Agatha All Along episode 3: did Agatha trade her son to Mephisto?

In Agatha All Along episode 3, we learned some really big things about Agatha and about Teen. It name dropped Mephisto and all but confirmed that Agatha traded her son, Nicholas Scratch, for the Darkhold. My view was that she probably traded him to Mephisto. It also gave subtle hints about Teen that maybe not many people picked up on.

Agatha All Along (2024) starred Kathryn Hahn, Joe Locke and Aubrey Plaza. The series finale on October 30, 2024 confirmed Teen's identity. What follows is what I thought after episode 3, before that answer arrived.

Sharon's fate and why the coven needed a green witch

Poor Sharon. She was a "sweet little muggle" who got brought into all this by Agatha. She was essentially kidnapped, and she says as much at the start of the episode. The question I had then was whether she was dead or would return by the end of the series.

The episode opens with the witches and Sharon on the road after escaping the Salem Seven. The elephant in the room is that Sharon is clearly not a witch. She has no idea where she is or what she has gotten into. It ends with her death, or so it seemed at the time.

The other witches realize she's a regular human, and that puts them in jeopardy because they need a green witch. That's why Jennifer says they're all in jeopardy. You're supposed to have one of each type of witch, and this episode explained why.

The potions trial showed how the Witches' Road works

The road tests the coven on their fears and on their knowledge of the craft. It does that through trials, one trial for each skill. That's why missing a green witch was a big problem.

The first trial was a potions trial, and Jennifer is the potions witch. The episode also set a rule: you can't walk off the road, or bad things happen. Just ask Sharon. Then a house appears out of nowhere. Alice asks if it was there before, and Agatha suggests they should stop asking that question. That implied things would keep appearing on the road, and they would be trials.

Inside the house, they're all poisoned by the wine. We learned that everybody in the coven has to take part in a trial or it won't work. It was then up to the potions master to save everyone, and Jennifer does, using her knowledge.

The episode stresses that none of them have powers. Teen says they'll have to use witchcraft with a focus on the craft. That means physically doing things rather than waving a hand and using magic, because none of them had magic at that point. That's why they were on the Witches' Road, to get it back. If Jennifer hadn't been there, they all would have died.

I assumed Rio, a green witch, would show up later in some magical way

Eventually the coven would reach a trial built around a green witch's abilities, and they didn't have one. We did know that Aubrey Plaza's character, Rio, is a green witch. That had already been revealed, and the trailers showed her on the Witches' Road, so she clearly got there somehow. I was assuming she'd show up in some type of magical way later, because she still had her powers.

My assumption was that she'd show up in some magical way later, because she still had her powers. Either way, the episode did a good job of showing why the road needs one witch of each specialty.

Who put the redaction sigil on Teen

Then things got interesting, and I had theories. Someone placed a sigil on Teen, and at that point we didn't know who. Agatha claims a sigil is beneath her, and the episode explains that it's a redaction curse.

I believed Agatha here. In earlier episodes, when his name was redacted or when he spoke about who he was and where he came from, she couldn't hear him. When that happened, she looked incredibly confused. So I didn't think she was the one who put the sigil on him.

Because it's a redaction curse, somebody clearly didn't want anyone, and probably Agatha and her coven in particular, to know who this character is. That's why nobody can hear his name, and why Agatha couldn't hear him say who he is.

Teen's dad and the hint that he was Agatha's son

One detail stood out. Teen talks about his dad several times and never mentions his mother. When Jennifer says somebody needs to call this kid's parents, he does say he's pretty sure they're asleep. Still, I wouldn't have been surprised to learn he doesn't have a mom or doesn't know who his mother is.

I believed the show was trying to convince us that Teen was Agatha's son, the son she gave up for the Darkhold. When Jennifer warns Teen about who Agatha is and what she's done, he says he knows all about her. He had clearly done extensive research on Agatha, and it made me wonder why. Did he admire her as a witch, or did he believe he was connected to her somehow?

