'Agatha All Along' Episodes 1 and 2 Deep Dive
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♪ Gather sisters fire, water, earth and air ♪ ♪ Darkest hour, wake thy power, earthly and divine ♪ ♪ Burn and brew with coven true, and glory shall be thine ♪ Am I supposed to know this song? ♪ Down, down, down the road, down the witch's road ♪

Greetings.

And welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it's my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Westview, but also back into the House of R. Joining me today, wondering where I keep my jade eggs, it's Joanna Robinson.

Molly Rubin, it's witch season, and I could not be more overjoyed and thrilled to be with you here today. This is, I am just positively fizzing with excitement about what we're about to talk about today. So same, same. We're here to talk about the two part.

Agatha all along premiere, we were treated to two episodes that we get to discuss today. But Joe, before we explain why our probiotic candles are perfect for both ambiance and metabolic regulation, I thought you were going to say why your pelvic floor is all over the place. Some quick programming reminders. Sure. Over on the Ringerverse. By the time you're listening to this,

The Midnight Boys. Pew, pew, pew! We'll have an episode waiting for you with two instant reactions in one pod. The instant reaction to the two-part Agatha premiere and the instant reaction to the Penguin premiere. So you have all of that pew, pew-y goodness waiting for you right now on the Ringiverse. And there's more coming because there's a Mint Edition pod as well on Transformers 1. It is a loaded back end of the week here in the larger Ringiverse universe. Yes.

here on the House of R. Come back next week because we will have, on Thursday, our deep dive into Rings of Power, episode seven. The penultimate episode of Rings of Power. How? Almost done. It's staggering. Can't believe it.

And then we'll be back next Friday to chat about Agatha episode three. So normally we're spaced, you know, top and back of the week, but we're going to be, we're going to be on the Thursday, Friday jam for a few weeks here as we cover both rings and Agatha. You can check out all of that.

Where, Joanna? And how? Oh my gosh. So glad you asked me. First of all, first and foremost, this is a video pod now. So if all goes according to plan, there should be video episodes of every single House of R. You can watch that on YouTube. Very exciting. Also, why don't you just subscribe to the pod? I think that might be a good idea. Something to think about maybe on Spotify or your podcast listening app of choice. Yeah.

And then, you know, if you want to be a little extra, and we support that always here in the House of R, then why don't you follow us on social? We're on TikTok. We're on Instagram. We're on...

Twitter, don't call it X. We're all over the place. So you can follow us there, you know, to check out little clips from the video pods if you're not watching the full video pods, to see what Jomie's up to, et cetera, et cetera. And then, of course, as always, as ever, the email inbox is open.

For all of your witchy thoughts, anything you want, hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. We don't have a ton of emails yet, but that's because we're on a brand new show here. So, you know, we shall see. But I am really excited to get into all of the witch stuff. Go. I will be... I have some witchy context here and there to add, but I am by no means... I'm an enthusiast more than I am an expert. So if you are...

A literal witch listening to this podcast. And you want to send us any insight, we would love to hear it because I am really excited for witch season. Go!

Joe, the last programming reminder is, as always, the Friendly Neighborhood spoiler warning. We have not watched beyond the two episodes that we will be covering here today. There might be a moment or two where we mention something that we've seen in a trailer for the entire season, but that's the extent of stuff that's coming in the future in Agatha. However, anything that happened in WandaVision, where Agatha was introduced to the MCU. Correct. Fair game today. Anything that's ever happened in the MCU...

Fair game today. And we will be dusting in, light dusting, of some comics canon as well. So that is all on the table. All right, Joe, we did the programming reminders. We did the spoiler warning. We don't have time for this. Everyone sitting at home just screamed, just blast us, you bitches. So it is finally time to part. Put it on the merch, right? Witch stuff. No, yeah, no kidding. All right. Seekest thou thy road.

It's time for the opening snapshot. Ooh. Steve. My. Your stuff. What treasures await today, Steve? I know. Goodness. I know. This is always one of the best parts of the beginning of a new run, is hearing what Steve has to say for the segment sounds and the sound bites. Yeah. Yeah. Great stuff. Okay. The quick facts. And what has Kristen Cole done? Oh, man.

Bees. Always nice to get an appearance from bees early in the pod. Always bodes well. All right. We're here to talk about two episodes. Episode one, Seekest Thou Thy Road. Episode two,

Circle sewn with fate, unlock thy hidden gate. The first episode was both written and directed by showrunner Jack Schaefer. The second was directed by Jack Schaefer, written by Lara Donnie. These were longer episodes than I was anticipating, 42 and 44 minutes. Joanna, the titles of these episodes were...

lyrics from the ballad of the witch's road. It is Joanna Robinson season. Yeah, it is for me. It's just for me. So excited. I'm also thrilled for Jack because, um, you know, I loved Jack's work on Wanda vision as a, as a writer, but this is, she directed a movie years ago, 2009 called timer that I really like, uh, that is really hard to find. Um,

But that's like a very little scene movie, but she doesn't have a ton of directorial credits under her belts. And so I'm just excited that Marvel's like, okay, you get another show. Exciting for me. And you get to direct. And that's exciting, I think, for all of us. I think she absolutely crushed it. So I'm very excited. Yeah. Well, before we hear the quick table setter of what you thought of the first two episodes, take us back just for a second while we're on the Jack Schafer front.

For anyone who might not be familiar, how'd you feel about WandaVision? How'd you feel about Agatha Harkness entering your life in the first place? Like, what are you bringing into Agatha all along? Mal, I loved it! So...

Loki is a shared passion of ours, but WandaVision is my favorite up until this point, favorite MCU show. I just absolutely fell in love with that show. And though I can embrace some of the critiques, plenty of the critiques that people have about the way that show ended on balance, the highs are the highest for me in terms of MCU shows.

So I was thrilled that Jack Schaefer got another at-bat here. And I've actually been like impatiently waiting because, you know, like Michael Waldron did an incredible job with Loki. And then they're like, Waldron this, Waldron that in the MCU. And I'm like, where's the, open up the floodgates for Jack Schaefer. And so I'm really happy that, but patience is a virtue and I'm glad she had all the time she needed to like,

absolutely nailed this. They didn't rush this out. So that's great. And she was at some point attached to do the Vision show and is no longer. And I kind of like, I like that. She's just focusing on this, absolutely knocking this out of the park. Hopefully these first two episodes, I really like spoiler alert. And yeah. And like Agatha, like,

Agatha as a character was such like a runaway hit in WandaVision. Catherine Han, just a pure joy. Icon legend queen. Absolutely. And the way, I talked about this before, but the way in which WandaVision broke through like sort of niche, I mean, comic book entertainment is not so niche these days, obviously, but like

The people who are watching WandaVision were not your ordinary Marvel viewer. And the fact that it was nominated for a bunch of Emmys and all this sort of stuff. And I kind of like, I really liked that. It doesn't need, you don't need to have comic book properties acknowledged in those spheres, but I really like when they are because it's just underlines the fact that this is

Very quality, very can be very prestige storytelling. And I think WandaVision and certainly plenty of Loki. And I'm hopeful that this you could like can stack it up. I mean, especially since we start with a lengthy story.

Oh, to prestige television. I can't wait to get into it. Just genuinely. Should we just give Jack Schafer a moody crime procedural on HBO also? With haste. Yeah. With a quickness. Alacrity. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh, man. What did you think of the premiere? Tell us. Well, do you want to give any sort of WandaVision context or did I...

Did I blather enough? No, no, no. After the spoiler of your opinion, we can't keep the people waiting. Tell us why you loved it. Okay, listen.

I thought the Mary V's Town stuff was hilarious. Yeah. Being back with Katherine Hahn was incredible throughout. It is not a musical musical, but it has a spine, a musical element that is not just like a one-off. It is like a spine of the show. The cast members that I was really excited for, like Patti LuPone and Aubrey Plaza, just

Thrilled and delighted. Blew the doors off the joint. Literally, like, just incredible. And then Joe Locke, who's an actor who I really like in Heartstopper, but I wasn't sure, you know, he's... I'm like, how's the American accent gonna be? You know, like, he was just really great, and he's...

you know, the second lead of the show. And so a lot is riding on that. So it's, I thought it was really funny. I thought it was really fun despite, you know, you and I both, because we were, we had a long week, groaned a little when we saw the runtimes, we were like, we were hoping these would be 20 ish minute episodes. They flew for me. I just had such a blast. So something that feels assured, reassuring,

put together finished which is something like the mcu here and there has not felt like it had been finished finished funny i'm just delighted to be in this world and on this adventure uh mallory what do you want to say over to you with the weekend sports updates yeah yeah um

So I also loved WandaVision. Loki is my favorite, as canonically established on this podcast. But WandaVision is definitely next for me on the TV show Power Ranking. And actually, this... I had returned to...

episodes and moments and scenes ahead of Multiverse of Madness, et cetera. Yeah. But this was the first time in a while. And WandaVision aired three and a half years ago. So like it has been a minute. This was the first time heading into Agatha that I sat down in, you know, a day and a half and watch the entire thing start to finish. Yeah.

At the time of my life. I mean, it's a great show. It's fantastic. And like the highs of that show, episode seven, et cetera, are extraordinary. So...

I came into Agatha all along with pretty high expectations. I love Catherine Han. Like, I think she is a genuine genius and I enjoy watching her in everything that she does. The fact that this is Witch Stuff Go territory and musical adjace and I got to look forward to covering it with you was thrilling to contemplate and anticipate. Yeah. We thought the trailers look good. We both had it super high on our height meters. Like,

we were looking forward to this and really hoping it was good. And, you know, not always, but sometimes when you come in with your hopes really high, you're let down. It happens. That was not my experience with this at all. Quite the opposite. It's somehow, despite my expectations being really high through two episodes, really has exceeded my expectations for all of the reasons that you said. Like, the cast, the performances, incredible. The writing, comedic gold. I was...

So good. When we're, you know, prepping for pods and putting together the outlines, like we're obviously breaking down story and arc and theme and lore, but we like to like celebrate the humor and the things that make us laugh with a dusting here and there. It was like almost impossible to not just pull every single line from the episodes into the doc, which is always a great sign, right? If the quality or you're working with, I thought that the, um, the mayor, uh,

I didn't know from the trailers that we were getting a full episode like that. I thought it was going to be like a scene or something. And it was so good that I then immediately wanted the entire season to be like that. Either, uh, send ups of different TV genres across each episode to kind of continue that connective tissue to the approach that WandaVision took with the decades of sitcoms. Um,

The highest compliment I can always give, the comp I use for this always is Cavalier and Clay. Like when you're consuming something and you're hooked on what you're enjoying in the moment and then it changes and you resent it when it changes and then immediately wherever you are then you can't imagine it being anything else. So like,

Like, episode two starts, I'm like, ah, fuck, we're late already? Are we done? Actually, the end of episode one. Yeah. But then episode two, when you get introduced to all of these new dynamics and you're starting to form the coven and you realize what the vibe and the energy is going to be between the primary participants in the show, like, let's do it. And then, you know, you go back and you rewatch the trailers with the context of the double premiere and you start to anticipate what the structure of the season is going to be as they make their way through the road and face their trials. I am...

exhilarated and cannot wait to cover this show for two months, which, you know, this is only our second Marvel show of the year. Like, it's Echo and this, which is wild. Based on what the clip had been for a long time. And obviously it was not a heavy, I mean, it was a meaningful Marvel movie year in terms of the success of Deadpool and Wolverine, but it was not a heavy, voluminous Marvel movie year. And so, like, this being good, this giving people something not only to talk about and theorize over, but enjoy and celebrate, was

Wonderful. It's funny because, you know, at the beginning of the year, the end of last year when I was promoting the MCU book and people are like, oh, is Marvel over, blah, blah, blah. And something that my co-authors and I would talk about is we were like, well, if you look at 2024, you're

There's only three things scheduled. Well, four if you count X-Men 97, which you should. And so... And Echo being sort of hastily dumped is its own thing. And it was fine, but not great. I

X-Men 97 being a smash all-in-it with us. Yes, yes. Deadpool and Wolverine. Obviously, when I say second show, I mean in the MCU. No, no, no. Not Marvel at all. I wasn't chastising you. I was just for the bigger picture. X-Men 97, we loved. Deadpool and Wolverine had a good time. It made a gajillion dollars. It is an undeniable success for Marvel. And then if this show continues the quality, which we have seen Marvel shows sort of fall off a cliff. Again, I really trust...

