Agatha All Along's Potions Trial: Theories on Teen, Nicholas Scratch and Mrs. Hart

With episode three of Agatha All Along, we were on the Witches' Road, and the road turned out to be a series of escape rooms. I love it. I think it's a fabulous choice, and the potions house at the center of this episode gave us a death, a Mephisto mention and a growing pile of clues about who Teen really is.

At the time, I had seen four of the nine episodes: the two-episode premiere, this one and the one that followed. That meant I'd seen two episodes fully on the road. Without spoiling anything, I'd detected a pattern in how the road works.

The Witches' Road is an escape room Disney could build in real life

What I like about the escape room format is that Disney could build real Witches' Road escape room experiences. Why not? Universal Studios has escape rooms in its CityWalk area, offered for both Jurassic World and Back to the Future. I've done a few escape rooms, and they're harder than they look. You think it's going to be easy, and then you realize it's somewhat difficult. They're fun, though.

I would love to do a Witches' Road escape room, particularly around Halloween. They even have a slide. I was surprised how bad the D23 version was, but this is screaming to be built. I hoped the show would be successful. When this episode came out, Disney still hadn't released any viewership numbers, which made me a little nervous, because usually they would have done that by then.

Each house on the road follows the same pattern

Each house, each escape room, is different. It's the legend of a witch's house on a lonely road in the woods, and I think that's clever. I think Jac Schaeffer is a delight. The first variation is the style of the house. This one is a Nicole Kidman miniseries, or a Nancy Meyers movie, since there's an overlap between the two. I find it hilarious, and it's extremely well done, from the set design to the makeovers.

The makeovers are fun, and picking a favorite is a game we can play with each episode. This time I'd go with Agatha, with her impeccable hair and manicure. I noticed the French tips. Teen is runner up, because he looks so different from his usual look but is still adorable in his little sweater.

On the door of each house are the phases of the moon, and the phase in the center indicates the manner of death if you fail. In this case it's water. Each house also spotlights a different witch to lead the way out. As Agatha explains, the road will test their knowledge of the craft, one trial for each skill. That's why the show made the effort to tell us what kind of witch each one was.

Most of these witches don't have their power running at full strength, but Teen points out that there's always analog magic. My first thought was card tricks, but he means the labor intensive, manual act of magic: witchcraft, with the emphasis on the craft. I love that line. Teen is very good at craft, because that's all he has at the moment. He has his little notebook where he's been writing everything down. All he's missing is the magic, and that's why he, like all these witches, wants to walk the road.

The potions house was built for Jennifer Kale, and for Mrs. Hart

This house is all about potions, because the pink witch, Jennifer Kale, is the potions witch. It's her specialty. I believe the theme of each house matches the witch being challenged. As Jennifer says, the place looks like one of her customers lives there. This is the home of the type of woman who would buy her beauty line, and sure enough, the bathroom is full of it.

There's an overlap, though, because the theme also makes it a welcoming spot for Mrs. Hart, AKA Sharon, who says she'd love to be buried in that kitchen. Be careful what you wish for, especially on the Witches' Road. They killed Mrs. Hart. Or did they? This is still a Disney show, although they did kill Maria Hill over on Secret Invasion.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mrs. Hart is somehow magically resurrected at the end of the series, with a quip ready about how this was the worst party, or maybe a great party. Who knows. Still, she'd been complaining an awful lot, and to be honest, I think it was time for her to go. She was so fun and great in this episode, but we need the suburban non witch dead, because we need the real green witch, Rio Vidal, to show up.

Why did Mrs. Hart die? The devil is in the details. You might have noticed she drank two servings of the wine, AKA the poison, but was only given one serving of the antidote.

Jennifer Kale's warning points to Nicholas Scratch

Speaking of the devil, we got an actual Mephisto shout out. Jennifer Kale pulls Teen aside to warn him about Agatha. Teen, who is so sweet and such an Agatha fan, says she's not that bad. Jennifer says she is that bad and tells him what Agatha did. The rumor, as Jennifer tells it, is that Agatha traded her own son for the Darkhold.

