The Fantasy Review’s review and recap of Agatha All Along Episode 4 – If I Can’t Reach You / Let My Song Teach You.
The spoiler-free Agatha All Along episode 4 review is that this show just keeps getting better. The last episode wasn’t the strongest, but there is a lot more focus on characterisation in this one.
Onto the spoilers!
Previous episode: Episode 3 Review & Recap – Through Many Miles / Of Tricks and Trials
Next episode: Episode 5 Review & Recap – Darkest Hour / Wake Thy Power
Spoiler-filled Recap & Review of Agatha All Along Episode 4
Before we get into the recap and review of Agatha All Along Episode 4, I noticed something in the episode 3 recap: Teen asks, “wait, a sigil is a spell?” but very recently he used magic to free Agatha of Wanda’s spell… which implies he’s pretty good at this magic stuff, right?
Anyway, onto episode 4.
RIP Mrs. Hart
Oh, God, please don’t make Teen’s identity that obvious. We already had the disgustingly on-the-nose exposition from Jennifer Kale in episode 3, basically begging the audience to think Teen is Agatha’s son.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind that reveal at all, but it’s not a reveal if you have al;ready told us, is it?
So, episode 4 begins with Agatha saying, “I didn’t think you had it in you,” supposedly to Sharon in reference to dying? Then Teen asks, “You didn’t think who had what in them?” – and Agatha winks at him.
How stupid do you think your audience is that you feel like you have to spell out every possible future reveal? I mentioned in my episode 3 review that Teen seemed suspicious leading up to the death of Sharon/Mrs. Hart. Now the show wants to share, very explicitly, those concerns.
I just want some subtlety in the writing!
Final complaint from this section: why are Alice and Teen fine on the side of the Road, digging the grave in a flowerbed? In episode 1 we saw Sharon almost enter a grave they wouldn’t have had to dig when the flowerbed tried to swallow her whole.
Breakin’ the Rules, Breakin’ the Rules
Now Sharon is dead, the witches (not Agatha, who is more than happy just to move on) worry that their coven is now incomplete – unaware it always was. So, after some pretty weak dialogue (although needed to move the plot forward), they decide to summon a back-up green witch.
Here comes the reason most people are watching this show, and the moment you have all been waiting for!
THE GREEN WITCH (Rio) joins the coven – Agatha is not happy about it – and they make their way down, down, down, the Witches’ Road. I thought Rio’s entrance looked awesome, but was a little reminiscent of the Salem Seven’s movements in episode 1…
Oh, show, please, just for once, let us be confident in our own thoughts. Why does Teen say, “…the dangerous-but-charismatic lady is back”? because no one speaks like that. Did he mean to say, “is she gonna be my new mommy?”
All the other witches fawning over her while being scared of her is funny though. Kale’s “do I hate her, or do I want her phone number?” gave me a good chuckle.
Rock n Roll, Motherf-
Alice recognises the house for the next trial and really wants to back out, but she can’t. So, they all walk in and get another quick outfit change that is going to spark some spicy posts on Twitter, to say the least.
There is a moment here when everyone else has gone to look for a riddle or something and Agatha and Rio have a second alone. Rio seems playful/flirty with Agatha – or she’s trying to be threatening and it is not working – but Agatha just says, “no.”
Agatha looks both sad and angry in this moment, and the light in Rio’s light dies, replaced with perhaps guilt, or confusion? I don’t know, but it was like Agatha just kicked a puppy – Rio’s expression was like the whine the puppy would make.
Alice is looking around and sees a picture of her mum. Lila comes over and it’s revealed Alice’s mum was trying to open the Road with her concerts, with the audience as her coven.
Lila then has one of her “moments” that are usually comical (and this one was, initially), but this time it revealed a possibly tragic end for Alice.
How’s the Quest for Power Going?
Rio tries to connect with Agatha again, this time in the mixing booth, or whatever it is called. Their chemistry is immediately electric and their dialogue is comedic, but it would be nice to see a little depth.
Agatha asks Rio if they can call a truce for a while, at least until she reaches the end of the Road. It turns out, Rio needs bodies for something? We’ll see what that is about at some point.
All this time, Agatha has the microphone on so the other witches can hear Rio talking about killing them and using their bodies, etc. Was this so that Rio would be more distrusted by the others, and not ally themselves against Agatha with her?
The Trial Begins
Teen puts a record on during the chaos and it plays backwards (like we couldn’t hear that – thank you for the dialogue that tells me what my eyes and ears can work out for themselves).
He’s such a suspicious little witch. I wonder if he is not Agatha’s son, but making himself look like he might be so that Agatha lets him tag along? This would make sense, especially with how much the writers want you to think he is her son.
Agatha smashes the record player, Lilia tells them that they’ve all been cursed, and Rio laughs at the metronome that starts ticking. She is going to be the best thing about this show, for sure!
Maybe This Curse Isn’t So Bad?
Right after Teen suggests the curse isn’t so bad, Lilia collapses on the floor and screams “it burns!” and starts smoking and screaming like the Wicked Witch from the West when doused in water.
Alice gets to work drawing a circle around Lilia, breaking the connection to whatever was hurting her, then she does the same for Kale when the same happens to her.
