Agatha All Along – S01E08&09, pt 1 – Follow Me My Friend to Glory at the End & Maiden Mother Crone (MCUniverse)

[00:00:26] Green Witch with a capital G. She told us who she was in the very beginning. Green Craft is about the cycle of all living things, growth and decay and constant flow. Makes sense. So Agatha's ex is death. That also makes sense.

[00:00:44] And we're going to make sure these last two episodes of Agatha All Along make sense to you. Hi, I'm Alicia.

[00:00:50] And I'm Jean. We're here to continue this cycle of watching and podcasting with a walk down the road of Episode 8, Follow Me My Friend to Glory at the End, and Episode 9, Maiden Mother Crone.

[00:01:05] We'll be launching right into spoilers, so make sure you finish this season before listening on. And fair warning, we reserve the right to bring up anything else we might find relevant from either the MCU or Marvel comics.

[00:01:16] We also want to hear and discuss your thoughts about the show and everything else. Please send your feedback to mcu at thelorehounds.com. You'll find a link in the show notes, voicemails encouraged as well. We'll share any final thoughts that come in on our season wrap up.

[00:01:34] So, yes, this episode, this morning, you and I talked, you know, we said this double episode, we're breaking down two episodes, and then we got a lot of feedback. People have a lot of feelings about this.

[00:01:46] How wonderful is that?

[00:01:47] Yeah.

[00:01:48] That's so great.

[00:01:49] So, we've decided that rather than make this the longest episode ever, we're going to spin off the feedback into a separate mailbag episode that's, we're recording tomorrow morning, and it'll be coming out shortly after that.

[00:02:02] Yes, yes. And, you know, we were teased with a six-hour episode, but...

[00:02:08] Yeah, we're going to make it three each.

[00:02:10] No, just kidding.

[00:02:16] But then, yeah, and then after that, we're planning a fun wrap-up pod coming your way. We're just working out the logistics because we're going to get more Lorehounds peeps involved.

[00:02:26] That should be lots of fun. As always, those are always a good time.

[00:02:31] So, Jean, last two episodes, what did you think overall?

[00:02:37] Oh, man. They were tough. It was tough viewing.

[00:02:44] Emotional.

[00:02:45] Very emotional. Again.

[00:02:46] Again, yes. Very emotional. I thought, well done. I am very happy with the way things ended, and I'm very happy with the journey that they took to get to the point that they did at the end.

[00:03:03] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:04] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:04] There are some things that I wanted to see that didn't happen, but I am so okay with it because of the way the story played out.

[00:03:14] Yeah.

[00:03:14] And just, it was really, really, and I've said this a lot, but just really good stuff.

[00:03:23] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:24] It was great viewing. The acting in these last two episodes, I felt, was tremendous again. And I don't think they hit a wrong note, quite honestly.

[00:03:38] No. Yeah, no, I agree. Anyone who's worried about me with Man-Thing not showing up, don't worry, I'm okay. We all know where Jen was going, where she was flying off to at the end.

[00:03:49] Wow.

[00:03:50] Midnight Suns is coming with Man-Thing, I know it.

[00:03:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everglades, here we come.

[00:03:57] Or maybe the swamps of New Jersey. I'm cool with that. They can improve it.

[00:04:00] Okay.

[00:04:00] If they're like, no, not Florida. No, but in all seriousness, I was very satisfied with this. It was not the typical Marvel ending, and I think that was for the better.

[00:04:15] We didn't even get a post-credits scene the entire season.

[00:04:19] No, I know, and that was shocking to me. I've heard that they had some, but Marvel said no.

[00:04:30] Yeah, it seems like there's all the pieces moving around this show.

[00:04:38] Yes, yes.

[00:04:39] And yeah, I guess they had to see how things fell in place.

[00:04:44] And I guess with all of the news that's come out over the last two, three months about where Marvel's headed, probably the show showing what the show was going to do might not have jived well with what was announced over the summer.

[00:05:02] Yeah.

[00:05:03] That's my thought.

[00:05:03] And now, because when they were like, oh, we're just going to do like straight white dude stuff again. Sorry, not to be reductive. That's basically the moment we had a comic con.

[00:05:14] I mean, that is what they did, right?

[00:05:15] Yeah.

[00:05:17] So I wonder if they were kind of blindsided with how well this show is done, because it's done well in the numbers. It's been like, you know, buzzing online.

[00:05:27] I think March has been selling well, things like that. So I'm wondering, and I'm hoping that this is, first of all, you know, with all this blade bullshit, we're not going to get into all that.

[00:05:39] But with all the bullshit going on around these doubts about like, oh, what about darker, queer characters of color, blah, blah, blah, you know, hopefully they're like, oh, wait, actually, there is an audience for this.

[00:05:56] And we shouldn't listen to people who are trying to, you know, like, because I'm not saying don't make more Iron Man movies.

[00:06:05] If you want to make more Iron Man movies, make them, I'll watch them. I'm not going to be nearly as excited as I will be about like a potential Wiccan TV show or something like that.

[00:06:15] I mean, that's the thing, right? They were disproven with Black Panther, which, you know, the studio felt would struggle.

[00:06:25] Right. And that was disproven on day one.

[00:06:30] And just, you know, it's, and this show is just yet another, you know, thing that points to what audiences want.

[00:06:42] I am not against the big layers of Marvel coming to screen.

[00:06:50] I'm not against that.

[00:06:52] Make your big movies that make a lot of money.

[00:06:53] I want that.

[00:06:54] I want that spectacle. I want Doom. I want, you know, Galactus. I want all of these things. I want the Fantastic Four. I want the X-Men.

[00:07:05] I just don't want Robert Downey Jr.

[00:07:08] Right.

[00:07:09] Well, that's, that's me.

[00:07:10] Yeah.

[00:07:11] I just don't want them to keep drawing water from the same well.

[00:07:15] Yes, from the same well.

[00:07:16] Mm-hmm.

[00:07:16] I don't want that guy. I don't want the Russos in conjunction with that guy to determine where Marvel goes from here.

[00:07:27] Yeah.

[00:07:27] You know, because they did, they did that and they did it well.

[00:07:31] I'm not here to poo-poo anything.

[00:07:34] I enjoy everything that they've done.

[00:07:37] Yeah.

[00:07:38] And when I was so ready to turn the page that going backwards, it seems, it seems that it's going backwards.

[00:07:46] Yeah.

[00:07:46] Yeah.

[00:07:47] When I'm ready to turn the page to a whole new possibilities with, as far as the stories that we tell and how we tell those stories, and also the actors that we get to see portray these characters.

[00:08:02] Which is of the utmost importance to me.

[00:08:05] Like, I would much rather see fresh, brand new faces than having, you know, the same people portray these characters over and over and over again.

[00:08:17] Which is why I keep screaming, you know, bring back, you know, a certain Wakandan king.

[00:08:24] So I'm just saying.

[00:08:25] T'Chaka, to be clear?

[00:08:27] Not that one.

[00:08:27] But, you know, and it's just, it's frustrating when you get a show like this that obviously people really gravitated towards and people really enjoyed.

[00:08:41] And you're not even sure if the story gets to continue.

[00:08:46] If these characters get to continue.

[00:08:48] And that is a travesty.

[00:08:51] Yeah.

[00:08:52] Yeah.

[00:08:53] Yeah.

[00:08:53] I mean, I think at this point, they probably were going to, just the way they ended the show, it looks like they were planning, obviously, to do something with Billy and Agatha, you know?

[00:09:05] But I'm wondering and I'm hoping that now they're like, oh, wait.

[00:09:09] Yeah, that's right.

[00:09:10] There is an audience for this.

[00:09:11] And they should not, like, cut off their lanes, you know?

[00:09:16] Like, you can still do the mainstream classic MCU superhero movies and also have weird little shows like this.

[00:09:27] Because, well, first of all, Jack Schaefer, the showrunner, is now two for two.

[00:09:32] So give her more Marvel stuff, please, in this corner of the universe.

[00:09:36] But also, this was the cheapest MCU show.

[00:09:41] Beat out Echo is the second cheapest.

[00:09:44] So you have the right creators.

[00:09:45] And we love Echo on this part.

[00:09:46] We love it.

[00:09:47] Yeah.

[00:09:48] Yeah.

[00:09:48] No, we will hear no Echo slander on this pod.

[00:09:51] And go back and listen to our Echo episodes if you want to be convinced of why it's a great show.

[00:09:56] Another female-led, you know, property, right?

[00:10:01] Yeah.

[00:10:02] We love Ms. Marvel.

[00:10:03] Yeah.

[00:10:04] You know, we love the, I love the Marvels, the movie.

[00:10:07] Oh, the Marvels movie was so funny.

[00:10:10] Come on.

[00:10:11] So, you know, how much did the original Captain Marvel movie make?

[00:10:15] Yeah.

[00:10:15] Oh, a lot.

[00:10:16] Like, these are things that we know are bankable.

[00:10:20] So why, why the pushback against them is really, you know, telling.

[00:10:27] Yeah.

[00:10:28] Because it's not about the money.

[00:10:29] Well, I said at the beginning of this, especially after all of the, all of the drama and trauma with the Acolyte.

[00:10:37] Mm-hmm.

[00:10:38] I said this one really needed to do well.

[00:10:41] And it did.

[00:10:41] And it did.

[00:10:42] Thank the gods.

[00:10:43] Yeah.

[00:10:44] Yeah.

[00:10:45] I have another important thing to say, sidebar.

[00:10:49] I, so I have been watching and listening to a lot of Jack Schafer interviews since the finale aired, because of course.

[00:10:58] And so I'm going to sprinkle some of that intel throughout our episode today.

[00:11:02] But one important announcement that I think everyone needs to know is that Jack Schafer said, I think this was on the Ringerverse.

[00:11:08] She said she wanted to get Madison into this show.

[00:11:13] Oh, yes.

[00:11:14] But couldn't find a way to make it work that didn't feel like she was just shoehorning her in.

[00:11:18] I'm like, oh, I knew.

[00:11:20] That would have been chef's kiss.

[00:11:22] Like mine.

[00:11:23] But I also, I get it.

[00:11:24] I get it.

[00:11:24] But that would have been awesome.

[00:11:26] That would have been.

[00:11:27] That would have been.

[00:11:27] Maybe she'll show up in some future property, hopefully.

[00:11:31] It shows at least, yeah.

[00:11:32] She's tuned in.

[00:11:34] She's got her eye on that.

[00:11:35] Give her another property and maybe she'll find a way to bring Madison into the coven.

[00:11:41] Now that she's made a deal with a goat.

[00:11:43] That's right.

[00:11:44] In She-Hulk, for anyone who doesn't know what we're referring to.

[00:11:46] This is a very funny She-Hulk character that we are eager to see again.

[00:11:51] With Wong.

[00:11:52] With her buddy Wong.

[00:11:53] And we are pro-She-Hulk pod.

[00:11:57] Yeah, that's true.

[00:11:59] Yeah.

[00:11:59] Someone was like, oh, you like shows with female leads.

[00:12:03] I was like, you know, I like all shows and some of them have female leads and I like that too.

[00:12:06] Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:08] But yeah, I like to be seen as well.

[00:12:10] Yeah.

[00:12:12] All right.

[00:12:13] Shall we get into the episode breakdowns?

[00:12:15] Yeah, let's do it.

[00:12:17] First episode, episode eight.

[00:12:19] Follow me, my friend, to glory at the end or in ballad terms.

[00:12:23] Follow me, my friend, to glory at the end.

[00:12:33] So a lot of people thought that was going to be the finale title.

[00:12:36] I'm proud of myself.

[00:12:37] I said last week, I think maybe it'll be episode eight title.

[00:12:41] Boom.

[00:12:42] Yeah, you were right.

[00:12:42] If I got episode nine title wrong.

[00:12:44] But you got this one right, so.

[00:12:46] I got this one right, yeah.

[00:12:47] So the writers of this one were Peter Cameron, who he was involved with all of WandaVision,

[00:12:55] Werewolf by Night, Moon Knight, and also other shows like season one of Carnival Row, which

[00:13:00] is important because that's way better than season two.

[00:13:03] And the director of this episode was Ganja Montero.

[00:13:09] She was also the director of episode six and nine.

[00:13:12] And Jack Schaefer said she brought her on for the bigger superhero moments.

[00:13:17] So yeah, we got a key wicked moment in these episodes, a fight, all that stuff.

[00:13:22] Nice.

[00:13:23] Nice.

[00:13:23] All right.

[00:13:24] So round and round we go.

[00:13:26] After guiding Alice to the afterlife, Rio meets Agatha and agrees to leave her alone in

[00:13:32] exchange for Billy, who Rio views as an abomination for gaining a second life.

[00:13:38] Billy and Jen rejoin Agatha at the end of the road, discovering that it is a circle.

[00:13:45] Yeah.

[00:13:45] Yeah.

[00:13:46] So we have to, of course, listen in on that conversation that Rio had with Agatha, I'm

[00:13:51] sorry, with Alice, because that was whoo.

[00:13:54] That's it.

[00:13:55] That's all the, all the time I get.

[00:13:59] Fireed a nickel.

[00:14:01] This can't be the end.

