We’re nearing the end of the (witches’) road on “Agatha All Along,” and sadly, Episode 7 marked the official end for another member of the coven: Lilia Calderu.
In a departure from the typical format of the show, Episode 7 — now streaming on Disney+ — was told non-linearly, essentially thrusting viewers into Lilia’s (Patti LuPone) shoes. As it turns out, she’s not batty or wispy or kooky. She just doesn’t experience the flow of time like everyone else.
She’s experienced her life in snippets, living moments out of order. Her powers were particularly strong when she was a kid, but all she saw was death — who turns out to be Rio (Aubrey Plaza), this episode reveals — so she ignored her abilities until now.
Showrunner Jac Schaeffer jumped back into the director’s chair for “Death’s Hand in Mine,” and according to her, the episode was a multi-brain effort to pull off.
Jump from the tower into our latest episodic breakdown with Schaeffer below.
You’re back in the director’s chair for Episode 7. Curious, why this one? You did 1 and 2 and then 7. Why break it up like that?
This one is very, very close to my heart. When I was thinking about directing, my initial thought was that I would direct one and two because, you know, Episode 1 I was just so tempted by the”Mare of Easttown,” and then Episode 2 is the actual pilot of the show. It’s the proper table-setting of the show. So that was my original block.
And then, for scheduling reasons, it became necessary for me to take over 7. It actually was an opportunity that presented itself, and it felt fated. It felt fated in kind of the most beautiful way. I feel so lucky and honored that I got to direct this episode.
This is a hard episode to direct. It’s very timey-wimey. It’s very cut up and taking us into Lilia’s shoes. How did you keep it all straight?
Well, so first I have to talk about my colleagues, the writers of this episode. I chose two writers because I knew it would be so hard. I mean, it was an idea early to do a “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Memento,” “Arrival,” “Lost” [tribute]. I was like, we have an episode and we’re going to dice it up and scramble it up, and it’s going to be great. I love non-linear storytelling. I’m so enamored of it, but I knew it would be so excruciatingly hard.
So I tapped Cam Squires and Gia King. Gia was our writer’s assistant, and she showed so much potential in the room, and her contributions were so meaningful. They were a gangbusters team. So they broke their brains first, and had to come in with a whiteboard and walk us through as we were piecing the process together. And then we cracked it. We nearly lost our minds, but we did it.
And then, for the directing side of it, keeping my head straight was really about associate producer Ishi Metkar, who was my second brain. That’s really what I have to say about this episode, it always required more than one brain.
Because, to get into the weeds of it, just brass tacks: Those swords were real, they were on wires and they had to be plotted. We had a sword map and had to decide where every sword went before the actors even got into the space for rehearsal. So, on top of the timey wimey, it was just a nearly impossible episode to put together.
I’m glad that you mentioned the writers of this episode. Which one of them do I have to thank for the line “If you want straight answers, ask a straight lady?”
That was me (laughs). Yeah, and I remember that it was me, because someone, I can’t remember who it was, but along the way, there was a note that was like, “Do we need this line?” And I was like “Do we need this line?!” (Laughs).
Yeah, that one was me. It was the fun of it, obviously. But also there are just certain lines that I can hear Kathryn say before they actually pass her lips. And I was like, “That. That goes on the page and we will see it on the day, and lucky us.”
You talk about it being, practically, really hard to do. I really just want to know, for this episode specifically but also for the trials at large, how long did it take you to craft each of them?
The trials were so hard. I mean, [it’s] the work that I love to do, and that my room loves to do. It was a lot of the deep work, the character work — the sort of, “What are we here to say? How are we contributing to the discourse? What do we want to leave behind us? — essentially. The sort of big questions, you know, we’re really comfortable with.
These witchy escape rooms, they were so hard. And a lot of my team were really good at them, but we had to have rules across the whole show. You know, like: what the rules are on the road, and then each trial is bespoke. So, we had to distill it to like, “What is the goal? What is the obstacle? What is the threat? What does victory look like? What is the skillset?”
And then the pressure to accurately and faithfully depict the skillset, that was particularly hard on this episode, because tarot is a real thing. And Gia King, co-writer of the episode, is very entrenched in tarot lore. So that was an additional difficulty.
For a long time we were like, “OK, what is the spread we’re doing?” And we would try to choose a real spread, and then we finally decided, “No, no, no. We’re going to make up our own spread, and we’re going to do the spread with diligence and and we will be faithful to the meanings of the card. But we will make it our own.” So that was also just a whole mind scramble, but also the fun.
The tarot of it all. You recreated each card, and I paused on the shots of the cards that you recreated, because they were gorgeous. How did you set up those shots? It felt so important.
It was very hard. It was the block shooting, right? So when we’re in the moment, when we’re shooting Episode 2, we know that we have got to jump in and get our Episode 7 piece. We called them Lilia’s bops. Which is when there’s a bop where she sort of jumps out and has a piece of a sentence that connects to something else, that kind of bop. And then there’s a tarot bop, where we needed to recreate the actual card.
