The ending of “Agatha All Along” leads to more witchy shenanigans in the MCU

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Agatha all the time Episodes 8 and 9.

No, Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff didn't magically appear Agatha all the time. No, there was no cameo appearance by a main character like Mephisto, about whom fan theories circulated for an entire season. But the end of Agatha all the time confirmed some other hypotheses from the Marvel viewing community and laid the foundation for the (witch) path that lies ahead – perhaps also for the upcoming series Vision Quest.

The first big reveal: Ding Dong the witch is dead. That is, Kathryn Hahn's Agatha Harkness. But it's a move inspired by Marvel comics.

In episode 8, “Follow Me My Friend / To Glory at the End,” Agatha makes a pact with “not Rio” Death (Aubrey Plaza). Billy (Joe Locke) is an abomination, says Death, because he broke the laws of nature by returning to the living by inhabiting the body of the dead William “Billy” Kaplan. Death wants him, but she is unable to take him by force. Worse, she knows he can do the same for his twin brother Tommy. So Agatha agrees to get Billy to leave voluntarily in exchange for her own life.

The remaining trio – Agatha, Billy and Jen (Sasheer Zamata) – make it to the end of the witch's path to face their final trial. At first they think they have been walking in circles because they come across the same shoes that they left on the ground at the beginning of this whole journey. But as they slip their feet into their shoes, they wake up in body bags in a morgue.

Jen is the first to leave the street unscathed. She learns that Agatha, who has performed the random spell for high-paying customers in the past, was the one who tied her up in the first place. She performs the Escape Chant and regains her magic. And because that was her goal on the street, she disappears back into the real world. Agatha then feels pity for Billy and decides to do the same for him. She guides the teenager to give himself what he wants from the streets. Billy telepathically finds an available body into which he can place Tommy's soul. In this case, it involves a child who is drowned to death by a group of bullies in a prank gone wrong. (We don't see his face, so Marvel has the opportunity to cast someone who may be very well known.) Billy also then disappears from The Road, and his wish is granted.

That leaves Agatha. She saves herself from the trial and returns to Westview, where she faces death herself. Billy swoops in, now wearing a comic-book-accurate superhero costume, and willingly gives some of his magic to Agatha so she can fight against death. Unfortunately it's not enough. Nobody can overcome death. So Agatha sacrifices herself to save Billy. After all, all death needs is a soul.

But Agatha all the time isn't done with the twists at this point. As Billy settles back into his life and the plot moves into the final episode, “Maiden Mother Crone,” he learns the harsh truth. The path of the witches was never real. It began as a song about “the windy road” that Agatha taught her son Nicholas Scratch centuries ago. The lyrics became “Down the Witches' Road” as a scam. Nicholas would perform the ballad publicly to make money and help his mother lure other witches into her clutches to absorb their power.

Agatha was perfectly willing to do the same to Jen, Alice (Alice Wu-Gulliver), and Lilia (Patti LuPone) at the start of the series…until Billy accidentally used his magic to reshape reality, creating Witch Street as a means to escape the Salem Seven. Billy realizes that all processes are based on things in his own room. It is very Wizard of Oz…even if he notices it Wizard of Oz Characters inspired the process for Episode 7.

Episode 9 reveals more about Agatha's backstory with Death taking Nicholas when he was supposed to die in childbirth, but giving him more time at the behest of a desperate Agatha. When time was up, Death came to Nicholas in his sleep, leaving her lover to mourn upon waking and sending Agatha on her own villainous path, stealing the magic from every witch she could find over the years.

Agatha all the timeIn the end, the titular Harkness now appears to Billy as a ghost and, despite some lingering pain between them, decides to join him as a phantom guide as he now tries to find his brother Tommy. It's clear that showrunner Jac Schaeffer and the Marvel team took inspiration from this Scarlet Witch: Witch Streeta comic book series from the last decade in which the spirit of Agatha Harkness acted as a mentor and guide to Wanda Maximoff as she traversed a mystical dimension known as “Witch Road.” The MCU is now setting up Hahn's Agatha to serve the same function, but for young Billy.

In the last shot, Billy and ghost Agatha go looking for Tommy. It wouldn't surprise us in the least if the reborn Tommy now becomes a key player Vision Questthe upcoming Vision-centric series that emerged from it WandaVision. Schaeffer was originally involved Vision Questwhich is now run by Terry Matalas (Star Trek: Picard). The show follows Bettany's “white Vision”, the version of Vision that SWORD originally built to subdue Wanda, but who ultimately went off on his own to find himself, using his newfound memories of the previous Vision explained.

“[Matalas] and Jac have spoken, and this show is truly a love letter to everything Jac has built before and also continues it in a way unique to this filmmaker,” said Brad Winderbaum, the head of Marvel Television Weekly entertainment before the Agatha all the time Season premiere. “There is a long tradition at Marvel, so be it [director] Shane Black takes the baton [Iron Man and Iron Man 2 filmmaker] Jon Favreau for Iron Man 3or the Russians take the baton [from Joss Whedon] In avenger. Like the comics, these franchises benefit from diverse storytellers and artists playing with the material in new ways.”

If the first WandaVision While the sequel series saw the return of Billy, it stands to reason that the next series would feature the return of Tommy. However, all we know for sure is that Bettany will return in this version of Vision Vision Quest. No release date has been set beyond a general 2026 schedule, but filming is expected to begin next year.

We also know that the MCU is preparing to introduce the Young Avengers, a team of younger Marvel heroes from the comics, most of whom have direct ties to a major member of the Avengers. The end of 2023 The miracles showed Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) recruiting Hawkeye protégé Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) to join a new team. Previously, the MCU introduced Elijah Richardson as Eli Bradley, the grandson of super soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly). The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021); Jack Veal played the Kid Loki version Loki (2021); Xochitl Gomez played the multiverse-hopping America Chavez Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022); Kathryn Newton played the size-changing Cassie Lang, Ant-Man's teenage daughter Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023); and now we have Locke as Billy, aka Wicca.

Tommy is another member of the Young Avengers in the comics and goes by the name Speed ​​because his speedster abilities are similar to those of his uncle Pietro.

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Future Marvel plans have not been announced yet, but there are several untitled films on the release calendar. Additionally, Winderbaum told EW that Marvel is “developing a lot of shows at once now.” In a way, we do television in a more traditional style, writing multiple pilots and showing Bibles before we decide what we want to produce and actually put on the screen, which gives us the opportunity to experiment and also everyone to plan possible different Marvel sandboxes.”

At least it seems that way WandaVision Sandbox continues to grow.