#aaa meta

[ennn]

Hold the fuck up, this isn’t a real trial.

In retrospect a number of things about the episode, especially the coven's characterisation felt off... and now on rewatch I'm pretty certain this isn't a trial of the Road at all – it's the Salem Seven punishing Agatha.

Clues under the cut with some spoilers from future scenes in trailers / promo clips.

Clue #1 – No screen aspect ratio change

As @wolfcracker points out, for the two previous trials the screen ratio changed once they entered the place (going full screen). We didn't get that for this cabin.

Clue #2 – No phase of the moon decoration at the entrance

We've had these obviously built into the previous trial entrances but there's no sign of one for this cabin.

The coven's so panicked getting chased by the locusts they don't notice it running in. The door is made of wooden planks with tiny gaps in between and you don't see a sign of any moon on the other side either.

Notably, in a trailer and promo shot, you see the moon featured prominently again for an upcoming trial, when Agatha and Billy cross a stone bridge structure and approach an entrance (presumably of the tower).

Clue #3 – Each trial has an element, this cabin doesn't

This was something that seemed odd even before this episode, we saw five weird horror movie-trope settings – assumed to be trials – in posters and promotional materials but there are only four identified elements for the Road.

Sure you could have more moon phases (like we do irl) but the Ballad that is central the show only mentions four elements: fire, water, earth, and air.

Our first two trials had strong ties with an element: if you failed you'd be killed by that element or something associated with it i.e. drowning or burning.

Now from the promos, an upcoming trial with the anti-gravity effect going on in a tower fits well with the air element. And the threat of death here is associated with going into the air (spikes in the ceiling).

Notice from the flying forms that this trial does go full-frame like the first two we certainly had (clue #1).

Another upcoming trial we know of (that looks like a morgue or asylum-like place) can be linked with the earth given that we see rocks and earth falling in a shot. Death by crushing earth.

This cabin had no element associated with it at all. The threat of death was by... Agatha siphoning your magic? Or in the case of Agatha, to be tortured forever by her mom?

Clue #4 – The trial area doesn't necessarily keep out the Salem Seven

From the promo shots of presumably the air trial (see above), we clearly see the Salem Seven in the tower attacking them. Why then did Locust and the rest of the Seven leave them alone in the cabin when they were right behind them?

Other sus elements

OK, these are more ambiguous and could be the result of bad writing but here's the other stuff in this "trial" that just seems off

The coven turns really really quickly on Agatha and viciously. And they literally just rode broomsticks where it's mentioned it's "about selflessness" and "we fly together or not at all". I mean yeah the people might lie but they were enough of a team that the magic for the broomsticks worked.

The trial's instruction was to just "punish Agatha"? That's oddly specific and pointed. Previous trials had the entire coven in danger (e.g. everyone had to drink the poison). Between this and the above point it feels like someone is mad at Agatha for killing lots of witches over the years. Some people like the Salem Seven.

The trials so far have tested the witch's ability in the craft (potion-making, protection) and how they work together. How does punishing or sacrificing Agatha align with the Road's test of "Burn and brew with coven true / And glory shall be thine" -- which we were just reminded of last week.

Jen calling and dismissing Billy as a familiar is... more mean-ness that I'd expect. You could make a case for her disliking Agatha, but the amount of venom in this moment towards the boy for trying is surprising considering she was trying to watch out for him not too long ago. Of course, it could be her frustration and fear in that moment boiling over.

Pretty much everything at the end after Billy snapping and going all dark and vengeful.

Ultimately we don't know what the Salem Seven can do. Sure they shriek like Nazgûl but turning into animals isn't the most threatening thing? So, bad writing and copium or is this show being truly tricksy and reality-bending?

[sentientsky]

Agatha Harkness, The Mother Wound, and Attachment

Agatha as a character is incredibly interesting (and relatable hahahaha who said that) to me, so after combing through screenshots and making (albeit shitty) gifs, I'm going to try to unpack Agatha's psyche. Throughout the entirety of Agatha All Along (I can't speak to Wandavision, as I haven't watched most of it), we see Agatha embracing several unhealthy coping mechanisms: from repression, to self-blame, to lashing out in anger.