I'm surprised that in all of his studies, Teen never heard about this. Maybe that's a clue, and he didn't hear about it because it's about him. Jennifer says nobody knows what happened to Nicholas Scratch: he could be dead, a demon or an agent of Mephisto. I'm going to go for all three. Why couldn't Teen be a dead demon who's working for Mephisto? We'll see.

The Wiccan teases in the ads for the show at the time were out of control. They play it as though nobody knows if he's Wiccan, when he's clearly doing the Wiccan stuff. But all these Nicholas Scratch hints aren't for nothing either.

We find out the sigil is still holding, and none of the witches can know who he is. Why not have Mrs. Hart ask him? I'm sure the sigil can't be worked around that easily, but I would have given it a try. They all knew she was clearly not a witch, since she was looking for cell phone service. They're all curious about why someone would hide his identity from witch folk, which means there's a very good chance he might be valuable.

My Westview car crash theory about Teen

Others had already brought this up, but I think the plot thickens. Remember the car crash Agatha mentioned in episode one while investigating the murder? There was a crash in Westview with two burst airbags in the front seat and blood stains in the back. Teen is from Westview. Maybe he was in the car. Maybe his boyfriend was as well, and maybe that's why his boyfriend was calling, looking for him.

Maybe Teen died in that car accident and the soul of Billy Maximoff took over, just like in the comics. That's how Billy Kaplan became Wanda's son and became Wiccan. But maybe this time it's not Billy Kaplan. Maybe it's Nicholas Scratch, who grew up in Westview, and when he died in the accident, Billy Maximoff took over his body, combining Wanda's and Agatha's sons. I'm not sure that's what the show is doing, but I would like it quite a bit. I think it would be excellent, and it would mean Jennifer isn't the only one cooking.

Jennifer also says she doubts Agatha would even recognize her own son if he showed up on her doorstep. I love it. Jac Schaeffer has said she was surprised at how fans dug into WandaVision for their theories, and to me that means she isn't leaving loose ends like she did before. So that line is no accident. I hope she won't Ralph Bohner us again. Let's hope that's not what we have to say at the end of Agatha.

Agatha does feel a connection with Teen. The only reason she agrees to drink the poisoned wine is because Teen says that if she won't, he will. I love when he gets tough. He's a sweet boy, but that doesn't mean he's a pushover, and he's the only reason she's willing to risk her safety.

The poison's staggered timing is clever writing

First, everyone gets a too much plastic surgery face, which is hilarious but also a little sad. Then they have hallucinations before death, and they have 30 minutes, complete with a very nice timer. That's about how long the sequence takes in the episode itself.

It's clever writing to have Mrs. Hart go first, then most of the group, then Agatha last. The staggered timing lets anticipation unfold so we can play along. First we're surprised, then we wait for it, and then we wonder what's going to happen with Agatha. I also liked how the wine glass kept refilling every time Agatha tried to get rid of her portion.

Agatha's hallucination puts the Darkhold in a bassinet

Agatha is the most nervous, since she's the only one who has walked the road before and knows how deadly it can be. She's also the only one who keeps looking for an escape. You'd think from her first trip she'd know there aren't any, but maybe the fact that she's looking means sometimes there are. Did Agatha survive the Witches' Road the first time by cheating? She brought up cheating when Teen said he wanted to walk the road to get power. Maybe it's like mother, like son.

Agatha's hallucination is pretty sad. It's a baby bassinet, but what's inside is the Darkhold. That's more Nicholas Scratch references. Jac Schaeffer is overdoing it a little, but she wants to make it clear, so let's pay attention.

Alice's hallucination reveals a family curse and a fire

Around then I had been reviewing screeners for season two of a Netflix drama I think is a great show, and I remembered that Ali Ahn is on it, where she does a much better job. It's night and day between the two roles. That show also has a female showrunner, Debora Cahn. I don't think Jac Schaeffer is taking as good care of Ali Ahn, but Alice's story here continues to be very interesting.

