'Agatha All Along' Episode 4 Deep Dive | House of R
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The curse! I see it! See it! I can kill it!

Greetings, and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to this jam session, but also back into the House of R. Joining me today, observing that I should have burnt to a crisp years ago, but here I am, solid and aimless, but alive.

It's Joanna Robinson. Mallory, when you have to confront the lack of sleep you've got and something like that, are you just like, the curse, I can see it. Yes. How do you feel? Yes, but I never get to the I can kill it stage. I believe in you. Someday you will kill it. I just feel it perched on my shoulders. Just the burden of your work-life balance. Okay, great. Exactly. Jo, how was your birthday? Okay.

My birthday was delightful, Mallory, but I'm thinking of you fondly and sincerely this week as you mourn. I can't. The O's. This is so painful. What I've heard, the word of the wind, next year is their year. That's what I've heard. Okay. Yeah. Yep. I will be back in that headspace by opening day. I assure you. I assure you. You can't keep me down for long. Joe, we are here.

to talk about the Orioles, your birthday, your three-year ringerversary, all of it, but also something else. Episode four of Agatha All Along. But before we explain that this was very clearly a group effort, some quick programming reminders. This is going up late Friday.

By the time it's up, you will be able to find over on the ringer verse, the midnight boys. Pardon about Joker. Wow. I've heard, uh, I haven't heard the podcast yet, but I ha I did. I was a recipient of Joe. Me's like,

immediate, fresh review via text message. And it was spicy. A spicy take from Jom. Yes. I can't wait for the pod. This is going to be a great pod. Can't wait. Genuinely. We will not be podding about Joker at the top of next week as originally planned. I will be traveling. We will be back with you at the end of next week, though, for our deep dive into Agatha episode 5 and...

already waiting for you is it didn't actually end up being the longest podcast in the history of House of R, but it was super close. We almost beat our record previously established mere months ago.

No, someone's like, is it finally going to have a four in front of it? And I was like, it doesn't. Don't worry, guys. Rings of Power finale pod. What's going to do it? Is it the Paul of Fame episode? Is that a four-hour joint? No, I don't think so. Maybe like the eventual tropes course on prophecy, that'll be like four four-hour pods or something like that. I don't know. Who can say when we'll finally cross that threshold?

But the rings, the very long, very meaty, very deep, deep rings of power finale pod is waiting for you. We had such a fun time journeying to Middle Earth this season. So if you haven't checked out Rings of Power yet, check it out. Listen to the pods. We got to chat with the showrunners. Delightful. Had a fantastic conversation with them about the conclusion of the season and what awaits. We really just had a great time with that pod. So please listen to it.

Joanna, where can the people listen? Where can they watch? Okay. I'm going to try to do the watch part correctly and then you tell me if I got it wrong. Okay. You can watch on YouTube, right? We already knew that, right? And you can watch in various social clips that are clipped out for your enjoyment on TikTok, on Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. So follow the pod on all of your social platforms. But you can also watch it

In Spotify. You'll just be playing it in Spotify. And then all of a sudden our faces pop up. There we are. Plus all the wonderful art direction from the video team. And then last but not least. Yep.

It's no longer Harfoot season, but it's always Harfoot season in our heart. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com is the email address where you can find us. Send us your agate, the theories. The theories are bubbling. Boy, are they. In the cauldron this week. My goodness, yeah. So yeah, send us your theories, hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. We'll be getting into the penguins soon, so send us your penguin thoughts in advance of that, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, did I do it?

Crushed it. One way or another? At the three year anniversary, crushed it. Did I put not only petroleum jelly, but also the various lids and jars and bottles into the brew? All of it into the brew. Stir it up counterclockwise. Spoiler warning. Yes.

Everything that happened in this episode of Agatha all along will come up today. If it's happened previously in Agatha, might come up today. If it's ever happened in the MCU, might come up today. Comics canon, might come up today. We have not seen beyond episode four of Agatha. No one has. But we might mention a... No one has. We might mention a trailer nugget or like a promo image or some merch tie-ins as we go. But we have not seen beyond this episode. We have a lot to theorize about and speculate about. Okay.

Jo. Yes. The dangerous but charismatic ladies are back. Let's pod. Witch stuff go. Seekest thou thy road. Take us into the opening snapshot. Episode four. If I can't reach you, let my song teach you. Genuinely beautiful. What a cheat. New lyrics.

All of our plotting and planning out the window. New lyrics. I know. But exciting. And very good. I love a fresh set of lyrics to pour over in a side-by-side chart. I know. In our Google Docs. Astounding work from you, genuinely. You inserted like a table. I love a table maker. Yeah. Inserting a table is beyond my ken. So I'm very proud of you. Joe. Yeah.

Give us a quick taste. What did you think of Agatha episode four? Yeah. So I really love this episode. And I think exactly what we talked about last week in terms of, uh, bring if Aubrey Plaza back to the episode fourth, uh, post-haste and, um, and she just injected just so much back into the show. And, uh,

it was horny. It was gay. It had a musical number. Like the theory corner is just a burst out all over. Once again, this feels like a show just tailor made for me. Happy birthday to me. You texted me and you were like, cause I hadn't seen it yet. I was, I was out. And you texted me and you're like, they did a whole new musical number just for your birthday. But what you didn't say is,

They did a horny near kiss for your birthday. I wanted that to be a surprise. Thank you for letting me discover that on my own. I really appreciate you. And I just want to say, I think on balance, the trial stuff is like the sort of escape room, puzzle room aspect of the trial stuff is like kind of fun and like a Disney plus kind of way. But the stuff around it, the stuff that's happening on the road is so much more potent to me. So that's where I am like,

I think the puzzle room stuff is fun. And then the road stuff is what makes it all feel like a bit deeper. So yeah. How about you? How are you feeling? I thought it was just a blast. I just had a blast. It was so fun to, to the point about the trials and,

really now getting a feel for like what the rhythm of presumably the bulk of the rest of the season is going to be. Um, I'm with you, the actual, I do enjoy a riddle and a puzzling out. And I think actually the way that these episodes are blocked, um,

and paste inside of them feels very much like making that potion in the cauldron, like minus throwing in the key ingredients inside of the bottles, like very carefully calibrated. One thing I get some feedback on the, it would be okay to throw in all the bottles because the plastic is also probably made of petroleum is, is the feedback we got from listeners.

Interesting. Okay. Yeah, sure. So sure. I mean, the volume would be off, but you know, like just dump them all in no matter how many you brought down. Okay. Um,

The way that we are spending the bookend of the episode out on the road, and then even in the stretch where we are in the trial and piecing together what needs to be done against the clock. The clock, of course, inherently puts an injection and a jolt of urgency into these episodes. And the way that...

Each character consistently is getting a beat of consequence and a beat of note against whatever the task in question is, even though there is like a primary person for each trial, right? We had water potions for Jen. We have the fire and protection here for Alice. Everyone's getting their moments. We're learning something about each of them across each episode.

The mix in this episode in particular, but across the show to date of humor and heart is just delightful. Like it is, I'm laughing, I'm cackling throughout these episodes and then I am deeply moved and touched. And having Rio back, like you said, was...

I mean... The missing hair. The missing strand of hair in the potion. That final strand of hair. 40 lines of cocaine. Like, this was just electric stuff. And I can't wait to talk about all of the moments between Rio and Agatha, but that final scene was...

Unbelievable. It's actually one of those moments where you feel yourself like leaning forward, moving toward your screen and you can't help it. You're so drawn in. I don't think I've done that like literal lean since Fleabag season two. Where am I? Like, no, this is like one inch away from the screen. Still unmatched, I think. Yes. And then...

You know, we joke about like, oh, I was yelling kiss at the screen. I was literally yelling, which I never, I don't think I've ever actually done that before. Yelling at the screen. So like, yeah. And it's on Disney Plus, you know, like again, we didn't get like a full smooch yet, but I'm emboldened by the fact that we're in episode four. Like, you know, miles to go. I'm excited. So yeah. Same. Great stuff. Also like, also like,

Did she say like, no, she didn't say fucking bitch. She said something bitch and I was just like, Disney Plus. We got a shit? Yeah. Here we are. Not like someone taking a shit, to be clear. Like someone saying shit. Alice said shit. Who knows? Who knows what awaits? All right. We have a lot to talk about. What trial is that? Taking a shit. Could be Earth. Some fertilizer, you know?

Can I tell you? Okay. So usually I genuinely usually have like a laugh when we get like a kind of scathing review. And this is one we got. We don't get a lot of them, but we got one about our Tolkien episodes where someone said our crassness was sullying the purity of Tolkien. And I just...

had to laugh forever because I was just sort of like I we love Tolkien also we're going to just be ourselves as we talk about it so you know welcome to the party if you want to join us fellowship can save the day and like just like try a blowjob or two why not why not I genuinely think the professor wouldn't mind so here we go

Ellen, do you rub me down like one of your French tables is maybe one of my favorite things you've ever said. Still thinking about that. Oh boy. Okay. To all that's foul and fair indeed. Yeah. It's time for the deep dive. All right. Yeah. Let's start at the beginning of the episode. Okay. Sharon's burial. Who?

Who's Sharon? Who's that? The constant Mrs. Hearts throughout this episode. Just brutal. Brutal. Brutal stuff for Sharon. Yeah. We open on her body. She's still dead. Tough stuff. Still hoping that we find out that she made it back to the mortal coil alive. Topside? Topside. Yeah. For now, fucking dead. Yeah. Corpse. Agatha sitting by the body as his teen. And Agatha says, hmm.

I didn't think you had it in you. And teen says, you didn't think who had what in them? Who or what is this about, Joanna? Could it be teen himself? Could it be Sharon herself? Could it be whoever has decided that it is no longer Sharon's time to breathe themselves? You know, there's a lot of intriguing possibilities here. What do you think?

The road or whatever entity on the road is claiming the souls, claiming the mortality of these visitors. Agatha knows that Sharon doesn't belong there. Happy to point that out in mere moments. She's like, of course the road was going to kill her. Yeah, is an innocent. So it's like, okay, the road might kill some witches, which is apparently something the road loves to do. Oh, but you're going to kill...

My random neighbor? Yeah. I'm not that upset about it, but I didn't think that those were the rules. Just wanted to plant flowers and go to a party. Just wanted to do some laundry with some friends. Who says no? Who among us? Then we get some setup, Joe, for the second trial. Alice is kneeling over Sharon's corpse.

And Lilia and Jan are whispering about her mother. We don't know what Alice is going through. Her mother might have died on the road. And Alice is like, she did die on the road, but not this one. She died in a fire in a hotel room while on tour. Fire from the curse. We were going to see inside of this episode how the curse works its horrors on this family. Yeah. Uh,

So what did you make of this little setup here? Well, as soon as she said, like, died in a fire, then I was thinking about Lorna Wu as she appeared in last week's episode inside of the steam room when they're looking for, like, eucalyptus essential oils. But the steam, like, if we rewatch that, that's going to, like, read smoke to us, right? Like, and I'm sure it did to Alice as well. Right. Yes, absolutely. Alice says she said the road would save me.

Jen says, from what? So we're getting this like very tantalizing setup for what's going to unfold here. What are you, where are you right now on why the popular line across the witch community is that Lorna Wu was lost on the road? Um, I don't, I don't have a great answer for that right now. I think like maybe lost, lost to a spell. And I think especially like, as we think about like

which isn't a thing that they want, power, protecting someone, that's going to come up again and again in this episode. So if Lorna was in pursuit of something, break the curse, protect my child, all this sort of stuff like that, that's something a witch would sort of walk the road with. And if, as is sort of like misinterpreted elsewhere in this episode, people thought she was constantly singing the ballad in an attempt to open the road,

Right. You know. Yeah. Reasonable deduction that Lorna would have been lost on the road if her... Breakaway pop hit. Every concert is down, down, down the road. Yeah. Agatha's really eager to get going again. We're going to track across the episode a lot of things on the Agatha front, but including her relationship to...

pursuing the trials to walking the road. And she's like, we're on the clock. Let's go. No time for burials. No time for mourning. No time for decorum. She rips off some just absolute top tier asshole dingers here. R.I.B. Mrs. Hart. Well, shall we? All right. And then when everyone is horrified, Alice and Tina are kindly digging a grave for her so they'll catch up when they can. Vamanos! And then this was my favorite.

Mrs. Hart was a bad draft pick, okay? And then she's like, of course the road killed her. I am loving the idea. Yeah, ringer core. Very much so of Agatha Harkness, GM of the reluctant coven. And now I need, we just were coming off in real time, the first off-season Hard Knocks. And I need now this. I need Hard Knocks off-season with the Westview coven.

I want to be in the war room with Agatha as she is scouting draft picks, scouting free agents. I need this. I need this all. Carlos is with me. I know it. I believe you and I wish I were with you. I'm your sister and cover in so many other moments. But it's okay because Hard Knocks is here for you. Something else pinged for you.

A lot of musical shit here for me. Okay. But also she says, so she says Vamonos here, right? Yes. And in a previous episode, she said Andale. And we have heard Rio say Teveo twice to her. The Teveo, Teveo interpretation has been really interesting for people who

who speak Spanish more fluently than I do because it's sort of like, it's like an I see you sort of thing. Like, or I will be seeing you. I'll see you soon. Right? Te veo. But also like, I see you like, I'm the one who sees you sort of thing. It has a certain connotation. But anyway, between the Vámonos and the Andalé and the Te veo from Rio and this very clear message inside this episode about the history that these two women share, I'm excited that

for their past and is it going to be like a spanish language flashback that could be exciting like is that how or where they knew each other sort of thing so yeah i can't wait to find out i hope their flashback episode is like 19 hours yeah in abitha 19 hours in abitha with uh with rio and agatha twist my arm an entire season of the l word in abitha love it let's do it wonderful stuff jen points out that uh

They're down a green witch. Agatha's staggering callousness, as she puts it, is not the only thing to focus on here. They go back and forth on the actual language of the lyrics of the ballad. Agatha says it's

coven 2 she's not fussed by not having a green witch here and jan says it's coven true now we have the privilege of watching these episodes with subtitles on disney plus where we can confirm that in episode 2 the lyric was in fact coven true but

This leads to this fascinating exchange where you're like, Alice, your connection to your mom and the most famous version of the ballad. Why don't, what do you think? Right? And then Alice asks Agatha, well, how many witches left the road with you? She says with you, not how many left the road, how many left them with you last time? And Agatha holds up one finger. So because of the with you prompt, is your interpretation of that, that it was Agatha plus one other, coven two, right?

