Marvel puts centuries-old witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) on the road to redemption in “Agatha All Along,” a thoroughly enjoyable if slightly revisionist Disney+ spinoff of its hit 2021 show “WandaVision.”
Wacky neighbor turned black-hearted Wanda antagonist Agatha morphs here into someone who is less evil than simply incorrigible. Smack-talking, self-involved and a natural (yet reluctant) leader, Hahn’s Agatha is a blast to watch as she plays off fellow witches almost as compelling as herself.
Hahn struts through “Agatha” with an impermeable comedic self-confidence that further demonstrates her remarkable versatility. Although Hahn excels at playing searching, insecure women (Hulu’s “Tiny Beautiful Things,” HBO’s “Mrs. Fletcher”), Agatha’s comedic arrogance suits her even better.
“WandaVision” and “Agatha” creator Jac Schaeffer played with fire — and air, earth and water — by casting Aubrey Plaza as Agatha’s antagonist, a witch named Rio who helps free Agatha from being cursed by Wanda into magic-free anonymity in Westview, N.J. Comic arrogance is Plaza’s bit, after all. Plaza still does a version of it here, but adds intriguing dimensions. She plays Rio as both more potentially dangerous than Agatha and more emotionally attached to their shared past.
Agatha’s and Rio’s first sapphically charged tussle, when Rio helps lift Agatha out of her suburban fog by informing her their former pals from Salem are after Agatha, plays delightfully like something out of “Wicked” fan fiction. But one need not project to see “Wizard of Oz” references throughout “Agatha All Along.” Or to recognize this series, which dropped its first two episodes Wednesday, as so clearly targeted at women and LGBTQ+ people that you almost expect an aftershow hosted by Andy Cohen.
Although Agatha becomes aware of who she is before Episode 1 ends, she still lacks her powers. So she recruits a group of similarly dormant local witches to try to reclaim them on the magical but treacherous “witches’ road,” which takes a coven to summon. Good thing that — as Agatha points out — you can find enough people witchy enough to form a coven within any three-mile radius in the U.S.
Encouraging her journey is a mysterious 16-year-old goth (Joe Locke, from Netflix’s queer romance series “Heartstopper”) who showed up at Agatha’s house. Although British actor Locke’s American accent is rather chewy, he is even more adorable and earnest here than on “Heartstopper,” if that’s possible.
But his character is more sophisticated, serving as a Gen Z narrator who will remark on the vibes of every stop on the road. Since a curse prevents the kid from saying his own name, Agatha calls him “Teen,” but also “Toto,” and her “pet” and “familiar,” because Agatha’s perversion is making situations sound creepier than they are.
Agatha wears Dorothy-like braids to hit the road with the enthusiastic Teen and far more wary trio of former magic makers: potion creator turned Goop-like lifestyle guru Jennifer (Sasheer Zamata), fortune teller Lilia (Patti LuPone) and hereditary witch and failed cop, Alice (Ali Ahn), whose rock singer mother recorded the most famous version of the witches’ road song. Agatha also drags Mrs. Hart, her civic-minded “WandaVision” neighbor (Debra Jo Rupp, hilariously matter of fact, as always) onto the road as well.
Zamata shows greater presence here than in some of her past screen work, exuding a quiet command as Jennifer, who might be even more confident than Agatha but is not obnoxious about it. LuPone finds droll humor in her character’s frequent switch from voice of reason to spouter of nonsense she does not remember saying. As the least comedic character in the main cast, Ahn captures the heartbreak of a woman still haunted by her mother’s death.
These witches form a coven, but also kind of a band, delivering fine harmonies (we’ll assume LuPone did a lot of the heavy lifting) on “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road,” written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.
The Lopezes are of course best known for Disney’s “Frozen,” a fact that enhances the overall, and very welcome sense of “Agatha” being more Disney than Marvel, even though the character comes from Marvel comics. The witches’ road will hold many visual treats, as well as evocations of coastal grandma chic and “Daisy Jones and the Six,” yet also seems entirely soundstage-bound. In the best way.
60 Most Anticipated Shows of Fall 2024
The show’s obvious, blue-tinted theatricality evokes Disney’s “Hocus Pocus” and even “Escape to Witch Mountain.” The witches’ road feels like it could be a Disneyland ride.
And unlike “WandaVision,” “Agatha All Along” plays as gloriously untethered to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The witches are allowed to have adventures uninterrupted by momentum-killing scenes of officials monitoring them back at the Avengers headquarters or whatever — or by the fourth-wall-breaking Marvel self-reference of that other funny, female-centric Marvel and Disney+ series, “She-Hulk” (R.I.P.)
No matter how irreverently framed, those scenes felt like medicine. “Agatha All Along” is more like a delicious potion with no side effects.
“Agatha All Along” premieres with two episodes Wednesday, Sept. 18, on Disney+.