Agatha All Along Creator Jac Schaeffer on Nicky's Father, the Missing Post Credit Scene and a Scrapped WandaVision Tag

Agatha All Along creator Jac Schaeffer sat down for a long interview with Variety after the finale and gave what amounts to her own breakdown of the last two episodes. She sidestepped the question of who fathered Agatha's son Nicholas Scratch in a way that sounds like Marvel Studios has plans for it. She also said the missing post credit scene was not her call, and she revealed an alternate post credit scene she wrote for WandaVision that did not make the cut.

That makes this interview worth digging into. Schaeffer created the show and was involved in every process along the way, including the writing of the scripts. She covers some of the show's twists, Agatha and Rio's backstory and why it never appeared on screen, and the question of a Wanda movie. There is a lot here, so let's break it all down.

Agatha used the Ballad of the Witches' Road to stay connected to Nicky

The first point in the interview is one that I think humanizes Agatha a little more, particularly around her son and what she did right after Rio, as Death, took him. It is easy to assume she was simply full of rage and vengeance in that moment. She was obviously very hurt; losing her son is devastating. Driven by those emotions and that anger, she went on to trick witches using the ballad she wrote with her son so that she could kill them.

That is what she did, but according to Schaeffer there is a deeper meaning behind it. Variety states that Agatha wields the ballad to con unwitting witches into letting her drain their power, and also as a way to remain connected to her son. It is a strange way to honour him, killing witches, but it is Agatha.

To be fair, that tracks with what she did alongside Nicky. While he was alive, the two of them lured witches in together. Back then it was not by promising the Witches' Road; it was by other means, which we saw in the final episode. She simply turned the ballad into her new lure. Schaeffer also clarifies in the interview that she and her son made up the song together, so there is no confusion there. Singing the song he wrote is her way of continuing what they used to do even though he is gone. It is kind of touching, even though she is luring witches to their deaths.

Rio and Agatha met over corpses, and the room even discussed whether Rio was Nicky's father

Variety then asked whether the team had worked out more of Rio and Agatha's backstory. Schaeffer said they had, and that they talked a lot about their meet cute. She described visuals of Agatha killing people and then seeing Rio across the bodies, summing it up with the line "they met over corpses." She said the writers' room then took it in a direction where the two lived together in a cottage, and they discussed it at length, to the point of asking whether Rio was Nicky's father.

She explained that they already had so much going on with the Nicky sequence, which was vital to the story, that flashing all the way back to Rio and Agatha before Nicky and then moving into Nicky threatened to tip the boat over. She believes there is more story there, and that those discussions informed what we do see of the relationship.

So this confirms the idea: Agatha kills people, Death shows up standing over the bodies, and that is how they meet. From there, it is easy for me to see how Death would fall for Agatha, because Agatha killed a lot of people for a very long time. That would get Death's attention, and she would appear and introduce herself. And since Agatha, as she says in the show, kind of likes the bad boys, I can see her reciprocating if a cosmic entity took a fancy to her.

Schaeffer dodged the question of Nicky Scratch's father, and I think she knows

That led to Variety's next question: who is Nicky's father? Schaeffer said that is a story for another day, and that for her it is ultimately irrelevant to this story. When Variety pushed back and asked whether she knows, she said that even if she did have an answer, she does not cover it in this property, so it is fodder for a story for another day that she maybe does not have control over.

I find this interesting because she is evading the question, but my read is that she knows. At no point does she say she does not know. What she is basically saying is that Marvel Studios has other plans for it and that is for them to do down the road. I think the line about a story she maybe does not have control over makes that fairly obvious.

At the time, we already knew that some sort of series with Wiccan and Agatha looking for Tommy was going to happen at Marvel Studios. Billy likes to ask questions, and I expected him to ask about Nicky again, since the last time he saw Agatha alive, not as a ghost, he still did not know how Nicky died. I also expected him to want to know about her relationship with Death and who Nicky's father is, and I thought those answers would come in that project. I like Schaeffer's answer because it essentially signals that the answer exists and is coming, just in a project she does not control.

"I made you from scratch" was left ambiguous on purpose

As for the line where Agatha says she made Nicky from scratch, Schaeffer says she came up with it and loves it. It is her favourite line of the show because of its ambiguity, and she welcomes interpretation. So it does not necessarily mean anything specific.

A lot of people think it could point to an immaculate conception, with Agatha simply having the baby herself. But it very clearly does seem to me that there is a father of Nicholas Scratch, and that he is somebody who does not want to be name dropped yet. I know a lot of people are thinking it may be Mephisto. Maybe it is, but we will have to wait and see.

No Agatha All Along post credit scene was Marvel's call, not Schaeffer's

Variety pointed out that basically every Marvel Studios project has a post credit scene, but Agatha All Along did not, and asked why. Schaeffer answered: "that's a Marvel decision I know nothing more than that." So she does not even know why there was none; basically, Marvel decided against it.

My first thought goes back to a report from insider DanielRPK stating that pretty much everything Marvel does from that point on would be directly related to the Multiverse Saga. That did not include projects already shot and edited, like the shows announced around then, but it did cover new material developed between Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. My theory is that Marvel might have chosen to skip a post credit scene because the Agatha and Billy story is probably going to continue after the Multiverse Saga. They might not have wanted to tease Agatha and Billy, or perhaps the Scarlet Witch, when we would have to wait a long time to see those stories.

Schaeffer did say she wrote post credit scenes. In her words, "I wrote a number of tags because you always do on every Marvel everything." Ultimately, though, she was told the show would not have a tag, so it did not matter.

Doctor Strange nearly appeared in WandaVision's post credit scene

She did reveal an unused tag she wrote for WandaVision. The one we got showed Wanda with the Darkhold, directly setting up Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Her alternate version would have set up that film just the same, but in a different way.

Asked whether there was an unused tag she was particularly proud of, Schaeffer said she would share this one because it has been a long time and maybe the statute of limitations is up, which I take to mean she can talk about it now without getting in trouble. Initially, Doctor Strange was going to appear. Wanda sits on the porch of the cabin, rocking peacefully, and one of Strange's circles starts forming around her as if she is about to be teleported. She stops it, so Strange has to show up in person. Schaeffer said she loved the idea of Wanda refusing to be teleported and making him come to her door. She called it a good one, but another tag took its place.

Schaeffer says she knows nothing of a Wanda movie, but I did not believe her

Finally, Variety asked about the status of a Wanda movie. Schaeffer said she knows nothing of a Wanda movie and that that is what she can tell us. Very straightforward and very direct.

I did not believe her. When I wrote this, I thought we would get a Wanda solo movie at some point, but only after the events of the Multiverse Saga. I did not think there was time for a Scarlet Witch solo film before Avengers: Doomsday, and I thought Marvel wanted her in that movie. It made sense to me to give her a decent story in the Avengers films and then a solo movie in the new saga, which I really wanted, because I wanted to see her become part of an X-Men, Avengers and Fantastic Four storyline. Maybe they could even make Magneto her father, but we will have to wait and see. In the meantime, Agatha All Along was fantastic.

Do you think Schaeffer knows who Nicky Scratch's father is, and could it be Mephisto?