We learn that this protection witch has a protection tattoo her mother insisted she get when Alice was younger, at a show at Red Rocks in Colorado. It seems Alice was there in the '70s, because that's the time period of her hallucination. It features her mother, the famous singer behind The Ballad of the Witches' Road, who also happens to be a witch.

Alice's mother insists the women in their family are cursed. When Alice's grandmother dies in the hallucination, her mother says, "I just felt my mother passing, which means I'm next." She's holding a lighter, so maybe fire. We learn she cares deeply about protecting her daughter, and that not being able to is what she fears. She screams at her daughter, "I can't protect you." There are many juicy details in that hallucination.

Lilia's hallucination was the most mysterious

Lilia keeps having visions where something seems to take over her body, and she shouts out about trying to save Agatha. We'll see what's up with that. Her hallucination was the most mysterious, I think. Maybe she's seeing a version of Agatha's brooch: the maiden, the mother and the crone, AKA death.

The era of the clothing seemed very Inquisition to me. I'm not sure which one, since I looked it up and there have been many inquisitions. I think the point is to underline that Lilia is a much older witch than the others, harkening back to a dangerous time for witches way before Salem. We get many Salem references with Agatha, but Lilia is old school European witch. I also think she's speaking Italian when Agatha finds her. I tried Google Translate, but it didn't quite work out.

Jennifer's challenge turns witch ingredients into everyday products

Jennifer's house, her challenge, has a gorgeous kitchen, a fitting place to cook up a potion. Teen keeps referencing his parents. Earlier on the road he said they were definitely asleep, suggesting they aren't big partiers, and here he mentions his dad is an experienced cook. I wonder why he keeps bringing them up.

I like how the show reveals that a witch's potion ingredients aren't that scary in modern terms. Frankincense oil is apparently sometimes mixed with eucalyptus. One clue is honey, which I knew as soon as they said it. Eye of newt is mustard seed, which is weird. A corpse decomposing for at least 30 million years I got too: dinosaurs make up gasoline, and petroleum also comes in jelly form, as in Vaseline. Agatha correctly guesses Jennifer's beauty products aren't as organic as she claims, although I'd have thought Vaseline was okay.

Jennifer's hallucination goes back to when she was bound and cut off from her magic. Having seen The Knick, I know that's a doctor from around 1920, and Jennifer said she'd been bound for around a hundred years. He tells her she's nothing now. How does a doctor know how to bind a witch? That's a mystery. Another is that in her pep talk, Agatha says she always left Jennifer alone even though she hated her, because she knew what Jennifer was doing was important. What was Jennifer doing? I hope we find out.

The potion works with the blood of someone who didn't drink the poison, and Agatha has no problem cutting Teen's hand. I guess that's the family business. I enjoyed the whole sequence and liked the lightning in the pot, though I missed a good old fashioned witch chant while they stirred. They escape by crawling into an oven, a great witch reference, and Lilia says she knows a witch who was in that situation. Is she referencing Hansel and Gretel? The trailers teased an Alice in Wonderland fairy tale situation, and I wonder if that will be Lilia's house. It was a nice touch that Alice, the protection witch, went into the oven last to make sure everyone else got in. Then it's down another slide, though not everyone made it, because Mrs. Hart is dead. That's the cliffhanger. Where's Rio?

The cheap wine line was my favorite of the episode

A few lines stood out that I haven't already mentioned. When someone asks whether something was there before, Agatha says maybe they should stop asking that, and I was grateful, because I don't want to hear it every five seconds either. When Mrs. Hart says they don't want to surprise anyone, Agatha replies, "Don't we," with a great mischievous look before barging right in. Kathryn Hahn is doing an amazing job.

Potentially my favorite line is when Agatha downs the wine and declares it so cheap. The cheapness of the wine was just so disgusting to her. That was a great line, delivered extremely well, and I loved it.