Speaking as someone with these coping mechanisms (in varying degrees) and who has done a fuck ton of research, Agatha seems to display a disorganized attachment style.

(source)

In a broader context, attachment theory posits that our earliest experiences shape how we later engage in interpersonal relationships. Children have a need for a close, safe bond with their caregivers, and when that is disrupted or otherwise denied, they can form one of several attachment styles. Of course, there's a significant amount of nuance to this, but the main four are:

secure attachment

anxious-insecure attachment

avoidant-insecure attachment

disorganized-insecure attachment

Predictive factors, when considering the development of a disorganized attachment style, include childhood abuse, instability, and abandonment.

(source)

Now that we've established a foundation, let's take a look at how this manifests in canon.

Agatha was put on trial by her coven and sentenced to death by her own mother. Here, we see her calling for her mother, asking for mercy, etc.

Then, during her own trial on the witches' road in Agatha All Along, we see that same attachment and desire to be seen by her mother reemerge. But is she met with empathy? With kindness and apologies? No, the ghost of her mother once again wishes only to hurt and kill her.

So much of Agatha's coping strategy involves being independent, pushing aside her emotions or otherwise playing them off as a joke:

This is a natural tendency in response to abandonment or rejection, especially from such a young age; no one can hurt you if you play it off as a joke or if you pretend you don't care if people leave you. This avoidance and repression is likewise evidenced in the first trial, when she's confronted with hallucinations about Nicky's death.

That "Nothing." serves a very distinct purpose—namely, to keep her shields in place. To make sure she's never seen as weak or vulnerable.

When she's confronted by her mother, Agatha seems to shrink into herself for a moment. In a soft, scared voice, she asks why her mother still hates her. The depth of her emotion shows that there's a part of her that hasn't healed yet. There's a part of her that is still angry, still confused, still reaching out for her mother (and coming up with her hands empty). It's the quiet breath in, as though she's been punched in the gut. It's the tears brimming in her eyes. And when her new coven (just as before), abandons her, she pushes aside that avoidance and covenless-witch-as-survival mentality aside and begs them to keep her around—that she'll be good. She has always been seen as a threat and a site of evil—and one which is not worth understanding. When she experiences pain, emotional or otherwise, she pushes it aside, and the walls drop down to shield her. She can't afford to be seen as weak. She can't afford to be vulnerable, when anyone could hurt her.

I think it's also important to note that there's also a distinct lack of choice and autonomy shown in this scene; a denial of both physical and mental agency, as well as a lack of control over how she is viewed. This recurring issue—of being denied choice and personhood—is likewise experienced during her time unwillingly forced into the role of Agnes. It's suggested that exercising one's autonomy during development is central to the creation of a secure attachment style (source).

In short, Agatha seems to portray characteristics of an anxious-avoidant (disorganized) attachment style, in which she is reaching out for connection and reassurance, while simultaneously knowing she is unable to trust others and engages in learned patterns of avoidance.

[rootspiral]

I'm curious if you have anything more to say on the fight at the start of ep8 between Agatha and Rio. Like, about anything, the face acting, why this was Rio's last straw, why Agatha was surprised it was Rio's last straw.. Or just how good they looked lol.

Fuck, am I really going through these scenes to screencap them again? I guess I am. Let's pretend it's an extra deep dive.

Agatha has just left Lilia behind dealing with the Salem Seven. She was acting super casual and unbothered with Lilia, but as soon as the door of the iron maiden closed and Jen started screaming, she bolted. And she's running now and she looks terrified, but of what? The Salem Seven killing her? Or Rio catching up with her now that more bodies are dropping? Does she feel particularly guilty about Lilia's death, after seeing her display of incredible power and grace in the trial? All these things together probably, and whatever she's running from, here is her face when she sees Rio ↑

Then she has to close her eyes and steel herself like we've seen her do so many times, she was completely unfiltered a moment ago, terror showing plainly on her face, and now she's trying to regain control, but notice how it doesn't quite work: she's too shaken and her true feelings are still showing. Also heartbreaking and maddeningly stupid that she feels the need to hide and posture in front of Rio who is just begging for the opposite.