Or is your interpretation of that that Agatha was the only one who left and survived the trials? I think it's intentionally ambiguous because I don't have a good candidate for the plus one because like we,

We had theorized maybe she walked the road with Rio before, but we have some other theories about Rio's role right now. Was it Nikki? Did she walk it with her son? Is her son a plus one that she had? Or is it just her? We did get an email from our listener, Greg, who pointed out he thought the way that Katherine Hahn sort of put up the one finger made him think a lot about Doctor Strange and the one outcome movement from...

Infinity War and Endgame. But yeah, I don't know. It's very tantalizing. I can't wait to find out. There's this very popular theory that I don't personally ascribe to that Agatha has never walked the road before. She's lying about having walked the road. That doesn't make a ton of sense to me. It makes sense in terms of maybe she doesn't know the rules or maybe she skirts the rules. But I feel like we can explain a lot of those moments with like,

the road changes for the coven, right? So like she doesn't, she hasn't walked to this exact road before, but she's walked the road before. I don't think it makes a ton of sense if she's never walked the road before, but we'll see. Yeah. I've been wrong before. Just the once. You're the best. You're the best. Why do they need a green witch? Well,

Jen's like, we did this whole water phase thing and my potions expertise was really crucial. We're going to hit that earth magic phase and we need somebody who has that area of expertise and specialization. And as they're having this back and forth in this debate, we get this shot of teen gently placing flowers on the grave that he has dug for Sharon. And it was this little thing, but it just was so, you know,

and gentle and personal and caring. And we've gotten a lot of moments like that from teen, but I just really loved that.

me too um as they squabble here about whose fault everything was yes um so last week we talked about the steven sondheim musical into the woods and i referenced like a bunch of different songs but still there was a corner of my heart that was like but maybe you're making this up because like maybe you just want this to be an into the woods illusion and maybe it's not actually a direct illusion i now have zero doubt that

that they are referencing into the woods throughout here. Again, if you weren't listening last week, this is a musical where they smash up a bunch of different fairy tale stories and there's like a very central witch character in that story. So I think, you know, they're drawing from all these different witch stories across the board. But into this

Into the Woods, this idea of going into the woods in order to confront the darker sides of yourself, come out the other side to get your wish, to get the thing that you're wishing for. There's a very famous... Well, whatever. They're all famous songs in my heart. But there's a song in the second act when they all turn on each other, right? And it's... The song is your fault. That's what it is. And it's like...

but it is my fault. Uh, you were given those beans. You're persuading me to turn away my cow for a means without those beans. There have been no stock to get up to the giant in the first place. Wait a minute. Magic means for a cow so old that you had to tell the ladysel, which you told. So they're all blaming each other about like all the things that they have done and whose fault is it? Is it Jack's fault? Is it little red's fault? Is it Cinderella's fault? Blah, blah, blah. And then the witch interrupts them and goes into this other song, which actually we talked about last week. But so the squabble here on the road about whose fault it is, is just a crystal clear to

to my view, Into the Woods illusion, which is exciting. Love this for you. Because we can just be on Into the Woods watch as much as we are Wizard of Oz watch, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah. Wonderful stuff. Would you like to repeat your recommendation for which versions to seek out and avoid? Absolutely.

It felt like a very important thing last month. It's very clear to me. Do not watch the cinematic version of Into the Woods if you would like to do some extra homework. Please watch the filmed stage version for the 1980s with Bernadette Peters. And actually, fun fact. Oh, I actually wonder if this bothers Patti LuPone. When Into the Woods premiered on Broadway, it was the same year that Patti LuPone was in Anything Goes.

And she lost the Tony to Joanna Gleeson, who was the female lead of Into the Woods, the baker's wife. And in a recent Hot Ones video with Aubrey Plaza, Aubrey Plaza is given the prompt to ask her, like, you know, you lost this many Tony. You won this many Tony's. You lost these many Tony's to Patti LuPone. What's the one you lost that you felt like you should have won? And Patti LuPone's like, Into the Woods.

fucking woods. Joanna Gleeson should not have beaten me in that. I should have won it for anything goes. And what's funny is I was just rereading her memoir because I'm kind of in a Patti LuPone like state of mind because she's just like thrilling me. So I was rereading her memoir and she talks, she says it a bunch of times in that book too. Like, so this is like odd

been on her mind for years that she lost into the woods. So I just think it's really funny that she's sort of like, uh, having to do into the woods, uh, sort of cosplay in this show. Um, watch the staged version. It is filmed. You can watch it. Please do not watch.

the movie version, the stage version. But actually, like, even before they got to this, there's part before this when, when I, I know you're laughing at me, it's fine, but when I, I just, I am so, I just am so, like, full of genuine love for you. And I, it makes me happy to watch you this, like, overjoyed and euphoric. Yeah.

drawing these connections between things you love. It fills my heart. When Agatha earlier is like trying to get them to go and she's like, you know, she like walks down the road and comes back. She keeps flicking and swirling her, her coat. Mm-hmm.

It is so, I mean, like a million different witches have done this. You know what I mean? Like this is a thing that witches do, but like it is so Bernadette Peters as the witch in Into the Woods Coated for me. I can't even tell you, like the technique is the same. Just this constant, any occasion to flick and flourish the bottom of the coat, the way that she does the cloak is how I read that. Okay, let's move on with our lives, shall we?

Am I going to come back to this? I might, but let's move on with our life. Thank you. Sorry. Wonderful. Genuinely wonderful. I love this show. Tremendous stuff. We need to like whip up a playbill for your theater insights here. Put it on the gram. I know that you get served, like I do, a bunch of like junket,

snippets of whatever show we happen to be watching, the algorithm figures it out and then starts serving it to us. Are you getting the Aubrey Plaza, Patti LuPone junket clips? I have. I have. I have been served a couple. And the story about how Aubrey Plaza lived with Patti LuPone during her Broadway debut. Wonderful stuff. We're living right now. That's all I have to say. Hot House of Our Summer really just became Brisk House of Our Fall, didn't it? Yeah.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are on the cover of Vanity Fair to promote Wicked. Which season continues apace? Which stuff go. Yeah. And never stop going. Never stop going. Just keep on going. Yeah. Great stuff. I'm going to throw this out there as my... I think this was the line that made me laugh the most in this episode. There are so many funny moments, but when Teen says they're all to blame and that the fatal mistake was not looking out for each other. And Agatha just says...

Most fatal for Mrs. Hart. It just, like, killed me. Not the way it killed Mrs. Hart, but...

It was so funny. I don't know. There's just like an absolute ease and magic to her humor. It's just wonderful. On the one hand, it's so funny and it's so callous and it's so Agatha. But I like the note that a couple people have made that this is both played for humor and also contrast to her reaction to Teen being in danger at the end of the episode. Yes. I mean, the journey that we watch her go on inside of this episode and the range...

inside of this episode is just really astonishing. Very rewarding. Last episode, we talked show, not just about the humor and the heart, but about how teen really wanted to be there, right? It's like, I don't want to be a bummer. It's just the end. He's the one now in the face of death. Yeah.

these very clear stakes. He was like, I wish we could go home. Like this was not what he thought this was going to be. And Alice pulls a reverse. Jack Shepard says, we can't go back. Not shouldn't.

We can't go back. We can't go back. And the can't, even though she will later try to turn around and evade the house when it pops up, it's the language feels particular. Like we do get this sense that the only way actually to

out of this is through it. Which is something that Agatha said to Wanda in season one, sort of about their journey through her psyche, is you have to go through it. And like, you know, they're all processing their internal demons. You gotta go through it to get out of it. It's interesting to me, so Alice comes through with some, like, rules of the road here. Yep. Throw out your rules. These are the witch's road rules. But like...

It's interesting to me who knows the rules when, because I feel like different witches have chimed in with like, well, you have to do this. It's not just Agatha who knows all the rules. Each witch has like their own understanding of what the rules of the road are, you know? Yes. And, and also like when they're applying the rules of a

to the rules of the road. Like when Jen is like, we need a green witch, how much of that is about the particulars of what is required on the road? And now this sense of, it seems like because she cites her own trial, like, okay, I'm taking what I know about the constitution and makeup of a coven and now applying it to how this is clearly going to play out on a which by which basis we've got to adhere to this. And what would it mean to, and especially because Agatha like,

The way that she chooses later to describe them as rule breakers, like we're all rule breakers, specifically because they're not a part of a coven. There's this link then between the rules of the road and then the rules of a coven, which feels very much of a piece with the themes that we are exploring. Correct. Love a theme. Love an arc. I don't know. Has this come up before? Love a character on an arc? Have you ever considered that conflict inside the human heart is the only thing worth writing about or singing about?

It's time to summon a witch. Witch. It's time to, it's time to summon some horny on main Marvel. Let's fucking go. Yes. We deserve this. We do. Honestly, we do. We do. I'm already sad. We are halfway through the season. I just like, Oh God, I don't want it to be over, but don't the great stories never end. We're in the same tale still. Agatha.

Back at her desk, monitor's going, GM hat on. Yeah, what does her hat say? Let's get to the practice. Let's take a look at the practice squad. You know, let's summon a sub. Okay. What does her hat say? That's a great question. What would Agatha's logo be? Hmm. Maybe it's like the triple goddess, like the brooch. But, you know, she's trying to get her purple back. So I'm seeing, I am seeing a raven's like color scheme in my, in my mind's eye here. You would.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. We settled it. That was easy. Love it. Just a few merch notes for Marvel. As always, Alice is pretty freaked out. A lot of stuff could go wrong trying to summon a green witch. Agatha, this is where she says, think of all the things that already have gone wrong and like, let's be soothed by that, right? We've confronted a lot of problems. We've made our way through. What's another problem here or there? Lily asks if anyone has a spell book. Joe?

Did you feel good about this? I felt good about this. She's like, here's this notebook. And Molly and I were like, ah. I don't think we're done with it either. No, no, no. Yeah. What else is in there that might come in handy? And they line up.

They chant in Latin above some just honestly lovely fall foliage. Exactly. There's a witch-shaped, a humanoid-shaped silhouette in the middle of these leaves. And then they each make their specific request because this was the primary. You have to be specific and you have to be careful. And as they put down their offerings one by one after their specific request. I just don't think they were. No, certainly not. The candles flare up.

The requests were so extraordinary that we just, we need to hear this. Carlos, please play the clip. May she be strong and wise and the best at her craft. May she be smart and not annoying and also not super political. May she be pleasant looking. Can she bring some Advil? Aww.

I have no notes, genuinely. I mean, some notes may be on the fact that they should have been more careful and asked for some different stuff, but no notes in terms of how this show is being structured in this scene. This was so funny. Here's my note. Lilia is the only one who really nailed this prompt. Yeah. She should be strong and wise and the best at her craft. Yeah. That does feel like useful guidance. Makes you be pleasant looking like we're delighted to ogle Aubrey Plaza and we will do so at our leisure. But like, Jen...

Smart and not annoying and also not super political. Obviously, can she bring some Advil was like just the killer. That was so funny. But I do like that again, Agatha is like really thinking about like team chemistry. And also Agatha is the player in a season of survivor who knows that if you keep the tribe member who everybody else hates till the end, you'll get the votes, but can't do it because it drives her crazy to be on a tribe with that person. Like I just...

I just absolutely love this. What would you have asked for, Jo, if this had been you? I would have just tried to describe Mallory Rubin as accurately as possible.

May she run on no sleep. She's translucent, except for the... May she guzzle gallons of coffee under her eyes. May she be actively perforating her stomach with all the coffee that she's drinking. I do think coffee would have been what I asked for, honestly. And also, you know, we know there's no cell service, so I probably would have asked somebody to bring, like, the latest... The latest O's. I mean...

Lamentably no longer, no longer necessary at this point, but you know, bring me a Ravens, a Ravens box score and update or two. Bring me a photo of Halo. I feel like I said this on the pod before, but I'll say it again. When I was living in Europe for a little bit of a time, my sister was visiting from the United States and I asked for Diet Coke.

because they don't have Diet Coke in Italy. They have Coca-Cola Light. It's not the same. Not the same, yeah. So yeah, bring me those Patrick Cavill. Bring me some Funyuns. I would take some Funyuns or like a Flamin' Hot Cheeto. I do think that we are falling into the same trap as the stars of this show. We're really just asking for the things we want, not the things that will help us on this mission. Bring me a shapeshifter who can turn into a Lendil. What?

It would help me. I don't know if it helps us on our quest. So ask for Diet Coke, smooth, skippy peanut butter, and Tylenol, gel caps, Advil. Well, there you go. I just really related to Allison's moment. I do have a couple things I want to say about this, though. Okay, so they're asking for particular things, especially when Jen was like, may she be pleasant looking. It made me think of, hmm, Jane and Michael Banks from Mary Poppins reading out their list of what they want a perfect nanny to be, right? They read it out in song, right?