I really trust Jack Schafer, but like I embrace for that possibility, but I am really hopeful that this is just going to cruise all the way through given the level of talent. That's a good year for Marvel. That's a good rebound year for Marvel where they sort of retrenched, push things off the schedule, clear the decks and are just like, we're going to focus on knocking these things out of the park the best way we can. And so that's where we stand here in September. And, um,

That's, you know, good for you, Marvel, and continue on this track. Continue to just really invest instead of jamming the schedule full of whatever. So that's exciting. Is it time to dive deep? The last thing I want to

Last thing I want to say, and I sort of alluded to this, but Marvel is thinking of WandaVision, Agatha all along and the vision show as sort of a trilogy of shows, which is really fun to think about there. I can't think of a modern TV example of that, of, you know, shows that exist in their own right, but are interconnected in that way.

one season each sort of events kind of things. And I'm really excited for the Vision show, which is supposed to come out 2026. I've already mentioned this, that Terry Metallus, who did Picard season three, which is amazing, is show running. So this could just be, I don't know. I'm just, I'm just, I'm happy. Let's do it. Let's do it. We've never been so back. No, we've never been so back. Not once.

They're witches, Mallory, and they sing. Okay. So here we go. The power of one. The power of two. The power of many. Oh, man. Okay. To all that's foul and fair. It's time for the deep dive. Ooh, lingering chime. I liked it. So I did jot down in my nose, speaking of chimes, the little like witch hat chime.

looking to for Joe Holiday gift. Actual bullet point in my doc. It's got a little devil on it. So if you can make it like, um, you want to make it some sort of Mephisto. And yes, that's the first, but not the last time I will say this. But not the last, folks. Sorry, Joby. Make it some sort of like Mephisto gift basket. I, I am, uh,

Who says no? Okay. Fantastic news. So we're calling it the deep dive and look, it is a deep dive. It's always going to be a deep dive. We're excited to talk about the show. So we have a lot to hit. We are going to go scene by scene as always. However, we do have two episodes to cover today. We're at the beginning of a nine episode season. And so this will be a long,

Zippier than a traditional House of R. Deep Dive. And then once we're on one episode a week, we will get to spend a little more time going beat by beat. So let's begin where the episode begins. Agnes of Westview in those Mare of Easttown shoes. We begin our witchy journey, Jo, with Agatha still trapped in this enchanted Agnes state that Wanda left her in at the end of WandaVision as punishment. And...

much like Wanda was, our dear Agnes, is processing her trauma and what has happened to her and trying to figure out how to be rooted in the actual reality of her life, or in Wanda's case, to avoid it, by using TV shows. And the framing of this opening is...

The send up of Mare of Easttown. Sensational stuff. I can't think of a better way to honor our pal Ralph Boner one more time. You mean Emmy winner Evan Peters? Yeah.

honoring evan peters and ralph ralph uh quick uh yes or no do you want ralph boner to make an appearance in this season of wandavision i mean uh agatha actually just for me it's like an uncomplicated yes yeah that was part of the fun thing about a rewatch like when when you're not in the oh my god what does it mean quicksilver from the other universe and you know it's gonna be ralph boner and you can just enjoy the performance yeah

It's great stuff. Evan's great. Yeah, absolutely. Sensational. Sensational stuff. So we're also in this like true crime vibe, right? The opening credits. Unbelievable. I was like crying. I was just like, I was just crying with joy at how good it was. Based on the Danish series, Wanda, I would not know how to pronounce that. But that's the part where I was just like,

They're just having fun. Yes. Yes. They're just having so much fun and they're just like really clever minds working in this room and that just makes me happy. And I loved the layers of it because obviously this is like a spoof of a genre. Yeah. But then inside of it, we don't have the actor names in the opening credits. We have the character names that Wanda assigned. So it's just like further cementing

what reality and experience Agnes is trapped inside of. And obviously the idea of that character, the nosy neighbor, needing to investigate, that feels very like I became obsessed with true crime, right? So all of it was just pitch perfect right from the jump. When it becomes clear later that she was just wandering around inside of her own pocket delusion inside of Westview...

re-watching these scenes are so funny because just trying to envision like what this actually looked like in reality. Yeah. The easiest one to think about is like her and when she's talking to Herb and they're like up against the tape, it's like very much her and Herb up against the garden wall. You know what I mean? Like the hedge. Like that's, that's, but like when you see what the car actually looks like later in her house, like all of it is just like,

Hilarious. So good. I'm driving. Yeah. Are you? Oh, this is not a car. Not a car. Not a car. Great stuff. The veil before it is lifted in full, Jo, we can see being pierced here and there because as Agatha is driving, she is humming. She's humming the ballad already. So there are little elements kind of poking through. She's going down, down a road at the very beginning of the show. Down, down, down.

I can now it's just now hearing you say down multiple times in a row. I immediately want to sing. They have an earworm. They do. I mean, it's a banger. It's what the Lopez's do. They do it really well. Yeah. So good. Listen, I'm a daughter of the Mid-Atlantic.

I'm from Baltimore. Now, that is... It is a different subset of accent than what we were all treated to on Mare of Easttown and then... Wait, are you saying it's time for Accent Corner TM with Mallory Rubin TM? I'm wondering, you know, we're here with Steve today. Yeah. He's ready on the soundboard. Sure. I'm wondering, Steve, could you... We're a little fuzzy. Like, Agnes, we're trying to piece it all together. Could you remind us where...

Jane Doe's body is? Jane Doe. Found her down here by the water. Oh, the water. Water ice. Killed me. This killed me. Steve, I'm sorry, though. More specifically, is there like a precise location? This unidentified woman lying dead in a crick has just got me down in the dumps. Not the crick. The crick, Joanne. Not the crick. Not the crick.

So good. Oh, man. This just absolutely killed me. I love their commitment to the bit. It's sensational. We do not ever see the face, right? We see... Some red hair. That Agnes sees the face. Yeah, we'll get the red hair later. We get the, like, filthy and, oh, maybe it's some desiccated skin on the foot and ankle. We get the blackened fingertips from using the dark hold. We also get the, frankly, delicious...

MCU fan inside joke here. She is dead, though, isn't she, Herb? Oh, she really is most sincerely dead. You never know. Wink. Because we do not believe that Wanda Maximoff is dead. Pop quiz hot shot. Is Elizabeth Olsen in this TV series? Ooh.

No. Yeah. I think no. I think no is a really safe space to exist in. Let's just exist in the no. Yeah, I think no. That we will get plenty of Wanda illusions. Yes. But not an appearance. Let me put it this way. And then if we do, we could just be pleasantly surprised. If I had to put down money. Yeah.

And you gave me the choice of putting it down on... Mephisto? Elizabeth Olsen specifically or Mephisto. I would put it on Mephisto. Yeah. We're picking Mephisto. They're getting me again. Every time. Here we go. We're back. Yeah. No, I loved this. And I love it as... Okay. So, nosy...

Why did Jack Schaefer and her team pick Mare of Easttown? Like, I don't know if she's answered this specifically, though I've read a bunch of interviews with her. She's just wonderful as always. But like...

What's funny to remember is that Mare of Easttown came out right around when WandaVision came out. I was still at Vanity Fair, smiled. But it was the tail end of my time there that came out right around the same time. So this was like, as she was in the midst of WandaVision, this was also a similarly timed phenomenon. And then...

And the nosy neighbor aspect, which you mentioned, the inciting incident of a dead woman and this idea that, like, the spell that she's under here can be potentially broken because of Wanda's death. Right. And then the other aspect of which we'll talk about a little later on that I think you really brilliantly identified. But, like, there's just so many layers. Yeah.

To this, it's a clever, you know, it's a clever little pastiche, but it also has like five other things going on at the same time. So on the dead woman front, just to jump right into the next scene, which takes place at the library where Agnes, as I will try to continue to call her until she becomes Agatha in full again, pursues and seeks out Dottie.

cuts through the line. Only suckers wait their turn. Dottie's like, you did this at the grocery store. And Agnes is basically like, fuck off. Where were you between three? Incredible. And when she mentions, when Agnes mentions the victim and Dottie says, is she dead? Agnes says, why do you assume it's a woman? And they're like,

The reply is, I don't know. Sounds more titillating. And I just have no notes. Like the... Wrapped in plastic. Yeah. It's amazing. Amazing. Absolutely sensational. This is another part. We mentioned Herb. We mentioned Dottie. Like, it's so fun to see all that they call back all the, like, WandaVision... They weren't background actors. They were members of the cast. But these sort of, like, background actor-esque characters from the first show into here. Emma Coffey. Who did you think was redeployed into the...

Into the best new role. I really enjoyed pawn shop norm. Yeah. I think it might be pawn shop norm. Yeah. Police chief. Also great. Pawn shop norm, especially when like later she catches him. He's like running down the street and he sort of like does a buttonhole. Like, Oh, it's really good. Amazing stuff. All right. Now I know where to start the bidding on eBay. Thanks, Norm.

Incredible. So why the library? Because this library card was found with the body. A lot of dates, not a lot of book titles. There's one dialogue and rhetoric known history of learning and debate by Andrew Ugo. Seems real. Stolen three years ago, Joe.

I just want everyone to know. We all know that my brain is a soft-boiled egg, and I get easily excited by putting theories into shows that might not even be theory shows. But I just need everyone to know that when Mallory saw the promo image that was a library card on an Instagram thing, she texted us, Are the fonts a clue? So her brain might be...

You're like a deviled egg brain. I'm like a soft boiled, but you're like a little deviled egg inside of you. And I love that for you. Yeah. I devil eggs are delicious. Yeah. It's no jade egg inside of you, but it'll do. Okay. So on that note.

Oh my God. Joe, so a little light reading. What do you think here? Is Dialogue and Rhetoric Known History of Learning and Debate in fact an erotic thriller or is it the dark hold? Sounds like it's the dark holds. And it sounds like we're already being encouraged to think in terms of anagrams. Just saying, acrostics and anagrams right off the bat.

I can't be blamed if I keep doing it. It's right here. So you know what? Actually, I want to ask you a question about that. The sincere one. Obviously, WandaVision was a show that people really loved and enjoyed. But the, oh, like, I got my friend. Oh, is this Reed Richards? Oh. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I've been Ralph Boner. Despite the overall enthusiasm for the show, there was...

some dismay that the, which I don't know that we necessarily think is like a reasonable or justified response because the fans bring to it, we all bring to it what we bring and we're choosing how often to theorize. But do you think that the awareness of that response will have a bearing on how the impulse and the temptation and the like, like inciting little clues we're getting here will eventually be rewarded? Yeah.

I think, I do think that they will be more inclined to put these puzzles in here for us to have fun with. And then pay them off because they know we're waiting. Well, no, you think they're going to fuck with us. I think they're going to intentionally play with a lot of our reactions from season one. I think that's true. And I think that something I remember, so I interviewed Jack Schaefer before.

on a different podcast I used to do, but I choose not to believe that I ever podcasted with anyone before you. But when I did a different podcast for WandaVision and I interviewed Jack for that, she was saying like, she's like, oh, I do like, I like listening to your show. I don't listen to the part where you guys theorize because it stresses me out too much. Like she was like so stressed that people were getting so like, like wrapped up in the theories. And so I,

I always say, and I've said this a million times, I'll say it again. Hold them loosely? Yeah. But just have fun, you know? So, but hold them loosely. That's a good episode. What episode will Mephisto be appearing in? Six? If we had episode titles, I would tell you which one I think, but we don't have episode titles yet. But can you tell me based on the fonts? I can maybe tell you based on the lyrics, but we'll get there. Incredible. Incredible. Okay, so.

To the stacks. We love a library. We do. And we love books that are preserved and cared for well. Lamentably, that is not what Agnes finds here because this rack that should be full of darkholds, it's toast. Here's the exchange that we hear. It's a very creepy little exchange in the stacks. There was a fire. Was everything destroyed? Every last copy. Now, this is someone who has seen

Doctor Strange, the Multiverse of Madness, where that was a prominent aspect of the plot. We've got the stabbing of the Darkhold, Sarah Wolf, and then eventually, spoilers, I guess, for Multiverse of Madness, we said the entire MCU is on the table today. You've been warned. Correct. The entire sequence where Wanda uses her chaos magic to destroy every known copy of the Darkhold across the multiverse and then Darkhold Castle and Mount Wondegore

collapses on top of her and this is why and kills her question mark being led to believe that blunt trauma quote unquote Wanda is dead right wink wink wink but that's where the that's what happened right the dark holds it's it's done no dark hold just a bunch of ash a heaping ash here um will they find another one what do we think

Oh, interesting. So it's like a lot of mentions in the Darkhold for the premiere for the Darkhold to not come back into play in some way. Right. That is that's a good point that you make. And I wouldn't mind on doing plenty of things in Multiverse of Madness, but it would be sad if the whole point of Multiverse of Madness to like put an end to this thing was like, JK, there is another one.