[00:14:02] It has to be the beginning.

[00:14:03] I finally broke the curse.

[00:14:05] I can really do something with my life now.

[00:14:07] You're a protection witch.

[00:14:09] Yeah.

[00:14:10] You died protecting someone.

[00:14:11] I feel like everyone in the audience felt that.

[00:14:16] Like, they were just putting that to words, what we were all thinking.

[00:14:19] Yeah.

[00:14:19] Yeah.

[00:14:20] That was rough, man.

[00:14:21] That was rough.

[00:14:22] You know, everybody wanted Alice to get a second chance.

[00:14:30] Yeah.

[00:14:31] And death is not about second chances in this show.

[00:14:34] No.

[00:14:35] So just really something.

[00:14:38] Except once.

[00:14:41] Except once.

[00:14:43] Yeah.

[00:14:43] I mean, as she said to Agatha later, you know, you got more leeway than anyone else.

[00:14:47] Than anyone.

[00:14:48] Yeah.

[00:14:48] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:49] So.

[00:14:50] But yeah.

[00:14:50] I mean, I guess it is honest.

[00:14:53] It's like that Alice, you know, it's not, oh, it often happens like that.

[00:14:59] That people die at a moment that doesn't feel fair.

[00:15:03] Absolutely.

[00:15:03] Although at least she died fulfilling her purpose as a protection witch, so to speak.

[00:15:09] We can hope she was at least reunited with her mother.

[00:15:12] We don't know.

[00:15:13] I hope we get some more, like, action in the afterlife, you know?

[00:15:17] I mean, you know, we know that all these places exist in the MCU, so, you know, maybe we will see some version of this afterlife.

[00:15:28] Yeah.

[00:15:30] Yeah.

[00:15:30] I mean, hopefully Alice is not going where Mephisto is, but.

[00:15:34] No.

[00:15:35] No.

[00:15:36] And yeah, and Rio says, you ready?

[00:15:39] And she says, no.

[00:15:40] And oh, I felt that.

[00:15:41] I felt that.

[00:15:43] But how do you think this version of Death compares to the Sandman version of Death, who, for anyone who doesn't know, that's, you can watch a show on Netflix based on comics, and Death there is also a personified entity, a woman, actually, coincidentally.

[00:15:59] You know what?

[00:16:00] I don't think they're vastly different, actually.

[00:16:05] Rio was, this is, the two interactions that we get with her doing her job, she is very caring in the way that she does her job.

[00:16:18] And I think Sandman, Death is also very caring in the way she does her job.

[00:16:25] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:26] So I don't find them dissimilar.

[00:16:29] I think Rio is a little bit more snarky, if that's the word.

[00:16:36] Sandman, Death's a little nicer, yeah.

[00:16:38] Yeah, but they go about their business with the utmost care.

[00:16:43] And I think that's, even through her snark, you can tell with her, in the two instances that we've seen her performing her duties, that she's not just cavalier about it.

[00:16:56] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:57] Yeah, so we can call Agatha a villain, you know.

[00:17:01] I find her personally a sympathetic villain.

[00:17:03] I understand mileage may vary on that front.

[00:17:05] But has Rio ever actually done anything wrong based on her role?

[00:17:12] She's not a villain.

[00:17:13] No.

[00:17:14] I don't view her as a villain at all.

[00:17:16] You know, Agatha is the villain in this story.

[00:17:19] Mm-hmm.

[00:17:20] Or the antagonist, at least.

[00:17:22] But yeah, Agatha is very villainous.

[00:17:24] But also, Billy sees the good in her, and so do I.

[00:17:29] I mean, you know, I got to squint.

[00:17:33] I got to squint, but yeah.

[00:17:36] The Dutch say, looking through the fingers.

[00:17:38] Yes, go ahead.

[00:17:39] You know, I won't besmirch anyone who does it, though.

[00:17:41] Mm-hmm.

[00:17:42] Now, it was kind of touching to see how upset Jen was about Lilia at the start of the episode.

[00:17:48] Yes.

[00:17:48] Because, of course, this follows right up after Lilia's self-sacrifice.

[00:17:52] And again, it just shows the connection that, you know, we form with folks, you know?

[00:17:57] When you go through something or you're going through something with someone, it's, you open up yourself to that person.

[00:18:08] It's very powerful.

[00:18:10] Mm-hmm.

[00:18:11] It's very powerful.

[00:18:12] So friendship is something that is, you know, wow, it's just, it means a lot.

[00:18:19] And you can tell that even in this brief moment that we got to know them, Jen was very, very much affected by her getting to know Lilia, which happens all the time.

[00:18:36] Yeah, it was almost like in Lilia finding herself, she, and in Jen witnessing that and, like, being on that journey with her, it helped Jen find herself.

[00:18:45] And obviously, you know, Jen's self.

[00:18:48] And obviously we're going to talk about, you know, her unbinding in this episode.

[00:18:52] Yes, yes.

[00:18:52] But I feel like the stage was set based on her interactions with Lilia.

[00:18:59] And Lilia, even after she died, was kind of a model for her.

[00:19:02] Yeah, just, you know, and it's just nice to see that someone who at the beginning of the show, we were like, oh, look, she's so mean, right?

[00:19:13] Right.

[00:19:14] Right.

[00:19:14] She's making people eat wax and they're burning themselves.

[00:19:19] And even in her interactions with the rest of the coven, she was-

[00:19:23] Yeah, she was snarky.

[00:19:24] Very curt and snarky and just, yeah, not friendly at all.

[00:19:31] And at the end of this, you see a shift, which was, you know, precipitated by her getting to know someone.

[00:19:41] Mm-hmm.

[00:19:42] And that caused the barrier to, you know, break.

[00:19:47] Yeah.

[00:19:47] Yeah.

[00:19:49] Yeah.

[00:19:50] And so we have a lot of, obviously, Agathario is how I'm pronouncing their couple name.

[00:19:57] I don't know if other people are saying Agatha Rio, but that's their couple name.

[00:20:01] I'm not doing either one of those things.

[00:20:04] The webs could kick rocks because I ain't doing it.

[00:20:06] I ain't down with it.

[00:20:07] No.

[00:20:08] This is a big episode for them, though.

[00:20:10] And it starts with this conversation where Rio shows back up and Agatha confronts her.

[00:20:15] And Rio's like, the body's really piled up just like you promised.

[00:20:18] But she says, I figured there was a trick in there.

[00:20:20] And there was.

[00:20:21] You were distracting me from him.

[00:20:24] And she does not have a very good opinion of Billy or his situation, at least.

[00:20:29] She says, he is an abomination.

[00:20:31] He is disrupting the sacred balance.

[00:20:36] Do you see her perspective on that?

[00:20:42] Um, when she said that, I thought two things.

[00:20:47] I thought one in like who he is as part of, you know, Wanda's magic, basically.

[00:20:59] Right.

[00:20:59] And also as part of this second life.

[00:21:05] So when we think about what Wanda did, we have to really see it or what it was.

[00:21:14] This was not simply magic.

[00:21:16] This was really.

[00:21:18] She created life.

[00:21:21] Right.

[00:21:22] For Rio to look at that and say, this is not an earned second chance.

[00:21:31] Like who gets that?

[00:21:33] That means that those kids in the hex, the universe sees them as real.

[00:21:43] So Wanda's grief.

[00:21:44] As abominations, you mean.

[00:21:48] Maybe as abominations, but still real.

[00:21:52] Okay.

[00:21:53] Like real entities, not just simply a magical spell.

[00:21:58] Mm-hmm.

[00:21:59] Right.

[00:21:59] And that leads me to Wanda's grief at the loss of her children.

[00:22:08] Mm-hmm.

[00:22:08] They were a part of her, not simply a spell.

[00:22:14] Yeah.

[00:22:15] She was their real.

[00:22:16] She was their mom.

[00:22:18] They were her kids.

[00:22:20] And this just reinforced that notion to me, which is doing a lot for Wanda's story in my mind.

[00:22:32] Right?

[00:22:32] So yes, I understood what Rio was saying, but I took it in two different ways.

[00:22:40] Okay.

[00:22:41] One, the magic was really real.

[00:22:47] And it could be, he could be an abomination because of the magic.

[00:22:51] Mm-hmm.

[00:22:52] But then on the other hand, if he's real, he shouldn't be alive.

[00:22:57] He's getting another chance at this.

[00:23:00] Right.

[00:23:00] And that is wrong.

[00:23:02] Right.

[00:23:03] So I got it from both these two perspectives that I'm looking at, what she said there.

[00:23:10] I mean, of course, I want everyone to have all the second chance.

[00:23:14] I'm like, let everybody live.

[00:23:15] And then the world's too crowded.

[00:23:19] I mean, you sound like Thanos, right?

[00:23:21] Right.

[00:23:23] Well, Thanos says let half of them live.

[00:23:26] Yeah, half.

[00:23:27] Okay, half.

[00:23:28] So I have days where I feel like that.

[00:23:30] Oh, absolutely.

[00:23:30] Yeah.

[00:23:34] So Agatha's pretending to Rio again, like she doesn't care about Billy, but Rio's like,

[00:23:39] I've been watching you as closely as you watch everyone else.

[00:23:43] And I've been watching Agatha as closely as Rio has been.

[00:23:46] And Agatha has expressed protectiveness toward Billy every single chance that she's gotten.

[00:23:55] So she can't fool me by pretending that, oh, la-di-da, I don't care.

[00:23:59] I'm just protecting him constantly.

[00:24:02] Yeah, I see that now.

[00:24:04] I wasn't totally on board with that throughout the series, but definitely see how she felt about Billy was genuine.

[00:24:18] It wasn't a ruse.

[00:24:20] It was genuine.

[00:24:22] Yeah.

[00:24:23] Yeah.

[00:24:24] Yeah.

[00:24:24] And then Rio almost says at this point that the road doesn't, she's like, the road doesn't, and Agatha interrupts her.

[00:24:31] She was going to say the road doesn't exist, obviously.

[00:24:33] And, you know, Agatha, again, it's a protecting Billy thing.

[00:24:39] And Rio says to her, though, no one in history has had special treatment like you.

[00:24:44] So I guess this means she and Thanos are not a thing in this universe, which I'm actually, like, totally more than fine with.

[00:24:52] But do you have thoughts?

[00:24:54] No, I'm fine with that.

[00:24:55] Yeah.

[00:24:56] I never even gave that a thought throughout this series.

[00:25:01] That was never a thought.

[00:25:02] As soon as death showed up, people online are like, Thanos, Thanos, Thanos.

[00:25:06] I'm like, well, this is MCU.

[00:25:08] This is just like they're mixing everything up, you know?

[00:25:10] Yeah.

[00:25:11] Yeah.

[00:25:11] I didn't take that as a cue to, you know, Thanos at all.

[00:25:15] Yeah.

[00:25:17] Yeah.

[00:25:18] And Agatha says to Rio, you call what you did special treatment.

[00:25:22] You gave me nothing.

[00:25:23] You took.

[00:25:24] And Rio rightfully says, that's usually your move, right?

[00:25:28] But do you think what Agatha said is fair?

[00:25:30] That she said to Rio, you gave me nothing.

[00:25:33] You took?

[00:25:34] After what we know from the next episode?

[00:25:39] I don't think Agatha is being fair to Rio at all.

[00:25:43] Mm-hmm.

[00:25:45] We don't know how they met, how their romance began, how their partnership relationship began.

[00:25:52] But at the point that we know, she knows who Rio is and what Rio does.

[00:25:57] Mm-hmm.

[00:25:58] So I don't see what happened as being a slight.

[00:26:09] This is just, I'm a force of nature.

[00:26:14] I am tasked with this duty throughout the universe.

[00:26:19] Yeah.

[00:26:20] That I have to fulfill.

[00:26:22] That that is my sole reason for existing.

[00:26:26] Right.

[00:26:27] And I gave you what I could.

[00:26:31] Yeah, extra time.

[00:26:32] I couldn't give you everything that you wanted.

[00:26:34] Mm-hmm.

[00:26:35] Maybe I couldn't even give you everything that I wanted.

[00:26:38] Right.

[00:26:38] But I did give you what I could.

[00:26:40] Mm-hmm.

[00:26:41] So I don't fault Rio.

[00:26:44] And I do fault Agatha for putting the blame for her actions on Rio.

[00:26:54] Yeah.

[00:26:56] Yeah.

[00:26:57] Well, Agatha is a real piece of work.

[00:27:00] She has so many layers of masks and protections.

[00:27:05] And also, there is real wickedness in there.

[00:27:07] But also, when she pleads, you know, she pleaded in WandaVision, she pleaded in this show, I can be good.

[00:27:13] I believe that she believes that.

[00:27:16] But the only two people who ever see that in her are Rio and now Billy.

[00:27:21] And so no wonder, other than, you know, her babysitting gig or whatever.

[00:27:27] Oh, yeah.

[00:27:28] Nicholas, obviously.

[00:27:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:27:29] But Nicholas, she's been avoiding for centuries.

[00:27:33] Right, right.

[00:27:35] But, you know, I can see why she feels that attachment to Billy above and beyond, you know, knowing him, babysitting him as a kid or whatever.

