Agatha All Along episodes 1 and 2: why is Teen's name muted?

Marvel's Agatha All Along (2024), starring Kathryn Hahn and Joe Locke, opened with two episodes packed with Easter eggs, tarot imagery and comic book deep cuts. This show feels like it was designed for us, and I feel like I was made for this. What follows is my guide down this witch's plural possessive road, from Teen's mysteriously muted name to the coven's final walk into the Witches' Road.

The episodes include several nods to The Wizard of Oz, borrow from Shakespeare, and show several members of the Salem's Seven in animal form, including a crow, a rat, a coyote and an owl. They also leave a trail of clues about who Teen really is.

Agatha All Along debuts the Marvel Television bumper

For the first time, Marvel Studios unveiled its Marvel Television bumper. It uses the same rapidly flipping comic book images that open the Marvel Studios title bumper.

The opening imagery includes the tarot card of the Magician, with cycles of the moon around the edges. The Magician is a representation of pure willpower. From there we get a spooky spider walking over us, a bunch of witches paddle boarding, which I love, and a full moon. It ends on the road through the wood, which I'm assuming is the Witches' Road, with the title Agatha All Along over it.

Agatha's shoes and the Wizard of Oz parallels in episode 2

Episode 2, Circle Sewn With Fate, Unlock Thy Hidden Gate, takes its title from another lyric of the Ballad of the Witches' Road. It opens with Agatha frantically pacing the house, asking whose shoes these are. That's another Wizard of Oz parallel: the Wicked Witch of the West wanted the ruby slippers, or the silver slippers in L. Frank Baum's text. I also remember reading in Roald Dahl's The Witches that witches would have to cram their feet into shoes and even cut off their toes to fit them in.

There's also more rabbit art on the wall where Teen peels the tape off his mouth. I find it interesting that Teen unseals his mouth here, only to have a mysterious spell cover his mouth again when he tries to reveal his name.

Teen says the road will give you the thing you want most if you make it to the end. That's another nod to The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion go down the yellow brick road seeking a way home, a brain, a heart and courage. The Witches' Road itself was introduced in the 2016 Scarlet Witch comics, where it's a dimension accessed only by witches and warlocks. A ghost form of Agatha Harkness accompanies Wanda Maximoff down the road as they investigate a supernatural issue in Ireland, running into a version of Wanda's mother along the way.

Agatha asks why Teen even needs the road if he could undo a Scarlet Witch spell. His answer: "I've studied, don't get me wrong, but that can only take you so far." That reminds me of the line in Oppenheimer about theory only getting you so far. It sounds like Teen is intentionally listing juvenile applications of sorcery, like a shield, levitation and blasts, to sound immature and naive to Agatha as a tactic. I don't think a 16 year old who knew enough to break her out of that trance would only want to fly and scare off his bullies.

Teen's muted name and the sigil over his mouth

Agatha finds a locket brooch with a lock of dark hair inside, and it's in that moment she turns to ask Teen who he is. He starts to answer, she asks him to say it again, and the answer is lost. I broke down Joe Locke's mouth and chin movements, and he's clearly saying either three or four syllables. But anyone who thinks they can reassemble that audio into something discernible is kidding themselves. They clearly muted it and inserted a completely different sound.

Scarlet Witch Updates on Twitter confirmed that the symbol over his mouth also appears on the Agatha crew sweatshirt and on the corner of the tarot cards released as promo artwork. It looks like a combination of a W and an M.

Closed captions on a trailer listed Joe Locke's character as Billy. But when he was asked at press junkets whether he researched Wanda's son Billy Maximoff, played by Julian Hilliard in WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness, he seemed legitimately confused and insisted he's playing a completely different character. Billy Maximoff, as we met him, was a creation of Wanda inside her Hex, who happened to have a real counterpart in the 838 universe. WandaVision did dress him up as Wiccan for Halloween in episode 6.