But I suppose we, cause the witch's road itself exists in a sort of liminal space type of place. So she got rid of the dark holds in every single multiverse, but is the witch's road like sort of a pocket universe that isn't, that is impervious to that. And if someone left their copy, a copy of the dark holds on the witch's road, is that one that could have survived? Yeah.

Do you think what Wanda did impacted... Hold your theories loosely. Hold them loosely. Like if there was like, if a Flerken had consumed a Darkhold at some point, it would have gone into the pocket dimension inside a Flerken. Would that Darkhold have been wiped? No, I think you have access to that, but only if you sing Phantom of the Opera. By that, I mean Cats. If only if you sing Cats, then you can get to it. Yeah. Great stuff. Okay. Enter Rio Vidal, Agent Vidal. Listen. Yep.

We're at the police station. We have a brief, very fun sequence before Aubrey Plaza enters. There's an amusing, like, Agnes can't say a proper hello because she's scarfing down donuts. Chief of Police Phil is there to share some information on the sediment deposits from Eastern Europe. Again, Wundergor. But then everything stops, including our hearts, because Aubrey Plaza enters. Yeah.

In the most astonishingly perfect pantsuit that I have ever seen, there was a time recently where you tried to convince me that I could pull off a pantsuit. And you can! I don't know, but I was thinking about it a lot. I found fresh inspiration watching this. This was just sensational. Sensational. Not her only notable entrance over these two episodes, but boy, what a first impression. I mean, I think it is important to remember that

Because she's standing in her comp in Mare of Easttown is Evan Peter's character, right? Who was what? The romantic interest of our Mare character. So amongst other things, amongst just enjoying seeing Aubrey Plaza in a suit. And by the way, also, if you were a fan of Legion, as I was, like to see Aubrey Plaza play unhinged in another Marvel property while wearing an incredible suit. Yeah.

just brings me back to the glory days of Legion. Really, really thrilled for that. For all of us. We all win, honestly. We do. Truly, we do. Agnes!

A little uncomfortable. Shifting in her chair, we can kind of feel the unease. Some more comedic gold when Phil is like, listen, teamwork. It makes the dream work. And Actis just shouts, eat my ass, chief. Your favorite line, to be clear, your favorite line of both episodes. It really made me laugh. So funny. The tension, Jo. It is ample. It is thick.

It is supple. Supple. These two are left alone and you can feel the history, right? I mean, the history is brought into the conversation and so it is apparent to us it's been a long time. What are you doing here? My job. But the nature of the history starts to unfold for us in a way that is quite intriguing. You want to take control of my investigation? No. If you want to be in control, you can be. Now,

this exchange is about breaking free of the illusion that has trapped Agnes in this state, but no, sex stuff go. Yeah. Sex stuff go. Listen, I would accuse them of, uh, shamelessly queer baiting. We're not for the promise that this is a queer show. Um, this is incredibly deliciously loaded stuff. Uh, and, and as far as I know, uh,

The queers on the internet are losing their minds over everything that has to do with Rio. But this this exchange is particularly for sure. Yes. It definitely seems like these two are exes. Like they have a very meaningful romantic history that is hanging over both of them. A black heart that beats only for you. Black heart.

I mean, I can't wait to talk about the palm lick. We have a lot to get to on the Rio and Agnes front. Yeah. But one of the interesting things is like before we get into the breaking down the door and the fight and the like, I can't you can't kill me exchange and everything that talk about delicious theory fodder. This first moment, like before we realize that they are oppositional forces and clearly have been for some time.

Rio is introduced to us as someone who is trying to help Agnes break free. Now, the fact that it becomes seemingly apparent that that's selfishly motivated because she needs her in this full state for whatever is unfolding between them almost doesn't matter. It helps root us in the belief that they might want her.

each other more than whatever else they're pursuing. And so like, that's just like the tone setting nature of that. Yeah. So deliberate and effective. And also just like the way that we learn, you have these like lines that can work as such effective shorthand to tell you somebody knows somebody else truly. Right. Like when Rio's looking around and says, is this really how you see yourself? Yeah.

And there's, like, pity. Now, we find this quite sad from the Agnes, Agatha perspective. But also, it makes you sad about what they had and then what was lost between them. I think also, and this is part of the pure joy of WandaVision, is that we get to sit here and play, like,

detective and all these lines are loaded as you know as you just pointed out with like three layers of meaning there's like the text of of the agnes of westview show that we're watching right and then there's um the the text of the spell and then there's the text of the relationship and a

We get to play like linguistic detective across all of these exchanges. And that happened all the time in WandaVision. There would be double treble meanings into these sentences. And so because the beauty of Wanda's spell as it existed in the first place, and as it sort of reiterated here is to your point,

The people under the spell are somewhat aware they're under a spell. There's meaning trying to emerge from underneath the fantasy. And so, again, that just gives us a lot to play with. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like flashing back now to Dottie asking, you know, can we just let my daughter out of my room? And those brief moments of like some level of lucidity. Yeah, man. Jo, it's time to look for leads. I would like you to join me at the pawn shop.

Norm's there and he's talking about one of our favorite, Norm, our favorite house of our topics, the triple goddess. Take it away.

Maiden Mother Crone, we've talked about the triple goddess idea and the fates and the power of three and all of that in various other Witch Stuff Go segments and various other podcasts, Ahsoka or otherwise. But yeah, this is the divine trinity of the witchiness. And I love...

the response of what no working professional goddess, which is both like a great... Incredible. A great commentary from the writer's room, but also just like something very like snarky that Mare would say, you know? Like all of it sort of works together brilliantly. But yeah, this is... And then this locket...

this cameo is, which is actually a locket, is an iconic part of the Agatha Harkness design. So the fact that she has this like,

this talisman almost of her own identity, and she's trying to sort of dig deeper into the layers of it, I think is a really clever thing. Yeah, and the information that we get from Norm, 17th century, New England, takes us back to the glimpse. Like, we have a lot we don't know about MCU Agatha, but we did get to see her suck a bunch of witches into husks as she took their power. Correct.

Correct. Exactly that. Including her own mother. So let's keep that needs must in our minds as we talk about some potential evolving dynamics with loved ones over the course of these two episodes. What's inside? It's not a brooch. It's a locket. And there is a lock of hair inside. And immediately we see on...

Agatha's face, this pulls on something inside of her. She can't quite piece it all together yet, but there's recognition. If not fully conscious recognition, then at least emotional recognition. This means something to her. It's important. When she is looking at it, it is like the thing later that helps her embrace and warm to

Not just warm to teen, but also her first... So she looks at the lock of hair again inside the cameo, and her first line is, who are you? Right? Not just like, sure, I'll take you to the witch's road, but like, who are you? Right. Teenage boy. That's a question about identity, but also like, who are you to someone else? Right? What did you mean to someone just like, the source of this hair means something to me. So, okay. Theories. Theories.

Okay. I love your theory. Why don't you run with your theory? Because it's actually, it was different from mine, but in the span of me reading the outline, you've convinced me that you're right. So I really like that. Hold it loosely. I'm holding it loosely. No, no. My feeling is that this is a strand of

Nikki's hair, Nicholas Scratch, who we will talk about a little bit more in a couple of minutes when we get to Agatha's home and that really painful moment looking into a child's bedroom. But Nicholas, well, we can just talk about that now, actually, because it's literally the next scene. Like Nick, Nick. So Agatha goes home. Actually, can we take a very quick puddle detour? Because Agatha walks past the puddle and there's a reflection and that there was like meaningful attention drawn to the reflection on the puddle at the crime scene, too. Do you think this means something or no? Is this like here we sit? Yeah.

On the anniversary of the Lost premiere. And we should remember that in the final season of Lost, when they're in sort of a...

let's just call it a parallel universe if we want to. There were these constant standing in front of a mirror moments that were sort of supposed to indicate a rising level of conscious inside of what you could term a spell if you would prefer to. It's a very similar situation where they're in this like ideal. The final season of Lost has a lot

in common with WandaVision and this first episode of Agatha where you see familiar characters in an unfamiliar setting and they have to sort of wake themselves up to a certain degree. Very vague spoilers for The End of Lost. And so I think that, yeah. And similarly in Westworld, which has a similar sort of need to wake up idea whenever a character would stand in front of a mirror or reflection, well, proponent,

primarily Evan Rachel Woods character, there would be this like moment of like a pause and a sort of, yeah. So I do think these moments of reflection and especially in a, in a,

that puts an emphasis on elements, I think it's important that that reflection be water. So yeah, hold it loosely. But yeah, let's get on Puddle Watch 2024. Puddle Watch. I like it. I like it. Puddle Watch. On Justice for Sparky Watch, we would be remiss if we didn't note that when Agatha walks into her home and hears a neighbor's dog barking, she screams, stupid dog. And let us never forget that Agatha

Killed Sparky, too. Sparky. It is a horror and a scandal. Oh, boy. Okay, so back to Nikki. Back to Nikki Scratch. So, Agatha walks in and is kind of, like, pulled to this slightly ajar door at the end of the hall, looks in, and we see a child's bedroom, right? And it is intact. It is preserved. Teddy bears. Marbles.

Trophies. Yeah. Trophies. Um, notably a wood carving of a bunny rabbit. We see also like a painting of a bunny rabbit in the house elsewhere. And of course, in your scratch, the bunny who was in Wanda vision is here, here as well. Um, so Nicholas is Agatha's son in the comics and has been in the comics since 77. So a long time. Um,

My feeling was, based on the emotional response to Agatha looking into Nikki's room and like that being right on the heels of the locket and then the way that like looking at the hair in the locket seemed to lead her to like open up to teen and show more interest in teen, as you noted. Yeah. That.

that's Nikki's hair, that that's her son's hair and she is thinking about her child. I love that. I love this. I don't know why. I mean, you're so smart and I love talking to you about everything and this didn't, honestly, I was like, I was so one-track mind of like Rio, Rio, Rio. I was like, that's Rio's hair. That's like a lock of her ex-lover's hair in her locket. I like that too. But no, I think lock of

dead son question mark in her so like when she says then when she looks at it later because I saw this in the notes and then I went and rewatched that scene I was like oh Mallory Rubin she did it again when she looks at the lock and then she looks at him she goes who are you it's like

It could be, are you some version of my son? Right? That via magic looks a little different. But, you know, both Aubrey Plaza and Joe Locke have dark, you know, thick hair that could curl in a way that, you know, could resemble that. Or...

that's not who we think teen is at all, but you know, stay tuned for theory corner. Absolutely. But I think in terms of theory corner and in terms of who we think teen is, um, thematically, this idea of motherhood for Agatha fits beautifully into all of this. So, um, I like to the, in, in, in terms of like why mayor, uh,

of all the things why Mary V's down like spoiler for mayor but you know the looming specter of this tragedy with a child and how that can shape your life and then not to jump around too much but you get you get a moment like Jen invoking another child sacrifice another child sacrifice and you're like oh boy like oh boy and of course this question of if

Rio and Agatha have the history that we think they do.

Is whatever happened to Nikki part of the rift, part of the cause of the rift between them? So, yeah. I like it. Anything else you want to say about Nicholas Spark comics character? What do you want to offer up? What do you want to hold back for a bit? I just want to remind people who don't spend time thinking about this that Nicholas, so send your scratch, Nicholas Spark, that Nick Scratch is another name for the devil. Just something to think about. Just something to hold into your heart.

Mephisto? Mephisto? Mephisto? Mephisto. We should actually start setting an over-under for Mephisto mentions on the pod. Genuinely. Oh. I mean, I would set it at like... Because we never... No. Podcasted about one dimension together. I would set it at like 17 per episode. Like, I feel like it's going to come up constantly. No? Can't wait. I'm...