[00:27:45] But Rio calls her out also, and she asks her, why do you let them believe those things about you?

[00:27:53] Huh?

[00:27:54] About Nikki?

[00:27:56] Because the truth is too awful.

[00:28:00] Do you think the truth is actually more awful than what they say about, like, Jen saying that she sacrificed him for the Darkhold?

[00:28:08] No, I don't.

[00:28:10] You know what?

[00:28:12] I don't know.

[00:28:13] I don't know if the truth is worse.

[00:28:19] Because what would you do to forestay the death of your child?

[00:28:26] Where would you go?

[00:28:28] What would that bring you to?

[00:28:32] Which is the question that, you know, we're asking of Agatha, right?

[00:28:38] Mm-hmm.

[00:28:39] She did these horrible things in a way to try to forestall something happening to her son.

[00:28:49] If she told the world that's what she did instead of, you know, eating babies and, you know, selling her the soul of her child for the Darkhold, would she be viewed any worse then?

[00:29:04] I don't know.

[00:29:06] I don't know.

[00:29:07] Yeah.

[00:29:08] I mean, I guess there's some sympathy in there that people understand, like, a mother wanting to do anything for their child.

[00:29:14] Right.

[00:29:16] One mystery that I thought we would get answered this season that I actually kind of forgot about and I'm okay with not knowing at the moment is we still don't know when and how Agatha did get the Darkhold.

[00:29:27] Right.

[00:29:29] Right.

[00:29:30] We don't.

[00:29:31] And that's a mystery that I'm hoping we get to figure out in a future series.

[00:29:43] I know.

[00:29:44] We need to spin off immediately.

[00:29:46] I hope you're already recording it or already filming it.

[00:29:51] Oh, it's so annoying because, like, even Vision Quest is supposed to be the third in this trilogy.

[00:29:57] I'm thinking that they might put another witchy one in there after the success of this one.

[00:30:01] They'd be dumb not to.

[00:30:02] But Vision Quest, yeah, we're not going to get that before 2026.

[00:30:08] Actually, we know that for a fact because they've already announced everything in 2025, which we will break down in a podcast at the beginning of the year.

[00:30:15] Stay tuned.

[00:30:19] So Agatha also says to Rhea at this point, she'll get Billy to cooperate.

[00:30:23] Do you think that she ever meant it?

[00:30:24] Because, like, as soon as she gets a chance, she's like, I'll help you, Billy.

[00:30:29] Yeah, I don't think she meant it.

[00:30:32] I don't think she meant it.

[00:30:33] No.

[00:30:34] But I do think she meant this part where she said she wanted it in exchange for, she says to Rhea, you let me go.

[00:30:41] I want you to stop pursuing me.

[00:30:43] I want you to stop making my life hell.

[00:30:45] And when I die, I don't want to see your face.

[00:30:48] Yeah, I think she meant that.

[00:30:50] Definitely.

[00:30:52] I mean, just because she did her job, I guess.

[00:30:55] Yeah.

[00:30:56] No.

[00:30:57] She's blaming.

[00:30:59] I think you're right.

[00:30:59] She's blaming Rio for something that Rio could not have stopped.

[00:31:06] Yeah.

[00:31:07] Yeah.

[00:31:08] And we know Agatha was giving her longing looks through the show.

[00:31:12] So she does still, I don't think she completely doesn't want to see her face.

[00:31:16] She just doesn't want to deal with the feelings seeing her brings up.

[00:31:20] Right.

[00:31:20] Yeah.

[00:31:21] And she also says, I have to say this point, she said she's going to die in a long, long, long, long, long time.

[00:31:26] And then when that was brought up in an interview with Jack Schaefer, the showrunner, she was like, ah, that was maybe not the best example of narrative cohesion.

[00:31:35] Some talk about the different iterations that these scripts go through.

[00:31:41] We also see at this point, another hint that this is not real, real.

[00:31:46] Rio rips the fabric of reality or the road reality, at least, which is literally her putting a knife through a cloth.

[00:31:55] Yeah.

[00:31:56] To get out the road.

[00:31:58] But she's deaf, so she can do that.

[00:32:01] Yeah.

[00:32:02] Yeah.

[00:32:02] She could cut the fabric of space and time.

[00:32:06] Yeah.

[00:32:06] What did you think of the practical effects like that?

[00:32:09] I think they were great.

[00:32:11] Yeah.

[00:32:11] I think they were great.

[00:32:13] I really enjoyed what they did in this show.

[00:32:18] I really do.

[00:32:20] And to know that it was the cheapest.

[00:32:24] Yeah.

[00:32:25] Right?

[00:32:26] And the things that they were able to show, it was just really, you know, calling back to the Salem Seven.

[00:32:35] And just, you know, just things that were really well done, well thought out, well acted, and well costumed.

[00:32:43] Just really, yeah.

[00:32:45] Says a lot.

[00:32:47] Yeah.

[00:32:48] About human ingenuity.

[00:32:50] Mm-hmm.

[00:32:50] We don't have to rely on the computers all the time, right?

[00:32:53] Right.

[00:32:54] Well, I think that's also one of my biggest problems with, like, the TV and film industry is that they often value spectacle, which means, like, throwing money at it over just, like, it comes down to fundamentally hiring creators with a vision and giving them the room to realize that vision.

[00:33:13] Right.

[00:33:14] Right.

[00:33:15] And this is an example of when you get that right, it's, you know, and this and WandaVision, same team, basically, more or less.

[00:33:22] So when you get that right, it's really right.

[00:33:25] Yeah.

[00:33:26] It's the best.

[00:33:28] Yeah, same with Loki, actually.

[00:33:31] And so, yeah, so we have Agatha clearly caring about Billy, and Billy also is defending, meanwhile, Agatha to Jen.

[00:33:40] He sees the good in her.

[00:33:43] But, of course, as he's defending her to Jen, Agatha walks up and only hears, I'm fully aware she could never not be a covenless witch.

[00:33:52] Like, so, of course, you know, the person only hears the worst part of what you said, which is kind of.

[00:34:00] How many times does that happen, right?

[00:34:02] Yeah.

[00:34:03] It's like, even if people hear your entire description of them, most people will only remember the worst thing you said in it.

[00:34:12] That's just how the human brain works for terrible like that.

[00:34:16] But I do love how they use the words covenless witch like a curse in this show, you know, like, ooh, you're alone.

[00:34:23] You're a covenless witch.

[00:34:24] You're, you know, alone all.

[00:34:26] Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:28] And then we have, they acknowledge there's one trial left according to the rules of the road they've established.

[00:34:35] And that means Earth magic with no green witch because, of course, Rio's out of the game.

[00:34:41] She was barely in it, I guess, to begin with.

[00:34:43] And Agatha says to Jen, like, there's an overlap with potions, right?

[00:34:47] Right, Jenny Kale?

[00:34:49] And she's like, Jen's like, uh, some.

[00:34:52] And then Agatha gives this kale slander.

[00:34:55] Please, your last name is a vegetable.

[00:34:58] Worst kind.

[00:34:59] It's like swallowing a doily.

[00:35:04] Are you a kale fan?

[00:35:06] I am a kale fan.

[00:35:09] And that's that.

[00:35:11] No.

[00:35:12] I am, I'm a Jennifer kale fan.

[00:35:15] As far as, as far as a vegetable, like, I'm not anti-kale.

[00:35:19] It just has to be prepared properly.

[00:35:21] Like, it can be tough if you don't properly massage or whatever.

[00:35:25] So it's not something I prepare on my own.

[00:35:30] But.

[00:35:30] I prepare it on my own.

[00:35:31] Okay.

[00:35:32] Yeah.

[00:35:33] How do you prepare it?

[00:35:34] What do you, what would you do it with?

[00:35:36] Oh, it's just lots of olive oil.

[00:35:42] Well, that's the secret to everything.

[00:35:45] That's the secret of life.

[00:35:46] Everybody.

[00:35:49] Yeah.

[00:35:50] I mean, it's something, it's popular here in the Netherlands, like all types of cabbage are.

[00:35:54] But yeah, I just, it's one of those things.

[00:35:57] It's also like eggplant.

[00:35:58] I like eggplant.

[00:35:59] But when I try to make it myself, it comes out rubbery.

[00:36:01] And when somebody else does it properly with lots of olive oil.

[00:36:04] Yeah.

[00:36:04] It's nice in that.

[00:36:05] There you go.

[00:36:07] Hmm.

[00:36:09] All right.

[00:36:10] So on the road, they come back around to their shoes and realize they've been walking in a circle,

[00:36:16] which I find is interesting because this is right after Billy was talking to Jen about cycles.

[00:36:21] So maybe that got in his mind about cycles, circles, you know, comes back around to the beginning.

[00:36:28] Um, the show runner, Jack Schaefer, she said in this interview with the rep, I will also tell you something that brings me joy that I don't think anyone will be able to pick out.

[00:36:39] So when they first get on the road, we have a very lush soundscape that feels very alive.

[00:36:44] And on that last walk on the road, before they find the shoes, we made the soundscape of the road a little more canned and it loops because our idea is that as Billy is going along in this hex,

[00:36:55] his subconscious is getting more frustrated and disenchanted with the road because people are dying.

[00:37:02] And so his sort of hexifying is starting to suffer.

[00:37:05] And so the sound design has a little bit of a falseness to it.

[00:37:10] Wow.

[00:37:11] That's, that's, yeah.

[00:37:13] This is the level they're thinking at.

[00:37:15] Yeah.

[00:37:16] Now when I rewatch it, that's, these are the sorts of things that I so appreciate showrunners and writers.

[00:37:25] And producers and directors, you know, pointing out.

[00:37:28] Mm hmm.

[00:37:29] Yeah.

[00:37:30] Yeah.

[00:37:32] Yeah.

[00:37:33] And, um, it's, it's fun to rewatch this one after, I mean, we had, we had suspicions that Billy was heavily involved in creating the road, but, um, with the confirmation, it's fun to rewatch this.

[00:37:44] And we get like Agatha yelling at Billy.

[00:37:45] And then Billy, she's like, well, how do we get off the road?

[00:37:48] And she's like, if you don't know, then be quiet.

[00:37:51] She's, she still doesn't tell him what's going on, but she knows he's the one doing it.

[00:37:54] And she's like, uh, exasperated with him.

[00:37:56] Right.

[00:37:57] And he's exasperated too, because he sees her shoes and he's like, we took them off out of respect for the road.

[00:38:03] Screw the road.

[00:38:05] And then he puts them back on and then, uh, they wake up somewhere else and we'll be right back to talk about how they deal with this earth trial with no green, which.

[00:38:15] No green, which.

[00:38:17] After a quick break.

[00:38:28] The earth trial.

[00:38:30] Billy puts his shoes back on and he, Agatha and Jen are transported to a version of Agatha's basement with grow lights that slowly go out.

[00:38:40] This is the earth trial.

[00:38:42] They wake up in body bags as if in a morgue in a room that's all solid walls and ceiling with nowhere and nothing to grow.

[00:38:50] Jen learns that Agatha bound her and performs an unbinding spell, regaining her abilities and vanishing, having gotten what she needed from the road.

[00:39:00] Then Agatha helps Billy locate Tommy's soul and Billy places it in a body of a drowning boy.

[00:39:08] Billy also vanishes, leaving a large crack in the floor that exposes dirt.

[00:39:13] Left behind alone to complete the trial, though not agreeing with herself.

[00:39:18] Agatha is quickly running out of time when she finds a dandelion seed in her son's lock of hair that she keeps in her locket.

[00:39:25] She plants it in the newly exposed dirt, managing to grow a flower and complete the trial.

[00:39:33] Yeah, so this is another quote from Jack Schaefer from that interview with The Wrap, and I'll put a link to that interview with The Wrap in the show notes.

[00:39:43] She says, so this trial is very bare bones.

[00:39:46] He's no longer doing hair, makeup, wardrobe, because on some level he recognizes how distasteful that is, given that people are actually dying.

[00:39:55] And so it's a very bare bones trial and they just have to grow something.

[00:39:59] It's the earth trial, so it's very simple.

[00:40:01] They have to grow something in a space with no soil or water or seeds.

[00:40:05] It's Agatha who's able to finally make that click, and so she, ironically, is the one who gets off the road by having played the rules.

[00:40:14] What did you think about this trial compared to the others?

[00:40:17] I know a lot of people said this is not their favorite episode.

[00:40:22] Um, I absolutely love this.

[00:40:26] Yeah.

[00:40:26] Jen unbinding herself was so powerful for me.

[00:40:33] Um, just really, really awesome.

[00:40:37] I spent the series lamenting the fact that Jen was bound by this racist white man.

[00:40:45] Mm-hmm.

[00:40:47] And then it was a-

[00:40:48] That took her power from her.

[00:40:50] Mm-hmm.

[00:40:51] And it turned out to be an uncaring white woman.

[00:40:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:40:55] Who took this black woman's power.

[00:40:58] Yeah.

[00:40:59] Didn't even care.

[00:41:00] Didn't even know who was harmed.

[00:41:02] Mm-hmm.

[00:41:03] And I feel that it's so, um, apropos for this moment in time.

