Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet caught up with Agatha All Along, so be warned!
It’s hard to conceive of any upcoming Marvel TV shows coming anywhere close to sparking the same kind of theory factory that Agatha All Along has, with fan responses on par with the hyper-speculation inspired by WandaVision’s run. Just four episodes in, and roughly 95% of all possible outcomes and explanations have been talked out — okay, that’s probably hyperbole — with new questions constantly popping up. The same definitely goes for Episode 4’s LGBTQ+-coded musical mayhem.
How To Watch Agatha All Along Online And Stream New MCU Miniseries
In particular, the full-band performance of Lorna’s version of the Ballad was an A+ treat, as were the costuming and set design. But perhaps the biggest shock of the episode was Teen’s brush with death, so to speak, after his side was pierced with a big chunk of glass. He survived to live another identity-hiding day, of course, but the episode didn’t fully address why he was injured to begin with, and seemed more focused on celebrating Jen’s powers seemingly returning.
I’m not wholly sure whether or not I believe in Jen’s potions again, but I definitely think Rio was fully intending to take Teen out of the equation, and she didn’t exactly hide those intentions. Let’s discuss.
Rio Very Clearly Stated Her Intention To Start Dropping Bodies
Most people are familiar with the concept of “Chekov’s gun,” which reasons that a gun introduced in Act 1 of a performance will almost necessarily go off by the time the story is completed, creating a sense of anticipation. Aubrey Plaza’s Rio took that idea to its logical extremes by stating plainly in the first half of the episode (over the microphone so everyone could hear) that she wants Agatha to kill the other witches so that she can “get my bodies.”
Even for those who haven’t had the surprise of Rio’s mystery identity ruined by Funko Pop! Figure leaks yet, that seemed like a pretty on-the-nose clue. Regardless, even if she was led into that admission by Agatha, it’s still a legit goal of hers while on this trip down the Witches’ Road. So it is really so coincidental that one of the characters suffers a near-fatal injury mere minutes after Rio said that?
Teen's Injury Inside The Recording Studio Didn't Seem Curse-Related
"If I Can't Reach You / Let My Song Teach You" obviously centered on the mysterious curse placed on the family of Ali Ahn’s Alice Wu-Gulliver, who realized by the end of the episode that she’d misinterpreted much of her mother’s behavior as being dismissive and uncaring, while in reality the musician was trying to keep Alice safe from the fire-centric curse plaguing their family. (Pretty sure Lorna could have spread the Ballad’s power without being an absent parent, but that’s a convo for another time.)
In any case, the curse has an adverse effect on the other witches in the house who aren’t protected by the Ballad’s spell. They each appear to suffer burning pains, both physically and mentally, until Alice counterbalances the threat with her powers. At least that’s how it goes for the established female witches.
Instead of feeling as if he’s being burned alive, Teen is instead thrown across the room and through a window, which we later learn has impaled him. But why would that even happen if the whole point of this was to serve as the Fire Trial? The show’s LGBTQ+ elements make me hesitant to attribute that to the curse having different effects on men and women. And so I don’t believe the curse was paying attention to Teen’s analog witchery at all.
I believe Rio, in the midst of the witches’ agony and confusion, took the opportunity to get one of her bodies, believing Teen to be the most expendable one in the group. At that point, Agatha was still keeping her feelings about the lad under wraps, and it wasn’t until later when Rio clocked that her purple-hued former lover was giving into her maternal instincts anew.
I'm Not Convinced Jen's Powers Suddenly Came Back Just To Fix Teen
I'm still bewildered over Teen being able to pull off playing guitar for the Ballad with glass sticking out of his side, but while that can be chalked up to adrenaline and TV magic, I'm a bit more suspicious about whose magic actually healed his wounds up. Obviously the Occam's Razor answer would be Jen's potion, since that's what the episode laid out for viewers to believe.
But Agatha's pleading face to Rio to not take him, combined with Rio's powers seeming to go well beyond mere witchcraft, had me immediately believing that she was the one who actually healed Teen's wounds, and that Jen's potion process was just shadow puppetry. Not that I want to discount Jen's potential to have regained some talents after the first Trial, but considering her potion misstep in Episode 3 led to Sharon's death, I'm not so eager to think she's fully upwards and onwards just yet.
It'd be one thing if this was the very first time audiences watched someone's messy wound heal up immediately and without any scarring, without having any other instances to compare it to. But that's certainly not the case here, since the series premiere featured the obsession-worthy moment where Rio licked Agatha's cut hand back to health, blood and all. The healing process even looked similar, for what that's worth.
I've a working theory that Rio was also present during Agatha's prevous walk down the Witches' Road, and that's why her prior coven seemed to have issues with keeping everyone alive as well. Of course, Agatha holding a single finger up when asked may be entirely unrelated to Rio, but the episode seemed to make a point of having both characters address their shared pasts without letting others know it was shared.
Rio's knowledge about Agatha's son Nicholas Scratch is also worth digging into by way of theories about how she's connected to Agatha's sacrifice, not to mention the Mephisto of it all, but that's also for another time. Perhaps after one of the upcoming episodes directly addresses it, while also hopefully bringing Emma Caulfield's Dottie back into the fold.