I'm excited to talk about Mephisto again. Jomie's going to be so mad. So mad at us and frankly disappointed in us when he listens to this. But then what if Mephisto's in the show? What will Jomie do then? Oh, man. Jomie's usually... Can I just say, historically, this is what I've learned, Jomie's usually

Jomie is often right about things that we disagree on. Like we will publicly and by publicly, I mean in the group text disagree about something that Jomie will usually be right. That's just true. So I've learned to really respect that when Jomie puts his foot down on something, he's probably right that we're not going to get across the spider first part two until we're all dead. That was a big W for Jomie in the group chat. Big L for me, honestly. So, um,

So, but what is wrong about Mephisto? That's just sort of the thing that I'm going to hold loosely. Okay. Rio's here with a pizza. Pizza's here.

No Rolling Rock beer, though, which was a hallmark of the Mare of Easttown. Those were the two beers in the Mare universe. We got Dos Equis here instead. It's not the same. I was looking for the bright green Rolling Rock bottle. She loved her Rolling Rock. Yeah. Loved her Rolling Rock. But this is, I mean, you could put a side-by-side of this scene and...

An Evan Peters, Kate Winslet scene inside of Mary V's town that I think about a lot. So this this scene was like this was one of my favorites of the two episodes. This little this little moment on the couch in the living room here, sipping the beers, sharing this story about like tick tock. And, you know, I was using the wrong foundation brush because so funny. There was the nervous energy simultaneously of like maybe people who were interested in each other and courting each other for the first time.

or like rediscovering or confronting a new, like an old feeling that you had been forced to let go of or pushed away. It had that, that feel to it. Let's imagine this from Rio's POV. So she's like slipped inside the spells one way or another. And, um, she's seeing Agatha for the first time. It seems in a very long time since Agatha hit herself away via the dark old, right? Um, and,

so she's able to see someone that she wants, we presume loves and, and lost, um,

And someone who there's a great deal of enmity, but not inside this moment, inside this spell, right? She, Rio, can be tenderly concerned. And Agatha, without the awareness of who she's dealing with, they get a little confrontational occasionally, but there's also just this ability to be close, this ability to sort of share space with someone that you once

love to something that she would never be able to do outside of the spell. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I love that. What a beautiful observation. I, on the, what was the best moment and best exchange race to the top. And there are a lot of contenders. I have a lead in the case. And then Aubrey Plaza sitting in that chair in that button down shirt with the holster straps saying, that's not why I came over is a high on the list.

Oh, my goodness. I thought it was interesting to the like very to your point about the shifting tone in the scene, like asking if Agnes remembers why she even hates Rio. And then the are you hiding evidence in the air? You're only lying to yourself because like it felt less gentle when she said that. But there's that's still ultimately anchored in.

caring about that person and what is happening to them and for them. So that was all. That was just a great little scene. It is interrupted by the intrusion of Teen. Capital T Teen. Capital T Teen. Quickly winds up on the wrong side of Mrs. Davis's car here. I'm so happy that this is like a bit in the show.

And not something really annoying that the show is doing. I was pre-annoyed about this. And now I'm like, oh, this is fun. They're just having, again, they're just having fun with this. But yeah, the chase. We should remember that in Mare of Easttown, you know, like breaking and entering via teen was like a very important part of that show. Yeah, I love this. So she takes him in.

I don't know, to a closet, I guess. But interrogation room. Great moment later. Like, okay, so that arrest was more like kidnapping. Right. I think it's so interesting. Like when he says, when you say decorated, do you mean suspended without pay? Or when he says, you know, when she says, what are you looking for in my house? And he says, the respect of your peers and a fulfilling home life.

It's so interesting that he's playing along in the spell, like similar to what Rio did. But like, again, this is like a don't wake a sleep walker abruptly sort of approach, I suppose, to this waking up spell. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the, you know, chant, we get this Latin chant from him. Yeah.

It's like, those are flowers in the picture. And why do you keep looking over at that painting that she thinks is a two-way mirror? And we see, like, the, you know, the grip that this trance has on her fading a little bit. But before that happens, she leans in and she says to him that the things that he is

making fun of her for, that he's roasting her for, are the things that make her dangerous. And there's like a lot of comedy in this scene, you know, when she asks where he was between one and three and he says he was asleep, she's like, loser! She jots it down in her notepad, et cetera. But there are these moments throughout the episodes where there's a dark...

dangerous heart that we know has driven this character to this place. And so a moment like that, you know, it made me think we've been having these beautiful conversations on our, our rings of power pods. If you're not caught up on rings of power, join us, please join us immediately in middle earth. We're having the time of our fucking lives. And we've been talking about this idea that you mentioned earlier in season two of like fellowship as not just the

This core theme, but like an actual protection. And so to think of Agatha, just because we literally potted about the show yesterday, you know, to come into this now and like have that in our minds as somebody who is in the opposite kind of spot, somebody who like is isolated and apart and has had these central relationships in her life.

ripped away either of her own doing or someone else's. Some of that has yet to be become clear to us. Well, what, what, what does that make you and where does it lead you? And so like, that's one of the things I'm really looking forward to in the show. There's a lot of clever construction. There's a very like witty and sharp writing. There are serious chemistry between the performers already, but,

But there is that genuine interest, too, in exploring. Obviously, this was crucial to WandaVision, exploring where your pain and your trauma leads you. That's what WandaVision did so well and Loki did so well. Like, that's what we liked, responded so well to those shows, is that at the core of them, there is this emotional... Like, we're about to walk the witch's road to get, you know, a heart, a brain, the noive, or, like, whatever we're getting at the end of the road here, right? But, like...

But we're on an emotional... Stop me if you heard this part. We love a character on an arc. We're on an emotional journey where we're having to confront something painful and whether that painfulness has to do with

the loss of a son or the rift in a relationship or all these other things that put Agatha in a place where she is our antagonist. I mean, Wanda's sort of her own antagonist in WandaVision, but like Agatha is an antagonist because I remember when I was trying to like parse the clues of WandaVision in the first place, I was like, what if Agatha is trying to wake Wanda up because she wants to like

or a lie with her or whatever. But when she was just like, hello, I'm just evil. I was like, okay. But like, how does one get that? How does one get evil is, you know, a question worth asking. So,

latin corner really briefly just to say that what teen capital t teen says here is i'm not going to do the latin but what he says is release the woman who has been cursed by myself release by my spell release this woman who has been cursed so i mean it's pretty much what you would guess he was saying but just to confirm uh it's good to know that he didn't just uh in latin break through like a loophole in the spell by saying his actual character name so

I just want to say it, but I guess. I know. We'll save it for out of an abundance of caution. We'll save it for the theory corner, though. I have to assume that. I feel like we've said it on other pods, but we will be more careful here. Yeah, for sure. You know, Joe, it's it's there's a lot going on. A lot to parse. The walls are melting. Those are, in fact, flowers in the pictures. It's time to go somewhere soothing, calming.

where you can get a grip. Care to go to the morgue? Let's chill out in the dead of night. Shall we? So there's no body on the slab, but Agatha starts listing the features. Five, seven, green eyes. Body appears. Red hair. Let's describe the hair color. Tell us. Okay. Scarlet. Not just red. We went for it. Scarlet. And then the W Maximoff appears on the library card. Rio shows up to help kind of push Agnes along. Case closed then?

How did she die? Wrong question. That witch is gone and all the copies of the dark hold with her leaving you trapped in her distorted spell.

but you don't have to stay there do you and then agatha's like it's getting hot in here and she starts taking off her clothing and this was really fun we flashed in reverse chronological order back through all of her decades and the episodes and all of her looks from honda vision looking in the mirror and screaming exercise outfit and hair was extremely funny

I really like your way out. I like the phrasing of call your way out because it just, I mean, we're, we're going to talk about Buffy vampire slayer a lot in a bit, but like, uh, call your way out, call your way out of the grave is sort of like what you think of when you think of, of that phrase. And so, yeah, it's just like, come back from the dead. You, she buried you here. She buried you alive here. Claw your way out from the grave and come back to me. So I'm choosing to interpret that.

even if it's so that we can kill each other. But come back to me. Yeah. And I love great news. They can't kill each other. So I love that. Like there's two Jane Doe's in this case. Right. Like I love that phrasing, too. But yeah, a Harkness. Boom. And then we snapped a full frontal Agatha. Here we are. We're home. The hair is long. It's strategically positioned to cover certain body parts in the MCU on Disney+.

But not all of them. No, certainly not. Agatha runs outside and finds Herb, where we often find him, at his fence. At the hedge. Yeah. At the hedge. Steve, can we please hear this exchange? How long have I been living in this cesspool of a town? You don't remember. Catch me up. About three years. Three years? We try not to say her name. Oh, God.

Because you're cowards. Because you're sheep. What have I been doing all this time? Well, you've mostly been a good neighbor, but a bit too casual with your boundaries. Call me nosy, I'll cut out your tongue.

A bit too casual with your boundaries killed me. I just, I loved that. I got a real kick out of Phil and Dottie and their daughter coming out and seeing the naked Agatha and like Dottie having to pull Phil away. That was very amusing to me. How are you processing the fact that the citizens of Westview are basically treating Wanda Maximoff like Voldemort? No notes. No notes. I love it. Oh man. So,

prompted by her, by her using the word powerful right after this, Agatha goes back inside and she tries to use her magic and finds out that she can't. And she goes to the basement, this basement that was so key in WandaVision to revealing and learning what was actually a foot, scoops up sweet little senor scratchy, pets him just like a lot of like great little chin rubs as she is piecing together what has happened and, and, and, and,

uh declaring we gotta get back on top and then once again there is a noise above from dean and she realizes that she has tied him up in the closet and so oh wait shit if he was real so was a boom yeah okay so before we get to rio licking stuff and we should mention not everything not yet that in the count wait time bide your time um

In the countdown to the premiere, they were doing this like ASMR. I don't know how to describe what they were doing, but they were doing like some ASMR bits with the cast. And Aubrey Plaza was licking knives. No notes from me. Okay, but before we get there, I just want to zoom back and say before she says we got it back on top, she says she left me with the appliances, which I just thought was really funny. So the front door explodes. Here comes Rhea.

incredible outfit. Sensational stuff. Yeah. You're like the pantsuit, nothing better. Oh no, wait, is this better? The way she, the way she enters this sort of bucolic, um, home, um,

immediately pinged Nancy in the craft to me. This is Farooza Balk's character in the craft who comes, you know, to have this like horrible showdown confrontation. The way that she's like witchily in black and some of the choreography, like when she's sort of like, I don't know how to describe it with my words. Can we get that once more? Okay.

She sort of like levitates up 90 degrees from the floor. That's an iconic for Rusevalk as Nancy in the craft moment. So I love that. And then just the absolute decimation of the, of the house. Again, that's very much like the final showdown of the craft. So, and we get a shot of Rusevalk from the craft of the closing credit. So obviously that's like on their minds, but that was, that was one, but not the most important moment.

comp for me, but I will wait a second for that. Yeah. Exciting. So it really is which stuff goes season three. I'm thrilled for you. Thank you. I just feel privileged to witness this. Thank you. I'd like to thank the Academy. Thank you so much. Oh my God. The Curveblade, by the way, I'm like, you know me. So you're like, which stuff go? And I'm like,

This is what I'm about to talk about in a second. But give me a second. A new tool for the armory. Basically everything that they say to each other in this sequence is true.

Worth remarking upon and interesting and something that we can parse. Also just the choreography of the scene, which I know you're going to get into, like the physical, when they're on the floor fighting for the knife, like the very intimate, close quarters, physical nature of this conflict. It was just good. Like it was a well-staged action sequence. So that was very fun. Here's what the, here's what they say to each other initially. I've missed you.

I hate you. How long has it been, Agatha? Not sure. Since you acquired the Darkhold, you hid behind all that dark magic, but then you lost it. And now, and the knife, the blade is piercing skin. We see blood starting to drip from her neck. Touch. You're vulnerable. And Agatha replies, only physically. Like physical vulnerability is not physical.

She's locked down emotionally. Exactly. You can't hurt me emotionally. Allegedly. So you hid behind all that dark magic. Early days, but where are you with this? Did Agatha get the Darkhold in order to protect herself from Ryo? We're going to hear in a minute how they describe themselves as these oppositional forces. Did her use of it become a wedge between them? What's your read on this? I feel like she made herself...

literally invisible to Rio that like no amount of scrying, you know, could possibly locate her, that she was just essentially like cloaked. And I love that. I absolutely love that. Did she do it to hide from Rio? I don't know. I'm sure it was...