[00:41:08] Yeah.

[00:41:09] That we, we've witnessed and lived.

[00:41:12] And the, the talk and our culture, um, I'm in the States for those who don't know.

[00:41:18] Um, and that is, um, that was really some powerful shit.

[00:41:24] Yeah.

[00:41:26] Yeah.

[00:41:26] I mean, because it is often the case, I feel like in these, in these situations where someone's

[00:41:32] like, oh, but, um, I didn't realize that my actions were harming someone I actually

[00:41:37] know as if that makes it somehow worse or better than, you know, harming a stranger.

[00:41:43] Because she did say in episode two, and I believe that she meant this, she said she always

[00:41:48] left Jen alone because she believed in her work as, you know, a midwife and root worker,

[00:41:52] presumably.

[00:41:52] Exactly.

[00:41:53] But at the same time, she's also, she's like, Agatha just shows over and over in this show.

[00:41:58] She is a callous person, which is hilarious.

[00:42:01] Like for instance, uh, when they wake up in the body bags and Jen's struggling and Billy

[00:42:05] wants to help Jen out of the bag and Agatha's like, don't steal her struggle.

[00:42:09] Right.

[00:42:10] Right.

[00:42:10] Which was great.

[00:42:11] It was so funny, but.

[00:42:12] Which was great.

[00:42:13] But in another, you know, very, just little statements that are so in tune with our,

[00:42:22] with our current world.

[00:42:24] There's an election tomorrow, folks, you know, in the States.

[00:42:28] And these are the sorts of things that, you know, people are talking about, you know, struggle

[00:42:35] and, and who gets to, you know, live unflinchingly.

[00:42:41] And a lot of times who gets to just be in the world without a care of how their actions,

[00:42:50] you know, reverberate throughout and how they harm people that, you know, they don't even

[00:42:57] think of.

[00:42:58] So it's, it was just a really powerful moment to see Jen just, just lay and say, you know

[00:43:10] what?

[00:43:10] You don't have power over me.

[00:43:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:43:13] You don't have power over me, you know?

[00:43:16] Yeah.

[00:43:16] And that was really moving.

[00:43:19] Yeah.

[00:43:19] And one of my favorite scenes in this series.

[00:43:25] Yeah.

[00:43:26] Well, I think that that is, you know, as you're, you're tying it into elections, it does come

[00:43:31] down to who we invest power in, you know, give people power over us.

[00:43:38] And indeed she ends it by saying, I deny your power over me.

[00:43:41] You hold nothing.

[00:43:42] You hold nothing.

[00:43:44] You hold nothing.

[00:43:46] And, you know, and Agatha's face during this is like, Agatha knows she did something wrong

[00:43:51] here and she's not denying it, but her face is, it also hurts her to be told like, I'm

[00:43:57] denying your power.

[00:43:58] You are, you do not have this power over me.

[00:44:01] And that's hard for Agatha to hear because power is like her thing.

[00:44:04] But also I think in that moment, she's being confronted with her actions, right?

[00:44:13] With her, you know, view on life and the world, how she's gone in the world, not caring about

[00:44:23] who was hurt and who was affected by her actions.

[00:44:28] But here she is, you know, on this mission, on this, you know, journey.

[00:44:35] And she has to look at this woman who she's caused so much pain.

[00:44:41] She's directly responsible for the pain of Jen's life.

[00:44:48] Her, no one else.

[00:44:50] And she has to deal with it in that moment.

[00:44:54] And that is what's on her face.

[00:44:57] And that is what Jen is conveying.

[00:44:59] Not just that you hold no power over me, but you did this to me.

[00:45:04] Yeah.

[00:45:05] Yeah.

[00:45:07] That's great stuff.

[00:45:08] It's great stuff.

[00:45:09] And now, yeah, the road gave her what she's missing and she's gone.

[00:45:14] That does make me ask one question though.

[00:45:16] Like, so Alice did not just disappear from the road once she was freed from her curse.

[00:45:22] So what was Alice missing, if not freedom from her curse?

[00:45:27] That's interesting.

[00:45:29] That's a question that Billie has to answer for.

[00:45:34] She said she wanted information about her mom, but she, because her mom told her to walk the road is the only way to save her from the curse.

[00:45:42] I don't know.

[00:45:43] Yeah.

[00:45:43] We need more Alice.

[00:45:45] Okay.

[00:45:46] Jack Schaefer.

[00:45:46] I know you listened to this podcast.

[00:45:50] And Kevin Feige, obviously give her another show, please.

[00:45:54] She should be working on it right now.

[00:45:56] Um, but I do think that like, so in terms of, you know, how the trials operate and Billy's manipulation of them, the way I think of it is.

[00:46:07] I feel like the road, he's like a game developer.

[00:46:10] And so he developed this game called the road, which he didn't necessarily intend to do, but it doesn't mean that he's actively managing every moment of it.

[00:46:19] Like he's set the rules of the game and then they play out, which is why even after he disappears, which we'll get to in a minute, the game's still playing until the players have finished or died.

[00:46:36] Um, we also see, yeah, he doesn't always get what he wants because his books blacked out in this one, but it seems like it's just for this trial because in the next episode, when they go back in Agatha's basement, it's just there on the shelf.

[00:46:48] Yeah.

[00:46:49] In fine order.

[00:46:50] Yeah.

[00:46:50] Yeah.

[00:46:52] Why wasn't Sharon on the shelf with it?

[00:46:55] I mean, don't get me started.

[00:46:59] But so we see Billy gets mad at Agatha and the grow lights start going out faster because he's mad.

[00:47:04] But then Agatha is the one who suggests she's like, Rio, no, I won't.

[00:47:10] Like I'll stop him from doing that thing with, you don't want him to do with, you know, making his brother an abomination as well.

[00:47:17] And then as soon as she's alone with him, she's like, okay, you want to find Tommy?

[00:47:21] Let's do this right now.

[00:47:22] Right.

[00:47:23] Right.

[00:47:25] And Billy's like, I don't know how I did it, found my own body.

[00:47:29] And she says, you never do, time to grow up.

[00:47:32] So this is also her telling her, like, you made this entire road because he doesn't realize it yet.

[00:47:37] She's like, you never realized that you're the one doing this stuff.

[00:47:41] And to answer an earlier question we had, Billy says he doesn't remember his time with Tommy in WandaVision.

[00:47:49] Right.

[00:47:50] Until Agatha makes him dig deeper.

[00:47:52] And then we start getting sound clips from the WandaVision finale.

[00:47:55] And he's remembering at least his last moments.

[00:47:58] Right.

[00:47:59] I still think William's in there underneath.

[00:48:02] I still believe William is gone.

[00:48:05] It's his body.

[00:48:06] His body has memory of, you know, all of the processes that make us who we are, physical processes in our bodies.

[00:48:15] Nope.

[00:48:16] Okay.

[00:48:16] Just like Sharon gone, Billy gone, William gone.

[00:48:20] Maybe they're friends together.

[00:48:22] Maybe.

[00:48:23] Hopefully.

[00:48:23] I would like that.

[00:48:25] Eastview, Westview, stand up.

[00:48:26] Yeah.

[00:48:28] But yeah, so they're looking for a new place for Tommy.

[00:48:31] And Billy says he's afraid he can't find a place.

[00:48:33] And Agatha's like, 120 bodies empty up every minute.

[00:48:37] Find one.

[00:48:38] And then we get this, we get this exchange that it's both, it's what we want, but it's also heartbreaking.

[00:48:45] Underwater.

[00:48:46] There's a boy.

[00:48:47] It's a prank.

[00:48:48] They tricked him.

[00:48:49] He's going to drown.

[00:48:52] It's a bad place.

[00:48:53] Oh, it usually is.

[00:48:55] The people, the family, there's no one to love him.

[00:48:57] He's got no one.

[00:48:59] Agatha.

[00:49:00] Am I killing this voice so my brother can live?

[00:49:08] No, Billy.

[00:49:09] Sometimes boys die.

[00:49:13] Am I killing this boy so my brother can live?

[00:49:16] He's got no one to love him.

[00:49:19] It's a shame he doesn't hear that.

[00:49:21] But the no one to love him thing kind of sets him up like the comics, right?

[00:49:25] The Tommy, I mean.

[00:49:26] Yeah.

[00:49:26] I mean, I'm just, yeah.

[00:49:31] That was rough.

[00:49:34] Yeah.

[00:49:35] That was rough.

[00:49:36] Yeah.

[00:49:36] And as she says, you know, sometimes the boys just, yeah, that was just tough.

[00:49:43] That was tough.

[00:49:44] Yeah.

[00:49:46] Yeah.

[00:49:47] And when Billy and Tommy find each other, which I think, yeah, they're definitely planning to show that for sure.

[00:49:55] Young Avengers, when?

[00:49:57] But when they find each other, they're coming from very different places, you know?

[00:50:03] They're no longer the twins that were in the same situation like they were in WandaVision.

[00:50:09] Now they have had different experiences of life.

[00:50:13] They will have had different experiences.

[00:50:15] Right.

[00:50:16] Because from what Billy is saying, he's sending Tommy to a life that is nothing like the one that he found himself in.

[00:50:27] In a loving, caring household.

[00:50:28] It doesn't seem like where Tommy is going to find himself is going to be one filled with love.

[00:50:35] Yeah.

[00:50:37] Yeah.

[00:50:38] Yeah.

[00:50:38] And warmth.

[00:50:39] They're not quite going to meet again on equal footing this time.

[00:50:42] No.

[00:50:42] No.

[00:50:42] No.

[00:50:43] And that's pretty sad.

[00:50:45] It is pretty sad.

[00:50:47] But all this, of course, makes Agatha think of her own son.

[00:50:50] And so she pulls out the hair and that's when she notices for the first time the dandelion seed stuck in the locket.

[00:50:56] And in the next episode, we do see that Nikki was blowing dandelions at some point before he died.

[00:51:03] So I guess he got one stuck in his hair.

[00:51:07] So now we go to this backyard brawl.

[00:51:11] Agatha escapes into her backyard where Rio attacks her.

[00:51:14] Billy intervenes and gives Agatha some of his power.

[00:51:18] But Rio orders them to choose who remains with her.

[00:51:21] To save Billy, Agatha kisses Rio and dies.

[00:51:25] Rio leaves and Billy returns home.

[00:51:28] Upon entering his room, he realizes that many of the objects in it match aspects of the road.

[00:51:35] And here's Agatha laughing.

[00:51:38] Boo.

[00:51:39] So I love the neighbors.

[00:51:42] They're like, is it happening again?

[00:51:43] Again, no.

[00:51:44] They're looking up at the green sky.

[00:51:47] I think at this point you have to move.

[00:51:50] No, no.

[00:51:51] I'm just saying.

[00:51:51] I'm like, MCU, please always stay in Westview and keep bringing these neighbors back.

[00:51:57] Oh, yeah.

[00:51:57] You got to move.

[00:51:58] You got to move.

[00:51:59] The neighbors are-

[00:52:00] That's my point.

[00:52:00] Come on.

[00:52:00] Their reactions are brilliant.

[00:52:03] You got to say enough is enough at some point.

[00:52:05] It's going to be hard to sell their houses.

[00:52:07] What are the property values going to be like with all these witch fights going on?

[00:52:10] You got to take the L.

[00:52:12] Some of you have to just take the loss.

[00:52:14] It's like poltergeist.

[00:52:15] I'm out.

[00:52:16] I'm out.

[00:52:16] That's it.

[00:52:17] I'm out.

[00:52:17] That's it.

[00:52:18] I'm out.

[00:52:19] Now, I'm going to try Eastview because Westview life is not it.

[00:52:24] Oh, it's reminding me of Fear Street where you have like Shadyside versus Sunnyvale and Eastview is like Sunnyvale too.

[00:52:31] Shadyside is where everything goes bad with witches actually in the movies on Netflix.

[00:52:37] But anyway.

[00:52:39] So, yeah.

[00:52:39] So, Rio gives Agatha death by a thousand cuts.

[00:52:43] Obviously, that doesn't really kill her.

[00:52:44] It just messes up her face.

[00:52:46] But Agatha, she looks at the moon and says fire phase.

[00:52:50] And so that makes her think of Alice and tries her protection spell.

[00:52:55] And it doesn't work.

[00:52:56] But I just think it's really nice that she's like learning something from her fellow witches, you know?

[00:53:01] Yeah.

[00:53:02] Thinking about them in this moment.

[00:53:05] What she learned from Lilia is a little more directly useful.

[00:53:09] Rio yells at her, you love me.

[00:53:10] You are a coward.

[00:53:11] And Agatha remembers Lilia saying, when she calls you a coward, hit the deck.

[00:53:17] And so she does.

[00:53:19] And stuff goes flying over her.

[00:53:21] But then we have this glimpse of death as, you know, yes, death is a cosmic entity.

[00:53:27] But this is also someone with feelings and ego.

[00:53:33] And she's like, why don't you want me?

[00:53:37] I mean, we don't have that backstory.

[00:53:42] We know why.

[00:53:44] No.

[00:53:45] We know why.

[00:53:47] But just for death being so human and that, like, longing to be loved.

