Spoilers below for "Darkest Hour / Wake Thy Power,” so be warned if you haven’t yet watched Agatha All Along’s fifth episode.
As my fellow Agatha All Along coven members would likely agree, one of the biggest questions at the heart of the Disney+ series revolves around the fate and current whereabouts of Nicholas Scratch, the possibly dead and/or possibly demonic son of Kathryn Hahn’s pathological liar of a main character. The mystery deepened during the witches’ Ouija Board sesh, which involved the ghost of Evanora Harkness popping by to possess Agatha and surprisingly make Rio nervous, as well as our first audio evidence of Nicholas Scratch.
I came away from my initial viewing feeling one clear way about that scene and what it implied about Agatha’s past, but after rewatching the episode with a clearer mind, I formed a completely different take that eroded any potential sympathy for Agatha that the prior speculation inspired. (I wish all future Marvel TV shows could be as mystery-driven as this.)
At First I Thought Nicholas Scratch Was Begging Agatha To Stop Siphoning His Powers
From start to finish, the cabin-set trial was somehow even less structured than those that came before, and I’m not 100% convinced that it was actually Agatha’s trial. Regardless, she was front and center for the whole multi-generational shebang, and was responsible for sapping Alice dry of both her powers and her life. The only thing that broke her fixation on Alice was Teen curiously hollering out Nicholas Scratch’s name as his watch alarm started going off.
Which led to one of the more haunting moments of the season so far, with the echoey, disembodied voice of a young boy calling out: “Mama! Stop!” (Agatha’s instant reaction to the name and voice seemed convincing enough to dissuade any theories that it was another child’s voice.) The more pessimistic part of my brain immediately latched onto the dark thought that Nicholas was pleading for Agatha to stop hurting him.
More specifically, it presented the notion that the boy may have started presenting warlock-y powers early on, leading to at least two potential scenarios: a power-hungry Agatha intentionally drained her own son to death, or she was provoked into reluctantly sapping him. A horrifying thought, but not exactly outlandish, considering the purple witch’s past actions. And such an extreme and personal act would certainly explain why she’s so tortured over that part of her life.
Plus, it seemed like it could be an echo of the harrowing hallucination Debra Jo Rupp's Sharon had in Episode 3, recalling her husband choking (possibly to death) in WandaVision's first episode. But while Sharon's flashback moment retained the earlier scene's sickening feeling, Nicholas' tone was completely different, and without the same kind of urgency. Plus, it probably isn't that easy to say anything when having one's power sapped away.
With that different mindset in place, I also reached a completely different conclusion about Agatha and Teen's interactions in the final few minutes.
Rewatching How Agatha Handled Teen At The End Changed My Mind About That Ouiji Board Moment
During my first viewing of the firth episode, I’d concluded that Agatha was perturbed and confused by Teen invoking her son’s name inside the cabin, as well as by the way she so quickly put Alice out of her misery. Without my self-imposed empathy added into the mix, however, Agatha’s suddenly evil turn makes a lot more sense.
Upon exiting the cabin, Agatha’s first move was to test out the powers she gleaned from Alice’s death, and she was clearly displeased by how little she was able to conjure. So when Teen confronted her in an antagonizing manner, I think Agatha’s was motivated entirely by a hunger for more power, and that Nicholas Scratch’s namecheck had removed the last vestige of maternal affection she had for Joe Locke’s character.
Which is to say, I now think her harsh words to Teen — referencing his mother and calling him “Pet” — weren’t merely meant to catch him in his own lies, but to fully engage his supernatural rage. Agatha knew she was poking at sensitive wounds, and appeared to be directly pleased by his blue magic forming (as indicated in the image above). So it’s easy to think that she aimed for him to blast her with his powers, so that she could sap them up as well.
But did Agatha forget that he’s fully aware of her history, and/or that he hadn’t just witnessed everything inside the cabin where she absorbed Alice’s magic? Or did her overabundant pride and confidence make it impossible to conceive that he might have another plan to stop her beyond using finger-wagging lightning?
Either way, she clearly didn’t foresee Teen’s telepathic abilities, considering how surprised she was after being grabbed and dunked into the mud by Lilia and Jen. Fans have long been aware of how smart and crafty Kathryn Hahn’s Westview citizen is, but as we’ve seen in the past (both in WandaVision’s finale and AAA’s premiere), Agatha is at her most vulnerable when she thinks she’s already won the fight.
Which brings us back to the Nicholas Scratch of it all. With the above in mind, I’m now of the belief that instead of killing her own son, Agatha greedily siphoned the magic out of someone else who was extremely important to her and her son, possibly even Nicholas’ father. (At least assuming the kid’s MCU birth adhered largely to human biology.) And that his Ouija Board plea was for her to stop killing someone else, which itself may or may not have led to the kid’s death or disappearance.
It's obviously impossible to know what'll happen next, or how Teen's emergence as Billy "Warlock" Maximoff (or Kaplan) will affect the overall MCU timeline, at least on the magical side of the storytelling spectrum. But even if my speculation is extremely far off, I think everyone can agree that Episode 5 wasn't the last we'll see of Agatha, Lilia and Jen, since we still have some major Wizard of Oz vibes to get through before the season is over.
New episodes of Agatha All Along are available to stream with a DIsney+ subscription every Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m. ET.
