Agatha All Along: Marvel has fun away from the MCU (review)

Absolutely unconnected to the rest of the saga and its multiverse, the new Marvel series is an entertaining magical farce, but too clean on it.

Will this witch be well-loved? In any case, she deserves to be known. That's good, Agatha Harkness has her own series, launched this Thursday on Disney Plus. New iteration from Marvel Studios, Agatha All Along is the direct continuation of WandaVision. We find the witch of Salem, who tries to regain her powers, after having been defeated by the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in the 2021 series finale. To do this, she must travel a magical road, the terrible “Witches' Road”, strewn with pitfalls and trials, which she can only overcome with her clan. Bad luck: Agatha no longer has a clan! So she will have to recruit…

Yes, we are talking about incantations, spells and cauldrons here. We are very far from Tony Stark and Iron Man, Bruce Banner and Hulk or Steve Rogers and Captain America. And yet, we are still at Marvel. Abandoning the exhausting “multiverse”, for the space of a series, the studio offers itself an appreciable breath. A step aside that forgets to connect to the rest of the Universe to tell its little story of witches. There are powers and all that, but we are much closer to Hocus Pocus and of Wizard of Oz that some Avengers. Why not !

After the desolate Secret Invasion (very very connected) and the friendly Echo (quickly forgotten), the Marvel Universe tries something else. A fantasy comedy with a (very small) touch of horror, which begins in an exceptional way. Still under Wanda's spell, Agatha hallucinates her life in Westview. She is now an investigator in the local police, in charge of solving a sordid murder. Kathryn Hahn monkey Kate Winslet with infectious pleasure, in a parody of Mare of Easttown totally assumed, which parodies the wave of dramas True Detective. It's clever, it's funny, and it obviously reminds us WandaVisionwhich thus admirably juggled with the cult of TV series. Except that here, it only lasts 20 minutes.

After this joyful introduction, Agatha comes to and Agatha All Along returns to the reality of a more ordinary series. With her new clan, the witch will methodically walk the road to power, overcoming the challenges episode after episode. The quest is colorful, sometimes amusing and does not lack a certain creativity. But the journey quickly becomes tedious and the plot drones on. Because these witches are a little too wise. Kathryn Hahn navigates blindly between the (very) evil power-hungry harpy and the sorceress in the process of redemption. She is never the vicious MCU scoundrel she aspires to be. And then the supporting roles around her are too bland, even the brilliant Aubrey Plazaso crazy in Legion (another Marvel series on the fringe), turns out to be underused. Agatha lacks madness and has not found the magic formula to give us full faith in the MCU series. Despite everything, the charm works and there is something to have fun with. This has not always been the case at Marvel lately.

Agatha All Along, season 1 in 9 episodes, to watch on Disney Plus from September 19, 2023.