[00:53:50] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[00:53:51] We don't have that backstory.

[00:53:53] We don't have her backstory yet.

[00:53:55] Yet.

[00:53:56] Mm-hmm.

[00:53:57] So maybe we'll figure those things out.

[00:53:59] But we already know why she doesn't want to.

[00:54:03] Right.

[00:54:04] Well, yeah, because she did the worst thing that ever happened to Agatha.

[00:54:08] Yeah.

[00:54:08] Right.

[00:54:09] Whether it's her fault or not.

[00:54:11] It still happened.

[00:54:13] Now, two cool things.

[00:54:15] One is that I love that Rio uses plants to fight.

[00:54:18] She's the green witch.

[00:54:19] She's the green witch.

[00:54:20] The original.

[00:54:22] The OG.

[00:54:23] And also, how awesome did Joe Locke look as you like it?

[00:54:27] Nah, that was fly.

[00:54:28] That was fly.

[00:54:28] I can't knock it.

[00:54:30] That was fly.

[00:54:31] The whole, the entry was super dope.

[00:54:34] The outfit was fresh.

[00:54:37] They nailed it.

[00:54:38] Yeah.

[00:54:39] Yeah.

[00:54:39] It really looks like the comic book counterpart, but also just like, ah, just picture perfect.

[00:54:44] A little updated.

[00:54:45] Yeah, yeah.

[00:54:45] Yeah.

[00:54:46] Yeah.

[00:54:47] Yeah.

[00:54:48] And Billy, he decides, you know, he trusts Agatha enough, which is like insane after everything

[00:54:56] he's seen.

[00:54:56] He's like, all right, I'm going to help her.

[00:54:59] And so he gives her some of his power and says, don't take it all.

[00:55:03] And then trust that she'll stop herself.

[00:55:05] And she rewards that trust.

[00:55:07] She actually stops herself from draining him.

[00:55:10] So I guess, I mean, I don't think there's anyone else in the world alive.

[00:55:16] She would have done that for.

[00:55:18] Nope.

[00:55:20] We've seen it.

[00:55:21] Yeah.

[00:55:22] Definitely not for Alice, obviously.

[00:55:23] But I don't know.

[00:55:24] Even if she got a take two with Alice, would she be able to do it?

[00:55:27] I think.

[00:55:28] Would she want to do it?

[00:55:30] That's not able to do it.

[00:55:31] Would she want to do it?

[00:55:32] Because I think she can.

[00:55:33] I think she chooses not to.

[00:55:36] I think it's somewhere in between.

[00:55:37] I still think of that like.

[00:55:39] Why?

[00:55:40] I still think of that, you know, that idea that it's like an addiction, you know, where you might, you want to stop because you know it's hurting yourself and people you love.

[00:55:49] But you just feel powerless because it feels so good, you know.

[00:55:55] Or like I also said, like in vampire tales where the vampire can't stop drinking the person they love.

[00:56:03] I think this is better done than that usually.

[00:56:05] I mean, I've seen Dracula stop.

[00:56:07] Yeah.

[00:56:08] Mm-hmm.

[00:56:09] Yeah.

[00:56:10] I think she chooses to.

[00:56:12] She's lived her life choosing to kill.

[00:56:15] That's where I fall on it.

[00:56:17] She does choose to kill, especially in that montage we'll get to in the next episode.

[00:56:22] But I think that in moments with Alice, the look on her face after Alice died was very whoopsie.

[00:56:32] And she puts on a facade of not caring at all.

[00:56:36] But I don't know.

[00:56:36] I think that she wishes that she were more in control of herself.

[00:56:43] Yeah, I don't buy it.

[00:56:44] Okay.

[00:56:45] I'm not buying it.

[00:56:46] I mean, she's not a black or white character.

[00:56:49] And she's definitely, as far as shades of gray go, she's a very dark shade of gray.

[00:56:54] Well, I don't think her using her powers to drain others is one of those shades of gray.

[00:57:01] Okay.

[00:57:01] Okay.

[00:57:02] Yeah.

[00:57:02] We will agree to disagree on her willingness to use her powers to drain.

[00:57:11] I mean, I think she's willing to.

[00:57:13] And she definitely wanted to in episode two in the basement.

[00:57:16] But I think there are times where she didn't necessarily.

[00:57:20] Because Alice was helping her.

[00:57:21] And I don't think she necessarily consciously wanted to kill her.

[00:57:26] She just was just the first power she had tasted for so long.

[00:57:29] And it felt so good, you know?

[00:57:32] Yeah, you're not swaying me.

[00:57:34] Okay.

[00:57:34] Okay.

[00:57:35] Well, this is not going to sway you either.

[00:57:37] Because, well, so we have this complex moment where she's, Rio says, one of you stays with me.

[00:57:43] The other walks free.

[00:57:44] And Agatha at first is like, I should be the one who stay.

[00:57:47] And then Billy's like, no, actually, it should be me.

[00:57:50] And then Agatha's like, okay, the boy says, take him.

[00:57:55] And then he calls her out.

[00:57:57] And he's like.

[00:57:58] Like, really?

[00:57:59] And then he calls her out.

[00:57:59] He's like, is this how Nikki died?

[00:58:01] And she's like, oh, shit.

[00:58:02] Oh, yeah.

[00:58:02] Take me.

[00:58:03] Take me.

[00:58:06] So, I mean, but they had this exchange before that where he tells her, you're not bad.

[00:58:11] She says to him, you're not bad.

[00:58:13] And he says, neither are you.

[00:58:14] And she says, you're the only one who thinks so.

[00:58:16] So, I think that's also playing like, obviously, if someone is there telling you you're not a bad person,

[00:58:25] psychologically, that cues you up to behave in a better way.

[00:58:31] When people think the worst of you, the response is often to be like, oh, yeah, well, hold my beer.

[00:58:36] Watch this.

[00:58:37] You know?

[00:58:38] Yeah, but I think that's what she's wanted.

[00:58:41] She's wanted.

[00:58:42] She has wanted people to think the worst of her as a way to keep people away, to not let people in.

[00:58:50] Right.

[00:58:51] So, this is of her own doing.

[00:58:56] This is not people putting something onto her that she did not want them to put onto her, is what I'm saying.

[00:59:02] So, she's perfectly aware that she has crafted this image in the world of who she is.

[00:59:10] She has cultivated that image.

[00:59:13] She has gone out of her way to make people feel that this image that she has, which we know now is not entirely true, is truth.

[00:59:26] So, yeah, I just, I feel like what she, yes, does she have some good in her?

[00:59:34] Yes.

[00:59:35] I'm not saying she does not.

[00:59:36] But Agatha is, yeah, for me, she's a villain through and through.

[00:59:45] And, you know, just one good turn with Billy doesn't mean that she wouldn't do something untowards to someone else who is not Billy.

[01:00:01] And I love how Billy asked her, is this how Nicholas died?

[01:00:07] Yeah.

[01:00:07] Because did she offer herself in lieu?

[01:00:14] I don't know.

[01:00:15] Would that have been an option?

[01:00:17] Yeah.

[01:00:17] Would that have been an option?

[01:00:18] Yeah.

[01:00:19] I mean, she obviously thinks, you know, offering these, you know, we'll get to it.

[01:00:23] But, you know, she thinks that what she's doing is staving off the inevitable.

[01:00:30] So, did she ever say to Rio, take me instead?

[01:00:36] Mm-hmm.

[01:00:37] Yeah.

[01:00:38] I don't remember if she did that.

[01:00:40] I mean, not in the show.

[01:00:41] She didn't.

[01:00:41] That's what I'm saying.

[01:00:42] I don't.

[01:00:42] I don't.

[01:00:44] Yeah.

[01:00:44] So, I am glad, personally, that the flashback with Nikki happened after this whole exchange to, like, fill in more context.

[01:00:52] But I've seen other people saying they wish that it had happened before this.

[01:00:56] How do you feel about that?

[01:00:58] No.

[01:00:59] I mean, yeah, I'm okay with the way that they did it.

[01:01:03] Yeah.

[01:01:03] Yeah.

[01:01:04] I don't think I missed.

[01:01:07] I don't think it was a missed opportunity to tell the story or to craft the story or to show the story.

[01:01:11] I think it worked for me.

[01:01:14] Yeah.

[01:01:14] Definitely.

[01:01:15] Yeah.

[01:01:16] For me, I think it worked this way better.

[01:01:17] But I understand others.

[01:01:19] I don't have different ideas.

[01:01:21] But, yeah, we get The Kiss of Death with Rio.

[01:01:24] And so, an interesting thing about this kiss of death.

[01:01:27] So, basically, I also, I have some further clarification based on interviews with Jack Schaefer.

[01:01:33] But what happened is she was draining power from Rio with, you know, draining power from death makes her die.

[01:01:41] And maybe this somehow is how she became a ghost rather than just moving on.

[01:01:46] But what's interesting about her draining powers is that she can only drain powers, as she said, when she's attacked.

[01:01:52] So, that must mean that this kiss was, in a way, some sort of attack.

[01:01:58] Because it was to kill her, I guess.

[01:02:00] I mean, but that's just death, right?

[01:02:04] That's just death.

[01:02:05] Death attacks you.

[01:02:06] You know, you get the touch.

[01:02:06] That's it.

[01:02:08] Mm.

[01:02:08] You know?

[01:02:09] Get a kiss, a tap on the shoulder, a hug.

[01:02:13] But they must have kissed before without, you know, her dying.

[01:02:19] I mean, if they had a relationship before.

[01:02:21] Yeah, I guess.

[01:02:21] Yeah, you're right.

[01:02:22] But she clearly wants her in this scene.

[01:02:27] She is trying to end her.

[01:02:29] Right.

[01:02:30] Right.

[01:02:30] She isn't trying to end her the whole show.

[01:02:32] Yeah.

[01:02:32] Yeah, basically.

[01:02:33] So, no, this is, it totally tracks with her feeling that she's being attacked.

[01:02:37] Yeah.

[01:02:38] That tracks.

[01:02:40] But she does get the prettiest grave that I ever did see.

[01:02:43] Yeah, she does.

[01:02:44] It was a very nice garden.

[01:02:46] It was very beautiful.

[01:02:46] I like the theme of, you know, that life is born of death.

[01:02:50] This is also something that reminds me of, you know, I'm gearing up for Silo.

[01:02:54] The TV show is starting up in, yeah, like-

[01:02:58] Next week?

[01:02:59] Less than two weeks.

[01:03:00] Yeah.

[01:03:00] Less than two weeks from now.

[01:03:02] And one of the themes in the books is about, you know, they're in this enclosed space.

[01:03:08] And basically, when somebody dies, they plant them in the garden and something grows from

[01:03:12] that.

[01:03:12] And this whole, indeed, the Green Witch cycle of, you know, life coming from death.

[01:03:19] Or even to defend Thanos for a second.

[01:03:23] You know, he wanted to kill half of-

[01:03:24] Wait a minute, wait a minute.

[01:03:25] Hold on, hold on, hold on.

[01:03:26] Hold on.

[01:03:27] Time out.

[01:03:28] Time out.

[01:03:29] Time out.

[01:03:31] Now, did you just say even to defend Thanos?

[01:03:34] I just want to have it on record.

[01:03:35] Very clear.

[01:03:36] I told you, I have my days.

[01:03:37] I have my days.

[01:03:38] Yes?

[01:03:38] Okay.

[01:03:38] But he wanted to clear out space in the universe so that life had more room to thrive.

[01:03:44] And, you know, if nobody died, then we would just all choke on being on top of each other.

[01:03:51] If all of the many billions who ever lived were on this planet now, we couldn't do it.

[01:03:57] Death is necessary to move forward.

[01:03:59] It totally makes sense.

[01:04:03] But, yeah.

[01:04:08] Totally, you're right.

[01:04:09] But, yeah, just-

[01:04:10] Done defending Thanos.

[01:04:12] Yeah.

[01:04:13] Yeah.

[01:04:13] I'm defending Thanos and defending death.

[01:04:16] I'm not-

[01:04:16] Mm-hmm.

[01:04:17] Yeah.

[01:04:18] No.

[01:04:19] You know, to lose something, you know, as we see in this show can cause irreparable harm.

[01:04:27] Mm-hmm.

[01:04:28] That takes a long time to heal, if not addressed, you know?

[01:04:34] If you don't get the space to mourn, to grieve, to just let go and accept, then the things that you will do can oftentimes be so detrimental to you and to everyone else around.

[01:04:56] Yeah.

[01:04:56] And we get that with Agatha, cause she hasn't-

[01:05:00] There's no grief.

[01:05:02] There's no moment of-

[01:05:05] She goes right into being the worst version of herself.

[01:05:12] Yeah.

[01:05:14] Yeah, I mean, this is-

[01:05:16] Well, we'll talk about that more in the next episode where we peel back some of her layers, but she does seem to have this-

[01:05:21] She's ruled by fear, by fear of what will happen if she leaves room for bad things to happen.

[01:05:31] But in this episode, we see Billy picks up the brooch from the ground.

[01:05:35] And so this is, like, keeping him connected to Agatha.

[01:05:38] And death sets him free.