It's also interesting that Rio, as angry as she is, takes the time to tell Agatha that the Salem Seven are dead and she can relax and stop running – at least from them. Despite putting on her angry face, despite being determined to confront Agatha this time, she still wants to make things easier for her too. But it's no coincidence that she mentions Alice and Lilia, we saw her reap Alice's soul at the beginning of the episode, and right here? She just reaped Lilia. Like, that literally just happened. And it's obviously affecting her. Add to it the whole issue with Billy and Agatha's general behavior, is it any surprise that Rio is upset?

The finger pointing, the pursed lips and strained smile. "Here you are, breaking rules and breaking my heart again. And here I am, letting you do it like the fucking loser I am." I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really like Aubrey Plaza's more subtle acting choices.

And the more she talks, the more Rio gets subdued. She stops acting menacing and scary and you can see vulnerability coming through. I know how you feel about him. I watch you just as close as you watch everyone else. This walk with another's woman son. This is Rio trying to keep it professional when it couldn't be more personal. She's hurt, she's jealous, she's lonely. Fuck, why can't Agatha acknowledge it?

Meanwhile Agatha is just fidgeting and grimacing and shaking and trying to deflect and run away from the conversation. Rio, even when she sets out to yell at Agatha, ends up trying to reach out and communicate and do the emotional work instead, she still wants this to work so much. Agatha won't let her. She won't move an inch.

You call what you did special treatment? Look at all that venom, dear lord. Here we have Rio practically begging Agatha to see things from her point of view, to at least try to understand. Agatha, in pure Agatha fashion, grabs her pain like a weapon and starts slashing. She's jealous of her pain, she protects it, she feeds it. It's what helped her survive. Carrying around those three swords in her heart is the only way she knows how to function, no matter how agonizing they are.

You know when a parent is trying to reason with a toddler, and they sit down at their little table and say stuff like, "I know that you're angry, but your words are making mommy sad," and the toddler inevitably throws a pen or yells or calls them names? And the parent just wants to slap that little shit, and it takes them a hot second to collect themselves? Yeah.

Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, Agatha is not a toddler and Rio shouldn't have to do this. It's undignified, it's unfair, it's too painful. Rio is supposed to be her partner, not a surrogate parent.

And Rio does collect herself, and she keeps trying. Look at her body language, she's leaning back, tentative, less intrusive. She did the same thing when she was trying to help Agnes, she pushed a little, and when Agnes recoiled she stepped back and regrouped. She's pretty much spoon-feeding Agatha at this point. "Okay, let's talk about the case" becomes "Okay, let's talk about Nicky. I know it's hard but I'm with you. One step at a time. I only need to figure out the best way to save you from yourself and then everything will be fine."

This is what Rio has been doing, watching Agatha and studying her, acting like a therapist, trying to ease her out of her pit of despair as Agatha yells and throws stuff at her. And what I find really poignant is that Rio is literally the physical embodiment of balance, but she's going against her very nature and putting Agatha before everything else, even herself. Rio loves Agatha that much. And it's wrong. It's not sustainable. No wonder Rio lashed out so spectacularly at the end of the episode, she needs to feel big after shrinking and shrinking and shrinking in front of Agatha.

And yes I still love that Rio the Agatha wrangler has managed to calm her enough to sit and talk. Defenses are tentatively lowered, Rio's plan for getting through that thick skull is going splendidly. Or not.

Agatha is not letting Rio have her way, not even for a second. She's going to make it as hard as she can. And like I said in my deep dives, despite all she is still expecting Rio to always come back, no matter how much shit she throws at her.

There is a lot to be said about the way Agatha is addicted to hurting people. It is an addiction, it's her main/only source of endorphins at this point. It makes her feel powerful and in control of the narrative. And it's a vicious circle, she punishes people so when they lash back she can go, "See? See? They hate me, I was right, I was justified!" Rio was only feeding that addiction by coming back over and over again to let herself be pushed around.