The hiding feels intentional, but whether or not that's the sole purpose of acquiring the Darkhold, I don't think so. Hiding from something she did. I mean, the next exchange we get when we get the kind of Cat Stark-esque dagger slicing the hand is, do you remember pain? And again, we have like the physical pain, but also the emotional pain and what maybe she has been suppressing. When she said, do you remember pain? Mm-hmm.

Also the imagery of Catherine Hahn pinned up against the wall and Aubrey Plaza with a knife to her. Nothing in all of my days has been more Buffy the Vampire Slayer coded to me. Tell me.

And I was looking back, I did not talk to Jack Schaefer directly about Buffy Vampire Slayer, but Emma Caulfield, who plays Dottie, was one of the stars of Buffy Vampire Slayer. There was like a bunny joke about her in the show. So it's pretty clear to me that Jack Schaefer, who was around my age, was a Buffy Vampire Slayer fan. But anyone's free to correct me if I'm wrong. There is, and I'm just going to tell you and our listeners in case you haven't watched it, they're not versed.

Buffy is a vampire slayer. When a slayer dies, a new slayer is made. She dies briefly. She comes back to life. A new slayer is made. Her name is Faith. And so there is, for season three of Buffy, two slayers. One blonde, Buffy. One dark-haired, Faith. Faith...

spoiler alert for Buffy season three breaks bad like what what are you gonna do if you have two slayers one's gotta break bad and so yeah they are in this embroiled in this like insanely sexual toxic like fight romance this whole thing and Faith in the last few episodes season three is gifted this gnarly knife which is very similar to the knife that Rio has here and so the image of

Agatha up against the wall, Rio in front of her with the knife is an iconic Buffy and Faith image to me. The licking of the palm of

iconic Faith stuff to me. So the way in which she is like incredibly Faith from Buffy, Nancy from The Craft, and I understand that this is my like 90s kid, you know, showing through here. But like, again, Jack Schafer is around my age, is really exciting to me because that, you know, that's all subtext in Buffy, but it is text here of like, these are exes having this fight and it's juicy and it's sexy and it's scary and it's really, really good.

Should we hear some of the things that they say to each other? Yeah, let's do it. This season on Naughty at Island. When we were new, they spoiled me. They even gave me a phone. But then it's like I didn't exist.

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Some models, trims, and features may not be available or may be subject to change. Check with your local retailer for current information. Lincoln and Aviator are trademarks of Ford or its affiliates. You can't kill me. You can't kill me. It's not allowed. Maybe I can't kill you, but I can make you wish you were dead. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This isn't what you want. Me.

Horizontal? My God. Yeah.

The vibes, Joanna. This is the most sexually charged exchange. Fun to just listen to it instead of watching it and just hear all of the moaning and panting. Not the first time these two have torn up a room. No, the grunt, it's pornographic. Genuinely. Like we thought Sylvie and Loki was, this is on another layer entirely. This is so good. Wonderful stuff. Talk me through the magic rules that we've just learned here. Yeah, they can't kill each other.

They can't kill each other. They cannot kill each other. And if... She says, so take my power. And the only way that Agatha knows how to take power is to the aforementioned husking of a person, right? It's like sucking them dry until they're husks. That would kill her. If she kills her, she dies. Almost like none may die while the other lives or something like that. So, yeah. Puts them in an interesting bind. But just because...

They can't kill each other doesn't mean they can't sick some other baddies on each other. So like, again, early days will surely have more evidence mounting as we go. But yeah,

Is this because of a spell, an enchantment, a vow, some pledge or promise they made to each other at some point? Is it because of, to stick with your Buffy example, like an actual, like a deeper nature of some sort of relationship and how they relate to each other as like magical beings, the role that they each inhabit magically? Like, where are you on this?

I like the idea of it as a vow, an unbreakable vow that was made perhaps on the first journey down the witch's road of just sort of like, this is how we'll trust each other is we'll say we can't die. We can't kill each other. Yeah. I love an unbreakable vow. Can't wait for the flashback episode.

Oh man, that's going to be great. It's going to be great. So as you said, they can send some other baddies. Rio's like happy to report that I'm not the only one who wants you dead. The Salem Seven, the quote worst of them. They're on their way. They're going to be here tonight. Joanna, who are the Salem Seven? This is so fun. This is like the perfect, and this is what WandaVision did too. This idea of like comic book lore that's here, but not required at all because you hear Salem Seven and especially later you see them and you're like, I get it.

baddies, seven very scary ladies. I am very scared. Shouldn't be able to move down a flight of stairs like that. It's a, it's a no for me. It is an absolute negatory for me. Okay. Uh, 1977 in the comics, uh,

they've been in Scarlet Witch stories, Fantastic Four stories, uh, et cetera, et cetera. Their powers allow them to turn into magical creatures. So in the comics, that's more like anthropomorphized. Here, it's later in episode two when Agatha keeps seeing, sees a crow, sees a rat, and is freaked the fuck out, uh,

we are 99.99% sure that is members of the Salem seven sort of spying on her closing ranks sort of thing. Most people would be freaked out if they saw a rat at the mall food court while really enjoying a corn dog. But Agatha has additional reasons to be concerned. It's not just, she's not just thinking about house of the dragon. She's got other things on her mind. So in the comics, the Salem seven are Nikki scratches kids and,

Agatha's grandkids, we feel I... Myler's like out of abundance of caution was like, should we include this comics lore? I'm pretty sure they're not going to do that. Especially like if the idea is that Nick was, to your theory, like sacrificed a child or lost a child. Like, I don't understand. Like...

And the timeline of it, like Salem 7, it feels more likely to me that they might be connected to the women that she sucked dry in the flashback in WandaVision or something like that. That's not comics canon, but that seems more likely to me than they would do. Those heartbeats are dust. Yeah, they sure are. Oh, man. What a rich text this already is. Speaking of, we get one of the more notable exchanges at the very end here.

Black heart. This is going to come up, obviously, in a meaningful way in episode two. It really warms the heart. You don't have a heart, Agatha says, to which Ryo replies, yes, I do. It's black and it beats for you. And then she licks the blood off of her palm and brings us into...

The State of Euphoria and then also the witchy end credits and then episode two. But that Blackheart, when we get to the who is the fourth name on the eviction notice list that Lillia sketched out in one of her many sudden states. Great stuff. It wasn't a name. It was a Blackheart. So obviously that is correct.

Rio, and that tells us too because of the pursuit of the green witch that she is a green witch. She is the earth witch. So we have learned quite a bit actually about Rio that we have plenty to theorize about still. Episode two. Agatha is clothed.

She is wearing some, just a sensational fit here. She is wearing these incredible wide-legged, like, high-crop jeans that immediately made me think of the MCU's jean icon, Aunt May, who...

throughout the Spider-Man films just always is a breaking out a new like high-waisted yeah I heard a gene that like very few people can pull off walking around the house muttering about Rio and teen rips the tape off his mouth and he's like just please take me to the witch's road so here we go which is right what is that exactly thank you for asking the road will give you the thing you want the most if you make it to the end

And I can. I will. Hmm. The road is no place for a kid. I'm 16. Oh, sorry. Teen. Teen. Teen getting his name. What, I mean, what did you think of Joe Locke in these? You haven't, you're not a heart stopper. Yeah, no. So yeah, new to me here. There was one stretch to your point about the accent. One stretch in episode two where it was breaking through quite a bit. But overall, I thought he was, I thought he was,

really great. Yeah, I thought he was really good. I had no idea from the trailers that he would be this prominently featured, like you said, basically the number two. And I mean, again, like on the one hand, Katherine Hahn is such a dynamic and charismatic performer that you almost think maybe anybody could succeed alongside of her because she's also just like a very generous performer, right? Yeah. But it also has to be incredibly intimidating and hard to be in scenes with her because she's the...

brilliant and hysterical. And he was, like, really holding his own and, like, you know, every recruitment, which we'll get to, it's like, this is my familiar, this is my pet. Like, and he's just hanging in real time. And there are moments where, you know, we're sensing that this...

teen is like, my notepad. Sorry, do you mind? Like, could you write that down for me? The desire. He's learning. He's eager. He's got his own life and his own thing going on. But also he's like, I'm a super fan. Like, I am obsessed with you. So that's what I wanted to say. And was able to convey all of those notes. Yeah. That's what I wanted to say is that I think this character archetype can be so annoying so easily. The like, eager, young sidekick sort of thing. And...

They've knocked it out of the park on this front across the board. You know, we loved the Kate Bishop portrayal in Hawkeye. We're big Kamala Khan fans. Like, all of that's true. And so...

I think they really nailed it here. I was a little worried just about the nature of the character that I saw in the trailer, and then I just thought he was really good. So, yeah. The Witch's Road. He's also like, I learned about this from books, the ballad legend lore. Teens. Come on, House of R. He's got this little notebook that I'm calling Chekhov's Little Lore Notebook. Um.

which reminds me a lot, again, showing precisely when I was born of the Grail Diary in Indiana Jones' Last Crusade, my favorite Indiana Jones movie. This idea that he can just, like, he's been studying the witch's road. He's been studying Agatha. He's been studying the witch's road. And so when they come up against trials, of course, there'll be, like, Agatha who's walked it. Perhaps Rio we can talk about who may or may not have walked it. But then there's, like,

you know, teen in his little notebook. And what can he help with? Only the penitent man will pass. Stuff like that. It'll be fun. So, yeah. It's going to be easier for them to sell this than the TVA guidebook that we are still waiting for. Still waiting on that merch. Thanks. Still waiting for it, folks. Unbelievable. So, Agatha asks the question that

I think is on the mind of the viewers at home as well. If you've got the goods to break a spell cast by the Scarlet Witch, why do you need the road? Right. And he says he's looking for power, right? Power is what I'm missing. It's easy. Power is what I'm missing. Sounds like it's what you're missing too.

Stay tuned for the theory section where we have questions, comments, and concerns about what teen really wants on the witch's road. Yes. And on the who is teen front, like you alluded to earlier, they're really leaning in when Agatha asks who he is and he's trying to say his name. The sound is distorted and his lips melt into like...

Do you know what it reminded me of? Strings of wax. You know what it really reminded me of? I mean, a lot of people are comping it to Neo and the Matrix, and that's a good comp. I thought immediately of the character of Billy Butcherson from Hocus Pocus, who has his mouth sewn shut. And then also, I think this is okay to say outside of a theory section, but...

Because it's just stating a fact. The way the sort of line across his mouth looks, it looks like it's either a W or an M or perhaps both. It looks like a curled script W or M. You can also kind of hang with the number of syllables.

Even if you can't hear the exact, I feel like it's pretty clear what name he's saying, but possibly, possibly, but we shall see. But yeah, I was, I was thinking about Hocus Pocus and that was my immediate thought. Love that character, Billy stuff. Yeah. Great stuff.

One of the things we wanted to jot down into the notebook was all of this great new rich intel about covens, Joe. We're heading to the car. Here's some things we learned about covens. It's not going to be your old one because those harpies are dust. Again, iconic. Yeah. You need a coven to access the witch's road. So you have to forge these relationships. You have to opt into a fellowship. You cannot isolate. You cannot ISO down the road. No, absolutely not. Um,

And this idea that it's so convenient for the narrative that the candidates are nearby. And I like that they work it into the script that is just sort of like, this is the nature of covens, you know, wherever you are a coven, there shall be. She mentions the Covenstead rule. Covenstead is an interesting word to use, I think, because of its associations with modern paganism and Wicca, which is, you know, it's not a word that is associated with like sort of

17th century witchcraft. So I think that that's like an interesting invocation there. And I like this idea of like

power sharing right because she says even the most down-and-out witches when in close proximity with each other bring out a magical spark so like later you know she calls right her new cobbled together coven like you know losers has-beens never words like all this sort of stuff like this but it's fraud yeah yeah but the way in which their proximity will sort of charge them up say like a crystal in the moonlight um is you know an exciting thing to track

Almost as exciting as hearing, right, that makes sense. It is the witch's plural possessive road. What a day. Hi.