As one does. Yeah. Rosy cheeks, no warts, plays games, all sorts like that whole thing. So that, that like wishlist part, because I've been thinking about Mary Poppins a lot, actually, ever since Agatha put on this particular costume, she's slowly stripping off parts of it. Now she's like just down to the butt now. But like, who knows what's to come? But,

But in the long purple coat, when her hair was sort of like up in the top knot and when the cameo was sort of fastened to the button down all the way up, it was reading very Mary Poppins to me. And what is Mary Poppins if not a witch, you know? So I liked that there. But also more crucially, my poor fevered,

Anagram addled brain can finally rest because our beautiful listener is Isabel wrote in to say, I think it's Isabel, not Isabella, but if I'm wrong, I apologize. Either way, a genius wrote in to say, Advil, the Advil that Alice asked for is an anagram of Vidal.

A-D-V-I-L-V-I-D-A-L. And now I can just rest. Now I can just be in peace. Sensational. Now I can just be in fucking peace. I don't think that's why they went with that name, but I do think that's why they put the Advil joke in there. I really do. So... Incredible. Thank you so much. We'll talk a little bit more about what Rio Vidal might mean elsewhere, but like...

Advil Vidal. Thank you. I'm done. I can be at peace. The Latin translation, I've seen a few different translations. I mean, I imagine that Latin is a flexible and fluid sort of language to translate. I've seen a few different translations of the Latin that they read here. We summon a green sister above, below, within, without. I mean, that's later Rio will be like from above, from below. Like, where did I come from? We'll talk about that.

Someone online said that the, and again, I don't, I don't speak Latin, said that part of this translation is it's not easy being green or it's hard to make a green witch might be what it is, but like, it's not easy being green, which is obviously like a Kermit the Frog reference. It would be a funny joke to like put in, in Latin if they want to do it. Yeah.

It's a current reference or it's an Elphaba from Wicked reference, which I'm sure is something that is on their mind. I just want to... I'm going to come back to this theme, but when I think about Elphaba and Wicked, I think about the lyric from Defying Gravity where she says, and if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free. This idea of...

which is in fellowship and friendship, which is just going to come back again and again and again. So if you, dear listener, know Latin better than I do, and I'm sure you do, hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com is where you can gently correct us. It's just a pleasure to be with you today.

I've just decided to be myself on this particular show. You should always be yourself. You're the best. Thanks. You're the best. That's you. I saw Wicked in London during my semester abroad. I need to refresh. It's a long time ago. Boy. I mean, are you going to head to the cinema to see Ariana Grande? Yeah. Are you? Why not? Okay. Yeah. I love a movie. You do love a movie, but you're particular about what movies you see, and I didn't know whether or not Wicked was high on your list. I don't love being in...

Loud, dirty, crowded theaters with strangers. But I love a movie. Correct. Yeah, I can be strategic with my show times. Joe. Yes. Agatha resumes the chant. She swings her arms. The candles go out. Now, I was wondering, did you view this as falling under the bucket of analog magic that Teen outlined last episode when he said, you know, labor-intense, manual acts of magic, witchcraft, emphasis on the craft? Because Agatha has not...

gone through her trial yet. Like, Agatha has not made it to the end of the road. Agatha has not actually had her power restored, but she is able to execute this spell. Is that because this is the analog craft that Episode 3 established was

possible? I don't think so. What I think is that it has to do with the coven all doing it together. And this is a couple things. One, there's like that line, that previous line about, you know, even the witch with a tiny spark of magic sort of will be able to flourish and resonate with other members of the coven. But also like,

Later in this episode, we see Jen do some potions magic, which might be part of the craft column, or it might be that once you emerge past your trial, your power starts to come back. So is Jen unbound in a way after the potions trial? Certainly, we might say that Alice is unburdened and perhaps in better touch with her power than ever before after her trial. So if the coven working together...

drafting off of Jen's re-burgeoning power. I can see that sort of being. And I think power shared, power consumed, power stolen is such a key theme of this whole journey. So that's what I would say. Alice was an interesting one because she was obviously using the dagger to draw the protection spell with the circle before making it through a trial. But also she did seem like in like a slightly different

spot than the rest of them. Like, with the pitch to Jen was, you're bound, come get your power back. The pitch to Alice was, come learn what happened to your mom. So, yeah, it's interesting to track the particulars. I don't know what's different craft-wise between

what Jen does in the sink and what Alice, you know what? Here's what I, here's what I'll admit. I don't know where the line is between power and craft exactly. And I'm curious if the show does. Yeah. Yeah. I'm eager to see since our attention was drawn to that, I guess. Yes. If that ends up feeling like a distinction that matters. Yeah. Yeah. So something for us to, something for us to kind of keep an eye on.

Lillia tells them true witchcraft takes time. Spell must marinate. Chesedate. And writers were poised to just sit, have another little bonding session. No. A hand shoots out of the grave. A very like Wanda's arm emerging, right? In a multiverse of madness like image. And filthy. Yeah. Coated in dirt. Oh, yeah. Limbs at odd angles needing to crack back into place emerges. Yes.

Rio Vidal. Aubrey Plaza is back. What a fucking thrill. Rio Advil is here. Before we talk about Rio, I just have to say, got to shout out my girl, Lilia, once again, because they're all like, what the fuck is happening before they see that it's Rio, right? Agatha, what did you do? This is what she says. It was a group project. Great stuff. And Lilia is holding the book. She's like, why is the print so small? And while I, like Lilia, cannot see...

I felt seen in this moment. Were you like, were you like, Teveo? Teveo? Lilia? Exactly. But it's not, it's not zombie Sharon. Great news. Thrilled to tell you. It's Rio. She looks dynamite. Joe. She's like, heard you guys were having a party. This was the trailer moment. So we knew this was coming. Yeah. And then she says,

I was in the neighborhood. Now, last pod, we explained that while we do have a dedicated section on these deep dives for Marvel pods called Theory Corner, and we probably will hit a couple other things in Theory Corner today and maybe even quickly run through all of these.

data points for Rio again. This was so present in the text, the core text of the episode that it is not possible really to separate these things out. We would just end up saying 20 times throughout the deep dive. We'll talk about this later in theory corner, which is not very fun for anyone. So here's the first moment where we will talk about the fact that the, now we've been, we've been speculating and theorizing about Rio's identity all season. And

Without question, the dominant theory on ye olde interwebs after this episode is that Rio is playing Death, the Marvel character, the cosmic entity Death, who can take the form of a skeleton who often appears as a woman, often wearing a black outfit very reminiscent of the one that Rio was in when she kicked that door down at the end of episode one. No, no, we've done Thanos, so no...

No Thanos romantic plotline coming for a lady death in this stretch of the MCU, but Agatha, sub it in. Why not? We're going to hit the beats that support or seem like they could possibly support the theory that Rio is death as we go. And this one, I was in the neighborhood, it's not the strongest one in the episode, but it is one because as you've speculated the last couple pods, it's

It's at least in the bounds and realm of possibility that the road is... In hell. In hell. Yeah. Is in an underworld-like realm. We're in an underworld journey, for sure, is what it feels like, at least metaphorically. Yeah, I Was in the Neighborhood is so good. Also, she came out of a grave. Just should say that. She came out of a grave. She did do that. She emerged from a grave. She did do that. That seems like a data point. She loves a hood. Yeah, uh...

I was in the neighborhood is such a good line because it's either like, yeah, you're here in hell, the underworld, my domain, but also just like she was literally in Westview. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know the, the neighborhood. We're going to come back to Westview as a, as a key point, but yeah.

And I was thrilled. Thrilled to see her. I mean, like the hand out of the grave. It's so funny. I've seen so many people say like, this is a reference to X. It's a reference. It's a reference to too many things to nail down exactly what it's a reference to. If I had to pick one, I might say Carrie, but like, I, you know, there's just like so many options here. So, you know, here we are. I have a question for you. Yeah. Agatha's shocked to see Rio. Yeah.

What do you make of the fact that Agatha, who grabbed Sharon in the first place, grabbed Mrs. Hart in the first place, knowing she was not actually a green witch because she did not want to heed what Lillia drawing the black heart on her eviction notice seemed to point to, which is Rio is the one who's supposed to be on this journey with you, seemingly not considering that working this summoning charm

could call Rio? Or do you think she does know that that's a possible outcome? Does she want that but can't admit it to herself? I think that feeds back in what's going to come immediately after when Alice is like, so you're a green witch. And Rio says less of a green witch, more the green witch. Great stuff. The green witch. The green witch. Great stuff. Subtitles.

in demonic voice. That's what it said. Someone, someone, I saw someone, I think it was on, in my Twitter mentioned said it was the like Bene Gesserit voice also, which I, which I liked, but more, more witch stuff go, but doing prophecy. But I think like, let's say that Rio is Lady Death or is some form of death. Like,

I could see Agatha being like, well, that's not a great witch. Right. You know? But I can also, it's easy to draw the connection between like, you know, worm food, like earthy, you know? Earth could be death. Yeah. Yeah.

Graves. Graves to the earth. Back to the soil. Yeah, back to the soil. Rebirth, death and rebirth, right? And like, you know, we're, I was going to note this later, but like we, we have a lot of death imagery and people dying and the specter of death

people were grieving, but there's also like a lot of rebirth stuff, a lot of baby stuff. We get some Jen insights, right? About her past as a midwife, et cetera. Obviously when we saw Agatha's vision in the trial last episode, the dark hold was in the cradle, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I had the same thought, like earth, just because it's been a green witch before, it doesn't mean it couldn't be

death here well that like green which like but i could see that perhaps agatha was like when we summoned a green which i didn't think you could tuck death under that umbrella and yet here we are so yes yeah yeah yeah uh let's just talk for a second about what rio's wearing but please we have some incredible fit watch stuff coming throughout this episode of television

Rio emerging from this grave in skin-tight leather pants. Green jacket. A, like, bralette jacket thing. Yeah. The green, the black. Yeah.

This was just like before we even get to the rock star phase of the episode. Yeah, this was rock star stuff. It was absolutely sensational. And then Joe, what does she do? She's looking around the road. She's asking, what are we supposed to do? How does this work? Seems like a novice. She starts skipping. And this is, of course, yet another Ozwatch 2024 moment. Yeah, clear as day.

Dorothy Gale skipped down the road, which was fun. Do you think Dorothy could have pulled off this outfit? Judy? Yeah. Absolutely. For sure. Absolutely. She was a stunner. Yeah. Stunnen. Stunnen. I do believe that she could have. I love this because...

the way that Rio shows up here, even more so, I would say, than her appearance in episode one, she's really pinging her absolutely unhinged role in Legion. And so just like with the dirt and the foliage all over her, the absolutely unhinged eyeballs. And so like for her to do this little like skip down the road is very, it's very return to Oz Dorothy, actually. Um,

This idea that like, what's all this? What's all this? I've never been here before. Yeah. Are you buying this? What do you think? It does seem genuine. Yeah. But I don't think that Rio hasn't been to the road before. I think we just need to keep remembering the road changes for the coven. So like, oh, what is your version of the road look like? Right. Oh, it's got these fun like lights in the trees. That's cool. You know, like what did it look like last time? We don't know. So yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Lilia is ready to accept that...

Rio should stick around just because Agatha hates her. Calls that a pro. Very amusing to me. Lilia, my queen. She's just, she's crushing it. Yeah. But Jen and Alice, they get it. Here's what they say. Jen says, honestly, they're just walking behind her almost like magnetically pulled in her wake. Clear earshot. Honestly, honestly,

I don't know how to feel. Do I hate her? Or do I want her phone number? And Alice says, same. And Jen says, right. And Rio kind of like smirks as she hears them say this about her. Just a delightful little moment. Do you think that next episode's trial will be an orgy? Listen, we already got- Talk about coven bonding. We already got Agatha running around Westview completely starkers. So I think- What phase of the moon is that? A full moon, baby. A full moon. Yeah.

Joanna Robinson. Yeah. The second trial is here. They're walking. The music changes. A house appears. Now, it's new to us, very clearly. Not new to Alice, who declares, pass, and just immediately turns around. It's just very funny as well. Yeah, it's really good. It's a great... But, I mean, it's Alice's episode, but this is, like, a really good Alice performance. Oh, man. Fantastic. Yeah.

She's already declared that they can't go back and her words are immediately proven true because she turns around, she's walking in the other direction and boom, there is the house again in front of her now. Anything you'd like to say about this house? It's five-sided per Jill Locke in an interview. So it's a pentagram house. Fun. Should we build a five-sided, you know, sort of Laurel Canyon-esque recording studio house? Yeah.

I mean, that would be great. Great. Let's do it. I love Laurel Canyon. With all of our riches. Let's do it. Our team lunches can be at Pache. Great. Oh my God. Under the General Store. Yum. Delightful. Their chicken. Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. Joe, we walk up to the door and we see, much like last week,

The carvings of the faces of the moon, the sides of the doors are red. Beautiful. Teasing the trial by fire that awaits. Waxing moon, fire face. So, water, episode three, fire, episode four, air in episode five for Lillia? Is that what we think? I don't think so, just based on trailer stuff. Okay. I think Lillia's is later. I think we're... I haven't seen...

next time on i'm sure there is one i i think the 80s one is after this one though like and but i don't know whose child that is the road is purple as they emerge and i suppose air could be i mean it seems like that right yeah that feels like early should be later though what if agatha gets more than one yeah um but and then also what other color would air be because water's already blue so if you're doing air

Yeah. I mean, if you're doing Avatar colors, it's orange, but like, um, like what, what color is air? Maybe purple, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Uh, it's, it feels like it should be right. Right. It should be Jen. It should be Alice. It should be, uh, Lilia, but I think Lilia is later, but we'll see. Could next week be teen? Maybe. I mean, 80s wouldn't really make sense for teen. Yeah. I don't know. I'm excited. I don't even know what that trial is. Yeah. You know,

Can't wait. I understand, but Lillia's trial appears to be the one where they're all in costume, which is costumes. And that's the tarot trial and that's the air trial. But I don't know what the 80s trial is. Tune in to find out. Watch The Space same time next week. Orgy. You know, people in 80s horror movies were always taking their tops off. So I hope this happens for you, Mallory. Great news. Thanks. You're welcome.

