REVIEW: Agatha All Along – Season 1, Episode 8, “Follow Me My Friend/ To Glory at the End”

Television Reviews

If you run out of Ambien, “Follow Me My Friend/To Glory at the End” can serve as a possibly superior substitute. The penultimate episode of Agatha All Along is one long snore, a seemingly interminable forty minutes or so that brings Agatha’s journey to an end… or does it? Probably not, because there’s one more episode (which also premiered tonight, but I haven’t watched it yet; I’m doing this episode by episode), but the walk down the Witches’ Road reaches its conclusion here, and it’s even less interesting than you guessed it would be.

After escaping the castle and the Salem Seven, Agatha confronts Death, who tells her what she really wants. Agatha, Billy, and Jen reach the final test.

Now that she’s officially been revealed as Death, Rio begins “Follow Me My Friend/To Glory at the End” by demonstrating what we can assume is her day-to-day job. She finds Alice, who died a few episodes back, and guides her to the afterlife while Alice contemplates the end of her life. This could have been a good scene; there’s plenty of potential drama in a woman who just made peace with her life’s circumstances – and her mother – suddenly finding out it means nothing because she’s dead. But Alice barely seems to struggle with it or even feel much of anything about it. She just goes off with Death as though she’s a kid being dragged to school. And there isn’t much to Death, either; she makes some snide jokes because that’s all Marvel dialogue is now, and that’s it. Why not have Alice try to get out of passing on, or at least have an emotional reaction to it? Then, they could explore how Death deals with these situations, whether she feels remorse despite not being able to show it or is just so jaded that she feels nothing. Instead, it’s just a dull scene that feels like wasted time.

***SPOILERS***

A lot of “Follow Me My Friend/ To Glory at the End” feels like wasted time, partly because almost every scene drags long past the point where it should have ended. Now that the Disney/Wizard of Oz challenge is over, Agatha and her increasingly small coven are back on the Witches’ Road, but once again, they’ve been separated because reasons. Agatha talks to Death, and Death reveals that she’s been following Agatha’s coven because she wants Billy; he’s living through his second chance at life, which is against the natural order, and he may allow his brother, Tommy, to do the same. She wants to take him before he can do that, but since he’s not actually dead, he has to surrender himself to her. Fine, but that doesn’t really fit with the rest of her actions. Why did she pull this elaborate scheme with Agatha, disguising herself as Rio Vidal and a Green Witch, if she just wanted Billy? And why is Agatha talking like she always knew who Billy was? This feels like a first draft from a writer who’s not even trying to pay attention to her own work. Death also implies that Agatha’s story about selling her son to Mephisto was a lie, and Agatha isn’t the bad person we thought she was (shocker). On the other hand, she does promise to get Billy to give himself up to Death.

Of course, it’s hard to tell what the intention is because the acting is horrible. Kathryn Hahn can’t make Agatha sound like a normal human being for five seconds, so she offers no hints as to Agatha’s true motives or personality. She’s constantly yelling, talking in theatrical tones of voice, waving her arms around like a four-year-old at playtime, and keeping any bit of humanity or honesty out of her scenes. It’s maddening to see a good actress like Hahn perform this way, and I assume she was told to by the producers and director, but it’s excruciating. Aubrey Plaza isn’t much better, and she’s been great in other things, too. Death is never scary or off-putting or even mysterious; she’s just loud and silly, like Agatha. This all gets worse later on, but even at the beginning, it’s impossible to get invested in the characters or their story because everyone is treating it like a joke, as if they’ve been forced into something they know is bad and just don’t care.

Whatever the case, Agatha, Billy, and Jen are quickly reunited because people on this show only get lost until the next scene needs to happen. And when Billy puts on a pair of shoes, they find themselves in the next trial: Agatha’s basement, which looks nothing like Agatha’s basement from the first couple of episodes. It’s an empty indoor garden with grow lights but no dirt or water. How they get out of this is ridiculous, and it takes forever, but first, Jen realizes that Agatha was the one who bound her (I don’t know if they never mentioned this or if I just forgot about it) because Agatha makes stupid faces when she talks about it. As Agatha blames the patriarchy (seriously), Jen performs an unbinding spell and disappears. Sure. Anyway, Agatha helps Billy find Tommy’s soul and put it into a boy who’s about to die, the same way his went into William. There’s another chance to explore an interesting idea when Billy asks if he’s actually killing the little boy to save his brother, but nothing comes of it. He soon disappears, leaving Agatha to get herself out of her greenhouse by crying and using the tear to grow a seed from her locket. This entire sequence is so boring you shouldn’t sit near anything sharp or blunt while watching it, but soon, Agatha is free and back in Westview.

Now, we’re up to the final confrontation in most Marvel movies and shows, or at least what feels like one. Death appears on Agatha’s roof and says Agatha either has to give her Billy or offer herself up, then starts getting weepy and asks why Agatha doesn’t want to be with her. This is what Chris Gore means when he says stuff like Marvel and Star Wars have become girl brands; a Marvel series is wrapping up by having two lesbians cry about how they’re not a couple anymore. Death attacks Agatha, cutting her up with broken glass and whatnot, and Billy returns to fight her with magic energy blasts, which is more in keeping with these battles. But it doesn’t last long; Billy gives Agatha a large amount of his power, restoring her to full strength and her old wardrobe, but agrees to let Death take him to spare Agatha. And here’s another bad scene that screws up an opportunity to show Agatha be human; she initially laughs and lets him do it, indicating that this was her plan all along, but when Billy psychically shames her, she immediately changes her mind and kisses Death, letting her old girlfriend kill her to save Billy. And when it’s over, Billy slowly walks through Westview to his car as the neighbors stare, because Marvel loves to portray these poor people as the bad guys.

Then… oh man, does this show have balls. The final scene of “Follow Me My Friend/ To Glory at the End” sees Billy return home and go to his room, where he looks around and sees various elements of his adventures on the Witches’ Road that make him flash back and realize that this is where they came from. Yep, they’re ripping off The Usual Suspects, and the implication is that this has all been either a dream or a spell or some damn thing that didn’t actually happen. And a half-assed attempt at a jump scare suggests that Agatha was behind it – or, you know… it was Agatha all along. Clearly, I won’t know what this means until I see the finale (which will be momentarily; I’m not spending Halloween watching this trash), but I think we’re about to see the entire series up to this point invalidated, which would be par for the course for this dopey show. I have to say that I appreciate Billy having a  “Once More With Feeling” poster on his wall (if you don’t know, “Once More With Feeling” is the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show whose worst episode is better than the entirety of Agatha All Along). It’s maybe not the best strategy to remind the audience of better things when your own series sucks, but it made me smile more than anything else that happened.

Let us know what you thought of “Follow Me My Friend/ To Glory at the End” in the comments!

***

Get Your Geeks + Gamers merch here!