Mallory. What a day. Um, Mallory loves, she's not, you're so kind and you don't go around correcting other people's grammar or spelling, but I know this is a passion of yours. And whenever that, like whenever it burbles up, Mallory will be like, well, I, I am an editor. I was an editor. I am an editor. So I was thinking about your editor's heart and mind when he, uh, made sure to talk about the witches, plural possessive road. Um,

I have to send this to ringer copy chief Craig Gaines. I got to put this on his radar. He's going to love this. I don't know if Craig is keeping for him on the MCU. No? Okay. I got to put this in front of him. Our guy Teen does get a call from his boyf. B-O-Y-F. Yeah. The beef friend. Fascinating call.

This is one of those, is Joanna making something out of nothing, probably, moments. The ringtone song, everyone's just sort of blasting past this, and I'm not sure why. This is not a real song. The song, the caption says, on my mind by the band Blackhand. The band Blackhand does not exist. If you dig into the closing credits, which I did, the...

It says Black Hand, courtesy of the Math Club. Math Club is a company comprised of musicians and DJs who make fake music for film and television. So like they, and they've done it, they did it for, like they did the 2000s version of the WandaVision theme song for WandaVision. They've done stuff for Ultron. So like if a fake little song shows up in a film or television, sometimes it's this group has put together. So like,

Sure, fine. I'm not reading that much into it. This is a fake band. This happens all the time. But on my mind, Black Hand, right? Black Tip Fingers of the Magic Users. On my mind...

whatever um this might be nothing but i'm just sort of like why make up a fake song here why not just like pay the royalties for sure yeah some other or just use a a blander ringtone or something like that like what what is this placement here so i'm just asking questions i don't have answers for you i have some answers um but not all of them here for you okay

Genuinely fantastic observation of Prompt here. We'll speculate briefly about the potential identity of Boif based on the potential identity of Teen when we get to... That's the more important thing that comes out of this moment, to be clear. I'm like, it's Boif, and you're like, this song. I love it. You're the best. The reason I was like, let's look up the lyrics of the song to see if the lyrics give us any clues like that. And I'm like, oh no, the song doesn't exist. Oh no, why is it here? Calamity. Yeah, calamity.

Incredible. Almost as incredible as recruiting the members of the coven. What would you like to say more broadly about the idea of the coven and each role that the members of the coven inhabit before we get into actually meeting Lilia and Jen and Alice? So again, hobbsanddragons.gmail.com. The inbox is open if you have an opinion, if you disagree with what I'm about to say.

But I'm going to cite my best friend, Diana Helmuth, wrote a book called The Witching Year. So she spent a long time studying witchcraft and like modern paganism and all this sort of stuff like that. And so, A, it's a great book. B, it's a great book.

I will probably be sprinkling Diana's observations of this show throughout, you know, the upcoming episodes because she is much more alerted on this than I am. And so when I was talking to her about this idea of like a divination witch, a blood witch, a potion witch, she's like, oh, we always have to Pokemon the witches is what she said, which I thought was really funny. We loved Pokemon the witches. And she was pointing out that this idea of like,

The speciality inside of witchcraft is a more modern paganism idea. And this, she, so again, the email inbox is open if you are, I hope you're not offended. And if you disagree, please email me. But she was rolling her eyes at this because she considers it like sort of a commodification of witchcraft. This idea that then you can make like targeted merch for witches.

if you're a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor or whatever it is. And it's also just like a, she's like, it's almost like turning witchcraft into like a personality quiz sort of thing. So she was like somewhat disdainful of it as a concept, not inside the show, but just sort of like as a concept. And so I am curious if anyone's listening and disagrees. But I thought that was, that was interesting. But I like the way it works

here, obviously, because we're making a formula. We've got roles to fill. And that narratively, I think, is really fun. And let's go on a tour. Let's put the team together, Mallory. I love it. When we put the team together. First stop, let's go see the town psychic. Let's meet Lilia, the divination witch. So...

All of the characters we're about to recruit are comics characters, including Lilia Calderu, who dates back to 73, uses the book of Cagliostro in the comics, which, of course, Doctor Strange MCU viewers will be familiar with. Let me just say this. The Southern tip that Agatha and Buford pulled off here was fucking hysterical. The gasp.

That Agatha admits in response to Did He Golf will sustain me for years. Also, when she is my memory is correct me if I'm wrong, but she like sort of hastily throws the pearls on top of her button down to sort of like complete the look of the outfit. That's like, let's get the accessories together for this con. So good.

Incredible stuff. Lilia like pretty quickly reveals I'm not a fraud. I know who you are. I know why you're here and I am frankly not interested. Also, by the way, just a heads up, you will see a charge on your statement from Lilia's leggings. It is my side hustle. I've experienced this. Not from a psychic, but I've experienced this where someone's like, you're going to get a weird charge. And I'm like, oh no.

Incredible. I will just say the fact that you clarified that it wasn't a psychic is only going to lead to more follow-up questions about what it actually was. Oh, okay. Fair enough. I was about to say I've never been to a psychic, but I have been to one psychic, and it was the most unsatisfying experience of my life. It was at the Boardwalk in Monterey. And this woman was like...

it was like in a cubby. I don't, it was just not, I need to like make a real step. I don't necessarily fully buy in, but I, I, I don't think I've dealt with a real professional yet. Let me just say so. Interesting. Well, does, does Lillia seem like to your liking? How would the random little screams and, and sudden trances sit with you? Yeah. Scary. I would leave. But I mean, they delight Agatha. Her response is sure you're a

You're a bit of a kook. Every witch has their process.

I'm thrilled that the icon Patti LuPone is here. Just absolute legend of stage and screen. And she played a witch in one of my favorite episodes of Penny Dreadful. Not a perfect show, but a show that I really liked. And there was like a sort of a standalone episode where she played a witch called The Cut Wife. And it was really, really, really good. So I'm thrilled to have her back in this witchy mode. Penny Dreadful starring our

Our shared wife. Roy Kinnear. Oh, no. And Tom Bomb. Yeah, Tom Bomb and Eva Green. Two of the genuine greats. And Simon Russell Beale. Okay. Oh, man. Murder is right. Truly. Lilia, not a day over 450 years old. Pretty rude stray from Agatha. I mean, she's about to break out the eviction notice as leverage, but did she have to take a shot at the Murphy bed?

Oh, I know. That's just practical. That's just practical. It's a good use of space. Exactly. Incredible. Yeah. Maybe not the most supportive mattress, but listen, you know, you make your space work for you. Exactly. Yeah. So the eviction notice is there. And I love that as like a incentive to do. Everyone has to have their incentive to do this. Right. What does Lily fear? Like, what does she think Agatha is actually after? Oh, her power. Yeah.

Her power. And she's like, power. She's right. Because Agatha does try to get them to blast her. Well, I also like that Agatha gives us the audience a little like refresher on her power set and how it works and stuff like that. That's very useful. The Three of Pentacles. Yes, tell me. This is going to be potentially, I don't know how frequently this is going to crop up. We've got two instances in this episode. I'm calling this Tarot Reading TM with Joanna Robinson TM. ♪

I'm a little better with the major arcana than I am with the minor arcana. But the minor arcana, this card here is the Three of Pentacles. And it's a neutral card. So, like, it could be for good. If you pull the Three of Pentacles, you're not like...

as he would be with maybe some other cards, right? So it's a neutral card, but, and its designation is sort of like teamwork among other things. So is this teamwork for good or teamwork for ill? But it makes sense that that would be a card that would sort of prompt her to then write down the names of the team here. Look at you. Three names and a black heart, you know? You're just thriving today. It's great. Oh man. Joe from the...

Psychic. Yeah. To the potions, witch. What if we watched an MCU show that was about pornographic baseball players? I feel like that would be the most Mallory thing you've ever seen. This is a witch musical. I just don't know what else I could possibly say. Oh, man.

You know, I'm a candle enthusiast. I like a candle. It was fun to go to the candle shop here. The Goop Emporium. It's time to meet Jennifer. Yeah, Jennifer, exactly. Goop, truly Goop Emporium. Yeah. Jennifer Kael, extremely powerful person.

which from the comics, who's a part of many groups over a canon that dates back once again to the 70s. A lot of 1970s in our Marvel references here. Quite a bit here. Quite a bit here. One of the groups that Jen is a part of at one point is the Midnight Sun. So that's fun just because, of course, that's, you know, we haven't had an excuse in a second here to talk about the Midnight Suns in Marvel. But like,

Horror storylines. A group we could build towards if we ever wanted to actually acknowledge that Werewolf by Night existed. And it did and it ruled. So we should do another. I should do another Halloween viewing Werewolf by Night. I think I'm going to make it a yearly. Like, it's so good. It's how you can cap the Agatha journey because this is going to conclude right at the end of October. Double premiere and double finale. Uh,

If you're looking for snacks for that viewing, I'm pleased to offer you some of Jennifer Kale's edible candles. You do have to burn them before you eat them. It is an FDA requirement. Gross.

It's enough. We're going to get to the class action lawsuit that Teen uses to leverage Jen into joining the company. Great stuff from Teen. Great stuff from Teen. Teen is prepared. Yeah. He's like, you really helped me with my pores. I love your Insta. And then he's like, 800 people are suing you because they needed skin grafts. But it's not all. It's not all skin grafts and lawsuits.

What else does Jen sell? Hey, where do you keep your jade eggs? I'm fresh out of marbles and my pelvic floor is all over the place. Actually, you guys want to go splitsies on one? Anyone? Anyone? Sisterhood of the Traveling Kegels? No? No? Take a jade egg to go. You'll know where to find it. Take a jade egg to go. You'll know where to find it is Hall of Fame.

10 out of 10. Wonderful. Sisterhood of the Traggling Eagles on the merch, Mallory? Is that, is it, is it, should it be like Sisterhood of the Traggling Eagles, quote, blast me, you bitches? Is that what we're going for? I mean, that's a vibe. So when Teen brings up the lawsuit, which is, again, great stuff from Teen, just really on the spot, like, and the double act between the two of them as they're sort of, but is this a section about where you had some accent corner questions? Yeah.

I feel like this is where the vowels are slipping, which is fine. But when Agatha says, historically, we as a group don't do well in courtrooms...

Really good. I love that elsewhere, the listing of all the ways that Agatha could potentially die. No new methods. Nothing else. Nothing new. This is truly great stuff. Truly great. What did you make of the very, again, apparent history between Jen and Agatha? She says, God, Agatha, I haven't seen you since I made a really pointed effort to never run into you again. Great line. Yeah.

So Shira Zamata, by the way, I really liked on SNL and I felt like they never used her the way they should have on SNL. So I'm delighted to see her here. I think she's really fun. And yeah, so unlike Lilia, who was like, I know you by your reputation, and Alice, who also seems to not know Agatha personally, Jen and Agatha have like real history, as you say, like you already called out the child sacrifice line. Like Jen has key biographical information about Agatha. Yeah.

that will... Calls her a witch killer. Yeah. She's got the... She knows. So, you know, maybe she's there to disabuse Tine of his fandom, you know, with the actual stuff she knows. But I think that that's really important that there's one witch other than Rio on the road that knows Agatha's number precisely. Yeah. Great shout. And of course, like, we do get the counterweight of Agatha knowing...

about jen because she's able to say i mean it is ultimately the lawsuits that cabela but she is able to make a more tailored pitch right not just like i found this on your door right but you've been your magic has been stifled for a century by this binding spell don't you want to break free of it like come on the road with us and so yeah that what what might agatha then be able to

What sort of charges are they going to hurl at each other? How ugly might this get? When will the fellowship begin to crumble? Oh, no. Trial four at the latest, I would say, but probably earlier. To the mall.

Alice Wu Gulliver, once again, comics character, as is established here in the show, daughter of a witch, cop. The comics looking for like what happened to her mom. And that's the mystery. And this is like, this is like whatever happened to mommy? Like, well, don't you want to find out? And Alice like eventually shows up, but actually resists in real time here. I did on the teen front. I did love the like, wouldn't.

Orna Wu's daughter be somewhere cooler like Brooklyn or a yacht. Great stuff. Delightful. I always love going to a mall in a story. Makes me think of Stranger Things season three. I love a food court. Love a food court in my stories. What would be your number one food court destination? Right now, like for nostalgia's sake, or actually when I was a kid?

