Tuesday, December 3

Agatha All Along Is Marvel’s Great Queer Redemption

The following story includes spoilers for the ending of Agatha All Along.

THEREFORE WE come to the end of the Witches’ Road, and of among the most engaging installations in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to strike screens recently.

When it was initially revealed that WandaVision bad guy Agatha Harkness would be leading her own spinoff on Disney+, I attempted to handle my own expectations. The extremely presence of Agatha All Along seemed like the item of an algorithm, an outcome of all the memes that turned up online following that eponymous jingle. I understood I ‘d have the ability to depend on Kathryn Hahn’s acting chops to anchor whatever sort of program this wound up being, however my expect really innovative storytelling were low.

I have actually never ever been so delighted to be incorrect. Just like WandaVision utilized its medium in innovative methods, crafting a television program that was about being a television program (and providing a love letter to the comedy while doing so), Agatha All Along took that baton and run in a various however similarly innovative instructions.

It developed out an ironclad ensemble cast for Hahn to bounce off in the type of Joe Locke, Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, Aubrey Plaza, Debra Jo Rupp and Patti goddamn LuPone. It made the many of its episodic format with its weekly Trials; escape room-style series that yielded instant delights while enhancing longer-term plot and character arcs in the method that an old-fashioned 20-episode season of tv utilized to. And while gays all over the web are still flaring that Patti LuPone didn’t get a huge musical solo, she did provide among the most gripping, mentally fulfilling episodes of the whole series.

Sure, the two-part ending wasn’t best. To Lokithe developers of Agatha All Along offered its perfidious anti-heroine a redemptive minute of self-sacrifice which weakened the delightfully wicked qualities that made her so watchable in the very first location. It likewise sidelined primary bad guy Rio quite rapidly, although the good news is her fateful face-off with Agatha didn’t consist of rather as much green-screen action as WandaVision‘s Wanda/Agatha fight. (The less we state about the Charmed-level ghost CGI in “Maiden Mother Crone” the much better.)

These last chapters likewise broke brand-new ground for Marvel, providing a same-sex kiss that was essential to the plot (read: tough to modify out for markets like China) and offering one of the comics’s most popular gay characters his authorities superhero launching, total with cape and crown.

Far frequently, previous LGBTQ+ representation in media has actually totaled up to a character who “simply occurs” to have same-sex relationships, which are hardly ever if ever checked out or perhaps portrayed on-screen. Not so in Agatha All Along. Unlike previous Disney and Marvel jobs which have actually assured LGBTQ+ representation that totaled up to simple scraps (we’re taking a look at you,

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