Updates to the release schedule for the next couple years:
--
What If? season 3 begins December 22nd, & it will be the last MCU project out this year.
--
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man begins January 29th, but again, it is not set in the MCU main timeline.
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Daredevil: Born Again season 1 begins March 4th.
--
Ironheart begins June 24th.
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Eyes of Wakanda begins August 6th.
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Marvel Zombies is expected next October.
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Wonder Man is expected in December 2025.
--Untitled Spidey 4 is expected July 24th, 2026.
--
Blade has been delayed indefinitely.
Back to the blog, as we have finally reached part 69....
Agatha All Along:
#1 "Seekest Thou the Road":
--Diggin' the new Marvel TV logo.
--She's getting too old for this ish.
--Herb!
--
Really most sincerely dead.
--"in a crick"? That's the accent you're going with?
--This opening sequence is brilliant. I nearly choked on my food at "Wandavisdysen".
--Anya!
--Confirmation that there *are* multiple copies of the Darkhold in the same universe...but Wanda destroyed ALL of them.
--Phil!
--Julie Powers is in this show.
--Oh, no, Aubrey, you can have every last bit of control you want.
--I heard that Devil's Interval.
--Norm!
--Careful, Aggie, a workout like that after pizza & beer can be a real...Heartstopper.
--I wanna say "Kitty!", but I already hit the punchline of the Cheers setup that nobody's gonna get, so now I'm conflicted.
--Oh hai Austin Powers cinematography.
--Timeline cue: About 3 years since WandaVision. It's fall of 2026.
--
Just back it up.
--"You can't kill me! It's not allowed!" Of course not, it's only the first episode!
--Credits: I haven't heard this song in ages, & I haven't heard this version in even longer.
#2 "Circle Sewn with Fate, Unlock Thy Hidden Gate":
--Are you seriously doing a recap on a 2-episode premiere?
--I love that she just refuses to untie him.
--Ah, so his name is ~v\/^~.
--Hey, it's Patti LuPone!
--TFW you accidentally pledge yourself to the person you were trying to blow off.
--
Principal Invincible is in this show.
--Are these creepy animals the Salem 7?
--
Hot Topic is NOT punk rock.
--This is like all those times I joked about people going deaf by leaving out words while I talked to them.
--"So who's going high" + the rotating closeups in a basement + Debra Jo Rupp = my brain flashing back to That 70s Show.
--This song is lovely. Sharon is so gonna die.
--The boy's a quick thinker.
--Perfect editing to sync the couch with "A door appears".
--Pitchy? How dare you!
--Cooking times vary by (c)oven.
--Credits: I just realized one of the producers has the same name as "Herb's" real identity.
#3 "Through Many Miles of Tricks & Trials":
--Caption Guy, that is NOT her name.
--
C'mon, Tom, we gotta go see the wizard; I'll get my brain, he'll get his heart, he'll get his courage, & you'll get to go home.
--The 2nd terror of the Witches' Road is the Lightning Mud, but you were clever enough to discover what that looks like, so in the future we can avoid that too!
--Talbots is a real store; this is not a reference to Glenn.
--Agatha's face when she knows she's in a trap before anyone else does, but can't get out anyway.
--Wine, women, & song!
--This feels like an obvious bait & switch. He looks EXACTLY like ~v\/^~.
--You *can* show underage drinking without driving the rating too high up (just watch Cloak & Dagger).
--What in the Madonna!?
--RIP the upholstery.
--My guy, if you knew what she was hallucinating, you wouldn't think it was so chill.
--Adria Lafayette, an "inconvenient woman"? How dare you!
--If the scariest thing to happen to Alice was that her mom screamed at her, that's not so bad.
--This is why lifeguards make you wait so long to go down waterslides.
--Not to undercut the moment, but I did call it.
#4 "If I Can't Reach You, Let My Song Teach You":
--Oof, did they burn down the gambling house?
--Loving the repeated cloak twirl.
--She didn't have a hair in the sink, so I don't think it mattered how many doses she took.
--Good news, [Teen], Rio definitely won't murder you all before the end of the Road, because she wants Agatha powered up again for a fair fight.
--It's an older effect, but it checks out.
--Like, the portraits of torture totally don't fit the vibe, man.
--Way to "yes and", Agatha!
--Ah,
backmasking joke.
--Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. DUMBLEDORE!
--Cartman, you can't just assume the one black person plays bass.
--Shake them thangs, Patti!
--This seems unusually early in the episode to have beaten the trial...oh, yeah, huge glass shard. Well, at least you cleared the song, Marty.
--What kind of psychic time bomb is Lilia exactly?
--Yeah, like I said, bait & switch.
#5 "Darkest Hour, Wake Thy Power":
--Oh, Seven! (That one's for my buddy Chaz.)
--How did they get in here?
--Oh, ok, a direct & reasonable explanation of how they got in here.