I will be flying back from New York on Wednesday night and watching this on an airplane for the first time. So, you know, I mean, we'll see how that goes. Listen, Snoop on your like scene mates screen at your own peril in a flight. That's how I feel about that. Indeed. Indeed. Joe, fire this week, no matter what awaits next week. And fire is right. Have you seen these fucking outfits?

Also, to go back, I know you have a privacy screen on your laptop, so I'm actually not worried about anyone seeing it. I haven't used that since we were in the studio together. I use it all the time now. Do you? Yeah. Oh, I mean, like, you know, without a camera over my back shoulders, we record in studio. Nobody needs to know my business. Wow. Anywhere I go. I mean, you go out in the world and you're like around people. I'm like, do I need this on my couch? I will say, and hopefully you're in the two places I sit. Hopefully Amazon's not listening and doesn't come find me. I did watch...

the Rings of Power finale in a Pete's coffee, like in a corner. No one could really see my screen, but I was working on notes. I had my headphones on, but I was definitely like in public watching a very embargoed... Put that privacy screen to work. But the privacy screen was on. My back was to the wall. No one could really see it, but I definitely was like, if Amazon knows, they'll snipe me. We got those privacy screens on Amazon. So there you go. Thanks, Bezos. All right.

As you're saying, everyone looks amazing. They look so fucking great. Like real move over Daisy Jones and the Six Energy here. Agatha catching her own reflection and saying, ooh, check me out. Ooh.

just like adoring her own image. And then they all come around and gather and Tine observes that they could be, you know, they're ready for an album cover, et cetera. This was wonderful. Do you have a winner? Would you like to award FitWatch honors this week? I mean, on the one hand, I'm tempted to give it to Agatha and Rhea, who I think are like a matching set in the sort of like plunging... That's what I will be doing. Okay, I'll let you handle that then. Yes. And so I will say...

Jen, Sashira Zamata in like absolute pitch perfect Donna Summer drag, like the wig, the crown of flowers, the flowing white dress. This is off the cover of a Donna Summer disco album. And I said that like when I saw in the trailer, cause there's that like slight overhead shot of her in the trailer. I was like, this is disco. This is Donna Summer. So we're not, we're doing more rock than disco, but that's, that's who she's representing here. And I thought that was like, in terms of like,

intentionally invoking an icon of the era. I thought that one was really successful. I do want to read this Joe Locke quote about his look. I could say this for wig watch, but I'm not. But he says, I love the trousers of the recording studio because they made my bum look big.

which according to Joe is a good thing. That's great. But I didn't like the wig in that one. Same, Joe. So overall, I'd say this one where we have an 80s one, I'm in shorts, like a jersey. That was my favorite. So he loves the trousers because they make his bum look big. But when I saw the wig, I was like, we're not sending our best people for this particular wig. Yeah.

What do you think of the Liza Minnelli wig for Lilia? Wonderful. Great stuff. Wonderful. Great stuff. I was also thinking, it's funny because I was looking up Sabrina the Teenage Witch for another reason. Because I was thinking about when you see, when I see an old girl. Like the old school Nickelodeon? No. Comics. Well, we could talk about Melissa Joan Hart if you ever want to, but. I'd be thrilled. Okay. And Salem the Cat. But. Oh, yeah.

I was looking at the comics because I was thinking about Josie and the Pussycats because we have a girl group here. Whenever I see a girl drummer, I think about Josie and the Pussycats. And I was thinking, so Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina are all part of like the Archieverse in the comic sphere. And so I was like looking up sort of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Josie the Pussycats when they crossed over. And I found this comic from the 90s called like Sabrina's

Halloween spooktacular and in which she invites Josie and the Pussycats to like play at a Halloween party that she's throwing or whatever. And she's wearing like a very similar, like sort of like elaborate shouldered, plungy V-neck kind of look. So I don't think that's what they were going for necessarily, but I was just sort of like, oh, hey, there it is. It's a great look for a witch to wear. Love it. Absolutely. Yeah. Fantastic. Wonderful. Yeah.

Everyone looked great. Yeah, everyone looked amazing. We also get, as they walk in and change their outfits, similarly to last episode, we get an aspect ratio shift off the road versus into these escape rooms. And this is a technique they used in WandaVision to go in and out of the TV land world. And...

in a fun way, the TV land world, even the aspect ratio inside of the TV land shifted based on like what era of TV they were in. This seems to be like a fairly standard, just sort of like letterbox versus not on the road or off sort of thing. But that's, I mean, if we ever need to determine where we are, and once again, I am Westworld traumatized. Yeah, this was an entire point.

point of Westworld season two, we ever need to determine whether or not we're waking her in a dream space. We might look to an aspect ratio clue, or perhaps Jack Schaefer and her crew are not as cruel as Westworld season two. No matter what aspect ratio, those plunging, plunging tops on both Rio and Agatha, astonishing stuff. They looked fucking fantastic. And it also ended up in addition to just like looking great.

It allowed for moments where you can gauge how they feel around each other, right? Because when Rio then walks into the sound booth where Agatha is, she's pulling it closed around her for a little cloak of cover. I also just like that they look like a match set. Everyone had their own distinct style, but so two of them look like they belong together. Cleavage on man's. No, no, they do.

they do they definitely do uh joe we also get we've we've got oz watch but we've got alice watch here well some wonderland action we get to like don't eat anything don't drink anything we're gonna get the play me which of course live on the record and in a few moments which of course pings eat me drink me and the so maybe we ask alice go ask alice yeah

Fun. Delightful. I don't know why I didn't put that together. We love a portal story. I don't know why I didn't put that together with Alice's name, but of course they're down the rabbit hole. Like that's, yeah, they're in Wonderland or Oz or the underworld or whatever you prefer.

How are they going to find the record with Play Me On It? Well, Teen's like, last time we found a riddle, it kicked the whole thing off. Should we go look? He raises his hand in order to make this observation. Lilia says, yes, Teen. It's great, Teen. It's great, Teen. It's the dynamics of the group. Just so wonderful. All right.

Let's boot open that Redfin listing. Generational Curse House open for tours 6 to 7 Pacific on Wednesday. Everyone scouts the house. They go around to look at different things. Agatha stays at the mirror. Rio kind of nuzzles up to her. Sean's not the only nuzzler. The nuzzler. She says, boo. And Agatha turns and looks at her and just says, no. So like, we're...

Not very far away from what we watched between them at the end. Yeah. And the evolution in what Agatha is willing or wanting to succumb to.

succumb such a good word there uh i also think boo is really fun thing if she is death like a very fun ghosty sort of hello um also just so katherine hahn's like the way she's just sort of like grasping at like kind of her throat like mid-air before she says no is this sort of yeah just like this like echo of touch or embrace or you know something like that so yeah i loved it some factors that might hurt the property value

you know no matter what school zone you're in joe if not the uh not the screeching uh harpy demon that's one of that's one yeah the neighbors are loud it definitely comes up on uh on the on the feedback from the brokers uh here's another one one of the walls is just covered with wall hangings of witches being killed uh oh do you not have one of those in your house

I might after this. I mean, some beautiful images here. We're going to get to the creepy wall of masks momentarily, but let's talk about these wall hangings. Take us to Theory Corner here. A couple possibilities for what we might be seeing. We see a woman in stocks boiling in a cauldron. We see a child in a cage. We see a woman burning with her hands. This is great stuff. A woman burning with her hands tied behind her back. A woman with her hands tied up. A woman being lowered into a lake.

I can make a rough fire, water, air, earth sort of thing if I want to here or just analog to all those fun old timey ways that witches have died that we've talked about a couple times on this podcast. Is this, you know, Lillia gets...

quite emotional looking at these. Yeah. Do they remind her of witches she has known in the past who have died? She has seen this. She lived in Europe centuries ago. Like, is this something that she's seen before? Is the kid in the cage supposed to invoke Nick for us?

or Agatha's son, Nick, or is this a future for all of them? Is this some sort of future coming for each of the witches here? The kid in the cage could be teen, you know, and all these other women, are they going to...

or burn or, you know, this is something that we've been like wondering. We've already, you know, gone through the water trial and through the fire trial, but that doesn't mean that they're all safe from that necessarily. And so are they all going to die in these gruesome ways? And Lilia, who can see the future, knows that in some way? I don't know. Yeah. When I first...

saw the camera pan them just because of where this was set. It was like, Oh, is this tracking the way that the curse has taken and claimed each member, each generation of the family. But I'm more compelled by the possibility you're sketching out that this is each, each of the images that we see here, um,

what will happen to a member of this story and a member of the coven. Because no matter what, no matter who, the fact that we can see so clearly that Lilia is this like empath across time and her psychic abilities, that she is hearing these final moments, the pain of death. And we've seen, you know, we saw her response to her hallucination of her past trauma, death. You took us through the history of the Italian plague last pod, right? But also like,

Wait, can I say something really quickly? Sure. A couple points of clarification about that last week. Oh, okay. Did you get some emails from the Italian Blake?

She's speaking Sicilian, not Italian. So she's Sicilian. Like that's something that I failed to sort of underline. So not that the plague didn't come to Sicily because it did, but just something to remember. Also, when I was like so proud of, I was like based on her hair and the locket she's wearing and blah, blah, blah. I think this is young Lilia. And then a bunch of people were like, the credits just called her young Lilia. And I was like, oh, you know what?

We don't have a credits watch segment. We actually kind of sometimes do, but we do have wig watch. Damn it. And we had amulet watch last week. And so I think that that was an appropriate reading. I just had to laugh. And dare I say a necessary one. I had to laugh at myself so hard because I was like so proud of myself and everyone's like, da-doy. It was in the credits.

Oh, man. But like her, what we've heard from Lillia about, you know, cast out of another village, whether blaming me for what's gone wrong, like whether the pain and the grief and that attachment to an ability to read and feel loss, death, trauma is more general or so specific and intimate that it applies to the people in this very room with her. Either way, it would move her. And so like all of this feels imbalanced, but I like what you're outlining there. Creepy mask wall?

I wouldn't have it in my house, personally. It's a no for me. It's given Mephisto, right? Just a quick glance. Like, there's a very devily vibe here. It was also given perhaps each... Because, you know, we do get to see that Alice sees the manifestation and physical form of this screeching demon. Did each member of her family who was affected by the curse...

forge the mask, like the rendering of the version of the demon that they saw? Like, does that reflect how the demon has haunted each one of them over time? What else? What else do you think it could be? I like that a lot. These appear to be traditional oni masks, which is Japanese, which is, you know, Alice and her family appear to be Chinese, so I can't really draw, like, a cultural connection between those things, but...

I do feel like if you watch closely, the one that Jen is transfixed by the most, the most Mephisto-y of them all, does look like eyes sort of appear in it briefly and then like they're gone.

upsetting there's seven of them which makes me wonder about the salem seven it makes me want to go back and re-watch episode three to see if there's like seven a grouping of seven something in that house that i missed um seven candles perhaps um seven bottles needlessly tossed still closed on a single cloud sofa um

But yeah, so I was thinking like the Salem seven, are the, who are they being watched by? Are they being watched by the Salem seven? Are they being watched by Mephisto? You know, but I, but I like your theory about like what, how the demon presented to like various generations of the family. I think that's a really fun theory too. I'm also always thinking about Buffy. So I had to think about the episode dead man's party, just going to drop that there and we can move on. Um, Alice goes to the music wall. Hmm.

Sick Fleetwood Mac poster. So good. Great stuff. She sees a photo of her mom. She's with us. Stevie. Hardcore in this episode. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Alice sees a poster, a picture of her mom, a portrait of her mom. And she and Lilya

talk about Lorna. She was trying to open the road, wasn't she, with her concert, Lillia asks. And Alice says her fans were her coven. And she smiles as she says this. And like later in the episode, we're going to hear about, hear Alice share like how angry she was, right? But there was this

note of appreciation and like respect and admiration, I thought in the way Alice said this and the idea. And again, we've, we were talking just earlier in this pod, like the rules of the coven, how do you form a coven? And I love this spin on it. Yeah. Like the form and function of a coven, um,

can be distinct. And I love the idea of Lorna trying to forge that through community and shared experience, even though of course she was doing that to protect from this horrible community and connection feels like and shared power again, once again, like crowdsourcing power. Yes. The power of song, much like on this podcast with you today. I have things to say. Um,

Yeah. Let's go. Let's go into this Lilia part though. This is really exciting. We get

an MTDTM, a mini trance dispatch, as Molly likes to call them, right? Yeah. Lilia says, which is it? Am I wispy or am I kooky? Mm-hmm. And then she goes, Alice, Alice, don't. Right? Okay. That's the part that I'm even more interested in. Which is it? Am I wispy or am I kooky? Yeah. Seems like it's from a future episode. Yes. A very like, am I a good witch or am I a bad witch sort of future episode thing. Right. Though we did have a Lilia trance right when

Agatha called her kooky in the second episode, right? She had a trans analysis and then Agatha's like, so you're kooky. Yeah. So you're kooky. So you're kooky. Whatever. But we have from the start been like, are these time slipping moments? Are we going to... Are these things that she says going to make sense later? And I think we get...

I think we get two loops inside of... Like, closed loops inside of this episode. Yeah. Here she says... The way she says... The Alice part to me is the one that really struck me. Because she says... I don't know why, but there's just a way... Some way about... Something about Patti LuPone's delivery... Yeah. Read to me like someone who is seeing someone who has died. Alive again. And...