I was a real like pretzel stand kid. Like the Auntie Anne's pretzel, that like buttery, dripping down your fingers and coating your forearm as you eat it kid. In the Owings Mills Mall, I grew up in Reisterstown, Maryland. So the Owings Mills Mall in Baltimore, which was our local mall, there was an Italian pastry shop called the Carpenter's.

of a caros in the food court and they had the best fucking cannolis and like a cannoli is still one of my favorite desserts as a result. That seems like it was like actually good food in your food court. And a very refined palate for a youngster. I would say like if I had to pick a place that I most identify with the food court, I would say an Orange Julius even though I never had one. But like an Orange Julius like What about like a Mrs. Fields cookie? I would definitely

The smell of the sugar hitting your nose. Above all that, I would go for a Sbarro slice. Slice of Sbarro pizza. That's food court royalty to me. Yeah. I have now, all these years later, a different association with that just because that was what they had at the Carrier Dome. So like for four years of college, I can't tell you how many slices I had at Q-Stamps. My God. I can't tell you. But yes, you're right. Food court staple. Oh, I am hungry.

Let's carry on. I got distracted by the food court. So they get Alice fired, but not necessarily locked down that recruitment, though Teen does leave. Like, you know, here's where you find us. No, he doesn't with her. He does with... He doesn't. But she finds them anyway, Jo. But she finds them anyway. She's a cop. That'll be the answer to a lot of things. I have questions about that. Okay. On the car ride home... Yes. We get another...

Billy Butcherson's stitching of the mouth moment when, and what is important to note, right, is that teen is not aware of this spell. Correct. Yeah. Because he's blithely carrying on like she can hear him, right? So he is under someone else's spell. Yes. Or protection is, I think, how I would think about it. But he says, what we do hear him say, she's like, where are you from, whatever. And he says, originally, I was born and raised in Eastview.

I think that originally is a wild thing to say about where are you from. Feels important, right? Originally? I was born and raised in Eastview. That's a normal thing to say. But originally, I was born and raised in Eastview. Stay tuned for Theory Corner. All right, what time is it, Mallory Rubin? It's coming o'clock. Hell yeah, TikTok, let's go.

So Agatha Harkness looks absolutely resplendent in her coven garb. Just sensational stuff. Remember that one of the fake subtitles of the show is the lying witch in her wardrobe. And I think they're just like really crushing that with the costumes on this show. Really good. Incredible. Incredible. If I woke up from a three year trance, I'd barely be able to stand. And she's just like ripping off the fit. Yeah. Fit after fit. Drip Lord. Agatha Harkness. You love to see it. Teen made a banner.

Agatha tears it down immediately. Very sad. He also made some snacks from- With a pentacle in the O. Yeah. He's going for it. Committed. Like, puts the little cocktail sticks in the expired granola. Yeah. And between that, he had to freshen up the liner on his tight line. Like, yeah. Just so. He's really going for it. Just so. So everybody shows up. Jen, Lilia, even Alice-

lilia and jen i'm immediately ready for just many many scenes between them you're bound lilia says and you need a chemical peel oh remarkable lilia also calls jen the high priestess and this is the second and also last tarot reading tm which when it arrives in tn the high priestess is of course a tarot card um though she might this might be referring to something else but um

This is another, I would say, neutral card to pull, but it is one that indicates sort of intuition, however you decide to interpret that. It's a card that you usually want to read in the context of other cards, I would say. Okay.

But I saw this one description of it, which is, you already know the answer, but you don't like it, so you're asking me to see if I'm going to tell you something different card. Which sort of reminds me of Agatha in this episode. Like, she knows the answers to a lot of this stuff, but she's just like blinders on. But yeah, how that relates to Jen, I'll be interested to find out. But intuition is sort of something to think about. And that's been Tarot Reading TM with Joanna Robinson-Tiam.

Steve, we're definitely going to need a new sound drop for that. I feel like it's going to be a recurring segment. But what does it sound like? Shuffling cards? I don't know. This is Steve's particular area of genius. And we have a week to find out how he delights us. I can't wait. I cannot wait. He's our tarot soundboard witch. Okay, got it. Okay.

Green Witch. There isn't one. Okay. And Lillia is like insistent. Jen asks where the Green Witch is. Lillia's like, we absolutely have to have one. So she's like, it's interesting. Exactly. It's interesting to me that they are able ultimately to conjure the road without one because Mrs. Davis. Okay. Yeah. Whoa. Exciting. Stay tuned again for a theory corner.

Agatha deflects and then she's like when they have the exchange about it wasn't a name it was a heart a black heart that's because he used a black pen again hilarious so good Agatha never misses a beat it's genuinely great so this is definitely Rio who said 100% Rio she's a black heart that only beats for you

She goes to get Mrs. Hart, who's actually Mrs. Davis, instead. And I love, like, Deborah Jo Rupp being utilized here. Again, another, like, phenomenal side character in WandaVision. Deborah Jo Rupp, a complete sitcom icon, obviously, from that 70s show, etc. And so, she's just, like, so excited. She's very Kitty Foreman in this mode, and she's very excited about a party. So, yeah. It's...

I was very touched by this. Like she's lost her husband. Yeah. She's alone. The idea of sharing this evening and then she gets there in the basement. I'm worried. I'm worried about. Me too. Concern. She wonders if they're doing laundry. Very amusing when Jen's like, who's going high preparing to sing the ballad? And Mrs. Davis says, oh no, thank you. I don't take drugs. So good.

Great stuff. And then, Joe, it's time. It's time for this absolute banger of a song. We heard part of it at the top. It is quite long. We're cutting to teen. It's in your scratch. Seeing and sensing the Salem Seven arriving as very spooky and cloaked home invaders. But this song...

rich text on the lyric front. Do you have a favorite? What would you like to say about this musical number? So a couple things. This is our one and only email that I'm going to read in this episode, and it comes from Ryan, who says...

Is that one of the Salem seven? No, it's our mailbag call. Okay. Um, Ryan said, I'd seen interviews this week that Kristen Anderson, uh, Lopez and Robert Lopez worked on the music for Agatha. And when I heard the ballad of the witches, uh, wrote on the show, their influences immediate, immediately apparent. It's giving big frozen music vibes, complimentary, particularly frozen heart. So Bobby Lopez and his wife, a lovely wife, Kristen, uh, yeah, did the music for frozen. Um,

did the music for WandaVision, the, you know, Agatha all along, Bop, and also WandaVision, one WandaVision, like that's all them. They rule. And shout out Avenue Q. But for me, in terms of like which Frozen song this pings for me, I was thinking of All Is Found, which is the lullaby that Evan Rachel Wood's character sings at the beginning of Frozen 2, which winds up being this sort of like literal like map of

to, you know, the truth of their backstory and their future in that film. Spoilers, I suppose, for Frozen 2. Anyway, so I think that I feel like this, the reason this song is so long

I mean, I guess you didn't need to do the chorus so many times. I suppose you could trim some fat there. But I think that given that the lyrics are the... I loved every second of it, to be clear. Same. The reason that the lyrics... The lyrics being the title of the episodes...

And then this idea that that means potentially we could find the titles for the rest of the season inside of the lyrics of this song. And the idea that that in turn could give us sort of a map for what we're going to see on the show, because like,

Circle Stone with Fate, Unlock Thy Hidden Gate. That's what they're literally doing when they're singing the song. And that's the title of that episode. Seekest Thou the Road. That's sort of like episode one sort of behavior. So what are some of these other lyrics going to show us in the show? And that's like something I'm really, really excited to think about, to speculate on. Blood and tears and bone. Like all, you know, there's a lot. I hold death's hand in mine. Mm-hmm. Ooh. So...

Yeah, it's not just a song. It's a map. Love a song, love a map. Love a trial. Love a fellowship. Love a riddle. It's all happening. Riddles in the dark trials. It's going to be great. So yeah, I really loved it. Something that I really loved is that when they sang this at D23, which I also really enjoyed, I was like, first and foremost, I was like,

No, I'll just say this because I will say Debra Jo Rupp was on stage with them and like so clearly didn't know the words. And I thought that she like just didn't know the words. But it's a bit of the scene, but I didn't know that she was doing a bit. And I was like, man, no one taught Debra Jo Rupp the words to

But she was doing this scene. So my apologies to Deb. I thought you had prepared. But in fact, you were just in character as Mrs. Davis saying, am I supposed to know this song? So, yeah. It's so funny. Yeah. Is the death lyric your favorite lyric from the song? Yeah.

I'm very intrigued by just in terms of what might await where all that's wrong is right and all that's bad is good through many miles of tricks and trials will wander high and low. So this idea of... Especially bad witch, good witch, sort of that idea. Yeah. And that's also near the end, so that feels like...

truths revealed and choices confronted in a key late season episode. But follow me, my friend, to glory at the end. That might be the orgasmic climactic payoff when our heroes are reunited in the bed of love. It's just a two-hander of phrasing with Rio. I mean, two-hander, yeah. Jeez. Sounds great. Rio Nagyman? Okay, great. Damn me. Yeah. Damn me. God's be good.

This was an act. I've said this like a hundred times, classic actual contender for me for funniest moment when they stopped singing after minutes upon minutes, like many, many minutes. And Agatha says some feedback for it did not take this long last time. The delivery of some feedback for you. She said, by the way. This is just so great. And then this is where she tries to

incite them to rage we can start so we see the the magic starting to sparkle and crackle on the fingertips calls them cowards calls them frauds wants them invokes their quote noxious mediocrity wants them to attack and blast so that she can suck up their magic but before things can completely unravel the gate appears the door appears they have conjured the road

I have loved, I love this because the inclusion of the seven is this sort of like external encouragement. We talked, we did a whole episode on portal worlds. This is essentially a portal world story. And so one of the ways in which, I don't know that we talked about this specifically, but one of the ways I like narratively for people to like,

into a portal into another world is like by necessity. You scramble into the portal because something is threatening you in the real world and you have no choice but to, oops, throw caution to the wind and go into these like trap doors that have opened up in someone's basement. So even, you know, Agatha is, you know, like, Tina's like, we gotta go. I've seen with these Salem 17 cubes, we've gotta go. Does not bring Senor Scratch with him. I know, it's interesting. Yeah.

important. Does feel important. And also, he was doing a good job cuddling Senior Scratch, I thought. He was. Yeah. Yeah. So the bunny does not come along for the ride, but T's down there. The rest of the team goes down. Follow your, you know, follow your heart. Like, do what you want to do. And then the tractor disappears and we're in it.

I loved when they took their shoes off, like rooting your toes in the earth and the magic of the world and the road and this experience. So Rio, not there. Trailer spoiler, that will be a temporary state of affairs. Correct. This is not the last we'll see of Aubrey Plaza on this show. Gods. Should we do Theory Corner? Joanna Robinson, darkest hour, wake thy power. Take us to Theory Corner. Theory Corner.

A little psychostatic. Sound right, medicine. I love it. Thank you, Steve. Okay. Teen. Time to speculate freely. You go. You don't want to hear this. Like, thanks for spending your time with us today. We welcome you back in week three. Teen stuff go. Teen stuff go. This is Billy Kaplan. Who is Billy Kaplan? For people who don't know, Molly Rubin. This is Billy of Billy and Tommy. And the... Billy Kaplan specifically, though, is... This is Wiccan. Yeah. And...

Also, there's a very long and complex, and we don't have time to get into it all today, comics canon about, like, so when Billy says here, if this is in fact Billy, which it is, originally, I assume, originally, like, Billy Kaplan is, in fact, born and raised, like, and lives a life with the Kaplans. So this question of how Wanda's kids and their essence, like, returns, it does mix, right?

Mephisto and Pandemonium. So, uh, Mephisto things that like are going to excite people. This is, it's definitely Billy Kaplan versus, uh, Maximoff or whatever, uh, vision's last name is, um, is it's what everyone has been expecting that Joe Locke is playing in the show. So this isn't like,

anything outside the box but i think you know the question of how of the how uh is interesting and what i love is that they've turned the mystery uh into something plot important they're not just being like dumb and coy and concealing something we've all figured out immediately it's like it's part of a spell that we presume maybe a protection spell that wanda has put on the essence that uh you know or children or either intentionally or just you know that kind of

Harry Potter mother's love kind of way, you know, who knows? But yeah, could it be anyone other than Wanda hiding him from Agatha? I say no, but, you know, I'm curious what you think. I mean, I guess it could be, there could be some like, I mean, again, it could be, there could be some Mephisto tie. There could be some sort of like Dr. Strange, like,

like mystic art connection perhaps, but I, I agree with you. I think what's most likely is that Wanda's magic is responsible for this in some way. Um, and I think like the fact that they're standing, say for example, in front of something like the foundation of Wanda and visions house and like, yeah, graffiti, it doesn't seem to like be pinging at all for Billy is, um,

Yeah, because Billy Kaplan lives his life as Billy Kaplan before he realizes sort of who he is. So is this a Billy that has just maybe when Wanda died woken up himself to his own identity? Or is he yet to wake up? And we will see that process over the course of the show. So biographical info that made it through the spell I thought was interesting, which is like,

when they were talking about Alice's mom and he says, she wrote the most famous version of the ballad. My mom went to see her last tour right before she died, RIP. I bid on a limited edition signed LP of the ballad. It costs more than I make in a whole summer at the Hokey Pokey Bowl. So two things I believe are true of Billy Kaplan is that Billy Kaplan, Mrs. Kaplan, not Wanda Maximoff, saw Lorna Wu in concert and Billy Kaplan worked at the Hokey Pokey Bowl. Like, but, you know, is that true?

