This article includes failed Agatha for All Along Episode 4, “If I Can’t Reach You, Let My Song Teach You.”
Last week’s episode of “Agatha All Along” ended on a major cliffhanger, namely, what our witches were going to do with the body of Sharon/Mrs. After Hart’s (Debra Jo Rupp) group fails to protect him during the first trial in “Big Little Lies House of Poison” (not official nameThe coven needs another witch to join Sharon on the road for the count, so they agree to summon a “backup green witch”.
The result is Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), a warrior witch known as the Green Witch, an old (frenemy) enemy of Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), and possibly one of the most dangerous forces in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Is one of. We’ve already met Ryo this season, posing as a federal agent while Agatha still believed she was Detective Agnes O’Connor. She accompanied Agatha as she slowly realized what the Scarlet Witch had done to her, giving her the chance to leave the drama and help Agatha return to reality.
Ryo and Agatha go way back as witches, with the first witch drawing a blade on the second witch in the most seductive way possible. Watching those two fight is like watching an episode of “Killing Eve,” where the emphasis was on unbridled sexual tension over the action. When Ryo finally bites Agatha’s hand, she licks her blood and Agatha strangles her. I don’t know who went to the girls’ leather party in the writer’s room, but i see youRyo agrees not to kill Agatha in a weakened state, but promises that the two will match wits again when Agatha is at full strength, so they’re both a ticking time bomb, and we already know that. that Ryo likes Agatha “horizontally”.
Rio Vidal is practically based on his anger towards Agatha, but it’s the kind of vengeance that seems reserved for someone who broke your life… or broke your heart. If the final moments of Episode 4 are any indicator, “Agatha All Along” may finally fix one of Marvel’s biggest problems, as long as they don’t come out and admit that Ryo and Agatha are a -Others are being hugged because they’re ex-partners, and I’m not talking about law enforcement agents.
Agatha knows every inch of Rio Vidal
Before the end of the episode, the coven spends time sharing stories around the fire. Ryo announces to the group that he has a scar, and Agatha responds, “No, you don’t.” How would he know this unless he was intimately familiar with every inch of Rio Vidal’s body? Ryo explains, “A long time ago, I loved someone and I had to do something I didn’t want to do, even though it was my job, and it hurt them. That’s my wound.” While she is telling the story, she is trying not to look at Agatha, but every now and then her eyes glance up at her. Agatha tells herself to “spread her legs” and Ryo follows shortly behind. Without anyone else in the group to see them, the two embrace, Agatha holding Ryo’s face in her hands.
She leans in to kiss him, but Ryo stops her to say, “That boy is not yours,” referring to the teen (Joe Locke), who at this point is presumably Agatha’s dead son, Nicholas Scratch. As indicated. Agatha stops for a moment, smiles, and leaves Ryo alone in the woods. Sure, cliffhanger story wise That Ryo left the audience with even more questions about the teen and why anyone would question her identity, but the real dilemma is whether or not “Agatha All Along” will let Agatha and Ryo kiss, damn it. !
Plaza, on the red carpet before the series premiere was asked by Variety There were rumors that it would be “the gayest project Marvel has ever done”, and he promised, “It will be a gay explosion by the end of it.”
Listen, I’m not here to cast doubt on a beloved man like Aubrey Plaza, but I’ve had this song and dance with Marvel before. When I was first promised “the first openly gay character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” I got to meet straight director Joe Russo in a cameo scene in a group therapy session and go on a date with a guy for the first time in five years. Was asked to talk about. After the blip. I don’t care how much the “Grieving Man” loves baseball and how much he misses his man No Gay representation.
Agatha All Along Deserves to Be Bizarre Beyond Subtext and Casting
“Agatha All Along” is brimming with queerness on a basic level, because witches will always be inherently queer — and the cast is seen as icons by people in the gay community (hello, Patti LuPone!). Joe Locke’s teenage character is definitely quirky, but we haven’t seen him with any romantic partners. And of course, gay people don’t magically stop being gay if they’re single or asexual, but not showing love, happiness, or intimacy to gay people is depriving gay people of the ability to see themselves reflected on screen, while It never occurs to straight people to think about being denied.
Allowing characters to be queer, canonical, and literal brings legitimate change to life. In fact, this is true for one of the stars of the show. ‘Saturday Night Live’ alum and ‘Agatha All Along’ co-star Sasheer Zamata recently revealed Them She realized she was a lesbian, and part of that realization came from playing so many queer roles.
“I kept getting cast as queer women. I played a lesbian in ‘Home Economics.’ I played a lesbian in ‘Woke.’ I played a lesbian in ‘Tuca & Bertie.’ I kept getting these roles as a lesbian on ‘The OG’ and even before I was figuring out my own identity, I thought, ‘Wow, what are these casting directors seeing that I’m not seeing?'”
Zamata joked that “Hollywood turned him out to be gay,” but anyone with half a brain cell knows that didn’t happen. Zamata was always gay, but playing these characters helped her see a possibility for her life that she didn’t know was possible. That’s the thing about the magic of film and television – they give us insight into worlds beyond our own experiences and show us that we don’t have to accept the roles we’ve been born into.
“Agatha All Along” is a fun show about witches in a world where superheroes definitely exist, but it’s also a chance for Marvel to really double down on the campy queerness. Fanatics already think the show is “too old” to make a female-led series with a diverse cast, so why worry about what those losers who don’t even watch the show will think? People watching “Agatha” are already cool with weirdness, so there’s no reason for Marvel and Disney+ not to fully embrace it.
I wish I didn’t have to be a skeptic
I’ve been out long enough and I don’t need representation from multi-billion dollar companies to feel “legitimate” or worthy of existing, and I certainly don’t look to four-quadrant entertainment conglomerates for those projects. Which are consistent with my experiences. I have real gay problems to worry about, like whether or not my marriage is going to be invalid or whether doctors will be allowed to deny me health care.
But I’m not such a nihilistic debater that I can’t recognize how important this is to the millions of gay people who are still in a place in their lives where they to do These stories are needed. If “Agatha All Along” was only comfortable “teasing” the queerness and not actually following through, what kind of message would that send to all of them? What does it tell people if one of the biggest and most powerful voices in Hollywood wants to marginalize our lives so as not to bother the hateful people complaining?
At this point, the onus is on studios and streamers to either commit to telling queer stories, or they need to avoid it altogether and fall back on the time-honored tradition of queer coding. This halfway “giving hints but not following through” exercise is tiring, boring and frustrating. Go big or go home, as they say. After this week’s episode, I can’t imagine that “Agatha All Along” will end and Agatha and Ryo won’t get their wish – they will/will not, but I’m also extremely skeptical, because I’m burnt out on this. But marvel at the past (“eternal,” innocent). The company has certainly made progress in recent years, but they can do a lot more. Just let the witches kiss and there will be no problems!
“Agatha All Along” is available on Disney+.