She says... It's like she's a Lilia from a future who has slipped back in time, sees Alice is still alive, is not dead yet. Right. And then tries to warn her from doing... Alice, don't. Alice, don't. Do whatever it is that's going to lead to your death. Alice Death Watch brought to you by a lot of things to me. Yeah. I'm actually worried about everyone in the coven. But...

her performance later of the ballad and the way that she solos on the end when she says whatever it may been i'll see you at the end i'll see you at the end i'll see you at the end i'll see you at the end she says it like a bunch of different times i have more thoughts about that like a little later but that like alice death watch very strong for me um and i'm curious how it how it read to you that sort of alice don't moment also thought it was yeah a warning yeah um

For a particular eventuality that, yeah, Lillia wants her to avoid for just in general participating in this perhaps doomed pursuit. But yeah, I had the same thought that it felt like

from the future. And that's why pairing it so closely with the kook, like a thing that we know someone has said to Lilia about herself, like it just really helps cement this idea that this is a future version of Lilia coming back to us in a way that Lilia can't control. Yes. Doesn't even know is happening because when she's pulled out of the,

in the other stretch when this happens is pulled out of it she doesn't appear to know that this has just happened right yeah yeah so um the idea that she is her her later consciousness is coming into this moment in time and she sees allison is trying to prevent her from moving forward uh was was was my feeling about it as well agatha goddess of rock goes into the sound booth and rio follows fascinating exchange carlos can we hear this

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I'm feeling impatient. I'm feeling like I want to cause some damage. You're too early. It wasn't up to me. Magic, as it does, took the path of least resistance, ferried the closest, most appropriate candidate down.

or up. Hmm. Sexy scene. We're going to talk about that part in a minute. There's a gambit. We'll talk about that part in a minute. Before we get to the theory corner, we're setting from sadly, God, if only imagine Remy in the mix with these two, my God, you would

You wouldn't survive. You wouldn't be able to be actually. Maybe there is such a thing as much of a good thing that might that might be the tipping point. The staging here, Joe, what did this ping for you? It pinged for me them in the interrogation room in episode two, one and episode one, when a teen is waiting to be interrogated. The two of them are behind the glass and they're talking about him, but they're in their own little private room.

It's a similar setup in the recording booth. They're behind the glass. Everyone else is on the other side. And Agatha will sort of like permeate that boundary with the use of the microphone, which we'll talk about in a second. But it's another establishment of a little private world environment

between the two of them inside of a larger bubble of a like made up worlds. And I don't know if that's intentional, but it felt too visually similar for me to not be intentional. And I'll be looking out for maybe some other versions of that if we get that in the future. I love that. Ryo is, we can hear her actually pull the dagger in that clip when she says that she's getting impatient. And that reply from Agatha, you're too early. Unmistakably.

We're speculating. We feel like getting to unmistakable position here, but unmistakably, Agatha knows exactly who Rio is and what she's after. So we have more tantalizing, like, is Rio death, capital D, the Marvel character here, impatient, pulling a dagger.

Well, that pings. Does the dagger not to you now that we know look like the top of a scythe? The way that it is curved? The curvature. I was just like, sick merch. Can't wait to buy this. But now it's like, oh, this was for a reason. This is clearly a Buffy the Vampire comp. And now I'm like, oh, it's a scythe. Why not both? It's both. Why not both? I just said scythe and scythe, but what I meant to say was scythe. So it's Friday. Okay. Also...

It's not a Sith Lord. It's a side. But like... Man, Aubrey Plaza would play a great Sith Lord. A great Sith Lord. Please. I have this elsewhere in the notes, but I think I should say it here. She says... She says ferried, which is such an interesting word choice. And if we're talking about underworld and death and stuff like that, I think the idea of the ferryman on...

the river of death, the river sticks. And like from the, like this idea of river as death, as Lady Death has been like, you know, we were talking about Blackheart. We were talking about a bunch of different, I was like, you know, the other day I was to you, I was like, what if she's just Mephisto? You know, like we have been sort of playing in various theory corners on around this, but this is Rio Lady Death has been a popular one from the start. And I think a lot of people thought Rio Vidal, River of Life,

I've got a ton of emails about that. They're like, why are you still trying to anagram it, Joanna? And I'm like, well, because Advil was coming. But anyway, River of Life, River of Death, River Stick, something like that. But if you say fairy, what a weird word choice here. But like, you know, ferried up from the underground sort of thing. Just makes me long to be back with

Jay Duplass in another season of Percy Jackson. Oh, that's so funny. I thought you were going to think about... Down with Hades. Han and Myra. I mean, that's like two. I can't just in the middle of a pod think about that without breaking down in tears. It's too much. I fucking love that part. Oh my God. That was the best part of the entire show, I think. Of the entire show. A show where James McAvoy is there looking incredibly hot for a lot of it. And yet...

Pan and Lyra's separation in the... Oh, my sweet Pan. In the Land of the Dead. Love Pan. Too early. Too early for...

Soul collecting for claiming these bodies that Rio is going to talk about wanting over the mic in mere seconds here. And that or up, up from the grave, up from hell, the underworld, up from hell. There's just like a lot here, a lot here. Rio asks Agatha why she brought team and Agatha evades. And then this is where Agatha...

Runs her little mission here. I was sort of confused by this, honestly, because... Me too. She wants the other members of the Coven to hear Ryo say...

Then what? You get your power. I get my bodies and like not latch on to Rio, not trust Rio. No Rio's bad news. But in doing that, she allows Rio to remind all of them that all of the witches around Agatha just always die. And I don't believe that that is a worthwhile tradeoff to make for Agatha.

Um, yeah, it doesn't seem like a perfectly thought out plan. No, but it was worth it because it was super horny in the lead up to the Mike press. One more big adventure. Agatha's like, what if this is just Switzerland, right?

Let's like call a truce. One more big adventure. You and me. Like old times. Work and play. It could be nice. And Rio is running her hand up Agatha's thigh during this exchange. And it's somehow not the sexiest and most charged moment of the episode that is still to come. Yeah. It has nothing on gently stroking someone's hair while their back is turned. All right.

Okay. A shriek splits the air. Teen found the record. And was that you shrieking at home when you saw the thigh rubbing happening? It was. It was. Teen put the record on.

It's playing backwards. Bad news, it's the curse. We're cursed now. Everyone's cursed. Oh, no. Terrible. Joe, I'm like, oh, you hear or see a thing, and then you're... This thing's a horror movie to me, but I can't handle horror movies, so you tell me what this... Yeah, you've essentially written something, something to ring in here. I support that. I support that. I think there's a ring, but music. I don't know. Make it, but music. I don't think especially the way that we saw...

Rio appear you mentioned the WandaVision Multiverse of Madness comp but it's also very like crawling out of the TV ring moment yeah I was wondering if like maybe because it's playing in reverse there's two things going on one the playing in reverse is very clear invocation of the like

1970s satanic panic sort of era when there was this idea from Christian conservatives that rock bands were putting demonic messages into records. If you play them backwards, you will hear a demonic message. And...

you know, your Paul is dead sort of Beatles sort of stuff you prefer. But also I was wondering if like maybe an interesting idea is this, like if Lorna's ballad played forward sung by the, was it 40 million records sold, all the people who listened to it, if that song

is protection is playing it in reverse literally undoing it are you unspooling the protection that that song offered that was sort of my best interpretation yeah yeah as the metronome begins to tick so this is the clock we don't have a literal beeping kitchen clock and no one is just like sitting around slurping down a Rioja while the metronome ticks Rio's laughing she's loving it and Agatha calls her a Taurus now

That felt potentially significant. Like, did you take that as just a jab? It's just a shot. Like we didn't invite you to be in our coven. You don't belong here. You're not, you don't get to be a member of the team or as a more perhaps literal insight again into her role, who she is and what that means for her ability to be a part of the coven, to be a part of this quest or not. I think it's the latter. Yeah.

I don't think she is a green witch. I don't know. We'll see. But like, she's not, she's certainly not under the same, like, I mean, if we, if we think she's death, uh, she's not under like the boldness of the rules of the road. You know, she's not going to have the same consequences of the road that these other women do. Um, you know, and when you see her do stuff like playing the drums in the band, it's like,

She's doing it because she wants to, not because she needs to, like, save herself from some, like, shrieking harpy, you know? So. Right. It's interesting. Right. All of a sudden, Jo. Mm-hmm. Alice feels lighter. Not Lillia. She's on fire. She's smoking. No flames, but a lot of smoke, plumes of smoke. She's sizzling. She's crackling. Yeah. And Alice takes Rio's dagger and uses it to draw...

this protection charm circle. She'll do the same shortly for Jen. If we think that Rio is death, does using death's own tool to draw this protection spell undermine it, make it more powerful? Well, it's another reason I'm like, because I'm wondering if Jen and Lillia walk out of here with

Yeah. More protection than Alice has, you know? Right. Uh, Agatha and teen have plot armor protection, um, main character energy protection. Um, but like Jen and Lilia and Alice, I'll see him on like equal, equally dispensable. Not that I feel that way, but plot might feel that way, like playing field. Um,

But Alice may be more vulnerable because she doesn't have that protection drawn around her in this, inside of this episode. I like to say when she says, I feel lighter. I like this idea. We get, we get the marks, the burn marks. Yep. Um,

And you have a lot of like really great ideas about that, but I just think of them as like claw marks of a devil, a demon literally sitting on your shoulder and weighing you down your entire life. And that's the burn, the burn of the talons like on your shoulders. And the mark, like the sort of like mark of the beast kind of thing, which I really like. Also, Lilia writhing on the floor here in pain.

But in episode two, right before they go into the road, we get one of those like mini trans dispatches and Lillia says, get it off me. That seems to me like it was from this moment. She traveled back in time from episode four to episode two and said, get it off me. Like, I mean, she could be talking about something else that comes at her. Could be the mascara or the wig. Who knows? Yeah.

It looked heavy on the lower islands. I'm just saying. I was surprised it didn't like run down her face when she was crying about the tapestries earlier. Yeah, water resistant and heat resistant. Impressive. Honestly. What a brand deal. Yeah. Oh, man. But yes, I love that, that she was referring to the weight of the curse. Yeah.

The marks to me, I love everything you're saying. The marks to me looked like, because we do see the winged demon, like, oh, is this sprouting out of you, marking you for this fate? And I just am always thinking, you know, of the now because Mephisto is so, we're so Mephisto-pilled in the Jack Schaefer verse. Like, it just makes me think, you know, fallen angel down to hell. You're thinking about Sauron, aren't you? Yeah.

Always. Our guy Lucifer. Always. Teens, like, what's the next step? Yeah. Smudge sticks.

Salt bath. Entire intact jars of petroleum jelly. Finding the witch who cast the curse and trying to reason with her. And Agatha says this very interesting and poetic thing about how once vengeance is loosed, you can't reel it back in. But it did make me wonder, just Tina asking that, like, oh, wait, what is the origin of this curse, right? Who is the witch who put this curse on the family in the first place? And I think...

Are we going to get these answers? Are we going to learn who that witch is? Are we going to learn the identity of the man who bound Jen? Do you think those answers will be coming? I mean, I think we have to learn more about what happened with Lilia. And since Lilia's thing is so directly connected to death, like, do you think these answers are already in the credits? Just like young Lilia? It's like so embarrassing. I think that I like the idea that Rio was somehow there for all of that in one way or another.

Death. Timeless. Eternal. But not like eternity. That's a different cosmic entity. Marvel. Love it. Love it. The burning hits Jen. She gets the circle. She does not leave that circle, let me note, when everyone else runs to help team. What, do you live in that circle now? Demerit. Is that what Agatha said? Do you live in that circle now? That's a good Agatha. You've got the snark down. The camera starts to swirl.

the flight of the demon. They're scrambling to try to identify what is this record that we smashed on the floor? And it is, no surprise. Like, what else would it be? Are we kidding? Are we new? So,

Lorna's version of the ballad. Now, Alice tells him, like, I didn't think this was real. Devastating. Oh, this was so heart-wrenching. She says, like, everything that has ever happened to me, from losing a job to my mother's death, I just, like, thought was...

Yeah, my fault. I didn't think that this was real. And so simultaneously you have what I imagine would be for Alice, this relief that comes from this clarity that this was, this was actually a thing pursuing them, right? It wasn't just talked about how her mom wasn't well, like it wasn't in her head, but also then the, the horror, right. Of, of knowing that this is, it is actually in pursuit of you now, like you are actually up next, right?

I liked this though, because it, you know, it reminds me of this. I mean, what's so fascinating is like Agatha again, for all of her self-centeredness and all of, we talked about this when it came to Jen and sort of like,

he bound you, but he didn't take your knowledge. He didn't take everything from you. And it's similar here where it's like, this is what we have to do to fight this literal demon that's on your shoulders. And again, Agatha is doing it out of self-interest, but she's also the one who was unlocking the grip of trauma on all of these women as they go through these trials. And I think that is like, you know,

We're going to get to, in Theory Corner, sort of like a little bit more of an involved idea about this. But this idea of her as like a natural leader, even though she doesn't like see herself that way or want that, but like is quite good at it. And so, you know, these women who have just been like beaten down

by these things that have happened to them are now liberated, unbound. The demon's off your back. Like, let's go, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I did find it very striking in this episode in contrast to last episode. You know, we get the little, like, no cheating this time. Oh, moi! Earlier in the episode, but...

