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Agatha All Along Finale: Terrific, well-thought-out television full of twists and hidden secrets

SPOILERS for the complete series “Agatha All Along”

So, people! How good were Agatha All Along episodes 8 and 9, which ended today as a feature-length Marvel's supposed “nobody wants to see that” production in time for Halloween? The penultimate episode was already worthy of a finale – which could basically have been said of the seventh episode (“Death's hand in mine”) last week, just because of the way it was made. But after all the twists and turns of the Lilia episode, which made you see the historical events with your eyes, the authors of Agatha All Along went much further and pulled my legs out from under my new ass several times in the final spurt.

I can't put it any other way: After the terrible Secret Invasion, Agatha All Along is incredibly well-structured mystery television. It's a show full of twists, but the good kind that isn't just there to make the writers feel clever. These revelations ensure that you'll be watching the entire show again with the knowledge of the ending, perhaps this time picking up a few of the clues cleverly placed early on.

Why can't all Marvel series be this well written?

Where do you start with the praise? Agatha's opaque pact with death (Plaza) instilled underlying tension and additional mistrust in our protagonist right at the beginning of episode eight. Jen's realization that Agatha has lost her powers and how she regains them afterwards was so wonderfully played by Sasheer Zamata that a burden also falls off the viewer. Then there were Billy's doubts about finding a “place” for his brother's soul, which broke my heart (“Am I killing this boy so my brother can live?”), which was followed by the realization that Agatha was not her child for which Darkhold sacrificed – “No, Billy, some boys just die.” – where Kathryn Hahn once again proves the talent with which she dances back and forth between loud, comedic material and sincere and fragile human drama.

All these touchingly emotional moments were just the prelude to the actual finale. This initially threatened to be the second leg of the disappointing Wandavision “final battle” between Agatha and the Scarlet Witch, but this time it held back nicely. Seeing Billy in the comic-accurate Wiccan costume made me forget that I'm actually bothered by Marvel's careless frequency with which they're currently flooding the MCU with incredibly powerful characters. Then Agatha's kiss of death and then the big moment when Billy realized that he had created the witch's path himself. This was essentially the MCU's The Usual Suspects moment – only made stronger by the fact that episode nine delves almost entirely into Agatha's backstory.

We learn how Aubrey Plaza, as Death, grants Agatha a reprieve from the (still) birth of her child. We see how she hunts down the witches she hates with her child Nicholas and that the Witches' Way was the subject of a travel song that her son composed with her as a pastime. Over the centuries, the song was reinterpreted into a legend – and Agatha used the power of this legend to rob other witches of their powers.

Agatha All Along Finale Trailer

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And yes, we learn that Agatha wanted to kill Jen, Lilia and Alice on the first day, and that she herself was surprised to suddenly find a door to the alleged witch's path in her basement. If you watch the early episodes again, there are endless clues for every single secret (even little things, like Lilia casually saying in episode two that she doesn't mind expiration dates because, as we only find out five episodes later, they have time not experienced linearly) – it's incredibly cleverly written and it's fun to pay attention to little things like that again when you read it again. Marvel has rarely had such attentive, detailed scripts.

All in all, a great series that knew where it was going from the start and found the right people to really enjoy it. At the beginning of episode eight we even got to see Alice again, who was eliminated from the series far too quickly after all the character development in episode five. Ali Ahn gets to show what she can do once again when she responds to Death's question of whether she is ready with a resigned “No” before following Plaza through the last door. What an exit…

If it were up to me, I'd rather hand showrunner Jac Schaeffer the keys to the MCU yesterday than today. Someone here knows how to build a good story. Thank you for this funny, exciting, amazing and surprisingly touching series!