The history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is full of surprising plot twists and sudden reversals, unexpected deaths and unpredictable resurrections. But few have delivered the shock of the moment in the Disney+ series Agatha Always Already when Broadway legend Patti LuPone is accused of singing off-key.

A WandaVision spin-off that follows the attempts of evil witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) to regain her powers and escape the false reality she was trapped in by the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Agatha is not really a musical,Frozen Songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are credited with “original song,” singular. But that song appears in nearly every episode, or at least the four (of nine) that were released to critics ahead of Wednesday night’s premiere. Whether it’s hummed aimlessly by the show’s protagonist on her way to work or belted out as a ‘70s-style rock anthem, “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” sets the show’s witch heroines on a figurative and literal course to confront their deepest fears, including the fear of blowing a semitone too high.

Made by WandaVision‘s Jac Schaeffer, Agatha Always Already begins with a revival of that series, Marvel’s first and still best foray into episodic television. Instead of a ’50s sitcom, Agatha—or Agnes, as she’s briefly known—is stuck in a prestige TV drama, in which she plays a greasy-haired, unhinged detective who finds the body of a dead woman lying facedown in the woods. The Mare of Easttown fake is fine as far as it goes (and I must admit I had to laugh at “Based on the Danish series Wandavis dysene“in the fake opening credits), but it goes on long enough to make you wonder if it took three and a half years to come up with the idea to replicate it WandaVision‘s series of pastiches in a different genre. But the cosplay fizzles out after Agatha goes to the morgue and discovers the identity of her mysterious corpse—according to the teen tag, one “W. Maximoff,” aka the Scarlet Witch.

Wanda’s death isn’t enough to break the spell, but it weakens her enough to show Agatha how she’s been held captive, and to make her remember the only way out: form a coven and walk the Witches’ Road, a mystical path that will lead each of its five members to a personal confrontation. Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) must reckon with the fact that she’s been using her potion-making talent to peddle bogus wellness remedies, while Alice Wu-Gulliver (The Diplomat‘S Ali Ahn) confronts the generational curse that has afflicted her rock star mother in a recording studio scene straight out of Stereophonic. There is also a septet of creepy, To conjurewitches in her style who haunt her, plus an angry ex-lover named Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) who can’t decide whether to kill Agatha or take her back: a matrix of emotions that Plaza has become an old hand at by now.

There’s also the matter of the teenage boy, played by Heart Conqueror‘S Joe Locke, who shows up on Agatha’s doorstep begging for an education in the magical arts and eventually accompanies the witches on their quest, though no one really offers an explanation for his presence. He tries to tell them his name, but every time he does, his mouth is sealed shut by a spell, so Agatha decides to simply call him Teen. As the identity of WandaVision‘s antagonist or The AcolyteThe Secret Sith, the mystery of who the Teen really is, is often discussed in Agatha Always Alreadymostly to remind us that we’re supposed to care. There are also moments when the other members of Agatha’s coven briefly take on personalities that aren’t their own, and references to an unidentified “he” responsible for stripping the witches of their powers. (Comics readers, or anyone with a smartphone and curious fingers, will note the presence of an empty child’s bedroom in Agatha’s house, along with the name “Nicholas Scratch.”)

These scattered nuggets of information are meant to entice us to keep going, to tune in every week or log in to get one more step closer to the big reveal. But when it comes to witches, following the breadcrumbs doesn’t always work out as planned, and the history of mystery box shows is one of almost inevitable disappointment. Anticipation is a wonderfully elastic thing, able to stretch out over weeks or months without losing its appeal. But satisfaction is far less forgiving, and a smarter show, or even one more concerned with not setting its audience up for a trap, wouldn’t let the outcome depend so much on filling in a few gaps. Even WandaVision lost its magic after it was revealed who was behind the curtain, though the new show owes its existence, or at least its title, to the musical nature of that revelation.

That doesn’t mean Agatha Always Already is not fun, even if the joy is mostly found at the edges. Hahn plays her age-old sorceress with a sour moodiness, as if she had run out of F’s somewhere in the 17th century^and century, and the actors make the most of every joke they come up with, as when LuPone’s witch hesitates to leave a magical room through a door in the back of a furnace, reasoning that it wouldn’t work out so well for an old friend of hers. But I found myself bracing for the role when the fun starts to fade, when the self-contained story gives way to larger imperatives and the fun turns into homework. Like the depictions of fictional witches that are everywhere Agathathe credits, of The Wizard of Oz up though The craftThe Ballad’s many rearrangements suggest that we’re watching the latest version of an age-old tale, one of powerful women pitted against each other to distract them from focusing on a common enemy. But when the distractions are so compelling, the real enemy is what pulls them toward the end of their journey, forcing a destination upon them when we’d rather just go along for the ride. to ride.