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Agatha All Along Regales Us With a Jam Session in “If I Can’t Reach You / Let My Song Teach You”

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<i>Agatha All Along</i> Regales Us With a Jam Session in “If I Can’t Reach You / Let My Song Teach You”

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Agatha All Along Regales Us With a Jam Session in “If I Can’t Reach You / Let My Song Teach You”

*slaps trunk* You can fit so much lesbian drama in this baby...

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Published on October 3, 2024

Image: Marvel Television, Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

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(L-R) Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone) playing in a band, Agatha singing with arms thrown wide in Agatha All Along, "If I Can't Reach You / Let My Song Teach You"

Image: Marvel Television, Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

Someone find the costume designer and give them a medal.

Recap

(L-R) Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Teen (Joe Locke), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), and Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone) all standing side by side looking horrified in Agatha All Along, "If I Can't Reach You / Let My Song Teach You"
Image: Marvel Television, Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

The group has to bury Sharon on the road and find a replacement for their green witch, despite Agatha’s insistence that they can do without. They learn that their assumption that Alice was hoping to find her mother here is false; Alice’s mother died on tour in a hotel fire. She’s walking the Road because her mother believed it would save her. The group decide to do a summoning spell for a green witch, and wind up bringing Rio directly to their location. Everyone is uncertain what to make of her, but glad that her presence seems to have upset Agatha. They come across a new house, one that Alice doesn’t want to enter. The Road doesn’t give them a choice and they come to a ‘70s-style rock star pad, their clothes once again changing accordingly. The home contains some morbid tapestries of ways witches can be killed, as well as some tribal masks. Lilia realizes that Alice’s mother toured with the song to try and open the Road herself; Alice explains that her fans were her coven.

Agatha suggests that she and Rio strike a truce while on the Road, then puts on the recording booth speaker so the group can hear Rio suggest that Agatha kill the coven so she can get the power and Rio gets the bodies. The Teen puts on a record that says “Play Me,” but it plays backwards—the group is cursed and a metronome starts, signaling the start of the trial. Alice feels suddenly lighter, but Lilia falls, smoking and screaming in pain. After Alice draws a circle of protection around her, it stops. The same happens to Jen shortly after and Alice puts a circle around her as well. They both bear terrible scars on their shoulders now. The coven finds out the record is the Witches’ Road ballad that Alice’s mother Lorna used to play, and this is Alice’s trial. She always believed that the problem was her, but is now coming to realize that her difficulties in life are part of a generational family curse that is now after the coven; she has the same scars and so did her mother.

The Teen is thrown through the recording booth window. Agatha realizes that Lorna’s version of the song was a protection spell to keep her daughter safe, and that the song’s popularity has seen Alice through the years. The group has to play the song in order to protect themselves and hopefully break the curse. Alice plays the piano, Teen is on guitar, Rio on the drums, Jen on bass serving as backup vocals with Lilia while Agatha and Alice sing. The house begins to catch fire and the group’s rendition brings forth the curse, making it manifest; Alice destroys it. The Teen, however, had a shard of glass in his belly from being thrown earlier and falls unconscious. The group take him out through the exit and back to the Road.

Rio thinks that the Teen is toast, but Agatha won’t have it. She asks Jen what she needs to heal him, and Jen asks for water and moonlight. Using both she casts a healing spell and saves the Teen’s life. Agatha watches over the Teen as he recovers, while the rest of the group sits by a fire and talks. They learn that Jen was also a midwife in addition to being a potions specialist and root worker. She was bound without magic by a doctor who invited her to an obstetrics conference to share her expertise. Alice admits that she stopped believing in everything her mom taught her after her death, and that she hoped none of this was real so she could stay angry. Lilia points out that knowing it was all for her probably makes Alice sad, but that’s better.

The Teen awakes and asks Agatha what happened to her son. Agatha walks away without answering. She sits down at the fire where the group is comparing battle scars and shows off one she claims to have gotten from the Daughters of Liberty. Rio insists that she also has a scar: She claims to have loved someone, and says that one day she had to do something she didn’t want to do because it was her job. What she did hurt the person she loved, and that person is her scar. Agatha is affected by this story and walks off. Rio follows and they embrace, nearly kissing—but Rio tells Agatha that the Teen isn’t hers. Agatha backs away from Rio and leaves.

