Agatha All Along episode 4 review: why Lorna's ballad ran long

Episode four of Agatha All Along, Marvel's 2024 Disney+ series starring Kathryn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza and Joe Locke, is consistent with the episodes before it. So far I think it's an enjoyable show. My main complaint is the musical number, which I thought was way too long.

I went through this one with my wife, and the question of who the show is for came up again. I've had a lot of pushback for saying it isn't targeted at me. My point was never that guys can't enjoy it. It's that it wasn't designed to be a dude show. The view in the room was that it's a fun, female driven show, and that doesn't mean guys can't enjoy it. So far I've enjoyed going through it with my wife.

Agatha All Along's sixties house trial and Lorna's ballad

The episode puts the coven in a house straight out of the sixties or seventies, with costumes to match. The setup drew the line, "you can't put those outfits on and not do a Partridge Family performance." A backwards record lays a curse that starts burning the witches one by one. The record turns out to be a mother's record, and the fix is to play Lorna's ballad as a protection spell.

Kathryn Hahn earned a nod too: "you can't accuse Kathryn Hahn of not going all in on the role." There was a thought that Patti LuPone should have sung the lead, because she could have belted it out. There was also hope that the witches might break into a choreographed disco number. I understand why they did the musical thing, since it's been consistent with what they've been doing, and it was the setup to get the boy hurt. But they could have hurt him without a musical number.

Agatha, Rio and the mystery of the boy

When the boy is hurt, Agatha cares about him and gets very emotional. In the discussion, it felt like she showed herself what she's made of. The show keeps pointing toward him being her son, which felt predictable, though they're still telegraphing it, so it might be a twist. Then Agatha is told that boy isn't hers.

It also looks like Agatha and Aubrey Plaza's Rio are former lovers. As for who the boy really is, I'm pretty sure I know who he is at this point, but I don't want to say it.

Overall, episode four keeps the show where it has been for me: enjoyable, consistent and something we'll finish, since we're already invested in it, even if the ballad went on longer than it needed to.