Hey, Agatha? You don't want Death to look like someone just kicked her in the stomach. You literally took her breath away, and not in the fun way.

You dumb fuck.

Wow, this is still really fun to do, despite it being maybe the two of them at their lowest.

You know what? If you guys want you can send some other scenes my way, especially from the first episodes because I didn't comb them that thoroughly. And Agatha's scenes in WandaVision too, I want to watch those again. But only one scene per ask, please.

[dustdotorg]

episode 6 of agatha all along confirmed that "agnes" was perceiving reality in a distorted way because of wanda's spell. which means that we have to assume rio was wearing something other than that suit we see her wear in episode 1.

imagine if rio was just sporting some plain t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers or whatever else death would wear undercover in new jersey and agnes' mind turned that into this look:

i really wish we had seen at least for a brief moment what rio truly looked like outside of agatha's spellbound mind in episode 6. billy maximoff you had ONE (1) job.

[radioactive-yuri]

i don't have the patience or energy to write an actual fic about this, but i've been thinking about the coven having secondary fantazy/monster roles. like obviously they're already witches, but what if they were also monsters/cryptids of some sort?

the ones i'm currently thinking about are alice as a werewolf or banshee (banshees warn of the death of a family member, lycanthropy can take the form of a generational curse and werewolves are seen as protectors), jen as a siren or vampire (both connected in some way to luring people in, sirens related to water, vampires often depicted as sophisticated), lilia as a ghost (specifically one stuck in time; unable to move on until something is resolved, often incoherent to others in its interpretations and perceptions of the world), agatha as a chimera of some sort (heavy on themes of being "inherently" evil or monstrous since birth, never truly fitting into just one category of being, a chimera is a hybrid monster shunned by all, especially its creators), billy as a changeling (obvious)

rio's already the grim reaper, so i don't think she needs another one lol.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Contradicting that "final statement" statement 0.4 seconds later but I have to say this:

Even though Agatha is the one who dragged Sharon into the whole mess, the entire coven is responsible for her death. Jen didn't think to give her a second antidote, Billy created the whole road, and the rest were just neglectful of her. It emphasizes that the role of everyone in a coven is to take care of each other and also makes that whole debate about "coven two" or "coven true" moot. It's the same thing. The point was always that those who are in a coven together are supposed to love and look after each other.

A lesson they learned! This coven became a true one as both Alice and Lilia died to protect other members of their coven. Agatha finally found witches who would die protecting her instead of trying to kill her despite her pulling all her usual tricks. And in the end, she herself became a true coven member, dying to protect Billy, who was ready to do the same for her.

It's also gut-wrenching how this goes back to why Agatha started killing witches in the first place. No one would protect her, especially not her own mother. And she herself would have done anything for Nicky but she was never given the option to protect him. It just wasn't possible even when that was all that she wanted. Eventually, she earned a reputation that made no one trust her and want to protect her until she met Billy and the rest of her coven. They all protected her at one point or another, including Rio, who - just like Agatha herself - was never given the option to protect and spare her because she's death and she had to do her job. And Agatha finally made the choice to protect someone when she could, even if it meant self-sacrifice.

[kingofterrors]

Pre-finale thoughts - AAA

This is just a short thing, because genuinely working through all my thoughts would be gigantic, and I don't physically have time. So here's the snippet version, mainly because:

I'm rewatching episode 1 right now, and holy shit, this episode has more guns on the wall than an armoury. Things that are hitting hard:

"What are you doing here?" - "My job." Yes, Rio Vidal is there to do her job. What do we know about her job now by the end of ep 7? Yep.

"It's all about the place. The specific small town, the history of it, the people in it, the secrets buried beneath it." We've had a couple of other key references to secrets buried beneath this town. We've had a threat that Billy will find himself buried beneath it. We've seen images from episode 8 that seem to be in a version of Agatha's basement. Something is going on under this town.

Huge attention drawn to the possibility of Agatha taking Rio's power - "You know that would kill me." Highlighted again in the recap promo. Yeeeeaaaaahhhh. I think this is for sure happening. But if it kills Agatha I'll eat my hat.