Commentary

(L-R) Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) lingering close together in Agatha All Along, "If I Can't Reach You / Let My Song Teach You"
Image: Marvel Television, Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

Let! Them! Kiss!

No, you’re right, string us along. If it’s not queerbaiting, I’m fine being teased. Let these lesbians cook, I need the completed dish.

There’s a lot of comics canon here that the story could be leveraging, and I kinda hope they’re not using too much of it? But they probably are. The comics version of Blackheart is a demon that works for his “dad” Mephisto, after all, and plenty of MCU fans have been champing at the bit for that guy to show up. It would also make sense of why Rio claims that she did something that hurt Agatha because it was her job. If Mephisto ordered her to do something, that’s a pretty solid reason for betraying the love of her life.

Or did she? Because someone put a sigil on that kid. And according to Agatha, they wouldn’t know that they’d done it…

Are we gonna get another version of the song later on in the show, by the way? Is each version going to slap more than the last? I want them to keep it going, but the full folk-rock treatment was glorious.

The show is doing a real sharp job of using each member of the coven as a showcase for different ways and reasons women have been persecuted for witchcraft. Alice’s journey is couched in generational trauma and mental illness; it’s impossible to know if the curse played a part in Lorna’s mental state, but it doesn’t really matter when looking at the cost. It certainly didn’t help her while she worked tirelessly to save her child. The inability to fully articulate their plight to her daughter resulted in Alice blaming herself for difficulties caused by the family curse, believing that she was the problem and that it was her job to save her mother.

Lilia later tells Alice that knowing the truth has made her sad, but “Sad is better than angry,” which I’d argue is not universally true, but accurate in this instance. Anger can be incredibly useful if it helps a person act, but Alice’s anger was clearly stagnant, a way to avoid feeling anything else. Getting the chance to move through to sadness will finally allow her to heal.

For Jen, we get another piece of the puzzle: We learn that she was bound by a doctor who invited her to share her midwifery knowledge with other doctors at an obstetrics conference. So we have a very direct version of a known historical trend: Men taking child-birthing medical duties away from women who had more knowledge of women’s bodies and the birthing process. Again, the timeline seems important here, but this is an issue that has cropped up across generations. While Jen is hoping to get her powers back, it’s important that her confidence in her potions abilities are growing again at the same time.

What’s happening with Lilia’s abilities is very interesting. There are points where she appears to be talking to another unseen person, and then moments where she gives warnings to members of the coven. Following those episodes, she has no memory of what she’s said. In effect, Lilia’s abilities resemble both dementia and conditions with hallucinogenic factors, such as schizophrenia. Combine this with the ability to see into the future, and you’ve got a perfect recipe for public fear and ridicule. It’s likely that some women were persecuted as witches simply for displaying cognitive decline that frightened their neighbors, and Lilia’s powers play right into that.

Lilia is also the member of the coven who is most concerned with how witches are perceived and reacts visibly to the images of witches being murdered in the home. So we’re also looking at a witch who has likely lived through trials and rounds of persecution, or something similar. I’m guessing we’ll find out in the next trial…

And in the meantime, we’ve got Agatha, still learning to be part of the group while her former probably-lover causes chaos and hurts her feelings. It doesn’t get much more fun than this. If you like gay drama and theatrics and familial strife and aesthetic excellence. This episode truly had it all.

Tarot Readings and Witchy Thoughts

(L-R) Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) in '70s finery, looking around a new house in Agatha All Along, "If I Can't Reach You / Let My Song Teach You"
Image: Marvel Television, Photo by Chuck Zlotnick
  • There are some great trippy asides to go with the vibe of this episode too, including Lilia’s insistence that they “Ask Alice” when it comes to correct ballad lyrics.
  • Both Jen and Alice aren’t certain if they’re scared of Rio or want her phone number because this show understands that most witches are queer, a-thank you.
  • Doing the “play the record backwards” thing to put a curse on everyone was inspired, loved it. If you didn’t experience much record-playing when you grew up, playing records backwards was a common activity while high, and also a place where some fans would insist you could hear secret messages in the music… (Look up “Paul is dead.” No, don’t actually do that. But do it.)
  • Lilia mentioning an encounter with a vampire is great way to let audiences know that yes, there are vampires in the MCU. For whenever they finally get Blade off the ground. We’ve been waiting an age, y’all.
  • Agatha’s comment that her scar came from the Daughters of Liberty is a twofold reference: There’s a historical Daughters of Liberty group that formed during the American Revolutionary War against England. But the Daughters of Liberty is also a group within the Marvel comics canon, a generalized party working toward freedom to protect humanity. The comics called Peggy and Sharon Carter members, as well as historical figures like Harriet Tubman. (Is it extremely awkward when Marvel does stuff like that? You bet it is.)