Agatha spends all of episode three trying to avoid and evade and hide. And like, she is such an active leader of this charge to your point that felt like such a, a notable evolution for her in a relatively speaking short span of time. And I like what you're identifying that self-interest and this, this,

a boon and opening of a portal of a different sort that she is able to provide not only for herself, but the other members of the coven, a forging of this coven and this fellowship, even if she didn't actively seek that from the start, that they're not mutually exclusive. We're watching both of those things happen in Tantrum. It's what she did for Wanda in WandaVision. The episode was a therapy episode. She's like, let me walk you through your trauma. You know, this is like what she does. Yeah.

Great episode of television. Wonderful. Fantastic stuff. Speaking of things that Agatha is showing us about herself, whether she is maybe ready to admit to herself how she is feeling or not. Yeah.

Teen gets cursed here. He's in the grip of the curse. Hurled through the glass. He'll pick up a little death shard here, though he won't notice it for some time. Remarkable pain tolerance from Teen. Agatha panics. She screams. She runs after him. And her concern, it's instinctual, right? Like, it's reflex. And the care, like, obviously we talked last episode about how she...

immediately reached out to stop him from drinking the poisoned wine, wanting to protect him from that. Same thing here. Like this bond that they're forging, and we're going to talk about, you know, some, some lovely conversations and scenes later in the episode. There's no conscious thought here. She wants teen to be okay. She doesn't want harm to befall teen.

Very notable to watch. And obviously we have a lot of Nikki Scratch stuff to talk about. And we'll circle back to that in a couple scenes down the road. We should note that this is the second, per your point, this is the second time that Teen has bled for one of these tests. That's right. And the first one he gets a slash across the palm. Now he's got this like shard of glass in the abdomen. So, you know.

just on i'm just on slash watch i guess uh it's a great observation yeah geez 14 uh he's as always making the best of a grim situation he's like am i is my initiation you know my part of the coven now burdens and blessings alike i think willia says not a lot of blessings this group also like he's not part of the coven and this idea of him is like pet as familiar as you know and then as as sacrifice interesting i don't have all the answers i just have some questions

Well, you're about to have something else. Jam Sesh? Jam Sesh. Our favorite podcast? Yeah, just check out, follow Jam Session on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Agatha realizes what they have to do. They have to sing Lorna's version of the ballad. All sides point to a jam session. And Alice is actively objecting to this. She's like, we already did that. We sang the ballad to open the road. And Teen...

An enthusiast, a musical enthusiast, right? This is always, Lorna's version's on a Spotify wrapped and everything. It's like her version is different. Well, what was Lorna seeking on the road, Agatha asks. And Rio, who in many stretches of this episode is just a passive observer of what they are doing as a group, chimes in here.

to save her daughter. Now, as we track our is Rio death question mark theory corner fodder bits across this pod, this question of like, does Rio know, like actually, specifically know that because she as death has been deprived of

of Alice by Lorna's protection is a tantalizing thing to consider. This is another question I had is like, are all of these women overdue in some way? Because like they all have these extended lifespans. Lorna is only by like a, sorry, Alice is only by a few years, you know, because of her mom's protection. But like, right. Jen is centuries old. Lilia is centuries old. Like how long is a witch supposed to live? I don't know. I don't have the answer. Just more questions.

Well, we've got an answer coming right here. Agatha is putting the pieces together. She's solving the riddle. You should have burnt to a crisp years ago, but here you are, she says to Alice, sullen and aimless but alive. Iconic stuff from Agatha Harkness now and always. This is so funny.

That's because at any given moment somewhere, someone is playing that song and that you hate so much. Lorna's Ballad is a protection spell. It protected you. Lily Potter, welcome to the chat. I

I just want to say that even I was watching this with my friend Diana and even Diana, who is not Harry Potter pilled at all, was like, OK, Lily Potter. Yeah, I mean, this is so Lily Potter. It's like unbelievable. But it's also in addition to the idea of like the mother's love and the mother sacrifices protection. It is in your very skin.

There's also, again, that idea of fellowship through... protection through fellowship and community because the idea that all of these other people... It's not just what Lorna has done. It's how what Lorna has done has touched all of these other people and enriched their lives and then they carry on that protection for her and for Alice, which is really a lovely idea. I think it's interesting to connect this thematically to...

Wanda and like her boys and how that might be connected or Agatha and potentially like Nikki, like this idea of like a mother's protection. How, yes. How that might unite a bunch of women in this particular case. Also, we got an email from our listener, Jean-Michel, which could not be more me coded in the slightest. It is titled the witch list stat. And I was like, I've never faster been like click on an email in my life.

Jean-Michel wrote in the book two of the Vampire Chronicles, Lestat being the antagonist brat prince that he is, purposely writes lyrics. He's the brat prince. I can't wait for you to get an interview with the vampire. That's his name, the brat prince, Lestat. I love it. Okay.

great stuff the antagonist brat prince that he is purposely writes lyrics to his songs that call out secret vampire lore and name specific vampires his band also becomes enough of a pop sensation that millions of fans around the world are playing and singing his songs every day which almost like a spell wakes the first vampire akasha queen of the damned book three which isn't a real one-to-one but i felt like there might have been a nod to it i ran this past once again diana my witch expert um

And she knows the Vampire Chronicles, the books a bit better than I do. And she, no, actually what's true is she's seen the movie, The Queen of the Damned, and I have not. And she was just sort of like, I wouldn't exactly call it a spell. It's more like Lestat gets enough people to sing, but it's like a very loud alarm clock that wakes up a sleeping vampire. And I was just sort of like, I don't know. I think the idea is similar that like,

the power of many voices raised in unison invoke something magical, something that you aren't supposed to be able to accomplish. And certainly something you could not accomplish alone with just your voice. So everyone who's excited for the list at rockstar season, which is the upcoming season three of interview with a vampire. Oh man. What a time to be so excited. So excited. But Diana's point was like that. It,

it's not just Lestat that this is more like a trope, this idea of like song as spell work is like an old sort of witchcraft idea. Sure. And so then I thought about like Hocus Pocus because there's a sequence in Hocus Pocus at the Halloween dance where Bette Midler gets...

gets up on stage and sings I Put a Spell on You and she gets the whole room to start singing the words of the spell with her and put themselves under a trance essentially. Controversially, I don't love Hocus Pocus as a film but that's maybe one of my worst witch takes that I have. Wow.

It's a very unpopular take. I like it fine. I just don't like it as a we have to watch it every year kind of movie. But, I mean, the comp is there and how could you resist Hocus Pocus and Invocation if you're watching the show? And then also Buffy Vampire Slayers here with us always. Once more we're feeling the Buffy musical. This idea of like

At the end, Buffy is... There's a musical episode at the end. Buffy is, like, trying to fight a demon with Song. And her watcher, her mentor, says, like, Anya Tara, she needs backup. And they, like, go up and, like, start to sing with her. And it just becomes this sort of, like, yeah, the, like...

and that just ties in so beautifully to this idea of coven and shared power like a shared wellspring of power and all these people have have to tap in together in order to create the the juice that you need so yeah sounds also like a band and it is time thank you to assign musical instruments agatha just wants someone to play the fucking piano lilia

Can we interest you? No, no. I studied the zills and a little band flute. Jen? Ballet. Yeah. Remarkable stuff. Teens like I can play some guitar. Yeah. We get in our positions and they begin. And as soon as they do, Agatha starts to sizzle. And she orders them to plow on. Now, again, like we were talking about a few minutes ago, part of this is like cold calculus, the logic. She knows if the song is the protection spell, the best way to actually...

save herself is to carry on but just the fact that agatha is willing even for a moment to suffer pain so that they all will be okay yeah does feel meaningful like a less selfish and more selfless or both of those things at once at least version of agatha uh they jam out you sure do

Pada Lupon on the Zills and then the Maracas and also the triangle is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Our listener Grayson pointed out that this might be a reference to Pada Lupon in this production of Sweeney Todd, this iconic production she did of Sweeney Todd many years ago, where they all played their own instruments. She played the tuba and like a couple of, I think, I think it's one of those productions similar to when we, um,

we watched Lord of the Rings musical and they were sort of picking up instruments in the midst of every, of the action. Like, you know, the idea of switching, picking up multiple instruments and stuff like that. I also was wondering if the zills, cause you know, zills are often associated with like,

Diana is also an accomplished belly dancer. So she was like, oh, the belly dancing symbols. And, you know, Lilia in the comics is a Romani sort of figure. So I didn't know if that was like supposed to be related to that as well. I thought Catherine Han's Stevie Nicks or Daisy Jones would prefer impression when she like lifts her gauzy sort of like cape up. That's like a classic Stevie Nicks impression.

look and uh yeah just thinking about just seeing the pussycats as always and something I didn't mention when I mentioned Sabrina the Sabrina comics earlier Nicholas Scratch is a character in the Sabrina comics just something to think about our guy Nikki what do you want always welcome always well is he that's the devil I don't know um

I would like to go on record on this podcast and say the devil is not always welcome on this podcast. Mallory, what do you want to say about the contrast between Lorna's lyrics and the original ballad lyrics? Yeah. First of all, this was a jam. It sounded great. The snippet that we picked for the top of the pod today, I was like, let's go. I mean, they were rocking out at that point. Really great. You know, if you kind of just do a side-by-side of the lyrics, like there are many...

identical even lines. And then there are lines that have the same kind of idea and concept in some of the same language, but like a slight reworking and reframing. But the thing that we, and we, we see why and understand the reasons for this. The thing about Lorna's ballad is just that it is so personal. Even like you just look at the first line from the ballad that we heard in episode two to open the road, seekest thou the road to all that's foul and fair. This is like a broad general idea.

or direction. What's the first line of this? I have learned the lesson. Like it is this twist and play on the ballad that stems from one person's love and one person's loss and one person's desire to protect. And like that stretch that we picked for the opening, the blood and tears and bone, which again, blood and tears and bone is part of the other ballad too. But then we go into, yeah, mother, maiden, crone. And here it's like together and alone. If I,

I can't reach you let my song teach you just the intimacy of it um and how this thing that is again shared by all and amplified and heightened by many people partaking in it together stems from the relationship between a mother and a daughter I just thought was like really lovely they did a great job of conveying that through the the tiny tweaks in the construction I can't teach you let my song reach you once again beautiful reminding me you know when I was talking about

If I can't hold you, remember what I told you? That was nice. When I was thinking about the Lopez's, Kristen Anderson Lopez and Bobby Lopez, who don't do the score, but do these songs that are in both WandaVision and Agatha all along, and did the songs for Frozen and how...

the lullaby from the mother in Frozen 2 is this instruction for her daughters after she's dead. And this is very similar where it's just sort of like,

If I can't reach you, let my song teach you. Like after I'm gone, let this, my voice like linger to guide you and teach you. Absolutely beautiful. Protect you. It's gorgeous. And especially too, because like the way that Alice talked to Teen last episode when he asked about her tattoo, which also was something that Lorna like wanted her to have for protection. It was almost like,

There was this taint to it that we could sense from Alice, right? Like, she wasn't well. She made me do this. She thought it was going to help. And then you feel like the, I don't know, like the generosity and the need as well behind the song. And I think like the other thing, it was just like, you know, we talked a lot about in the second episode,

the line, I hold death's hand in mine. I stray not from the path, I hold death's hand in mine. Now that's interesting to think about anew with the Rio theories, certainly. But like, that feels like a, that's a different energy than,

repeating the only way we survive time and time again in Lorna's version. Like, and that's interesting to think about because the idea of a protection fell and evading something, this gets back to this question of like, well, if the only way out is through, should they be trying to evade and avoid death? Yeah.

Does there need to be an acceptance in order to move forward? I definitely, I think... Like, which of those is actually right? I think there's a way to accept death without dying yourself. We can talk about that a little bit later on. But I do, I mean, I think that's an integral part of the journey here, for sure. Yes. Very, like, Peverell brother, again, to Pings Harry, for me a bit. Alice, we heard it at the top, right? She sees the demon in full, this, like...

Hidia Specter, my god. I hated it. I hated it. Great rack, though, on the Hell Demon. Did you notice that? Didn't you? I did. I really noticed that it had a rack. But I wasn't like, check out the rack on that scary, snarling demon. I don't know, great episode of TV for racks. So...

And Alice says, like, I can kill it. Right. There's that confidence. You didn't think the curse was real. You have to confront that it is. And then you have to quickly make your way through acceptance to combating. But we did cut during the ballad to a teen who has a cut. There's a shard of glass in his body.

By the way, the first time I watched it, I couldn't tell what was happening. I don't know. Same. I thought his belt was open. I know. And I was like, let's earmark that to come back to that. And then later, I was like, oh, that's what that was. Same exact thing happened to me. I was like, it sounds like a sheen, but I thought it was like, I don't know, or his pants lined with aluminum foil. I had no idea what was happening. Wait, on belt buckle watch, I should say, some people think, I don't know if I agree, but some people think the...

design on teen's belt buckle looks like the design on the cover of the dark hold. I'm not sure that I agree. It looks just kind of like some curved and straight line. You know what I mean? But I'm willing to be proved wrong. Um,

So I was like, oh no, has the dark old belt buckle activated? What's happening? I also did like how they were using like this, the, you know, the pains of the imagery, which is very comic book, of course, but also very like 70s aesthetic of this very like, you know, yeah.

when we cut to the... Thomas Crown Affair sort of stuff. Oh, yeah. Man, first a jam session mentioned, now this. Dobbins is really with us today. I was talking about the OG Tom. I don't think they do it in the Pierce Bros. But either way, Thomas Crown Affair, yeah. Uh...

Teen's about to die. He faints from blood loss because he just was really committed to performing the piece of glass inside of him. Teen! My God. The celebration ends pretty quickly here because everybody realizes that Teen is in peril and Agatha is genuinely overcome. Carlos, can we hear this? There's so much blood. What else can we do? What else can we do? He's young. He's strong. Don't! Don't.