[01:05:41] And he has the walk of superhero shame to the car, which is just, like, all the neighbors are coming out, and they're like, there's witchy fighting in the backyard.

[01:05:49] Now here's this kid with, like, in one of those outfits with dirt all over him and cuts.

[01:05:55] And he just, like, puts up his hood and gets in the car and drives home.

[01:06:00] We find out that the entire time of the road, it's only been 24 hours in the real world.

[01:06:06] So his parents are worried, but not yet, like, calling the cops worried.

[01:06:10] You know, just like, where have you been and why do you look like that?

[01:06:13] And then Billy looks around his room and he remembers everything that's happened.

[01:06:18] And he realizes-

[01:06:20] It was me!

[01:06:21] It was me all along.

[01:06:24] I get this.

[01:06:26] Realization montage, montage, realization montage.

[01:06:30] I realized there was a lot of excellent montages in the finale, which, you know, makes sense.

[01:06:35] And then we got Boo!

[01:06:36] Did you, when you heard the boo at the end of this episode, did you realize it was going to be ghost Agatha?

[01:06:41] You know I did not.

[01:06:42] You know who I was thinking of.

[01:06:44] Who were you thinking?

[01:06:45] Oh, really?

[01:06:46] Oh.

[01:06:47] Oh, yes.

[01:06:47] I thought my hope was kept alive.

[01:06:53] But it wasn't.

[01:06:55] Hope is dead.

[01:06:57] I knew it was Catherine Han's voice.

[01:06:59] But so I immediately thought, because you know I love that Scarlet Witch, Witch's Road run where Agatha's a ghost.

[01:07:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:07:07] So I'm immediately, I'm like, oh my god.

[01:07:09] We're ready, we're ready.

[01:07:10] Yeah.

[01:07:10] Ghost Agatha, they're doing the comics.

[01:07:11] We're where it was going, yeah.

[01:07:13] Yeah.

[01:07:13] So, yeah.

[01:07:15] And then we get our flashback reveals in the next episode.

[01:07:19] So let's get into that after a quick break.

[01:07:28] There's a road that's wild and wicked, winding through the woods.

[01:07:33] And this is episode nine, Maiden Mother Crone.

[01:07:38] Or, as the ballad says,

[01:07:40] Maiden Mother Crone.

[01:07:44] And the writers on this episode were Jack Schaefer, the showrunner herself, and Laura Donnie, who also wrote episode two.

[01:07:51] And the director is the same as last episode, Ganja Montero.

[01:07:55] And the episode title is from the end of the second chorus of the Sacred Chant version of the ballad.

[01:08:01] Even though we get at least, no, three more versions of the ballad out of this episode.

[01:08:06] Yeah.

[01:08:06] Wow.

[01:08:07] Shows us how the ballad has changed throughout time.

[01:08:11] Yeah.

[01:08:11] No, I love that.

[01:08:12] I love that.

[01:08:14] I know we got feedback from Mark.

[01:08:16] I haven't read it yet.

[01:08:17] We're going to, we'll read through it tomorrow when we record that.

[01:08:20] Yeah, sure.

[01:08:21] That's fun.

[01:08:22] But I, yeah, I do wonder his thoughts on, you know, this, how this shows how songs evolve over time, over centuries in this case.

[01:08:30] Okay.

[01:08:31] Let's get into it.

[01:08:33] Borrowed Time.

[01:08:34] In 1750, Agatha gives birth to Nicholas, but is warned by death that she will eventually take him.

[01:08:41] Agatha spends the next years raising her son while killing witches for their power, which Nicholas grows to oppose.

[01:08:50] And so when she's giving birth to him, she says, I spoke no spell, made no incantation.

[01:08:58] You, I made from scratch.

[01:09:00] And of course we know his name's Nicholas scratch that comes from the comics.

[01:09:03] And this is providing an MCU explanation or is it?

[01:09:08] Because what does she mean by made from scratch?

[01:09:10] Does that mean like, was there a virgins in the force?

[01:09:12] So is there some sort of father figure, a human Mephisto Rio?

[01:09:20] We don't know.

[01:09:21] I do have to know that Jack Schaefer said in that rap interview, this is something we never extrapolate on.

[01:09:26] And so I leave it to everyone's interpretation, but my notion of death is she can take on any form.

[01:09:31] And this form, this Aubrey Plaza form is tied to Agatha.

[01:09:36] And Agatha is saying, I don't want to see this form anymore because this is not the form that I loved.

[01:09:41] And this is the form that betrayed me.

[01:09:43] That's my interpretation, but I welcome however people internalize the show.

[01:09:47] So that makes me wonder if like, I don't know, if she knew her and other forms as well or.

[01:09:56] Yeah.

[01:09:57] We don't know.

[01:09:59] We do not know.

[01:10:01] But I feel like it can't be a human father or can it?

[01:10:04] No.

[01:10:05] And what do you mean?

[01:10:06] I made you from scratch.

[01:10:08] I mean, I'm leaning on death.

[01:10:10] Yeah.

[01:10:11] You know.

[01:10:12] Mm-hmm.

[01:10:13] Either that or like some deal with Mephisto.

[01:10:16] But I spoke no spell, made no incantation.

[01:10:19] Hmm.

[01:10:20] I don't know.

[01:10:22] This is a question we need answered.

[01:10:24] We need answered in the next series.

[01:10:26] No.

[01:10:28] And this is where, you know, this whole first half of the episode was tear city.

[01:10:33] So here we go.

[01:10:34] Let's relive it.

[01:10:36] It cannot be.

[01:10:38] It must be.

[01:10:39] You do this and I'll hate you forever.

[01:10:42] Please let him live.

[01:10:46] Please.

[01:10:46] Please.

[01:10:47] I can offer only time.

[01:10:50] So you seem to have the interpretation that I know some people have in the feedback that Agatha was trading bodies for more time.

[01:10:59] That's why she was killing witches at this moment?

[01:11:01] Yeah.

[01:11:02] I'm of two minds, right?

[01:11:04] She, one, she was trying to appease Rio by giving her something else.

[01:11:13] And two, I felt like she was trying to possibly gain as much power as she can to actually fight Rio over Nicholas.

[01:11:24] Hmm.

[01:11:25] Oh.

[01:11:26] But then she just is asleep when it happens.

[01:11:29] And I guess that's what, how life goes.

[01:11:31] Yeah.

[01:11:31] Right.

[01:11:33] She doesn't have a chance to fight her.

[01:11:34] Doesn't even have a chance.

[01:11:36] No.

[01:11:38] I mean, it is interesting.

[01:11:40] So if she is doing this deal, trading bodies for, for more time, like she does get started right away.

[01:11:48] Like Nikki's swaddled up against her breast and she's immediately going to kill a coven of witches who say, you are welcome in the circle in Latin.

[01:11:55] Like they are, they are some good witches who would have welcomed her into their circle and maybe even tried to help her.

[01:12:01] Stay for him.

[01:12:03] Yes.

[01:12:03] And maybe they even had like healing powers or who knows?

[01:12:06] She doesn't know.

[01:12:07] Cause she just immediately sucked them dry.

[01:12:10] Immediately.

[01:12:11] Which, you know, I, which was why I don't question what I believe her to be a villain.

[01:12:19] Hmm.

[01:12:21] But yeah, I mean, but if it was to, because, you know, she's buying time with bodies that does make her a bit more sympathetic in that in a way.

[01:12:32] No, I don't know if those, if those bodies had their own family.

[01:12:37] Families.

[01:12:37] No, of course they did.

[01:12:39] Yeah.

[01:12:39] That will miss them and, and wonder why this happened to, to, to them.

[01:12:44] I'm not saying it's the right thing to do.

[01:12:46] I'm just saying that, um, you can understand better why she's doing it.

[01:12:51] If that is the reason.

[01:12:52] No, I don't, I don't, I don't think I understand why she did it, but understanding why she's doing it doesn't give it, you know, some sort of better, betterness.

[01:13:06] Mm-hmm.

[01:13:07] Just because we understand why she did it.

[01:13:10] No.

[01:13:11] You know, you, you're doing something horrible to stave off something horrible.

[01:13:16] Mm-hmm.

[01:13:17] Yeah.

[01:13:17] No, it doesn't make it okay.

[01:13:19] You know, and I, and I question, you know, when I, when I said, would that make others feel differently about her?

[01:13:29] Right.

[01:13:29] If she told the story of why she did what she did, the truth, the truth is just what she says.

[01:13:37] It's just as bad as the stories that are being told about her.

[01:13:41] Mm-hmm.

[01:13:42] It's just as bad.

[01:13:43] She seems to think it's worse, but yeah.

[01:13:45] You know?

[01:13:46] So.

[01:13:47] Yeah.

[01:13:48] And we have to point out that all of this took place after what went down in Salem.

[01:13:53] So we still don't know what her mother and the rest of her mother's coven were trying to kill her for.

[01:14:00] We don't know if she had accidentally drained people before that or what, you know, this whole, we still have a lot of questions, question marks in Agatha's backstory.

[01:14:11] But her mother from birth said.

[01:14:14] Yeah.

[01:14:14] She wanted to kill her.

[01:14:16] Well, I mean, oh, like you're going up with that mom.

[01:14:21] Oh my gosh.

[01:14:22] Yeah.

[01:14:23] Yeah.

[01:14:23] And that could have been the first time she drained another, an entire coven.

[01:14:27] And then she knows after that, like, oh, that's a thing I can do.

[01:14:30] Who knows?

[01:14:31] Maybe it wasn't the first time.

[01:14:33] We don't know yet.

[01:14:34] You know, and we don't know, you know, how did that experience growing up with that sort of vitriol towards you shaped her to be who she is?

[01:14:44] Exactly.

[01:14:45] Exactly.

[01:14:46] You know, is it nature?

[01:14:47] Is it nurture?

[01:14:48] Right.

[01:14:49] Right.

[01:14:49] If she had grown up with Billy's parents, you know, who are telling him, you are loved, and therefore that gives him more space to find love for someone who really needs it like Agatha.

[01:15:04] What if she had grown up with that herself?

[01:15:06] What kind of person would she be?

[01:15:08] Right.

[01:15:08] What if she had grown up with, like, that just the women singing Greensleeves that she killed with, you know, Mickey at her breast?

[01:15:15] What if they had been her mothers?

[01:15:17] Like, that would have already, what if that had been her coven?

[01:15:19] Maybe she would be a completely different person.

[01:15:21] But she did.

[01:15:22] She didn't give them a chance to even become that.

[01:15:26] Mm-hmm.

[01:15:27] Yeah.

[01:15:28] The Origin of the Witch's Road

[01:15:32] Over the next six years that follow, mother and son create a children's song that would eventually become the ballad of the witch's road and take on a life of its own.

[01:15:43] Eventually, Nicholas grows sick, and death takes him, devastating Agatha.

[01:15:49] With nothing holding her back, she spends centuries murdering witches and stealing their powers by conning them with the promises of the road.

[01:16:01] So, first of all, I have to issue an apology to Agatha.

[01:16:05] In episode four, she said...

[01:16:08] It's like the ballad says, burn and brew with coven two and glory shall be thine.

[01:16:15] The ballad clearly says, with coven true, glory shall be thine.

[01:16:21] Does it?

[01:16:21] It's coven two.

[01:16:23] That doesn't make any sense.

[01:16:24] It does if you're a student of the ballad.

[01:16:26] Her mother recorded the most popular version of the ballad.

[01:16:30] So, maybe we ask Alice.

[01:16:31] Okay.

[01:16:34] Looking back, you're like, that's so obnoxious of the rest of them when Agatha is the one who wrote this song.

[01:16:38] Yes, she's the one who created it.

[01:16:39] She wrote it.

[01:16:40] It's coven two.

[01:16:42] It is a coven two.

[01:16:43] It's her and Nikki.

[01:16:44] It's so heartbreaking.

[01:16:45] Yeah.

[01:16:46] You know?

[01:16:47] This entire, you know, my wonderful better half recused herself from this first half hour.

[01:17:00] It hit too close.

[01:17:01] It hit too close.

[01:17:02] Yeah.

[01:17:03] It hit too close.

[01:17:04] It was tough viewing.

[01:17:06] Mm-hmm.

[01:17:06] It was tough to watch because we knew what was going to happen.

[01:17:11] Right?

[01:17:11] Yeah.

[01:17:12] Yeah.

[01:17:13] And then to see these intimate moments between mother and child, knowing what's destined to happen.

[01:17:20] If we felt that, imagine Agatha, right?

[01:17:26] Yeah.

[01:17:28] Always wondering when.

[01:17:30] When is going to be the time?

[01:17:32] Am I doing enough?

[01:17:36] It's heartbreaking.

[01:17:38] Mm-hmm.

[01:17:39] Yeah.

[01:17:40] Completely and thoroughly heartbreaking.

[01:17:43] Yeah.

[01:17:46] Yeah.

[01:17:47] See, that's why I feel like you have to feel for Agatha a little bit.

[01:17:50] Even though you know she's doing the wrong thing and she is a serial killer, like no ifs,

[01:17:55] ands, or buts.

[01:17:56] She's a serial killer.