After Kale is sorted, they see a burn mark on her shoulder, and Lilia has one too. The fresh burns replicate an old scar on Alice’s shoulder, so she brought the curse onto the Witches’ Road – the curse that haunted her mother and grandmother.
Now, apparently, everyone has Alice’s family curse. It’s a good place to go after episode 3, as during the wine-mom episode we did get more of Alice’s background and characterisation than anyone else.
Wheeeee!
Teen is sent crashing through the glass window of the mixing room (what is that called?) by something invisible in the air and Agatha is the first one in the room. She never looks worried about anyone, but in this instance she looked concerned for him.
So, she definitely thinks he is her son.
I’m not 100% sure it was the curse that attacked him though. That was the explanation he gave, but these trials don’t involve him. He’s just around for the ride. And why send him crashing through the air when the curse burned a mark on the other two witches effected?
I think it was the Road itself that attacked him, or he conjured it up himself to make it look like he was involved.
The Witches’ Road (Lorna’s Version)
The plan they come up with is to have a jam session. They are going to play Lorna’s version of The Witches’ Road, which was slightly different to the one these witches used to enter in episode 2.
Agatha reveals that Lorna’s version is a protection spell, designed to protect her daughter, Alice, from the curse. So long as someone, somewhere, is playing it, it will protect Alice.
“Play it right, play it well, and maybe we won’t die.”
Alice starts the ballad off on the piano, the other witches find an instrument (Rio on the drums is fucking brilliant – you can’t help but be entertained by Aubrey Plaza). Agatha is on vocals and starts being burned by the curse but continues anyway.
Play Like a Witch!
The curse is getting angry at the song, so they up the pace and volume of the ballad.
I just want to acknowledge now how good this music is in Agatha All Along. This scene and the one where they sing to open the door to the Witches’ Road are epic, fun, and the music and vocals are fantastic!
This song is now in my car playlist. I can’t go to the shops without having it play at least once. And seeing all these witches play in a rock band for existential middle-aged women is precisely the kind of thing I wanted out of this show.
But, again, some more depth would be nice. We have jumped from one trial to the next, when we spent a little more time on characterisation during episodes 1 and 2. We need some more of those quieter moments, scenes to expand upon the cast of characters.
Otherwise, why should I care if Kale or Lilia get killed by the curse? One sells edible candles and the other has vision-tourettes. We know nothing else, so why should we care about them?
I’ll See You At The End
Halfway into the episode and it looks like that’s the trial over. Alice kills the physical manifestation of her family’s curse with song (God, I love this show) and the metronome stops, as does all the fire, etc.
Teen, however, was shown to have a shard of glass in his side/stomach during the song. Not sure how he managed to stand through all that, while playing the guitar, but we move on.
The exit is through the piano, but Teen collapses and they carry him out back onto the Road. How did they carry him through the piano?
Agatha, again, looks so worried about him. She snaps at the other witches and you can tell they notice she’s acting differently. She didn’t even know who Sharon was. Teen, however, she thinks is her son.
Sad is Better than Angry
Teen is healed and Agatha watches over him while he sleeps. The other witches hang out by a campfire and bond. Nothing new about anyone’s backstory is really revealed – a little about Kale being bound by a Doctor without magic, or something – but that doesn’t really matter.
We get to see these characters bonding over memories and shared trauma. They emotionally connect with each other and they make jokes – this is when they start feeling like a more cohesive group that we can care about.
Teen wakes up and asks Agatha if she put the sigil on him. She says no, and tells him it can be destroyed (not lifted) when it is no longer needed anymore. Her tone of voice and body language are gentler in this scene than we have seen her before.
Agatha definitely thinks Teen is her son, and she says something I think will be quoted a lot from this show:
“You don’t have to know a person’s name to know who they are.”
It sounds like something that is pretending to be deep, but it actually does have depth. It speaks to not judging people based on appearances, or first impressions, but learning who someone is based on their actions.
Now, obviously, Agatha means this in the sense that she “knows” who Teen is because she thinks she can tell he is her son.I think she’s wrong, and I think it’s a trick/trap.
Then, Teen asks Agatha what happened to her son and her mood changes immediately, with a return to her standard cold tone of voice. He hit a nerve.
I’ve Got a Scar
The witches are sharing war stories and showing off their scars around the campfire as Agatha comes back to join them. After Agatha shows hers, and looks uncomfortable doing this whole bonding thing, but not unhappy, Rio announces she has a scar.
When Agatha says, “no you don’t,” I laughed, because I think they’re implying that Agatha knows Rio’s body very well. Cheeky.
Rio ignores her, and tells a story of how she used to love “someone” and then she had to do something she didn’t want to do. This “something” she had to do hurt the person she loved (this whole time, she is looking over to Agatha in a very not-secret way), and this “someone” is Rio’s scar.
Agatha walks off and Rio follows her. They embrace and it’s sad and tragic and they almost kiss (Agatha initiating) but Rio has a bombshell.
Closing Thoughts for this Agatha All Along Episode 4 Review
In the final moments of the episode, Rio tells Agatha that Teen is not her son. I was not expecting the show to tell us that so soon, but at least now we can move on from the heavy implications that he is from the writing!