At this point in the series, I thought Joe Locke could be playing Billy Kaplan, also known as Wiccan, the Young Avenger revealed in the comics to be Wanda's son reincarnated through a piece of Mephisto's soul. That's a very confusing comics backstory. I could also see the show naming him Billy Kaplan while giving him a different backstory more connected to Agatha. Since it was seeing the lock of dark hair that prompted her question, my guess was that the muted name might have been Nicholas.

Why it's the Witches' Road, with the apostrophe after the S

Agatha tells Teen she'll need a full coven to access the road. That makes sense, because it's the Witches' Road, plural possessive. As a grammar nerd, I love this. A generation of students thinks it looks weird to have punctuation hanging off the end of an S, but that's how you show multiple things possessing a single thing. The road belongs to all the witches. I like how Agatha, as someone who probably didn't spend much time seeing it printed anywhere, seems to have forgotten the punctuation and thinks it belongs to her.

Agatha sees graffiti all over Wanda's plot of land, including "evil witch stay away" and the sigil of the Scarlet Witch's tiara crossed out. That means someone in Westview had to figure out Scarlet Witch iconography for themselves. The Westview welcome sign now reads a population of 2,251, down from what it was in WandaVision episode 3. That means over 1,600 people left after the Westview incident, which would be devastating to the town's economy, its tax base and its businesses.

"Black Hands on My Mind" plays as Teen's ringtone when his boyfriend calls, listed on his phone as Boy. That actor is Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and it's believed the character's name is Eddie. Agatha then explains the covenstead rule: within any three mile radius there will always be a collection of witchy enough people to form a coven. I like that she says witchy enough, which I suppose is how Sharon Davis gets in. In several driving scenes there's a car in the background tailing them, despite this being a very small town, yet no car is following them when we cut to a wide exterior shot.

Patti LuPone's Lilia Calderu reads Agatha's past

Their first stop is Madame Calderu's psychic readings, where the window advertises $5.99 for the past. Broadway legend Patti LuPone plays Lilia Calderu, a Sicilian witch who is 450 years old. She was originally a villain in Doctor Strange comics, with history alongside Baron Mordo in the Book of Cagliostro. Here she specializes in divination.

Agatha tests her, which is a reversal of the Wizard of Oz scene where Professor Marvel is clearly faking it for Dorothy. Agatha spins a story about a dead husband with gold bars in the backyard, and Lilia plays along, saying the gold is in a bowling bag. Then Lilia proves she knows what she's doing, telling Agatha she's been under the influence of another who took her agency. There's a cool lighting effect where passing cars throw glare through the windows, as if Lilia's divination is illuminating the truth Agatha is hiding.

Lilia's necklace shows the tarot card of the Queen of Cups, a hand above and below a cup, and her sash shows diamond patterns containing other tarot cards. Agatha shows her an eviction notice from Three Star Rentals bearing a symbol from the Three of Pentacles. According to an amazing breakdown of the show's tarot imagery by Jessica Clemens, that card represents learning, dedication, completion and working to overcome your challenges. That inspires Lilia to enter a trance and write down a list of names for the coven. Outside, Agatha notices a crow, the animal form of one of the Salem's Seven, played by Bethany Curry.

Sasheer Zamata's Jennifer Kale and the clue about Agatha's son

Next stop is the shop of Jennifer Kale, played by Sasheer Zamata, whom you may remember from SNL and as a hilarious UCB improviser. In the comics, Jennifer Kale is a sorceress who's part of the Cult of Zhered-Na, and she's also been a member of the Legion of Night and the Midnight Sons. This is a different take: a witch who specializes in potions. Her necklace seems to depict the Tower, another tarot card associated with this coven.

Agatha asks for jade eggs, a reference to the yoni eggs some women buy from places like Goop and insert for various claimed benefits. The fact that she offers to go split on one with these two strangers is hilariously disgusting. We learn Jen is bound by a spell that has left her without magic for the past century.

Jen asks whether Teen is another child sacrifice, and Agatha's reaction shot is a pretty solid clue. It seemed like Agatha might have sacrificed her son, Nicholas Scratch, and that she's keeping Nicky's hair in that locket brooch. Teen then pulls up a news headline reading "Kale Care founder drowning in class action lawsuits." Drowning is another common treatment of witches, and Agatha reminds us that historically, witches as a group don't do well in courtrooms.