The same belly questions abound. What I think is interesting is it makes him this like sort of mystery MacGuffin in and of himself. Teen is this like, so my question around that is like teen claim. We saw him chant the Latin. He claims he's the one who broke the spell. Right. And like studying. Yeah.

And, you know, does he have the juice to do that? Maybe in particular because he's Wanda's kid. Like, maybe all of that is true. Or did Rio actually break the spell? Like, we only have his word for it that he's the one. They both showed up at the same time sort of trying to wake her up in one way or another. Interesting. But like,

How much power does he have if he's one of Maximoff's kid? Right. And what does that mean to, you know, an Agatha who is a power leech? Yeah.

or anyone else who might understand that there is an incredibly powerful, secret force user on the witch's road here. Yeah, it feels like a very rich test for Agatha to have to face at the end. Like, she wanted to steal Wanda's power. If she and Teen are on this shared trial and shared road and bonding experience, and if in fact...

he is reminding her of Nikki, her son, and something terrible happened there. And then in order to maybe gain the power that she has been seeking, she has to take it from him and she chooses not to. Maybe that's the test and that's the trial for her. I mean, Wiccan is like an extremely powerful character. Yeah. So, and like, and even just what we saw from with Billy and Tommy, the twins in WandaVision,

You know, Tommy is like zipping around, right? And Billy is having a much harder time coming to terms with his power, right? He's like, these voices in my head are really loud. And so when he's near Agatha, he likes it because he says it's quiet. And so like, it's interesting to think about. I mean, Billy's power is just like...

It's a hard thing for him to come to terms with and wrap his arms around and learn to control and understand. So I'm excited to watch him on that journey. Do you have two questions? Do you think that Tommy is going to be in the show, too? Is he going to find Tommy somewhere along the trial? Well, the question is, is Boyf, if it is in fact Billy Kaplan, is Boyf Hulkland?

I mean, how could Boif be anything other than Hulkling? Like, it feels like it has to be so. And this is all young Avengers fodder, you know, which they have been laying the track for elsewhere. This is what we know about the quote. The road promises that what's missing awaits you at its end. And he says, power is what I'm missing. But like...

Is that true? Or is he actually seeking his mom? Is he seeking Wanda at the end? Or is he seeking Tommy at the end? Like, what is he really after? I don't know that we should believe him when he says power. So that's teen. A.K.A. Who's really real? Agatha's ex. We don't know if she broke the spell instead of Billy. I have, I don't know, complicated thoughts about that.

Aubrey Plaza said fans are going to freak out when they learn who her character is, which is what a delectable thing to say. Also, just want to note that Aubrey Plaza loves lying and fucking with people in interviews. So just want to put that out there as like, I have done interviews with her where she is just like, I did a Legion interview with her with Dan Stevens and she just told me all these lies. And then Dan Stevens was like, none of that happened. Don't print any of that. And I was like, okay.

Because she was bored and trying to have fun. And I was just like, I'm just trying to do my job. But that's okay. Okay. So who do you think Rio might be? So there are a lot. This one is certainly spark. I would say that if we try to sum up what's happening on the internet, and there are certainly a lot of theories across the board, I would say like teen is Billy Kaplan is like, there aren't a lot of competing contenders matching that level of certainty. Yeah. There are a number of...

There are a number of theories for who Rio the Green Witch could be, but I think the leading contenders are Morgan Le Fay and Blackheart. And the Blackheart one is the one I'm really interested in after these episodes, which focused so literally on the idea of her Blackheart, because who is Blackheart, Jo? Say it with me! The son of Mephisto. The son of Mephisto. Daughter of Mephisto. Daughter of Mephisto.

Oh my God. So could that fulfill the prompt of fans? Because fans are not going to freak out if they hear Blackheart. They're going to be like, who? I mean, I guess by fans, she means like hardcore comics fans. But if you say daughter of Mephisto, I think people will freak out. Mephisto's my dad would, yeah, send people into a tizzy. Uh...

Morgan Le Fay, I think would be really fun. Like name recognition kind of character for her to be. Um, I just need to tell you that ever since she was announced as a Rio Vidal, I have been trying and it's been months. I've been trying to anagram that name, uh, to be something else. Um, and, uh, no luck at all. Um, but also important. She speaks a little Spanish, uh,

uh inside episode one and so important to note you know that like rio means river in spanish so then i started thinking about river song because of course like river song and uh melody pond was this big like name game in doctor who so i don't know i spun myself out i've tuckered myself out for months trying to figure this out so welcome to the party pals who's rio i don't know um what do you want to say about nikki scratch

I think we covered this. I think we covered this, yeah, at this point. What else do you want to hit in Theory Corner? Alice's mom? Alice's mom. Okay, so I've got my eye on Alice because she's sort of the most unassuming of all of them and that's why I have my eye on her. So, like, there's the line, rumor has it, Lorna Wu was lost to the Witch's Road. So this tantalizing possibility that she's...

that she's on, that they're going to find her on the road. Like that part of one of their trials is going to involve finding Lorna Wu on the road. And I don't know if you know this, but she's, she sings a killer version of the ballad. So that's, that's an exciting promise. Or I don't know, did Agatha or Rio kill her on the witch's road? Like, you know, I know that Agatha was like, don't you want to find out what happened to mommy? But like,

And maybe if I'm the one who killed her, I wouldn't say that. But I don't know. It's interesting. But here's what she says when she shows up and they're like, how did you? And she says, quote, I'm an ex cop. That's going to be the answer to a lot of questions.

paying something for me and again i might be overthinking things but it's just sort of like if she does a bunch of stuff and she just goes oh i'm an ex-cop and that's her explanation for a lot of fishy behavior that could maybe cover for us this idea that she is has some other agenda or is a mole of some kind i don't know so i don't know that line who's like really fisto um

Lilia. Oh, Lilia. I really like this theory because when we see her have her little freakouts in her kitchen, it's like she's talking to someone else. And so I really like this theory that we're going to see the other side of that conversation in a later episode. Have we hit our limit yet? And last but not least, this is in the theory corner because it's sort of like trailer spoilers. And I feel like if you're in theory corner, you like a trailer spoiler anyway. So when...

When Teen says to Agatha about Salem, one of my favorite, quote, you eras. Yeah. A shout out to the Swifties, right? I'm wondering if we're going to go on a little bit of an eras tour. And by eras tour, I mean, like, which is eras. So, like, we've seen in trailers, uh,

Aubrey Plaza's character in sort of like Salem era witch garb. So we're going to do like a Salem era something on the witch's road. We've seen the characters dressed up as like Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of...

from the Wizard of Oz and the Crone from Snow White. So there's this like 30s Disney Wizard of Oz era kind of thing we might go through. There's like a 70s sort of disco. You see Shira Zamata's character in this sort of like 70s disco thing. So I was wondering if you're doing like Suspiria 1970s. And as you noted, a lot of this comics canon comes from the 70s. So it's like a really... Is that...

Where we're going to see Lorna Wu. Is she in some sort of all-trapped-in-an-alternative disco singing a version of the ballad forever and ever and ever? I don't know. Excited to find out. We get 80s sort of summer camp, Nightmare on Elm Street, overcast,

uh horror there's like uh nods to like the exorcist and stuff like that and then there's like 1990s like the craft sort of stuff so like similar to wandavision going on the tour of decades through television are we doing a witch's eras tour um on the on the road via trial should we make bracelets yeah

Yes, absolutely. Shout out, by the way, to all the bad babies who have brought us bracelets, both at like book events or live shows or whatever. You guys really made us feel part of a whole Swift summer experience. How wonderful. I know. Witch stuff. Love the bad babies. Witch stuff go. Nearly at an end here. We just have to unlock thy hidden gate. Easter egg time. Loved that. There are...

Easter eggs in these episodes. So as usual, we're just going to narrow down like by each sharing a favorite or two. A lot of, a lot of them have already come up today in the discussion, but Joe, what was your, what was your favorite Easter egg in the two part premiere? Did you have one? I think, yeah,

Probably the library card dates one, where all the dates were birthdays of key marble figures, plus the WandaVision premiere date. So Lizzie Olsen's birthday, Kevin Feige's birthday, Stan Lee's birthday, Jack Kirby's birthday. That's just fun. That's a fun thing for a prop master to put together. Are the fonts clues? But are they? I'm not giving up on this. That's a great one. My favorite is definitely...

It's definitely in the true crime opening credits when we see the scoreboard. The mascot could have been fucking anything, but it was blue devils. They put devils in there because they want us thinking about fucking Mephisto. I really feel like Jack Schaefer... And I guess Duke basketball, but... I really feel like Jack Schaefer is going to have, like, real catharsis actually putting Mephisto in something. Oh, and something we didn't say about Nikki Scratch, but the...

Matt Shackman, who was the series director, and also Jack Schaefer in our interview that she did on my podcast, talked about the original ending that they had planned. There was more for Ralph Boner to do, by the way. And it involved Nikki Scratch turning into this sort of like demonic bunny sort of figure. So are they going to get to do... Is Jack going to get to do her original planned WandaVision ending? Because there is a...

on fire demonic figure in the trailer for WandaVision. So like, is that going to be a sort of Nikki moment for us? Who's to say? That would be fun. Yeah. Just feels like closure to her. Like if she gets to do Mephisto and also the demonic bunny thing she wanted to do. Sounds great. I love that for her. So yeah. Got to turn Andrew Ugo into Wondegore. What can't we do in Agatha all along? Exactly. My goodness.

Okay, everyone's been waiting. We had a couple other blank TM with Joanna Robinson TM's today, but there's only one true blank TM with Joanna Robinson TM, and it is wig watch TM with Joanna Robinson TM. You have been outdoing your usual standard of unrivaled excellence on the rings of power pods.

I mean, when they lay a banquet as rich and meaty as the wigs on Rings of Power, how can you not, you know, sup deeply? No. Let's talk about which wigs. Steve, give us our sound cue here, and then we'll let Joe run free.

Do you wear wigs? So the promise of the Eros Tour and all the looks that might come with it promises a lot of future wigs. And I'm really excited about that. I do want to shout out a couple of things really quickly. Patti LuPone's like spiral perm curls. 10 out of 10. No notes. Love that. Love her. Alice's shag with the like pops of color in it, I think looks incredible. I think it's

But more than anything else, because Katherine Hahn, I mean, like her, Agatha Wiig had to do a lot of work in terms of covering her bits and pieces, right? But before that, when she was in Mare mode, Katherine Hahn, I have seen her, we all have seen her in the wild. She has incredible hair. Thick, beautiful, lustrous hair. This is just like one of her hallmarks.

For the mare section, she let them, like, I don't, I'm not actually even sure it was her hair because the part was so thin. They just, like, really either really tamped down her hair or whatever, but there's just, like, a lot of skin showing on her part in a way that reminds us, of course, of the, like, terrible brassy highlights in Kate Winslet's hair as mare. So I just, I really, I loved the mare hair. That was my favorite. Absolutely. That's all I have to say about wigs. Yeah.

You got to be your truest and best self today. Thank you for creating this safe space where I just get to be me. Oh, man, Joe. We did it. We made a podcast. We don't mind a lapsed expiration date, but that is a wrap. That is a wrap on today's episode. We would like to thank our coven, Steve Ullman, and our junior Ram Gopal, as always, for production and podcast supervision. Joe Miodenaron,

Also, as always, for social. And today, Stefano Sanchez for video editing and John Richter and T. Cruz for video support. Remember, we will see you next week twice. We will see you on Thursday for The Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 Deep Dive and then on Friday for our Agatha All Along Episode 3 Deep Dive. Until then, just remember, no thank you. We don't take drugs.