Agatha All Along finally teases out some of its mysteries

The first trailer for Agatha All Along, Marvel’s new series premiering September 18 on Disney+, is another WandaVision-style television homage fakeout. We can all agree we’d watch Kathryn Hahn in a Mare Of Easttown-style detective drama, but then, we’d watch Kathryn Hahn do anything. That’s why we’re giving Agatha All Along a chance, despite it being an unnecessary MCU tangent that turns a successful side character into the star of her very own series. Did we need to make Agatha Harkness into an anti-hero? Probably not. But we’re here now, so we might as well follow the Witches’ Road and see where it leads.

Here’s the synopsis, per Marvel: “In Agatha All Along, the infamous Agatha Harkness finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth Teen helps break her free from a distorted spell. Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious Teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down The Road…”

The mysterious goth Teen is played by Joe Locke, long rumored to play some version of Vision (Paul Bettany) and Wanda’s (Elizabeth Olsen) son Billy. As WandaVision fans will remember, Billy and his twin Tommy were constructs of Wanda’s magic that disappeared after she released her spell on Westview. However, a post-credits scene where Wanda hears her sons’ voices sets her on a path to embracing some seriously dark magic to reunite with the boys, as depicted in Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness. Marvel has pulled an identity bait-and-switch before—who could forget Evan Peters’ Quicksilver turning out to be a fraud called Ralph Bohner—so don’t put all your eggs in the Billy basket just yet. However, there’s a quick scene where Agatha appears to be magically attacking “The Teen” which might point towards his identity as a Maximoff. After all, Agatha’s whole deal was trying to steal Wanda’s chaos magic, and if the Teen is a being made of chaos magic, well…!

Smartly, Agatha All Along is not resting its laurels solely on a tenuous Scarlet Witch connection. The show has fortified itself with an all-star cast that includes Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, Maria Dizzia, Paul Adelstein, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Okwui Okpokwasili, Aubrey Plaza, and Patti LuPone. Debra Jo Rupp, who played an unfortunate victim of the Hex in WandaVision, appears to be reprising her role here (let’s place bets—she wants to walk the Witches’ Road to gain power for herself after being held hostage by Wanda’s magic, right?). And though Agatha seems to shed the WandaVision TV-pastiche bit after the initial prestige detective gag, there’s still some enticing genre-bending going on in the trailer. Shades of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, Tim Burton, Hocus Pocus, The Craft, A Discovery Of Witches, and, y’know, Marvel are all present here. Plus, Aubrey Plaza is finally playing an actual witch! Much as the MCU’s stock may have declined in recent times, there’s still plenty here to whet our appetites.