Alice Wu-Gulliver, the protection witch

Next they seek out a blood witch, the child of a witch: Alice Wu-Gulliver. Teen realizes her mother was Lorna Wu of the Coral Shore band, a reference to a magical guardian of Hong Kong whom Doctor Strange meets in the 2016 run Last Days of Magic. In the comics, Alice becomes a police detective who uses magically powered weapons. Here she's a mall security guard and former cop who now has to patrol a Hot Topic.

Teen says, "My mom went to see her last tour right before she died." Grammatically it's not clear whether he means his mom or Lorna. I assume he's talking about Lorna, but I'll admit we're in a "he was in the Amazon with my mother researching spiders right before she died" situation. Still, this is Teen referencing a mother, and there's a Becca Kaplan and a Jeff Kaplan cast for the show.

Agatha sees a rat, probably not the rat from Avengers: Endgame who saved us all. It's another of the Salem's Seven, played by Britt Grant, and like the crow it seems to stare directly at Agatha. Agatha says Lorna was lost to the Witches' Road and invites Alice in as a protection witch, promising a chance to learn what really happened to her mother. Alice's necklace looks like it could be either the High Priestess or Death.

When Agatha asks where Teen is from, the sound fades as he continues. Lip readers, activate. We do hear him start to say he was born and raised in Eastview, so my hunch is that he's monologuing about basic bio stats for a teenager. Agatha then sees a coyote, another member of the Salem's Seven.

Sharon Davis joins as the green witch

Teen hangs a welcome coven banner that Agatha tears down, but the W is left standing, which some are speculating could be a sign he's William Kaplan, or Wiccan, or somehow connected to Wanda. I also think every comedic take from Kathryn Hahn needs to be studied.

Lilia and Alice refuse to proceed without a green witch. Lilia says she drew a black heart on the list, obviously a reference to the black heart of Rio Vidal. Instead Agatha goes after Sharon Davis, whom she still calls Mrs. Hart, and greets her much like Mrs. Hart called over to the kitchen in WandaVision episode 1. Sharon says she hasn't been to a party since Mr. Davis passed away. Fred Melamed played Mr. Hart, who would probably be Mr. Davis, and in that first episode he did nearly choke to death.

When Jen offers something around, Sharon replies that she doesn't take drugs. I love this joke, because with Debra Jo Rupp and the framing of everyone standing in a circle in the basement, it's totally a That '70s Show joke.

The Salem's Seven, Vertigo and the road to the Witches' Road

Upstairs, Teen hears an owl, another form of the Salem's Seven. Agatha begins the ballad, and its line about foul and fair echoes "fair is foul, and foul is fair" from the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth. It was meant to express the falseness of appearances in that play, and I think also in this show.

The Salem's Seven appear, led by Vertigo. In the New Salem, Colorado storyline of the Fantastic Four comics, Vertigo is one of Nicholas Scratch's daughters, leading a group of elite warriors. Her form here seems to be a cicada, and she might even have been the cicada Wanda saw in Agatha's home in WandaVision episode 7. On the third verse, I love how Patti LuPone takes the top notes; of this group of wonderful singers, she definitely has the most powerful belt. The road being "wicked" and winding feels like a shout out to Wicked.

Teen tries to board up the house, and one of the Salem's Seven screams "Agatha" when they jump scare him. Agatha tries to bait the others into blasting her, but whether through their song or the tension, a pentagon shaped door opens in the floor. Pentagrams and pentagons are a very important shape in witchcraft. They flee down it just as Vertigo crawls down the stairs looking like Regan in The Exorcist.

They find themselves on the Witches' Road, a practical set that looks very Wizard of Oz, and I love it. The coven reverently takes off their shoes and leaves them behind, like the Wicked Witch of the East. This episode opened with Agatha trying to put on her shoes, and it ends with her taking them off.