Jennifer then asks him, "Do you know that she traded her own child for the book of the damned?" Teen looks surprised, but also disappointed. My read was that he believed he could be Agatha's child, reincarnated in some way, or that his father had told him something about Agatha that made him think so. He might have been thinking there was no way Agatha could have done that to him.

Jennifer adds that nobody knows what happened to Agatha's son. Some say he might be dead, some say he might be a demon or an agent of Mephisto. She drops that name as if every witch would know it. Teen had been looking to the side, but when she says Mephisto, he looks at her, very concerned.

The Darkhold and its link to Mephisto in the comics

The book of the damned is the Darkhold. In the comics it's also sometimes called the book of sins. It's an ancient, evil book holding the most powerful dark magic spells, considered the most powerful record of dark magic in the Marvel universe. Anyone who reads it is said to lose their mind or their soul.

That explains why Wanda went evil. She killed people in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, after taking the Darkhold from Agatha at the end of WandaVision. She made it right by the end, destroying the Darkhold in every universe.

In the comics, Mephisto didn't create the book. The elder god Chthon put all the dark magic knowledge of the time into it billions of years ago. The book was eventually passed down, and Mephisto gained possession of it. That's why I thought Agatha traded her son for the Darkhold with Mephisto. Who else could have had the Darkhold and been in a position to trade it to her?

Agatha's nightmare and the cradle holding the Darkhold

The episode seemingly confirmed the trade. In her nightmare during the first test, Agatha sees a cradle that should hold a baby. When she looks inside, it's the Darkhold.

In the comics, her son is Nicholas Scratch. In WandaVision she had a bunny named Señor Scratchy, and the early episodes of Agatha All Along bring back the rabbit, called Mr. Scratch or Scratch. That led me and many others to believe her son might have been turned into a rabbit. Perhaps instead Agatha named the rabbit after her son because she misses him. The nightmare clearly showed her feeling terrible about the trade.

The remaining question was who she traded with. Ultimately, Mephisto gets the Darkhold in the comics. Marvel Studios heard all the Mephisto theories during WandaVision and commented on them plenty of times. Since Agatha All Along is a spinoff of WandaVision, it made sense for Mephisto to work his way into the story, and it fit very well.

Why I thought Teen was Billy, the Scarlet Witch's son

Even so, I didn't believe Teen was Agatha's son. I thought that when the sigil came off, his name would be Billy. In one of the trailers, if you turned on captions in a language like Spanish, they said his name is Billy.

This is where Mephisto and the Scarlet Witch come back in. In the comics, Mephisto creates Wanda's kids as shards of his soul, and eventually takes them back. Later come Billy Kaplan, also known as Wiccan, and his brother Speed. They reunite with Wanda, realize they are her reincarnated children, and get to be a family. I thought that was exactly what was happening here.

In my view, Agatha was engaged in wishful thinking that he might be her son. There are plenty of times in the episode where she takes an interest in him and is concerned for him. She tells him the road suits him. When the others question the sigil, she puts him behind her and says, "I don't know if he's special or just a pest that some witch wanted to get rid of." My guess was that she thought he was special and possibly her son.

What Agatha might want from the Scarlet Witch's son

I expected a big reveal at the end. Agatha would realize he wasn't her son, but the Scarlet Witch's son, and that he could be extremely powerful. In WandaVision, Agatha said the Scarlet Witch was supposed to be a myth. As far as Agatha was concerned, the Scarlet Witch was the only person who could defeat her, and Wanda is indeed the Scarlet Witch.

Since Agatha wants her powers back, I thought she might look to Billy at the end to take some of the Scarlet Witch's power through him. That could also lead to a solo Scarlet Witch film or a continuation of her story. Insiders Daniel RPK and MyTimeToShineHello both said a solo Scarlet Witch movie was in the works. MyTimeToShineHello also said there would be more shows about Wanda, and that she would be a very prominent character for the rest of the Multiverse Saga and into the Mutant Saga.

So I thought it all might be building to an epic finale, one that would also set up the return of the Scarlet Witch and her reunion with her family.