Next week, new trial… icon-paragraph-end

About the Author

Emmet Asher-Perrin

Author

Emmet Asher-Perrin is the News & Entertainment Editor of Reactor. Their words can also be perused in tomes like Queers Dig Time Lords, Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction. They cannot ride a bike or bend their wrists. You can find them on Bluesky and other social media platforms where they are mostly quiet because they'd rather talk to you face-to-face.
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o.m.
2 years ago

So, what did we learn today?

The humans are not alone in fitting blinkenlights to their covert ops communicators. Another few centuries of R&D, and they’ll cut it down to perky chirps. And the shuttles are armed. Is that new?

I’m not sure how I think about the Vulcan approach to planetary sovereignty. How they deal with their dissidents is up to them, it seems, as long as they take their Vulcan advice meekly. And how did the Vulcans ever keep their reputation that they don’t lie?

Was the getting-out-of-the-ropes sequence supposed to be eye candy? If they had spent less time speaking and more time working the knots, they might have gotten out in time … to get killed, maybe.

Avatar
2 years ago

@1: “Hey, Vulcans, do you lie?”

“No.”

“Is that a lie?”

“Since we do not lie, logic dictates that it must not be.”

“Huh… checks out.  Hey everyone, Vulcans never lie!”

ChristopherLBennett
2 years ago

I found this episode rather unfocused. It’s got some cute business with Shran wanting to repay his debt so he can get some sleep — it establishes that he has integrity, but in a way that maintains his irascibility and unfriendlines. But unfortunately, the part that stands out most in my memory is the sophomoric bondage sequence. This show’s producers had a terrible approach to sex appeal, contriving to put the female leads in accidentally revealing or (supposedly) titillating situations, which took away their agency and consent and was thus rather prurient. There’s a lot about TOS we justifiably see as sexist, but at least the female characters there were usually trying to be sexy and seductive, so they had more agency than T’Pol getting Archer’s face mushed against her chest or Hoshi in the season finale losing her top when she drops out of a vent.

It occurs to me I haven’t mentioned how miscast I felt Gary Graham was as Soval, at least initially. I first got to know Graham as the lead of the Alien Nation TV series from 1989-97 (counting the revival movies), and he did a great job there playing a very emotional character, a constantly angry guy who had a sensitive soul and wore his heart on his sleeve. But I felt for most of ENT’s run that he did a poor job dialing back his emotional intensity enough to be convincing as a Vulcan. It wasn’t until season 4 that I felt he finally got a handle on Vulcan acting, and after that he was quite good at it.

Although as the series went on, a lot of other actors would have similar issues, playing Vulcan characters with far too much emotionality — Robert Foxworth as Administrator V’Las in season 4 in particular. But by then, it kind of worked in the stories’ favor, since it was established that the Vulcans had lost touch with Surak’s true teachings.

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Delos
2 years ago

I first saw Gary Graham in the legendary, thoughtful, nuanced, artistic triumph known as… Robot Jox. He was pretty emotional there, too.

ChristopherLBennett
2 years ago

@4/Delos: Oh yeah, Robot Jox. Not a bad film, actually, for what it was. It had a pretty smart script by noted SF novelist Joe Haldeman, though it got somewhat dumbed down in rewrites.

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Delos
2 years ago

Yup, Robot Jox is fun, in sort of that boffo social commentary school of sci-fi flick. Paul Verhoeven must’ve been a fan, I would imagine.

I believe it’s free to watch on Tubi or one of those other streamers right now.

