We knew it was Agatha All Along, but the cunning witch sealed up the first season of her Marvel spinoff series on Wednesday in what may be the one of the worst road trips ever. The sorcery-heavy mystery show took viewers from a campy slow-burn story into an ominously satisfying place. The double dose of finale episodes gave us a glimpse of Agatha Harkness’ origins as a wicked witch and Billy’s powers.
In the beginning, the true villain was anyone’s guess: Mephisto, Salem Seven, Wanda Maximoff, Rio, Agatha, Agatha’s mom? We love a good fake-out, and appreciate the Easter eggs that showrunner Jac Schaeffer and team embedded throughout the series. With the deaths that have happened along the Witches’ Road and the sacrifice Lilia made in that incredible tarot-themed episode, it’s left us to wonder who is the biggest threat. Agatha’s selfish antics led us to believe she was up to no good all along, but Rio the Green Witch representing Death gave us a major reveal.
Leading into the two-part finale, only three coven witches — and Rio — remained. Billy misses his brother, Tommy; Agatha wants power. The twists, turns, moon phases and mommy issues in the series left us to wonder who’s really the main character on the Witches’ Road: Billy Kaplan/Maximoff, Agatha, Jennifer or Rio? Moreover, which witch would have their greatest desire granted?
Let’s get into the final two episodes of Agatha All Along: Follow Me My Friend/To Glory at the End and Maiden Mother Crone. Don’t read any further if you haven’t watched the finale yet on Disney Plus, as spoilers lie ahead.
Grow lights, Wiccan glory and the kiss of Death
One thing is for sure: Billy is his mother’s child. In the eighth episode, Jen, Billy and Agatha wake up in a morgue, unzipping themselves from body bags and finding their personal effects stashed with them. Above them, grow lights shine brightly, but there’s a twist. Lights start clicking off once the witches show growth. Jennifer figures out Agatha stole and bound her powers 100 years ago, and reclaims them from her. She then disappears from the room. Only Billy and Agatha are left, and they do a psychic journey to try and locate Tommy. We learn that his soul piece landed in another boy who was drowning and near death. Tommy reincarnated inside the boy, and he’s out there somewhere. Billy disappears from the room, leaving a crack in the floor.
Agatha wants her turn to have her desire granted. A piece of Nicholas’ hair is inside her cameo locket, along with a sprout. She plants the sprout in the dirt that’s sitting in the cracked floor, begging for more time. A dandelion blooms and then dies, and the room begins to collapse. She makes it out just in time, bursting through a cellar door only to be thrown into a fight with Death, who wants to kill her with 1,000 cuts and a major beatdown.
These two have a long, long history.
Billy interrupts their confrontation in his full Wiccan costume using his powers to save Agatha. But she gives him up to Death (as promised) and walks away. Stunned, he psychically communicates with her and asks if this is what happened with Nicky (her son). In a moment of reflection, she turns, kisses Death and dies in a swirl of black mist. Her decayed body turns into a bed of purple flowers. What’s clear here is that like Wanda (particularly Wanda in the Multiverse of Madness), Agatha was — and is — a grieving mother who feels guilty about her role in her child’s death.
Billy heads home to his Westview parents, and soon figures out that he created the Witches’ Road with his own imagination. The hints were always there: The Wizard of Oz poster and figurines, a Lorna Wu concert poster, the vision board, a flashback to Agatha’s wink when she said, “Didn’t think you had it in you,” and Lilia telling him he had the ability to turn his goals into reality. Like Wanda/Scarlet Witch, his magic can shape reality. An off-camera voice startles him, and it sounds just like Agatha.
Agatha and little Nicolas Scratch
It’s the final episode, Mother Maiden Crone, that shows the origins of Agatha’s power-hungry ways. Death comes for her when she’s about to give birth to Nicolas Scratch, and she begs for their lives. This time, she’s spared, but she doesn’t know when Death will return. She’d rather kill witches she meets as a way to assuage Death and buy more time with her kid. That is how she operates for years — meeting witches, snatching their powers and leaving them for dead. Her son grows up seeing this, and their years travelling together leads to him composing a song: Down, Down, Down the Road… Down the Witches’ Road.
Eventually, one of their nomadic stops along the way leads to the reemergence of Death. She comes stealthily in the middle of the night, as they sleep in the woods. Agatha wakes up and finds Nicky dead. That doesn’t stop Agatha from using the fake promise of the fake Witches’ Road to lure witches to their doom.
Back in Billy’s room, Ghost Agatha tries to get him to accept that he’s like her, and he’ll get used to killing witches and people. His anger prompts him to cast a banishing spell on her at her house with her triple goddess locket, the last attachment she has to this plane. It begins to work, but she conjures up enough corporeal power to take the locket from Billy, all while admitting that she’s not ready to face her dead son. Instead, she offers to team up with Billy. Off they go to search for Tommy, but not before Billy seals the door to the Witches’ Road and makes it a memorial to Alice, Lilia and Sharon.
Open-ended finale may spark more comic book stories
Agatha All Along took creative license with some comic book plot details, such as Agatha’s ghost guiding Billy. She’s known to mentor Scarlet Witch as a spirit, but this series spins that into a new opportunity and possible new storylines if the series continues. What we do know is that Tommy Shepherd is Billy/Wiccan’s brother, Speed, and he has abilities like his uncle Quicksilver.
In the comics, Tommy grew up in a New Jersey town where he was bullied for being different. He and Billy reunite after years apart, not knowing how their mother’s powers created them, or caused them to separate in the first place. Tommy and Billy’s comic adventures draw Wanda back into the fold, and a continuation of this story could dive into the lore on that, or maybe there will be a tie-in with the upcoming Vision TV series. A full-on family reunion? Fans can cross their fingers for that or maybe an appearance from Billy’s boyfriend, Hulkling.
The comics also bring the brothers together with Marvel characters from the Young Avengers, including Ant-Man’s Cassie Lang. In the meantime, Marvel fans familiar with Scarlet Witch story connections should stay tuned for Wonder Man in 2025 and Vision Quest’s future release.