And I have to say that the artistry of the card was done by my assistant, Brittany Horn, who is an artist and a graphic designer. Those shots were sprinkled throughout the production schedule, so there were some shots where she had to sort of ret-con the card to look like the shot we already had, and some where we had a little bit more control, because they were deeper into the schedule. But it was very challenging. And again, it was leaning on my colleagues to make sure we were getting all the pieces.
I mean, with Ishi, she had this living document that had all the transitions in it. So anytime we were shooting and had to line up a transition from one Lilia bop into another, she would pull up the image, so we could look at it and make sure we were on the right side of the line, and that we had the right lens, you know, the right frame size. It was an enormous effort, but it was so worth it!
I mean, how lucky are we, that we got to — it felt like a student project, you know? Everybody’s brains were involved. And then, of course, on top of it, there is the heart of it. There is the Patti LuPone of it.
I also gotta know how you executed the fall from the tower.
So first, also, I need to call out Jon Chema, who was our second unit DP, who shot the majority of this episode. He did an extraordinary job.
We had Patti LuPone on wires, man! We put her up in the air (laughs). And this is one of the rare blue screen shots that we use in the show. And when we do blue screen on the show, because it’s practical, the VFX that we’re using are assets that we already have. So it’s not CG. We’re not recreating the background. We shot the tower, and then we shot Patti against blue, and we put the things together.
But I mean, Patti LuPone on wires is the most buoyant thing that you can think of. She loved it. She was so up for it. And it’s so perfect because her element of the character is air, and so she was singing and she was floating around.
So that magical shot was her falling in real time, and we shot it slow motion and it’s Patti LuPone! And Patti LuPone can also give us the performance in the opening shot that had the fear, and the confusion, and the angst, and the anxiety and the resistance. And then at the end, she can give us the blind surrender and the acceptance. I mean, those shots were back to back, and she can just do that. We’re so lucky.
Obviously this was Lilia’s episode, but we spent a lot of time with Lilia and Jen as a duo. It stood out to me because we haven’t really spent a ton of time with duos on the road. We’ve had little itty bitty scenes with Agatha and Rio. We’ve had a good chunk of time with Agatha and Billy, but we got so much time with Lilia and Jen. I’m curious, why were they the duo that you wanted to spend more time with in Episode 7?
That was something that the writers called out in the room, that they felt — I think it was Cam actually, Cam Squires — that the idea of putting these two characters would be especially fulfilling. That there would be natural conflict between the two of them, because they’re so different in every way. But seeing them come to an understanding and even more so an affection, would be so poignant.
Jen is such a compelling character. You know, in the initial conceiting of her, in my mind, she was a little bit one-note. I was like, “Oh, she’s a wellness guru-type. She’s there for the comedic relief of being sort of salty, and arrogant, and absurd and materialistic.” And I was like, “I can write that in my sleep. This is going to be great.”
But then when we cast Sasheer [Zamata] — I mean, on the page, she had developed quite a lot. But Sasheer helped us take it to the next level. We determined that, within Jen, because of her being bound, and the last 100 years that she spent with herself kind of curdling, that there’s so much negative self-talk, that she has so much self loathing, and has so fully distanced herself from her true nature, and her connection to her power and her pride.
So to have Lilia treat her with kindness, and more importantly with respect, just felt really important. And you know, we have this rule in this witchy world that witches in close proximity bring out a spark in each other. But to sort of take that even deeper and see it on a psychological level, Yeah, it felt urgent, and it felt like it would be really satisfying to see on screen.
And it was just funny!
Well, they’re both comediennes. They’re hilarious. And they personally, Sasheer and Patti, love each other so much, and they were such champs. Andi, I made them so disgusting.
They were covered in that goop, and then on their heads was chocolate pudding, you know. So it wasn’t toxic and it could get in their mouth, and they were angels about it. It was not pleasant. I was like, “I cannot believe I’m putting national treasure Patti LuPone in the mud.” But I did.
While we’re in the tunnels, let’s talk about the Death reveal. Rio is Death. She looks so cool in that moment, but it’s so menacing. Was this always how you envisioned the death reveal?
Yes. We wanted the Death reveal to look like the Death card. So the imagery of it, we wanted to have that classic look and to link to Lady Death in the comics, the classic aesthetic of it. And her voice is kind of, I guess, menacing, and she sounds a little bit like she’s toying with Lilia. So I can see that those shades are there, but you know, it was our aspiration to have a nuanced portrayal of Death, both the lady herself and also what death means.
I think there’s more to explore there, but I think it’s really about Lilia’s acceptance [of death], not about the personification of death being a menacing or evil thing. It’s about Lilia embracing her own path and understanding that the thing has been in front of her this whole time. She’s been seeing death everywhere since she was a child, and it made her afraid and it made her hide. It made her turn into a hermit, and she sets all of that down.
