REVIEW: Agatha All Along – Season 1, Episode 4, “If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You”

Television Reviews

There’s a point in Marvel’s Disney+ shows where it becomes clear none of the promising elements will amount to anything, and we’re in for another disaster. “If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You” is that point for Agatha All Along. This episode is a boring, cringey, nonsensical wreck that plods along at a snail’s pace while Agatha and her coven have conversations that go nowhere and stumble their way through another yawn of an adventure. The only good thing about it – aside from a tight pair of pants that you’ll know when you see – is that it inches yet another downward-spiraling Marvel series closer to its merciful end.

As they bury Sharon (and we say goodbye to the wonderful Debra Jo Rupp), Agatha and her coven summon another green witch to replace her; no points for guessing who that is. The coven then ventures into another house, this one actually on the Witches’ Road. Once inside, they have to solve another magical mystery, one that is even less interesting than the wine hangout from last week.

I guess I should give Agatha All Along credit for not wimping out and resurrecting Sharon; at least there are consequences and stakes at play in this world. I also appreciate that “If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You” reiterates that Agatha Harkness is not a newly-reformed Glinda; while the rest of the coven tries to show respect for Sharon and seems genuinely sorry that she died, Agatha waves her death away, once more getting her name wrong. Throughout the episode, there are indications that Agatha is selfish and almost predatory, and I’m glad the series is maintaining her character and not forgiving her immediately, as modern Marvel does with its moral monsters (on the odd occasion when it even acknowledges they were wrong). It’s also nice to see the other characters balk at Agatha’s callousness, particularly since Sharon wasn’t even a witch. They’ve got the uneasy feeling they’re being led to their doom by a self-serving manipulator, and that’s more interesting than, say, reforming Loki with a clip show.

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Unfortunately, that’s where the good stuff ends, aside from the aforementioned tight pants. Those belong to Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal, who is, of course, the new green witch the coven summons. And Rio is nothing like she was in the season premiere; she’s weird in “If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You,” acting like a maniac when she used to be mostly normal, going out of her way to freak people out for no apparent reason. And Plaza’s line delivery is strange and stilted, like she’s just rattling off each bit of dialogue with no feeling or tone or attempt to act because she can’t wait to go home (for which I can’t blame her). Kathryn Hahn is pretty bad as well, again over-exaggerating everything she says as though she’s in one of those terrible children’s PSAs where she plays the unrealistic villain. These are two good actresses, but they look bored and unengaged, as if they’re wondering how the hell they got roped into doing this show.

The rest of the actresses are a little better, but they’re saddled with terrible dialogue facilitating conversations that don’t make sense. For example, in the opening scene, Jennifer and Lilia try to figure out what Alice is looking for on the Witches’ Road. They’re stage whispering as if they’re trying not to let Alice hear what they’re saying, but Alice hears them and tells them her mother died on the Witches’ Road. So they ask her another question, and Alice immediately takes it back and says her mother died in a fire after a concert. Why did she lie initially? I have no idea, because she never says, nobody asks her, and there’s no apparent reason for her to make up a fake story. It’s just dumb, like the writers are trying to make Alice mysterious but can’t find a rational way to do it. And the chant to summon a new green witch is so terrible I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The witches each make a sort of request, and they’re all idiotic and jokey (without being funny, of course). Alice asks for her to bring Advil, for example. How are we supposed to buy into the magical elements of Agatha All Along when the show doesn’t take them seriously?

“If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You” centers on Alice, which makes me think each episode will bring one of Agatha’s coven into focus. This time, the witches find themselves in a 1970s time warp, where they’re all decked out like a funky rock band and have to figure out a puzzle having to do with music. This one is about removing a curse Alice has on her that was passed down from her mother’s side of the family. The solution is for them to play her mother’s song, and wouldn’t you know it, it has the same lyrics as the witch chant from the second episode. After playing for a minute or so, Alice’s curse manifests as a winged demon. Does this lead to an exciting scene where Agatha and her coven use their magic powers to fight the monster? Nope, they just keep singing till it dies. This is what I was talking about last week; they’re not even trying to make the witch stuff cool or fun. And it’s hard to care about lifting Alice’s curse because the characters are so bland that they don’t generate much sympathy. It feels more like a series of things to cross off a list before the show can end.

There are some breadcrumbs dropped in “If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You” that are setting up some reveals later on. Agatha tells Teen that the sigil preventing others from hearing his name will only leave him when it’s time for it to end and that the witch who placed it on him won’t remember – which presumably means Agatha did it. He’s also not Agatha’s son, according to Rio, which Agatha seems to have thought. And it’s now clear that Agatha and Rio were romantically involved, and you’d need a blowtorch to cut your way through the sexual tension between these two. This would have been executed better if the show built up to the reveal with hints here and there, but they move that thread along at full speed this week. Rio did something bad to Agatha in the past, for which she’s sorry, but she’s also trying to sabotage Agatha’s relationship with her coven. This happens in a terrible scene where Rio not-so-secretly activates a speaker to get Agatha to admit she’s going to kill the other witches, but Agatha catches on and says the opposite in the most heavy-handed, overacted, obviously fake way she possibly could because apparently, Agatha is a moron. It’s ridiculously inconsistent, devoid of humanity, and as dull as the rest of the show.

Let us know what you thought of “If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You” in the comments!

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