But why would Agatha take the risk of taking Death's power? She's pushed right to the edge by something - and I can't wait to see what. Needless to say, we know Agatha, and it'll be a calculated risk. (Insert 'but boy am I bad at math' image.)

I'm sure there's more here, but I'm 10 minutes into the episode. All I'm saying is that this first episode is doing a metric ton of work, and if Jac Schaeffer is the showrunner I'm sure she is, we are going to see some major payoffs.

[ennn]

Things I Liked About the Agatha All Along Finale - Initial Thoughts

Wooooo boy. Hey look I'm a bleeding heart shipper but I'm old and have been in enough fandoms. Let's process shall we?

Alice! Alice echo-ing what so many fans are saying about her lost potential. Rio actually being kind in reminding Alice her death did have purpose. "You're a protection witch, you protected someone."

The development of Billy's extremely complicated relationship with Agatha. Kid's not loyal to Agatha, he's understanding her, or starting to at least. He sees her being a relationship with Death and he's curious about the story there. He cares enough to connect the dots and see Agatha as a full person. And we see that developed as the finale goes.

"That's it? That's all the time that I get?" The show reminds us that death sometimes just happens – "Sometimes boys die" – I wonder if one of these writers is a Sandman fan because I immediately clocked a parallel to Death of the Endless taking a baby's life in her first comic appearance.

Death of the Endless is of course much kinder than Rio is with her (iconic) reply to that eternal question. "You lived what anyone gets... A lifetime."

That whole convo we got in the preview clip. And then them just sitting down and talking more? Albeit with layers of manipulation but y'know that's them.

Agatha telling Rio that she'll hand over Billy if Rio leaves her alone: essentially making Rio once again choose between her duty and her feelings towards Agatha. The deepest cut Agatha could make – which we see echoed with "If you do this I'll hate you forever." They know each other and the best ways to hurt each other.

I laughed waaaay too much at Agatha ragging on Jen's last vegetable name.

Jen's unbinding ritual was powerful and a fantastic moment for the character. She recognised and embraced her power. Agatha's mask slipping a little at the end as well. Amazing. Sasheer killed it.

The whole scene with Agatha working with Billy to bring Tommy back was beautiful and emotional and well put together and showed the side to Agatha that cements her as a great mentor (when she's not being the biggest murderous asshole).

Agatha using what she learnt from her Alice and Jen – and what Lilia told her – to hold her ground with Rio... okay it lasted like 10 seconds but it was a nice callback! Agatha's such a shameless survivor.

Incredible kissing. We knew Hahn and Plaza would deliver and they did. When it comes to kissing women, these two absolutely go for it.

Rio looking absolutely gutted with having to take Nicky away. Plaza really delivered with Rio's pain in these eps. Agatha calling her "my love", cursing and then begging.

Rio being soft about Nicky despite her job. Nicky willingly going with her with no fear, no hesitation – suggesting that they did bond somehow? Nicky knew she was a friendly face and trusted her. It was really a good death, all things considered. He wasn't sick, he wasn't in pain, he wasn't scared he simply fell asleep and just went.

Rio reminding Nicky to kiss his mom goodbye. She cares so much, as much as a personification of death can. It's funny how some people thought Rio was going to be this manipulative big bad but no, Agatha's the more toxic one in this relationship.

Okay like imagine Agatha finally dying and just straight up BOOKING it before Rio pops up. Rio hates ghosts. The number of times Agatha deliberately pissed her off this finale was amazing.

"I'm sure he'll forgive you for... whatever you did." Aw Billy is a good kid. Just like Nicky was. Agatha needs that reminder, that anchor to not be the Worst.

Chemistry aside, Agatha and Billy being mentor-pupil makes a ton of sense because these Maximoffs do the most fucked up shit (unintentionally) with their magic and Agatha's got the knowledge, charisma, cynicism, and the morals of a spinning compass to support him.

Alright when are they announcing the sequel / spin-off? I know there's a rumour of it happening. Rio's got 2 abominations and one endlessly aggravating ghost of an ex to deal with now.