That was interesting with this death, compared to the others. It was sad, sure. But it was almost — I don’t want to say triumphant, in a way, but just the accepting nature of it. I imagine that was very intentional for you.
It was. It was. That was always what we saw for Lilia’s journey, that there would be this transcendence, this total acceptance.
We always wanted her to fall. You know, we had a lot of different versions of the trial itself. We were very inspired by “Squid Game.” So there were versions where it was like, there was hanging and they were up high. And it wasn’t always a tower. It wasn’t always swords. But we knew we wanted falling, and we knew we wanted the falling of it to feel, at the end, correct. That it is something that she yields to in a way that feels right for her and her journey.
It is my personal belief not all deaths are like that. I have a lot to say about death generally. And I know that people are — it’s so lovely that people are heartbroken and crying “Justice for Lilia” and “Justice for Alice” and “Justice for Mrs. Hart.” It means so much to me and to the writers that people care that much.
But with the show we have, it is about death. We literally have the character of Death in the show, and we wanted to take that seriously. I think the MCU and the comics can sometimes play it fast and loose with killing characters. That often works and is wonderful. But for us, there was a gravity that we wanted to reach with these stories.
I have to ask about the Agatha and Rio of it all now. When we talked about Agatha and Rio originally, you mentioned that Agatha is attracted to power. But Agatha has also always struck me as someone who would be afraid of death and constantly running from it. She tells Billy that it’s OK that he took a body because he did what he needed to do to survive. So how does Agatha and Rio’s relationship work? Is she afraid of Death and just sort of loving her through her fear?
Oh, goodness. You know, I do think that Agatha is afraid of death, but more so I think she refuses it. She refutes it. It is not for her. But I think, in some ways, her relationship with Rio is a way to keep death at arm’s length. Because with them, it is about process and collaboration.
So I think Agatha doesn’t want to die, but Agatha is fascinated by death herself. And also, I think, has at times, manipulated death herself in order to keep her, Agatha, safe.
So that was going to be the other thing, because I was like “How has Agatha survived this long at this point?” Is Death protecting her? There’s so many nuances here.
Yes, there’s more, there’s more. It’s my hope that at the conclusion of the show viewers will have a lot to chew on and interpret themselves.
I also really appreciate the “I hold death’s hand in mine” lyric of the ballad so much more now. There is a romantic connotation, certainly, because Agatha has been with Death, and then there’s also the accepting nature of it. You mentioned that you had a lot of conversations with the Lopezes about those lyrics. Was that one that was important to you? How did that come about?
Yeah, it was a vital lyric. I can’t remember exactly how it evolved. I know we had a couple different versions of how to incorporate death, but it was always that kind of thing, of like, “I’m with death,” or “Death is with me,” or “Death by my side,” because we wanted that twin feeling of the danger of death, the risk of death, the stakes of death, but also the personification of death, as a person whose hands you can hold.
And then it was the Lopezes who, you know, in the extended version of Lorna’s ballad, the lyric is “Dance with death,” which I found to be a lovely update on the “Death’s hand in mine.”
I’m really pleased with it landing. And then there’s the rhyming piece of it. There was a lot of things where I was like, “This is the intention that I need,” and then it was up to the Lopez is to make it rhyme and work with in the song. But I felt that “Death’s hand in mine” was the best version of any of the things that we got.
There’s another Wanda mention in this episode. Billy asks if she’s dead, and Agatha goes, “Yes. No. Maybe!” When you’re creating the show, why protect the ambiguity of whether Wanda is alive or not? Was there ever any point where you’re like, “Oh, let’s give a definitive answer” or was it always that you were going to play in the gray area?
We wrote that from Agatha’s perspective and as far as Agatha’s concerned, she actually does not have the answer. She has the evidence from her witchified mind. The mind that was under a spell saw a dead body. But she knows she can’t entirely trust that, and she wasn’t there when Wundagore came down. She doesn’t actually know.
So if Agatha doesn’t have the answer to a question, what’s she going to do? She’s going to play with her food, you know what I mean? She’s going to mess with people. That’s Agatha being Agatha. That’s Agatha Agatha-ing.
But as far as the larger MCU of it. Yeah, it is not my department. But as you know, I am forever rooting for Wanda Maximoff to come grace us with her presence.
I will leave you with this one. Billy starts to do a reading for Agatha, before Lilia comes back. He talks about leaving something behind and her being truthful. Do we take that seriously at all? He is a novice, but also, that’s some potentially pertinent information.
I think everything in this episode is of consequence, is what I would say.
Note: this interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
“Agatha All Along” is now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes dropping on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. PT.
TheWrap will have a new deep dive with Schaeffer for each episode on Fridays. You can check out our breakdown of the first six episodes here.
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