This article contains spoilers for “Agatha All Along” season 1 episode 1, “Seekest Thou the Road.”
You might be a little confused when you press play on the first episode of Kathryn Hahn’s new “WandaVision” spin-off “Agatha All Along.” Why? It’s not witchy, there are no supernatural elements at first, and Hahn’s character is a gritty detective … who looks and feels quite a bit like Kate Winslet’s title character on the HBO series “Mare of Easttown.”
Allow me to explain. The first twenty or so minutes of “Agatha All Along” envision Hahn as grizzled cop Agnes O’Connor, who has to solve yet another murder after a girl’s body is found in a creek. She’s interrupted by FBI Agent Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), who’s there to help despite Agnes’ protestations, and everything heats up considerably when a young teenager (Joe Locke) breaks into her house in the dead of night. So what’s going on here? Where’s all the witchcraft and spooky stuff?! Where’s Tony Award-winner Patti LuPone?! And why does the credits sequence only show character names before it announces that you’re watching something called “Agnes of Westview?”
Hang tight. That’s all coming. But for now, let’s focus on the fact that, for its first twenty minutes, Jac Schaeffer and her creative team perfectly mimic “Mare of Easttown,” a relatively recent HBO hit that earned massive critical acclaim and accolades. It’s a pitch-perfect imitation, and it’s an awesome way to kick off the show.
The inspiration behind Agnes of Westview was a massive success for HBO
In case you’re a little rusty on the whole deal with “Mare of Easttown” — which would make sense, considering it came out in the Covid haze of 2021 — here’s a quick refresher. (Also, yes, there is a show called “Mayor of Kingstown,” but that one has Jeremy Renner and it’s different.) Kate Winslet plays Marianne “Mare” Sheehan, a detective who ends up investigating the recent murder of one young girl and the disappearance of another that happened years before the series begins, and to call her “grizzled” like Agnes would be appropriate here. (She’s constantly vaping, vaguely grungy in her plaid shirts, and her super-thick Pennsylvania accent definitely helps Winslet seem a lot grittier.)
“Mare of Easttown” was an enormous success for HBO when all was said and done; Winslet won an Emmy for her role alongside her co-stars Evan Peters and Julianne Nicholson, though the show ultimately lost the limited series race to “The Queen’s Gambit.” (Hilariously, “WandaVision” was also nominated in that category, and Elizabeth Olsen competed against Winslet for the lead actress trophy.) There’s likely not going to be a second season for “Mare of Easttown,” according to Winslet herself, but now it has a spiritual successor: the first half of the pilot of “Agatha All Along.” So how does this show finally introduce all of its fantastical elements?
The Agnes of Westview facade doesn’t last long during Agatha All Along
“Agnes of Westview” is pretty great (it even gets its own title sequence with a mournful rock song that would fit in perfectly as the lead-in for just about any crime drama), but at a certain point, you just want to get to the witchy stuff. Fret not. After Agnes catches the teen who broke into her house, she hauls him into an interrogation room down at the precinct … at which point stuff starts getting weird. All the pictures of the dead girl in the “crick” are just pictures of someone’s lawn, and then the teen starts chanting. Frustrated, Agnes heads to the morgue just to run into Agent Vidal — where the two notice that the body bears a tag that says “W. Maximoff.” Agnes starts stripping off all of her clothes only to discover that, with each layer she removes, she becomes a different version of Agnes, and they’re all versions previously seen in “WandaVision,” from her 1980s spandex to her 1950s housewife getup. (The show even puts a black and white filter over Kathryn Hahn to pair with her housewife outfit, which is an awesome effect.)
Sure, things get a little sticky for Agnes-Agatha from there, seeing as she turns up completely naked and confused on her neighbor’s lawn in a sunny Westview (one where she’s definitely not a detective, but a witch who’s lost her powers), and Rio Vidal reveals that she’s a witch who wants Agatha dead. We’ll always have “Agnes of Westview,” though — and that framework is just a perfectly confusing way to start “Agatha All Along.”
“Agatha All Along” just dropped its first two episodes on Disney+, and new episodes will arrive every Wednesday.