Jen, what do you need? Jen, what do you need? Jen! Water and moonlight. Hurry! Oh, God! Catherine Han! So they're back on the road. They've taken him through the piano portal. And...

Whether Agatha thinks, we've been theorizing about this the last couple of pods, whether she thinks that Tina is actually literally her son, Nikki Scratch, Nikki Scratch, come back, or he just reminds her of Nikki and what she lost, the pain and the terror of losing him. Don't.

Okay, so let's talk about the second don't. Because the second don't comes when she turns and looks directly at Rio. So on our, like, is Rio death tracker, this is actually, to me, like, close to top of the list. Number one, honestly, for me. Yeah, like, beyond the hoods. You're the one who could choose to take him. Beyond the hoods and the side knife, this is, like...

This is it. I am asking you, don't do this. And like, we're going to hear what Rio says about her scar. And so it's not just don't like you might be deaf. You have the ability to take him or decide not to. Don't do it again. Right. Yeah. Don't do it again. Like you did this to me before. Not another one. Not again. Agony. Also Jen works. Rio looks pains. Not indifferent. She looks pains. Oh yeah. Very much. Yeah. Very much. So watching Agatha suffer through this, um,

Joanna, as Jen is swirling the water under the moonlight, we hear Lilia say, three of swords. Would you like to take us back to Tarot Card Corner? Oh, it's a tarot reading time. Okay, listen. Hmm. We know so much more than we did last time we talked about Tarot Corner. Because Marvel has released...

Maybe they had already, but I hadn't seen them. Tarot promo cards for much, but not all of the cast. You can Google tarot promo card, Agatha all along and you know, they'll pop up.

Um, there are clear card to character analogs for most, but not every member of the coven. So Jen, as was mentioned in episode two is the high priestess. Uh, you can see Jen, she's got a scroll that says potions on it. Like that's the high priestess cars. That's her card. Um, Agatha is the three of swords. So Lillia says three of swords here when she's looking at Agatha in, in anguish and the three of what the three of swords means is heartbreak, emotional pain.

And it's like the card image is Agatha in front of a heart with three swords piercing it. The entire coven is depicted on the card, the three of pentacles. And that is what Lillia said, three of pentacles in episode two, when deciding whether or not to write down the names of the coven, to join the coven, all that sort of stuff like that. She says three of pentacles. So it's this idea of fellowship, of bonding and stuff like that.

Rio's card is the death card. Okay. Yep. Feels notable. Or I should just say this. There's a death card where death is holding a knife that looks identical to Rio's knife. And on the other hand, she has a heart that is black. So that's just a thing that exists. Okay. Lilia. Young Lilia. Okay.

in her Renaissance era Sicilian garb is on the Queen of Cups card. And the Queen of Cups denotes like encouraging, caring, nurturing. We'll get to that immediately after this. And then last but not least, now Alice doesn't have a card and Teen doesn't have a card.

Um, but there's the tower and I don't know if the tower tower is Alice's card, but it's this one, the tower card that Marvel put out as Agatha promo shows multiple women falling from a tower on fire. It doesn't look great. Honestly. Um, some trailer images suggest that they're going to a tower at one point. Does Alice fall here? Who else might fall if there's two women falling? If not, why doesn't Alice have a card? Um,

The tower in general means danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning and liberation. So that has been Tarot Corner. But I mean, but here, most of all, Three of Swords, heartbreak. Agatha's absolute devastation and anguish over what's happening to teen right here is what's most important there. I found this very moving to watch. Tarot Corner, TM, Joanna Robinson. And thanks to Marvel for putting those cards out. Um...

Lilia being queen of cups, encouraging, caring, nurturing. So the water in the shell under the moonlight works. Very Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, real water moment. But Lilia says, Jennifer, look what you did, which I would say is encouraging, caring, and nurturing. Thanks, queen of cups. But yeah, I found this very... But again, this is the coven working together.

As they had to for the fire trial, as they had to for the potions trial, and as they have to right here. Yes. As they had to. Rio watching from a remove, but everyone else involved. Yeah. What a tourist. We're going to our, not the final section of the pod, but the final section of the deep dive, which is today called Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

Incredible final few minutes of this episode of TV. Really great. They move teen after healing him to this bed of leaves to rest and Agatha does not leave his side. Everyone else is sitting. Everyone's by the fire and

And she is sitting with T and this was like, oh God, wrenching. They're sharing stories over by the fire about their lives. This is where we learn that Jen is an 11th generation root worker, that she was a midwife, that she was invited to the Obstetrics Association of Greater Boston. And this is where she was bound. She says, I still don't know how he did it. Bound me without

Magic, this was one of the questions we asked last week. Like, did he... Was this a sorcerer who used magic? Or was it a non-magic user who was able to trap her still? It feels like he blocked his chakra, really. Like, I don't know. Not literally, but like, yeah, he drowned her and in doing so, like...

blocked something in her without a spell. Um, I thought it was interesting. Um, I was thinking a lot, one of my dearest friends, uh, Lydia, who's, whose, uh, family is from Haiti, um, has trained in doula work, um, and has taught me everything I know about like doula work and midwifery and which are not the same, but, um, she, uh, she was taking this course and she was talking to me very passionately about the fact that like,

in terms of mortality rates in women and mothers, um, women of color to this day are disproportionately affected, impacted. Um, and, uh,

So I thought it was interesting that Sashir Zomata as a Black woman is like in this role of like women trying to protect the lives of women from, you know, a healthcare system that, you know, maybe does not care about the life of the mother every decision that is made here. And I thought that was really interesting and upsetting. Yeah.

deeply upsetting and it reminds me as well you know we we spoke in a prior pod about this idea with with jen with lilia that this effort to help like to help save to help heal to help bring into this world would be seen by other people as a threat and something foul instead of like a

a gift and a salve to make sure other people were okay. Yeah. Very, very, very upsetting. Rio. Yeah. She contributes. She's a scar. Carlos, what does she say here? You guys don't have extra nipples. I'm covered in nipples.

You want to see? No, thank you. No, thank you. Before she says this, right, we just need to note that Lillia once again wants to talk about witches and their stereotypes and how she's sick of it. And I'm like, Lillia, I need you to get another topic of conversation. She's hit this three different times, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this feels like now very purposeful, right? And like it has to bear fruit in what we watch Lillia confront. Yeah, and again, like I think her trial is the trial where they're all dressed as like

cartoonish witch you know the witches from Wizard of Oz the witch from Snow White all this sort of stuff these like stereotypical cartoonish depictions of witches so it makes sense that that would be associated with Lillia's trial about combating the stereotypes of witches yeah teen he wakes

agatha wait what is an assay of relief what do you think of lilia saying no thank you to rio's offer of showing them all of her nipples oh i say yes please right okay just making sure let's do it let's do it are you and lilia enemies for life now no i love lilia i support lilia even if we go about our business on the road slightly differently i think but that's okay um

The first thing that teen does, Joe, when he wakes is ask Agatha immediately if she put the sigil on him. And she says no, and she's emphatic about it. But then just as quickly says, like, I actually... This is wild. You know what? I wouldn't know if I did. Here's what she says. A sigil works on the witch who cast it as well. That's why we don't use them as much. They're super irritating. Teen asks, can it be lifted? And Agatha says...

Sigils are destroyed, not lifted. And before you ask, oh, and that curious little voice of yours. The answer is when they're no longer needed. And then she pauses and she looks at him and she says, you don't have to know a person's name to know who they are. My heart just melted watching this. What did you make of all of this? Okay. Okay.

this blew the barn doors off of my brain in terms of like what's happening here because we were like who cast the sigil we believe there's like either a W or an M on his mouth is it Mephisto is it Wanda is it you know Maximoff is it like what is it and we thought maybe that like Wanda had cast it unintentionally sort of unintentionally this again Lily Potter sort of mother's love protection of of teen if teen is indeed like her kiddo which is a

prevalent theory for who teen might be. But Agatha, and I think we came up with that because Agatha called it clumsy earlier. She's like, I didn't do this clumsy little sigil thing. Like, it wasn't me. Right. And so we were like, oh, accidental magic.

But what if instead it was teen who put the sigil on because, and it was clumsy because he doesn't really quite know what he's doing. He has only his little moleskin of notebook of inspiration, information. Like doesn't know all the ins and outs. So he put a little sigil on himself. He wouldn't know. He wouldn't know that he had done it because of this rule. We just learned that if you cast a sigil, maybe you don't know that you cast a sigil. And I was like, wow, maybe teen did it. That makes a lot of sense to me. And like, I like this idea that like,

Tien put the sigil on himself as a means of protection going into whatever it is he's trying to accomplish here in Westview. Would destroying the sigil unleash him knowing much more about who he is, who his real mom is, what Agatha's role in everything is, all that sort of stuff. Like, what...

What does he know? Like, based on the troubling looks he gave to Jen when Jen was talking about Agatha's reputation. And, like, what doesn't he know? Because he's blocked that knowledge via his own sigil work. I don't know. But I'm intrigued. I love that. Brilliant. It feels right. It feels right. Yeah. And then, like, having Agatha and Tine bond. Yeah.

And be free to bond. Yes. Without the burden of whatever. Only for the sigil to be broken and him to be like. He might be bringing. Boy, that's going to be painful if that is in fact what happens. Deeply painful. And there's already a lot of heartache here because we have teen wondering who he is. And we have Agatha wondering that too. Like thinking about what's going through both of their minds and what they're both bringing to this. Like either she thinks that this is her son or just he really reminds her of her son. It's a second chance. It is awoken something in her.

And like, obviously we're going to get to the moment shortly where Rio gets to this directly. But this is, this is clearly pulling on Agatha in a real, real, real way. Yeah.

Now that he's up, Agatha does go over to the fire to join the witches. And this is where they're trading stories about their battle scars, their wounds. And this is where Lillia then like kind of drifts into the trance state again. She's talking about her vampire bite. What did you make of this little mini trance dispatch, Jo? I think we got another full circle one. She says...

She says, you know, we really kind of hated each other in the beginning, but now dot, dot, dot and dressed off. And everyone's like, but now what, Lilia? Where did you go? Right. Okay. So let me complete the sentence for you with a line, with a, with a mini trans dispatch from episode three. She says, you know, we really kind of hate each other again, but now.

from episode three, I love you guys, which is what she said during the toast in a way that we were like, this feels weird the way she's saying it. So I think that's just another completion here. So I think we've seen two, you know, and we'll see them as we go along. That's my guess. Yeah. Incredible. But I thought, to your point, good information to see the other side. Like, she doesn't realize that she just went back to, like,

you know, toasting wine in the huge tiny little lion's house. Yeah. And, you know, we had that conversation last week when they were, when, when, um, Lilia and Agatha were collecting the, the, the kale care cartons in the bathroom and Agatha kind of like, and again, they were on the clock, but like didn't remark upon Lilia saying to her, like, save Agatha. And, um,

And so it felt notable and important and good that Jen was like, hey, Lillia, where do you go? Like that they are actually remarking upon this and noting this and that it feels like that will become something that they're like, wait, we need to drill down on this a little bit more at some point. I have to say, time and again, Jen is the one who was Johnny on the spot noticing things. That's not a real green witch.

who the hell is this teenager? What's going on here? What are you doing? Where did you go, Lilia? So like that seems to be part of Jen's role here is observer, truth teller sort of thing. Great stuff. Rio's ready to participate yet again. She has a scar. This is after Agatha shares her scar story and she sits down right next to Rio, gives him the little knitting needle on the elbow. Okay, so we're about to get like a more overt confirmation of their connection.

But there is such excellent silent work in the way that Agatha just sits so close to Rio. And the way she says, like, you want to know why I got these scars? Right. She like starts to roll up her, like, you know, her sleeve. And Rio's kind of smirking. Like she knows what's coming. She knows exactly what it's going to be. She knows what the scar is. She knows the story. I loved this. I thought this was great too. Also two doomed lovers sitting on a log together. Making a connection. Finding themselves completely apparent on.

Oh, God. Beautiful stuff. Carlos, can we hear what Rio says? I've got a scar. Oh, you do? Yes, I do. A long time ago, I loved someone and I had to do something that I did not want to do, even though it was my job and it hurt them. She is my scar. I'm going to stretch my legs. She is my scar? Are you kidding me? Unbelievable.

And the way she said that I did not want to do like she seemingly seems very clear that she is describing needing to claim and take Nikki. Yes. And the pain that this caused Agatha. And also the slight like recrimination in even though it was my job. Like I did not want to do it even though it was my job. Like because taking Nikki, claiming him as death or whatever you prefer, had to take Nikki from Agatha. Didn't want to do it even though it was my job. And it's so clear that Agatha blames her.

Shirley begged her not to and she had to do it. And she says, even though it was my job, like I had no choice, but I got blamed and I got, and she hid herself from me.

Right. For decades, maybe. Right. Because of this. I was thinking back watching these sequences at the end of the episode between them two. Do you remember why you're mad at me? Why you hate me? Yes. And like just the way that they sat across from each other in the lounger chair and the couch and like the way that they looked at each other even though Agatha was still in her like trapped Agnes state then that there was something so deep about

and visceral and almost like cellular about their connection their draw to each other oh man i also really liked that i've got a star no you don't was like this uh again rio knows exactly where agatha's knitting needle scar is right because she's seen it and uh agatha i think the implication here is seen all of rio's naked body and knows that there's not a single scar on there

Perhaps also because she is a death immortal, but like, you know, it also has would know if she had a scar.