[01:17:58] But that doesn't mean she's completely soulless and that she doesn't hurt and she doesn't

[01:18:04] feel guilt and anger at herself and all those things.

[01:18:10] But we get this lovely, another kind of montage of the development of the ballad.

[01:18:17] And so there's a version, you can find a version called Nikki, called like the Ballad of the

[01:18:23] Witch's Road, Nikki's version online.

[01:18:25] And that is actually closest to the true crime version of the song.

[01:18:32] Okay.

[01:18:33] And it makes sense actually that Nikki's ballad is the one that's stuck in Agatha's head

[01:18:39] because we heard that true crime version in the first episode when she's trying to remember,

[01:18:44] you know, and she just has this like squirming around in her head, like trying to remind

[01:18:49] her of who she is in her life.

[01:18:53] So, but the version that you hear that's closest to true crime version is not actually the first

[01:18:58] version.

[01:18:59] The very first version of the ballad is.

[01:19:02] Walk, walk, walk the road.

[01:19:05] I walk the windy road.

[01:19:09] Walk, walk, walk the road.

[01:19:12] I walk the windy road.

[01:19:14] Oh, you walk this road alone, do you?

[01:19:18] Walk, walk, walk the road.

[01:19:21] We walk the windy road.

[01:19:25] Wherever it may be at the end.

[01:19:33] And it's just crazy how much it morphs from that.

[01:19:37] Yeah.

[01:19:37] Yeah.

[01:19:39] Even listening to it just now hits so, so much, you know?

[01:19:45] It's just an innocent children's song there.

[01:19:48] Yeah.

[01:19:49] Yeah.

[01:19:49] Just something that you make up with your kid.

[01:19:52] You know what I mean?

[01:19:52] Like I have all these secret things, you know, that we share amongst the three of us.

[01:20:01] You know, my wife, my son, and myself.

[01:20:04] You know what I mean?

[01:20:04] That other people will be like, what the hell?

[01:20:07] Yeah.

[01:20:08] You know, like, but they're intricacies to us.

[01:20:11] You know what I mean?

[01:20:11] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:20:12] So just having that thing that you start off with your, you know, loved one, that is just so cool.

[01:20:24] And so really, it's really, again, this show is dealing with things and showing things that are so true to life.

[01:20:38] Mm-hmm.

[01:20:39] Right?

[01:20:39] But they're using, again, this fantastical world to bring these true to life stories and feelings and emotions to the forefront.

[01:20:52] This is what good storytelling can be.

[01:20:56] Mm-hmm.

[01:20:57] You know?

[01:20:58] And I am, again, I am just so happy that we get a show like this.

[01:21:06] This format, this property, this, you know, what people clown like Quentin Tarantino would.

[01:21:20] Mm-hmm.

[01:21:20] But he couldn't make this.

[01:21:23] They made this.

[01:21:25] Taking something that a lot of people would say, oh, this is so silly.

[01:21:31] And they took it and made it into something that is so very, very, very, very deep and moving.

[01:21:45] Mm-hmm.

[01:21:46] Goes to show you that in the right hands and capable hands, the stories that we talk about on this pod,

[01:21:55] Mm-hmm.

[01:21:55] The things that we read can really, really be wonderful.

[01:22:03] Yeah.

[01:22:04] And they don't have to be, you know, bang, zoom, fly me to the moon type of things.

[01:22:11] You right?

[01:22:12] Mm-hmm.

[01:22:13] Yeah.

[01:22:14] Yeah.

[01:22:15] And so we get this, like, darkness.

[01:22:20] Now, yeah, the way that I interpret this whole situation changes completely.

[01:22:24] Whether I think Agatha is stealing witches' powers to save Nikki or just stealing them for the sake of stealing them.

[01:22:30] Mm-hmm.

[01:22:31] But she has her son participating in this, you know, having him lure witches.

[01:22:36] So we see first she, that Nikki steals a bell, which is, by the way, the same bell that we see Agatha ring in episode two when they're singing the ballad.

[01:22:44] So she still has that bell that he stole.

[01:22:46] But he did it to lure witches.

[01:22:47] And then as they develop this song, she has him singing the song to lure people.

[01:22:54] And this is how the myth of the ballad starts spreading.

[01:22:59] And people start, like, adding their own ideas.

[01:23:01] And, you know, it develops from there.

[01:23:03] But Nikki, at one point, he asks her, why do you kill witches?

[01:23:07] And she says, to survive.

[01:23:09] And he says, can we not stay with the witches and survive with them?

[01:23:12] And she says, no, because then they will try to kill us.

[01:23:16] If you want to survive, get used to this feeling.

[01:23:19] And Agatha is also always warning Billy.

[01:23:25] Also, even later in this episode, she uses these exact same words.

[01:23:30] If you want to survive, get used to this feeling.

[01:23:33] And the message is definitely, like, toughen up to protect yourself.

[01:23:37] And I have to think, I know a lot of real life parents who give similar talks to their kids.

[01:23:42] Not about, you know, stealing the powers of witches.

[01:23:52] But basically, protect yourself because everyone else is out to hurt you.

[01:23:56] Right.

[01:23:57] And this is how a lot of parents show their care for their children.

[01:24:01] And, you know, and there's a often, you know, you can understand in a lot of cases why this is needed, you know.

[01:24:09] Yeah.

[01:24:10] And to add a little bit more.

[01:24:13] In thinking about how Agatha was raised.

[01:24:18] Right.

[01:24:19] How do we think Nicholas would have been?

[01:24:25] If he had grown up.

[01:24:28] In this way.

[01:24:31] He would have been like his comic book counterpart.

[01:24:34] You know?

[01:24:37] So, we have this kid, this little boy asking, why do we do the things that we do?

[01:24:43] And she basically just shrugs it off.

[01:24:45] And was like, because, you know, this is the only way that we can live.

[01:24:49] Mm-hmm.

[01:24:50] So, if you want to live, this is what you have to do.

[01:24:55] Like, imagining his life and what it would be.

[01:25:01] Did Rio do the right thing?

[01:25:02] Mm-hmm.

[01:25:05] No.

[01:25:06] So, this whole confrontation with her son, though, reminds me of this story from, so I told you earlier in the year, I read my first and only so far Nova comic.

[01:25:17] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[01:25:19] Which is Nova, volume two, number six from 1994.

[01:25:22] And the reason I read it is basically because there's this piece of the Agatha story in there.

[01:25:28] And basically, Firestar, who's another, she's not a classic witch, but she has witchy enough powers.

[01:25:36] She is sent back in time because of stuff going on with the whole Nova thing.

[01:25:40] And so, she ends up being sent back to Salem in the 17th century, you know, during the witch trials.

[01:25:46] And she meets Agatha.

[01:25:49] And Agatha is actually turning witches in.

[01:25:53] And she says, you know, we got to give them the Uyghur ones so the rest of us can survive.

[01:26:01] Which, also, I was talking with Marilyn about, we recently did a, for subscribers, a What Are Real Witches episode.

[01:26:08] And she brought up that there were women, of course, who turned in other women.

[01:26:14] Not at all.

[01:26:15] There were some, a smaller amount of men also who were, you know, suffered from the witch trials as well.

[01:26:21] But there were people who turned in others of their kind, you know, other folk healers, things like that.

[01:26:30] And it was, and often, it was to protect yourself.

[01:26:35] Right.

[01:26:35] And so, we see that happening in the comics.

[01:26:38] And I see echoes of that in what Agatha's saying here.

[01:26:41] And so, Firestar is the one who kind of really confronts her about it.

[01:26:45] And after that is when Agatha's like, you know, maybe it is better if I try to team up with the other witches.

[01:26:54] And that's when she goes off to found the hidden town of New Salem, Colorado.

[01:26:59] Right.

[01:27:01] Very, I mean, they're pulling in from so much comic history for this show.

[01:27:10] And they're made something else of it.

[01:27:14] Yeah, yeah.

[01:27:15] Yeah, remixing.

[01:27:16] Yeah.

[01:27:16] Which is so awesome.

[01:27:18] Which is so awesome.

[01:27:20] Yeah.

[01:27:22] We also get, we get these hidden moments where, so, you know, we were talking about how Agatha as a mother feels she's mad at herself that she can't protect her son.

[01:27:32] And she specifically says, and I want to talk about this specific wording because for reasons.

[01:27:37] So, we'll just say.

[01:27:39] I can cast illusions.

[01:27:42] I can control a feeble mind.

[01:27:44] I can move objects using my will.

[01:27:47] But I cannot heal you.

[01:27:50] I cannot protect you from what's coming.

[01:27:52] And I cannot divine when she will return.

[01:27:57] So.

[01:27:57] All members of the coven.

[01:27:59] Yeah.

[01:28:00] I cannot heal you.

[01:28:01] I cannot heal you like Jen can.

[01:28:03] I cannot protect you like Alice does.

[01:28:06] And I cannot divine like Lilia.

[01:28:08] So, she's missing these powers.

[01:28:10] But also, ouch on behalf of Ralph, who apparently has a feeble mind, but also.

[01:28:18] So, he can make another one-man show about his feeble mind.

[01:28:24] I'll still go to it.

[01:28:26] Oh my gosh.

[01:28:29] So, yeah.

[01:28:29] We get the montage of them working on the lyrics together and the songs evolving.

[01:28:35] And she realizes this is a new way to attract witches to kill them.

[01:28:39] And so, it's like we have this mother-son love moments of them just like writing a song together,

[01:28:45] juxtaposed with her using her son to lure other people to their death.

[01:28:48] Just terrible.

[01:28:52] Just terrible.

[01:28:53] Sinister and innocence together.

[01:28:54] Yes.

[01:28:55] Yeah.

[01:28:56] It's sinister.

[01:28:57] I'm not putting innocence in with that sinister.

[01:29:00] Because it's all sinister.

[01:29:00] But she's just alone with her son.

[01:29:02] It seems so innocent and nice.

[01:29:04] Yeah, it does.

[01:29:06] But then it's not.

[01:29:07] Really.

[01:29:08] You know?

[01:29:09] But then it's not.

[01:29:11] Yeah.

[01:29:11] Because she's using him in a way that, you know, I would never want anyone to use a child.

[01:29:18] Yeah.

[01:29:20] Or to use anyone else.

[01:29:22] No, yeah.

[01:29:22] Because you're right.

[01:29:23] It damages the child, too.

[01:29:25] You know?

[01:29:25] That's just, you know, whether an adult or not.

[01:29:29] Just.

[01:29:30] Yeah.

[01:29:31] No.

[01:29:32] No.

[01:29:32] It's like when, you know, some adults will train children to be pickpockets because they're

[01:29:37] less conspicuous, things like that.

[01:29:39] And again, go ahead.

[01:29:41] And they're messing them up.

[01:29:42] Yeah.

[01:29:43] And these are conscious decisions she's making.

[01:29:46] Mm-hmm.

[01:29:47] Mm-hmm.

[01:29:47] She's not being forced to make these decisions.

[01:29:52] Right?

[01:29:52] Mm-hmm.

[01:29:52] She's not being forced to turn Nikki into a lure.

[01:29:57] I think she would tell you that she was.

[01:30:00] And I agree with you that she's not.

[01:30:02] But I think in her mind, she is forced to by the quote unquote realities of the world because

[01:30:09] everyone is out to get them.

[01:30:11] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:30:13] And that would be her.

[01:30:15] Because her mother was out to get her since birth.

[01:30:17] And that would be her.

[01:30:18] To me, that would be her not wanting to own up in the way that she had to own up when Jen

[01:30:28] confronted her.

[01:30:29] Mm-hmm.

[01:30:31] Which is why she's avoiding Nikki.

[01:30:34] Mm-hmm.

[01:30:36] She doesn't want to own.

[01:30:38] She's not ready to own up.

[01:30:39] She's not ready to atone.

[01:30:40] She's not ready to admit her role.

[01:30:43] It's much easier to blame, Rio.

[01:30:48] You forced me to do this.

[01:30:52] Yeah.

[01:30:53] Yeah.

[01:30:55] But Nikki doesn't want to do it anymore.

[01:30:58] When he does his song and someone's like, oh, I'll walk with you or whatever.

[01:31:03] He's like, oh, my mother needs me at home.

[01:31:04] And her face falls.

[01:31:06] And she's like, oh, he's not going to do the thing.

[01:31:08] And then when they get back, he says, we can kill more witches tomorrow.

[01:31:12] I promise.

[01:31:13] And Agatha's like, yes, of course we can.

[01:31:15] But I knew in that moment that that was going to be his last night.

[01:31:18] And I feel like in Agatha's face, she knew it too.

[01:31:22] Like, she's like, this is it.

[01:31:25] This is the day I've been dreading.

[01:31:27] I can't wait for the feedback.

[01:31:30] Yeah.

[01:31:31] Because I read some of the feedback.

[01:31:33] Mm-hmm.

[01:31:33] And some of this addresses this directly.

[01:31:37] Yeah.

[01:31:37] So, yeah, there's a...

[01:31:40] She's, I mean, she's here.

[01:31:43] And, you know, it's just so, so, so sad.

[01:31:52] Mm-hmm.

[01:31:53] It's just so sad.

[01:31:55] Yeah.

