucking round.

• Hahn line learn of the week: responding to the coven’s insistence that she will’t “cheat” on The Street with an instantaneous whine of, “why NOT, who SAYS!”

• …is it dangerous that I’m kinda with Agatha on the entire “why did we all need to drink the poison wine” factor? Possibly The Street would’ve rebelled, however they nonetheless would wish unpoisoned blood for the antidote and there’s no assure that they’d have introduced a random(ish) Teen sidekick for it. All for one and one for all, and so on, however how about a bit logic??

• Like WandaVision, Agatha All Alongside is a self-reflective sequence that’s extraordinarily conscious of the popular culture surrounding it. Nonetheless, I might use fewer clearly meta strains like, “useful interjection, random lady with no apparent magical qualities” and extra particularly humorous observations à la, “that is undoubtedly a ‘sip your tea with two palms’ sort of place.”

• I’m not positive what’s up with Lilia’s random outbursts (e.g., “Attempt to save Agatha!”) simply but, however hopefully, she/Lupone will get an actual highlight episode quickly to clue us in.

• And now, a quick elegy for Mrs. Sharon Hart Davis, who might or might not be lifeless (that is Marvel magic, in any case), however who undoubtedly didn’t deserve any of this shit. From Wanda mentally imprisoning her to the betrayal of a badly wanted glass of wine shutting down all her inner organs, Sharon’s had a tough go of it, and I want her nothing however peace and untouched Talbots purses on the opposite facet.