Just in time for Halloween, Disney’s witch series Agatha All Along has concluded with a two-part finale. Prior to this week, the show (starring Kathryn Hahn, Joe Locke, and Aubrey Plaza) has consistently delivered some of the best Marvel television we’ve ever seen, with exciting twists rooted in emotional stakes. It is therefore a huge disappointment that Agatha All Along ends with a fizzle, just a week after the best episode.

With Lilia’s sacrifice in last week’s episode, the surviving members of the coven find themselves at the end of the Witch’s Way. The only thing standing between the surviving trio and their greatest desires is a final test and the looming presence of Agatha’s newly revealed ex, Death (Plaza). The first half of the two-part finale focuses on this process, with the witches being asked to grow something in a concrete and metal enclosure devoid of life.

Despite having twice as long to tell the end of the story, Agatha rushes All Along through the end of the Witches’ Road. This results in Jen, whose story mysteriously tied up a century ago, has been teased for several episodes, given a quick bow to her entire bow and sent off with little fanfare. It’s a deflating moment, as the show has hinted that this is something big waiting to be revealed, but when the only reveal is that Agatha accidentally tied up Jen in the past for some quick cash, it goes nowhere and the two resolve their differences. a few minutes. Jen has never been one of the strongest characters on the show, and concluding her story with this haphazard ending a week after Patti LuPone delivered the show’s best performance in the climactic episode is a major misstep.

Once Jen is out of the picture, Agatha All along can once again focus on the biggest aspect: the relationship between Agatha and Billy. With death seemingly imminent for the two as they cannot endure the trial, Agatha can help Billy connect to his powers and discover where his lost brother is, fulfilling the wish that led him to the Witch’s Way and leading him to the Witches’ Road. safety, leaving Agatha alone to die. This moment also leads to the show’s most heartbreaking revelation: Agatha’s son wasn’t sacrificed by her on the Witch’s Way at all, he simply died. When Kathryn Hahn quietly tells Billy that sometimes boys just die, it’s a heartbreaking admission that there is no power in the world that can stop death.

But since this is a Marvel property and we’re not even through the first half of this finale, we can’t end on that emotional note. The climax of part one transitions into another special effects brawl as Death and the team of Billy and Agatha fire various colored magical blasts at each other. So far, Agatha has largely avoided All Along action, choosing instead to focus on interesting puzzles that the coven will face in each trial. Trading all that originality for action that will make your eyes glaze over made me wish the show would end as quickly as possible.

Luckily the show ends soon enough. Agatha decides to sacrifice herself to save Billy, which she does by sharing a passionate kiss with her old lover, Death, which immediately causes Agatha to keel over and drop dead. It’s nice that we actually got a kiss between Plaza and Hahn on the show, since they played their characters as explicitly queer, but it’s almost laughable that Agatha is killed immediately after this screening in what is one of the most glaring must be. rolling cases of ‘kill your gays’. Oh, and we actually have a whole other episode to get through!

You may be wondering what’s left to wrap up: the show’s titular character just passed away! But part one ends with the revelation that the Witches’ Way was magicked into existence by Billy’s powers unknowingly turning his dreams into reality. It’s a reveal that fans had already clocked, but it still feels like a cheap trick that does nothing but take away the meaning of what has largely been an excellent show.

But before we even get to that, the final episode of Agatha All Along begins with a long flashback that reveals the story of Agatha’s son, Nicholas. It turns out that the boy was doomed to die during childbirth, until Agatha begged her lover to spare his life. All deals come at a price, of course, and Death warned Agatha that his time would still be limited. Naturally, Agatha and Nicholas live a fairly happy life for a few years, until one night Nicholas dies in his sleep. However, what should be a window into Agatha’s soul at its most vulnerable feels like a prelude to a finale that has already overstayed its welcome. Marvel projects, both on the big and small screen, seem to think subtlety is the enemy. This is just an example of that mentality, as the one quiet moment between Billy and Agatha in the first part of the finale holds exponentially more meaning and power than this extended sequence. Instead of ‘show, don’t tell’, Marvel chooses to show and show and keep showing until they’ve hit you over the head with the realization that this is supposed to be sad. A parent outliving their child is obviously tragic, but stretching this emotion to its limits has diminishing returns.

As the final and biggest revelation, Agatha All Along reframes everything we’ve seen before in a much poorer light. Rather than really being a show about Agatha, this is primarily Billy’s show. The deaths of every other coven member (minus Jen, who survives) are mere footnotes in his origin story. To justify the show’s choices, it seems to Billy that Agatha act as his debate partner one more time, now in the form of a ghost – perhaps the most egregious example yet of Marvel so clearly unwilling to commit engage to kill a favorite character. despite the death in which it wrote them. As the show has previously stated, this whole journey just goes to show that Billy is a murderer just like his mother, someone who can’t control his dark powers. Like the dead coven members who are nothing more than fodder for Wiccan character growth, the entirety of Agatha All along feels like another Marvel project that isn’t meant to stand alone but is instead fodder for the large MCU machine.

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