When will they see each other naked again? Thanks for asking. Let's go to the final sequence of the episode. Agatha walks away. Rio follows. Lilia does kind of quickly stop Rio and says basically, I remember. I haven't forgotten what we heard you say about like claiming our bodies. It's good to know that that is something that they have carried forward with them. It will be hard to forget. And

We are then treated to this just absolutely exquisite sequence. Agatha is standing with her back toward Rio. Rio walks up to her and she just gently, like this is a true lover's caress moment, rubs her hair, rubs her back. Agatha moans and she turns around and she runs her hands through Rio's hair and then just like

they wrap themselves up in each other. And it is, it's not just a hug. It is this like desperate embrace. They're trying to like almost melt into each other. These are two people who love each other and want each other and haven't been able to like hold each other like this for so long. There you are. Touch. And then Agatha like cups Rio's face and looks at her and looks at her lips and leans in for the kiss. And we're like,

And then Rio stops her. I loved that. She says, Agatha, that boy isn't yours. I loved this so much for a million different reasons.

One of my friends who loves the show and is queer, like sent me a tweet that she saw where someone was like, what it feels like to finally like not be queer baited, but actually like, because you know, there's this, you know, in the sort of like queer read of, you know, the various fictional things that we consume that don't have overt queer narratives, but people, you know, find them where they representation where they may. There's this off repeated phrase of like, there's no straight explanation for this, right?

um which is just like a fun way to just be like this has to be gay there's no there's no but literally there's no straight explanation for this this is you know clear as can be and on disney plus uh good job guys uh you're very late to the party but you're welcome nonetheless um yes but this was electric i love this this like this like i need you to know the truth i need you to not

think that I have brought your child back to you or something like that before you kiss me because when you kiss me I want you to be doing it with your eyes full open to what's going on here I yeah I love this it was to be pulled out of that like us as viewers to to feel like that that hitch like Agatha must be feeling in that moment where these words from Rio are

Because again, like think of where she is with Ryota just the beginning of this episode. Think of the fight, the harrowing fight that we saw between them. Like she is...

sliding into her own desire here and her like need not just her want her need to be with this person and then hearing that from Rio it just pulls her back out of it into not only this different headspace but into their history right like into whatever happened between them with Nikki and so whether whether Rio means he's not literally your son Nikki don't allow yourself to think this or he's not

yours to save or he's not yours to view as a stand-in in this way. Whatever, like, actually, literally she means. The effect on Agatha is the same. This was just really, really compelling to watch. Like, these two are great together. Their chemistry together is, like, just absolutely crackling. And I love what you're saying about

needing to make sure that they are speaking the truth to each other in like to what you were calling back to a minute ago of like do you even remember why you hate me do you remember what pain feels like we have to peel back all of those remaining layers so then the only thing left is what they're caring for each other and the truth right and then what's it going to feel like when they can finally lean into that and hopefully that's the choice they're able to make if not it's going to be very sad but this is really amazing to watch eight

How long do we have to wait? Yeah, that feels like... And the finale is airing... We're getting two episodes in the final week, right? Eight and nine together. Yeah, so I do... That does feel right. Maybe seven. I don't know. All right, okay. Theory Corner. We hit a lot of this already, Jo. What do you want to hit that we haven't covered yet? Anything else on the Israel death front that you want to add to the evidence we've already cited? Um... Uh, uh, uh, um...

I mean, I'll once again note that she wears a hood in this episode and she wore a hood in the first episode. I think when this theory first really started to gain traction, I was like, how could I have missed that fucking hood? She's wearing a cloak. Are you kidding me? Also, I sent this to you over the weekend or the end of last week at some point. Our listener Ellen sent in this email about...

I did not put these audio clips together. So you'll just have to do your legwork yourself. But she mentioned that when the character death is interested in the television, introduced in the television series, Supernatural,

a show that I have merely dabbled in and I'm not an expert in. When he rolls up, sort of famously, they play this cover version of the traditional song, Oh Death, the song Oh Death that I know best from the soundtrack for Oh Brother Where Art Thou. But like that song, the cover of that song plays, it starts with these like three really ominous, juicy notes that is not in the...

Oh brother, we're out there version because that's acapella. So I listened to many versions of the song to see like how prevalent it was. Anyway, it is a, it is fairly common, but this cover that appeared in Supernatural is like kind of famous among, certainly among Supernatural fans. Those three notes, you agreed with me.

Per Ellen's email, play when Rio first sort of breaks down the door into Agnes' house and stomps in in that sort of hooded costume knife out. So in episode one. So we played them side by side. I could hear it. That's really fun. If they played...

oh death when Rhea walks in to life but also this idea of accepting death as part of Agatha's journey like we've got all these hints so like what if she is Lady Death one of the lyrics from the Ballad of the Witches wrote is I hold death's hand in mine and that could just be like death my cutie my girl my best babe I hold her hand in mine but also this idea of accepting death

like accepting death as part of Agatha's journey on the road, accepting the literal death, like Nikki's gone, accepting the death of her child as a thing that has happened and is irreversible because this idea of like, how did, how did she get ahold of the dark hole in the first place? Did she lose Nikki because she,

she made a bad bargain. She wanted the Darkhold, a bargain with Mephisto, let's say, wanted the Darkhold or wanted more power and didn't realize that she was giving up Nikki in the bargain. And then, and then Rio has death. Rio, who's already her girlfriend, has to like claim her son and it's horrible and painful for everyone involved. Bound by the magic of the bargain. Has no choice, right? Yeah.

Was that in order to get the Darkhold? Or did the Darkhold acquisition come later? Or did her, like, messing with the Darkhold, as was the case with Wanda, have to do with her wanting to resurrect her son? And so accepting that she can't

is that part of this whole thing is her whole reason to walk the road i mean part of it is she thinks teen might be nikki but is it to like try to bring nikki back and is the decision she's gonna have to make at the end to really realize to literally embrace death and realize that some things end and you know you have to let them go and then like that feels like this beautiful thematically rich place to build toward but then you have like the

well, wait, but if this is, if Teen is in fact Billy Kaplan, if he's Wiccan, if he's Wanda's son reincarnated, and Teen saying like, he can't replace people. And it's like, well, if he's like, if he's another Billy-

then is that going to be a backslide for Agatha? It's like, wait, why did... How come Billy got another go? You know? Or, like, will she have had enough of a breakthrough to be able to then, like, welcome and accept that without seeking it for herself? Like, how will that selfishness and self-interest play? I think that's interesting because, like...

The other major thing that I think we're really pointing towards is this idea that at the end of the road, Agatha is going to have to choose between something she wants for herself and something that's for the greater good of the coven. Something that has to do with the greater good. Thank you. And I think that everyone's going to die. I think everyone is going to die.

Yeah. This kind of goes against my whole like have to accept that death happens or like whatever, but maybe it wasn't their time. I don't know. But like to bring the coven back, to make the decision to bring the coven back rather than get whatever it is she needs or wants. And in doing so, that's the only thing like them all together, as has been proven again and again on this journey so far, they have to do it all together or it doesn't work. Right.

that she will make the choice to bring them all back. In this episode, when Rio says, why is, who is he? Why is he here? The teen? Yeah. Agatha's trying to deflect, but she says many hands. Yep.

Many hands make like work is what that phrase is. This idea of like, we need all of these people together in order to get what we need to have done. This like, when she's play acting for the coven and she says, hey, that's my coven you're talking about. I'm not that kind of witch anymore. But like-

If that's really the journey that she has to go on. At the beginning of this episode, she says about Mrs. Hart, Sharon, sorry, Sharon, of course the road killed her. More power for the rest of us. But like, if the flip side of that has to be her journey and all of this, and like the power of like the three of pentacles as this card of like, and the idea beyond that of like coven true versus coven two. Coven true, a true coven, a community of women who are,

for the good of the community. And I just think it's really interesting. There's a moment from the trailer. This is Theory of Honor, so we can overanalyze trailer shots, right? Where Jen is crawling up from a lawn in Westview. So, like, a question I have is about, like, you know, if she can resurrect the coven and they come up from the road into Westview where some kind of showdown is happening. There's that line from...

uh the opener inside of the uh mayor of east town parody where agatha speaking to rio in character still says like it's always about these town this specific town these specific people you know like something like that yeah so like what does west you have to do with it what do these people have to do with it and like how is this all gonna come together so if alice dies yeah

let's say a few trials down the road, but not, you know, in an earlier episode, this idea of wherever it may been, I'll see you at the end. I'll see you at the end. Like Alice coming back after dying earlier, Jen coming back after dying earlier, Lilia coming back, dying earlier. I just really like all of that. And especially if we go back to into the woods, which I always want to into the woods ends with this found family, uh,

sort of effort of these characters who have nothing to do with each other but have lost all the people that are part of their little pack and they have to form their own new little pack and this song that is very important at the end of the musical right before the battle there is a battle at the end of Into the Woods right before the final battle is no one is alone someone is on your side no one is alone and it's about like you know you have to find your family find your community and that's the only way you'll make it through whatever this is so

The idea that Agatha came out the other side of her first road trial without her son, without her girlfriend, alone with her power, the power that she leeches from other people rather than shares other people, without her child, without her girlfriend, alone.

and has to on the other side of this fine community. Whether Agatha survives this show or not, I don't know. Like it's possible that she's done so much ill that she needs to sacrifice herself for something. But I think this idea of like community, the communal good,

has to be the lesson for her here absolutely yeah i i i agree um and also her finding that in a place that wanda trapped her yeah you know it's like sorry tina couldn't have been brooklyn or a yacht or someplace cool it did actually well i'm not have to be westview because you learned the lesson and through your mistakes right and through confronting your mistakes and the people obviously wanda made some mistakes but wanda yeah and wanda coming to grips with

In a better version of Wanda's story, Wanda coming to grips with Vision's death and what all of that means and letting these people that she's trapped in the hex go means a breakthrough of a kind for her.

marvel went another direction they decided to make it a horrible backslide for her um but i like this idea that like jack shaffer who sort of like started that story gets to sort of conclude it with a different witch right you know yeah the lesson of of how grief and love are entwined and where that where that leads you moving forward i love that any other theory corner stuff you want to hit

If we're on Ozwatch, who is the wizard who's at the end of the road who's going to give us our heart, our home, our brain, the nerve? And could it be anyone other than Mephisto? I mean, it's got to be Mephisto, right?

I mean, I will say if Rio's death, like death and Mephisto in one show is a lot, that's like, that's two big things that we've been waiting for. But also that would be amazing. Have we been waiting for death? I mean, I guess, I guess when Thanos popped up, we're like, are they going to do death? But then it didn't really seem like it made a lot of sense in the context of, it felt too witchy to put like the manifestation of death in the Avengers story. So I don't know. I think Jack Schaefer,

Can't resist putting Mephisto. I mean, I hope so. I don't know. I really hope so. I love it. Okay. Easter eggs. Jo, did you have a favorite from this episode? Was it the Daughters of Liberty mention? What do you want to say about the Daughters of Liberty? Was it the Alice mentions? The Oz mentions? There are so many. The Fleetwood Mac poster? I mean, Stevie Nicks being here. I mean, we mentioned the Stevie Nicks impression, but Stevie Nicks, who...

wrote a wonderful song about a witch called Rhiannon, a wonderful, a wonderful, uh, by the way, I once had a coworker, uh, years ago, he, he had a baby. He named his baby Rhiannon. And I was like, Oh, like the Fleetwood Mac song. And he was like, no, like the ancient Welsh, you know, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh, well get ready for a lot of people to say, Oh, like the Fleetwood Mac song.

But Stevie Nicks, if people haven't watched American Horror Story, Colin Coven, that season, the witch season of American Horror Story, Stevie Nicks shows up as like a literal witch. Like it's a, it's a whole thing. I would say, I want to say visually, because we're trying to sort of vibe in the like 1970s horror film space.

the film Suspiria the original Suspiria from the 1970s which is about a coven of witches uh is definitely invoked here but also I was thinking a lot about there's this 2016 movie called The Love Witch which even though it was made in 2016 was shot to look like a 1970s sort of like a lot of vaseline on the lens and like weird like whip pans and all this sort of stuff like that so I just like I really liked the visual language of the genre that they were playing with inside this episode yeah

How about you? Delightful. I've not seen that film. I think my favorite is Red-Haired Woman. That's a track on the record when they piece the record back together and we get to see some of the tracks. Just always nice when Wanda makes her presence felt in the episode. That was great. There's also a track called Flick of the Wrist, which of course is like a great little like wand motion track, but it's an actual Queen song. So I'm like curious if we'll ever get to hear Lorna Wu's cover of Flick of the Wrist. I would love to. Dare to dream. Yeah.

From dreams to nightmares, take us to wig wash. Do you wear wigs? In brief, Patti LuPone and Joe Locke, you should sue over what happens to you on the side of this episode. It's tough stuff. So yeah, Joe has signaled out the 80s episode. And if you've seen promo images from that, he's got like a kind of long, curly, shaggy, mullet-y sort of thing. It's pretty fun. I'm excited for that one. Delightful. Some like, we're talking like some like Billy and Stranger Things kind of hair. But even like more lustrous and he's got a...

To fuel your is he Billy Kaplan question, a blue headband. Which is quite wicked of him. If he is wicked, when will we find that out? Once the sigil drops. When will that be? Episode 8 or 9, I would say. Boy, alright. Jo, we did it. Anything else? No. Fairies, wigs, Easter eggs? Again, what a treat. What an honor and a joy for me.

Genuine, absolute thrill. Zills and pan flutes and all. My goodness. Thank yous. It's time for some thank yous. Thank you to our coven. Carlos Chiraboga with us today to produce this episode. Arjuna Ramgopal for additional podcast supervision. Jomia Deneron for the social on this episode. And then on video today, Stefano Sanchez, editing.

John Richter and T Cruz video support. We will see you next Friday for our episode four. Episode five. God. Next Friday for our episode five deep dive. It's a one pod house of our week. Joe will be with you many other times next week on prestige trial by content. We'll be with you together on Friday until then. Remember wherever it may bend. We'll see you at the end.