--Just Amblin down the road....
--Serious comment: Ouija boards as we know them (& as depicted here) are a toy invented in the 1880s.
--Silly comment:
Weegee board.
--Not a great impression of Debra Jo Rupp, but a FANTASTIC impression of how Agatha would've perceived Sharon.
--Gonna be a real short show if they have to write off the title character this early, unless [Teen] spends the rest of the series investigating it or something.
--Alice, how do you even know how to do that? But also, WHY would you do that? RIP.
--Yes, we get it, her son is still dead.
--"Death comes for us all" ...Oroku Saki, but something much worse comes for you, for when you die, it will be without honor.
--Ope, Agatha finally cracked the case that the rest of us cracked the instant Joe Locke was cast as a character who looks
exactly like Joe Locke.
--Wait, if you're controlling them, why are they coming after you? And how are you going to get out of here without Lilia to do her trial? And where did Rio scarper off to?
#6 "Familiar by Thy Side":
--Flashback: 3 years ago, William "Billy" Kaplan was the most magical bar mitzvah boy.
--Is this the same venue as Aamir Khan's wedding?
--Who hires a fortune teller at a religious celebra--OH SNAP.
--I don't know enough about tarot to interpret Lilia's outbursts, but they've been thoroughly documented
elsewhere. I recognize that symbol she doesn't know she's writing, though.
--Which kid? Probably the only one not wearing his suit jacket.
--Good job NOT doing every car crash commercial!
--Oh, that child is not alive--OH SNAP AGAIN.
--Caption guy, you don't need to say "Teen" anymore.
--Flashback: Just a couple days ago.
--Did he say "Eddie" or "Teddy"?
--Final OH SNAP.
--The public doesn't know what Wanda did.
--Wow, Ralph really *is* an actor; that wasn't just Wanda's doing. (Considering how much time we've been spending in New Jersey lately, "Randall" has to be a
Clerks reference.)
--You went MORE specific on a search that already gave 0 results?
--A BLACK HEART!?
--The other side of this conversation is delightful.
--And we're caught up.
--Just like how Westley got out of it.
--Important to remember Agatha really did like the kids.
--"Her own flesh & wires" I cackled.
--Again, you're gonna need Lilia. You haven't done her trial yet.
#7 "Death's Hand in Mine":
--Recap: Called it.
--She has been falling for THIRTY-SEVEN MINUTES!
--Agatha's being honest; she "saw" a body, but it was in her fugue state.
--What in the corporate synergy.
--Betcha wish you still had the psychic with you.
--Hot Damocles!
--You don't actually choose cards in tarot; you draw blindly from a deck. Unless you have the Millennium Puzzle, you don't actually control the order of appearance.
--Like I said, called it.
--Reminiscent of Robin Hinton.
--The full name joke is great.
--This reveal was not as obvious as Billy, but I still had a hunch.
--Death comes for us all, Lilia Calderu, but something much better comes for you, for when you die it will be with great honor.
--Credits: How fitting of a song choice when Evan Peters was in this show.
#8 "Follow Me My Friend, To Glory at the End":
--Alice has a point; except for Billy, she was the youngest one here by a drastic margin.
--"Not yet", eh? Hmm....
--Billy didn't consciously steal anything; he just got thrown around.
--
I need you to understand, if you give me ANY excuse to reference the Monkees, I WILL do it.
--Speaking of
Head: "And though you see the end in sight, the beginning may arrive."
--I think the premise of the room is that a proper green witch could work without soil or water.
--Wow, it really is that easy to get unbound, eh?
--Wow, it really is that easy to get out of here, eh?
--Death is a fact of life. It's not malevolent (unless you do something to piss it off); it just *is*. The things that CAUSE death, those are sometimes malevolent, but not the fact of death itself.
--These poor people have been through enough already. At least they aren't being hurt this time (well, except for Sharon).
--This was a bad idea, Wiccan.
--Wait, how is there another episode after this?
--I don't get what's even
being revealed here.
#9 "Maiden Mother Crone":
--Flashback: 1750. Lemons & murder.
--Time skip: 1756. "Oh, you walk this road alone do you?" The only one that he has ever known.
--So what we're really learning here is that Agatha should've been getting songwriting royalties from Lorna. (Also, I think I get the previous episode's reveal now: There really wasn't a Witches Road until Billy manifested it.)
--Montage: Wait, is she taking out the idiots from Hocus Pocus 2? Maybe Agatha's not so bad after all.
--She's actually right, dude. You only killed Sharon.
--Same logic Daredevil uses for Hand ninjas.
--A pairing on par with Monkey & Bryce.
Executive summary: I didn't know what to expect, but I loved what I got. If Feige is still looking for lieutenants to run the different branches of the expanding MCU, Jac Schaffer is the obvious choice to coordinate the supernatural stuff. Also, accidental
nice!
And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"