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ED
2 years ago

 I’m not going to lie, that bit with Captain Archer & T’Pol almost managing to wriggle their way out of their restraints struck me as a first-rate bit of physical comedy … right up until they made a boob of the ending (Although seeing those terrorists rush in right after Our Heroes got loose gave me the strong impression that those guards had been watching the entire time, quite possibly taking bets and maybe a bit TOO distracted by their surprise at these two ‘guests’ actually making a go of their escape).

 Also, it’s absolutely delightful to see T’Pol get her due after being absolutely indispensable for so many episodes (Possibly even better than seeing Shran back in town, though it’s a close-run thing either way); it’s also amusing to see that Doctor Phlox’s tendency to pilfer from the plates of others alive & well (I’m beginning to suspect that the Denobulan sense of personal space extends no further than the outer limits of their skin!).

 One interesting question this episode presents us is “What might have become of NX-01 with Captain Gardner in charge?” (While Ambassador Soval’s support for the man suggests somebody perhaps a little too in awe of the Vulcans, I doubt the Good Captain was anything but an exemplary professional – something Captain Archer occasionally struggles to be).

 

 @3. ChristopherLBennett: In all honesty the fact that Vulcans are not actually emotionless (except for those who’ve pursued Logic all the way to Kolinahr) strikes me as adequate justification for some Vulcans being at least a little emotive – especially by comparison with Mr Spock, who (let us remember) has always had more to prove than most when it comes to walking the Way of Surak and was for much of his more life more a ‘Model Vulcan’ than a completely representative one (Very much in the same way Mr Worf was a ‘Model Klingon’).

 To be honest I think the ideal Vulcan performance is controlled, not genuinely passionless (A balance that Ms. Blalock has proven herself to be rather good at striking thus far in the rewatch; in all honesty that’s something I missed on my first encounters with ENTERPRISE, during it’s initial run), although I do agree that sort of feeling is better kept simmering beneath the surface than bubbling up around the edges.

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Bob
2 years ago

“And T’Pol falling boobs-first on Archer was just cringe-inducing.”

So very cringe. Bakula talking to John Stewart about it is also cringe: 
https://www.cc.com/video/09l92h/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-scott-bakula

At the time I didn’t care much for T’Pol, but rewatching the series I can only commend Blalock for doing as well as she did with such limited material. 

 

ChristopherLBennett
2 years ago

@7/ED: Of course Vulcans aren’t emotionless, but my point is that there’s a right and a wrong way for an actor to emote as a Vulcan. The right way is the way Nimoy did it, by internalizing the emotion and expressing it subtly beneath a surface of control and discipline. Tim Russ and Jolene Blalock did it fairly well also. When they wanted to convey irritation, for instance, they did it with a subtle tension to the voice, a slight narrowing of the eyes or lips. Compared to that, Soval’s shows of irritation in seasons 1-2 were practically J. Jonah Jameson tantrums.

Avatar
2 years ago

@5 – “”it’s as if I’d had a child who started out well and then sustained brain damage.”” Joe Haldeman on Robot Jox.

And yet, seven years later and with a whole new production crew, they still had Kirk grabbing Uhura’s breasts and grinning at her during the bar fight.  Instead of her silly pushing him off of her, she should have been the one to deck him and knock him out cold.

It seems that Star Trek never learns.

Watching this makes me wonder how the galaxy wasn’t in a state of perpetual war until Archer and the rest of the humans showed up.  Nobody seems to get along with anyone else without at least the suggestion of force.  It would have been interesting to see what happens when Starfleet screwed up but good.  How would humanity react?  How would the crew?  The Vulcans?  But. our intrepid crew are the ones in the credits so they always have to come out on the right side of things, even though mistakes happen in the real world.  

Let’s see Archer doing what he things is the right thing and pushing an alien race to do something that turns out horribly wrong because he didn’t fully understand the situation or the races invited and how they would react.  Show us something going so badly that it brings in the Prime Directive.

Instead, we get these guys versus those guys versus those other guys with Archer in the middle working it all out 5 minutes before the end of the episode so we have time for the tag.

Yes, this is a follow up to a prior episode but the destruction of the monastery plays a surprisingly small part.  Mostly, it’s played to give Shran a chance to get out of Archer’s debt.  And speaking of Shran, has he been following the Enterprise, just waiting for such a chance?  If not, then space, which should be very, very big is shown as very, very small.

 

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