[01:31:56] Yep.

[01:31:57] And then Death shows up while they're sleeping.

[01:32:00] And Rio sends Nikki back to give Mom a kiss on the cheek.

[01:32:04] Oh.

[01:32:06] And then, yeah.

[01:32:08] We get this dark inversion of the ballad, which ends up also being equally reflected in the ballad later.

[01:32:15] I have always known this road is cruel and wild.

[01:32:26] I bury my own heart.

[01:32:30] Here with you, my child.

[01:32:32] If one be gone, we carry on.

[01:32:37] But every mile I go.

[01:32:40] With every bend beyond the end.

[01:32:43] Our mother loves you so.

[01:32:46] And so this is in a minor key.

[01:32:49] And it says, at this moment, another witch walks up and says, you must know the way then.

[01:32:55] Which, first of all, I have to say to this woman, interrupting a crying woman singing to a grave is rude AF.

[01:33:04] That's not cool.

[01:33:07] But she also, this tells Agatha, she's like, oh, well now I know how I can, you know, I think it's like in a way if you have a child.

[01:33:16] Still using Nikki.

[01:33:17] Still using Nikki.

[01:33:18] Still using Nikki.

[01:33:19] If you have a child that died, you know, it's not uncommon for someone to turn to some sort of comfort, like maybe alcohol or something like that.

[01:33:28] And this is Agatha's alcohol.

[01:33:31] This is Agatha's heroin, even more so.

[01:33:34] You know, it's such a strong addiction that just makes her feel good and escape from her pain for a minute.

[01:33:42] And then.

[01:33:43] I don't.

[01:33:45] I'm not buying it.

[01:33:48] I'm totally not buying it.

[01:33:50] I see where you're at with it.

[01:33:54] And, you know, I've talked to other people who have also said some of these same things, but I just can't buy it.

[01:34:02] I can't bring myself to say that the decision she's making is just.

[01:34:09] Because it's not, it's not simply this thing that makes me feel good.

[01:34:14] It's this thing that makes me feel good that's going to kill you.

[01:34:19] Yeah.

[01:34:20] Yeah.

[01:34:21] No, I mean.

[01:34:21] It's different.

[01:34:22] Yeah.

[01:34:22] There are things that I can do to make myself feel good.

[01:34:26] She's a serial killer.

[01:34:26] Yeah.

[01:34:27] To soothe my pain.

[01:34:28] Mm-hmm.

[01:34:29] That has no direct.

[01:34:31] It may have indirect consequences to others around me.

[01:34:35] Yeah.

[01:34:35] But it's not a direct consequence to people who surround me.

[01:34:41] You are a better person than Agatha.

[01:34:44] There's no doubt about it.

[01:34:45] She is inflicting that pain.

[01:34:47] She is inflicting that pain on others.

[01:34:49] And she's making a conscious choice to do it.

[01:34:52] Not simply because she's addicted to it, but because she wants to do it.

[01:34:57] Not because of an addiction, but because she's mad.

[01:35:02] She's angry.

[01:35:04] She's angry and she can't take it out on the person she wants to take it out on.

[01:35:08] So she's going to take it out on the world.

[01:35:10] So, but suppose it were a case of, you know, in our real world where someone in a similar

[01:35:18] circumstance, they turned to heroin and it's destroying everyone in their lives because,

[01:35:23] you know, if you have a serious addiction to drugs, they probably all, I don't have to

[01:35:30] tell all the ways in which this can be destructive.

[01:35:33] Yes.

[01:35:33] Um, but would you say that person wants to be addicted to heroin or are they using heroin

[01:35:41] as an escape or I don't know, I guess there's, there's never a black and white, but.

[01:35:46] No, there isn't.

[01:35:48] But that person is not injecting me with heroin and gleefully enjoying their high as I die.

[01:35:58] Hmm.

[01:36:01] I mean, this is extreme.

[01:36:02] Yeah.

[01:36:02] This is an extreme.

[01:36:03] No, but that's, that is, that is what she's doing.

[01:36:06] No, she's a serial killer.

[01:36:07] You know, if we're going to take the addiction route, this is what she's doing.

[01:36:11] She's not just taking drugs.

[01:36:13] She's giving me drugs, making sure that the drugs kill me and she gets high off the drugs

[01:36:21] in my death.

[01:36:22] Yeah.

[01:36:24] It's an exaggeration of, of, yeah, of what I'm saying, but.

[01:36:28] No, I, I'm trying to exaggerate it, but yeah.

[01:36:30] No, no, no, no.

[01:36:31] No, I'm, I'm, I'm saying that what she's doing is an exaggeration of the version of

[01:36:36] more realistic events that I'm talking about.

[01:36:38] Right, right.

[01:36:39] But I approach it from that angle.

[01:36:41] And it's not that I say that it's okay what she's doing.

[01:36:44] No, I know you're not saying that.

[01:36:45] I'm absolutely not saying that.

[01:36:46] Absolutely not.

[01:36:47] I know you're not saying that is okay.

[01:36:50] I'm just questioning me personally.

[01:36:52] I'm just questioning whether she has this thing that she can't, a habit that she can't kick,

[01:37:01] or whether she has this habit that she doesn't give a fuck.

[01:37:07] Hmm.

[01:37:08] I mean, it can be a little of column A, a little of column B.

[01:37:12] I mean, I'm not saying, like, I don't think her killing these random witches is at all the same as her killing Alice.

[01:37:19] Like, I do think part of her would have wanted to stop with Alice.

[01:37:22] Whereas, you know, with that stupid lady who interrupted her singing to her son's grave, she was like, bitch, die.

[01:37:32] She deserved that.

[01:37:33] You get what's coming to you.

[01:37:37] I'm not saying that per se, but I don't think that she felt bad about that one.

[01:37:43] Right, right, right.

[01:37:44] Okay.

[01:37:45] But, okay, so we get this, we get the best montage of all the episodes, which is not only a montage of the ballad developing through time, but also of fashion montage, fashion montage.

[01:37:57] So this is, I again have to mention Daniel Salon.

[01:38:01] He's the costume designer for this series, and I really hope that he gets some serious recognition because this montage alone was just chef's kiss.

[01:38:12] Yes.

[01:38:13] Yes.

[01:38:14] Yes.

[01:38:14] Every look I wanted in my closet.

[01:38:17] Killer.

[01:38:18] Yeah.

[01:38:18] Including that 18th century one.

[01:38:21] I couldn't pull it off, but you know what?

[01:38:23] I can respect it.

[01:38:24] You can take elements.

[01:38:26] You can have that leather jacket.

[01:38:28] I can respect it.

[01:38:30] But yeah, so in this way we find out that, like, I was doubting in episode two.

[01:38:37] I was willing to, again, to give Agatha more leeway in saying that, did she really want to, was she really just bringing these women to her basement to try to get those bitches to blast her?

[01:38:47] And yeah, it seems that was genuinely her plan.

[01:38:52] And she sent Billy upstairs to protect him.

[01:38:54] And then she was, a door appears in the floor and that must have blown her mind.

[01:39:00] Can you imagine?

[01:39:01] Yeah.

[01:39:02] Yeah.

[01:39:03] As soon as that really happened, she was like, what?

[01:39:08] What is going on?

[01:39:09] What?

[01:39:10] And then she saw Billy running down the stairs and she's like, ooh.

[01:39:13] And it clicked.

[01:39:14] Yeah.

[01:39:14] She's like, you have the same tell as your mom.

[01:39:16] Yep.

[01:39:17] Yep.

[01:39:17] Yeah.

[01:39:19] But yeah, no, she's a straight up serial killer.

[01:39:21] But you know what?

[01:39:22] So are the Penguin and Sophia and I still feel empathy for them.

[01:39:26] No, I mean, that's what the best stories do.

[01:39:29] You know, they, you know, have characters that do these terrible things, but then you find a sliver of their humanity, you know, and you hold on to it.

[01:39:38] Because I think for me, at least I want people to not be terrible, you know, and I, and I want to hold on to the things that make them not terrible.

[01:39:52] So when a show does that, it's doing its job.

[01:39:58] It's doing its job.

[01:40:00] Yeah.

[01:40:01] Yeah.

[01:40:02] So let's continue.

[01:40:04] Ghostly revelation.

[01:40:05] In the present, Agatha, now a ghost, tells Billy that he made the previously non-existent road a reality with his magic.

[01:40:14] Billy blames himself for the death of Lillia, Alice, and Sharon.

[01:40:18] But Agatha retorts that she was already planning to kill them and that Jen is still alive.

[01:40:23] Billy returns to Westview and tries to banish Agatha.

[01:40:26] She resists, afraid of having to face Nicholas in the afterlife.

[01:40:30] Billy relents and allows Agatha to guide him.

[01:40:33] After sealing the entrance to the road and recording the names of the fallen, Billy and Agatha set out to find Tommy.

[01:40:44] So again, ghost Agatha, comics accurate, iconic.

[01:40:48] Awesome.

[01:40:49] Awesome.

[01:40:50] Loved the look, the costume.

[01:40:52] Even like if you, you can find pictures online of her without that ghost filter.

[01:40:56] And it's like, she's got the silver hair and like this gauzy purple and silver dress.

[01:41:01] It's very cool.

[01:41:02] She seems to love being a ghost or is that another front?

[01:41:06] I don't know.

[01:41:07] I feel like she loves it.

[01:41:08] I think she loves it.

[01:41:10] Maybe she feels safer that way because she's already dead.

[01:41:13] Yeah.

[01:41:13] Oh.

[01:41:14] She says, I took a calculated risk.

[01:41:18] So now I'm curious, what's the lore in the MCU about how ghosts form?

[01:41:22] Not that they've defined it in the comics.

[01:41:25] I mean, we don't have this.

[01:41:26] Yeah.

[01:41:27] There's nothing, you know, tried and true, stuck in stone, crafted in stone, carved in stone.

[01:41:33] Excuse my metaphors.

[01:41:36] And so we get Billy with the road reveal and he sees that he's been incorporating elements from the song and what others said along the way into his realization of the road.

[01:41:46] So that's a really cool thing to pay attention to in a rewatch.

[01:41:49] It's how other people, they're like, well, how does this work?

[01:41:52] And people are like, well, maybe this.

[01:41:54] And then from then on, that is how the road works.

[01:41:56] Right.

[01:41:57] Because I said it and Billy's like, okay, that's in the program now.

[01:42:01] And this is maybe not fair.

[01:42:04] Agatha says to Billy, unlike your mother, Wanda, sorry, you actually did something interesting with your powers.

[01:42:10] I'm like, okay, you can say a lot of things about Wanda, but WandaVision was interesting.

[01:42:17] Yeah.

[01:42:18] But then she says, unlike your mother, but she corrects herself as if that's not his mother.

[01:42:22] Right, because he said.

[01:42:24] Because he says.

[01:42:24] My mother is Rebecca Kaplan, yeah.

[01:42:26] But now we know Rebecca Kaplan is not your mom.

[01:42:30] Well, but if she's the one.

[01:42:33] Yes, she's the one who's raising them.

[01:42:34] So that's.

[01:42:36] Yes.

[01:42:36] But Wanda is your mom boy.

[01:42:38] It's a biological.

[01:42:39] Well, yeah.

[01:42:40] More than biological.

[01:42:41] The magical logical.

[01:42:43] Wanda, she was there for a large portion of his life.

[01:42:47] There were, what, 10?

[01:42:48] And he's, what, at the beginning of this, he's 13?

[01:42:51] Yeah, but that passed in a matter of days.

[01:42:54] So he spent more time with Rebecca Kaplan than he ever did with Wanda.

[01:42:58] As far as he knows.

[01:42:58] Or Tommy, for that matter.

[01:43:00] But he has the memories.

[01:43:02] Yeah, we'll get into the.

[01:43:05] Well, but he dug in and he now remembers what happened right before they died.

[01:43:11] I don't know.

[01:43:12] Right, we don't know how much he remembers.

[01:43:13] Yeah.

[01:43:14] Yeah.

[01:43:15] But also, they aged themselves up.

[01:43:19] So they actually weren't alive for that long before they were dissolved.

[01:43:23] And he found this new body.

[01:43:26] So he spent more time, three years, with Rebecca Kaplan than he spent in that hex.

[01:43:32] With Wanda and the hex.

[01:43:34] And Vision, yeah.

[01:43:38] But, okay, so here's an example of how Agatha, even to Billy, she twists things.

[01:43:43] And I think she's trying to tell herself untruths to make herself feel better.

[01:43:49] But she says, the ballad was a trick to lure other gullible witches.

[01:43:52] The song doesn't mean anything.

[01:43:54] It never did.

[01:43:56] Which is clearly bullshit.

[01:43:57] And I'm not going to play the sad version again.

[01:44:00] But it's clearly bullshit.

[01:44:02] Again, she's not ready to own up.

[01:44:06] She's not ready to own up.

[01:44:08] Yeah.

[01:44:09] But it is a really hard pill for Billy to swallow that everything that he created in the road had real effects.

[01:44:18] Like that alewife poison.

[01:44:19] He must have known from somewhere about the alewife poison.

[01:44:22] But that was real because, first of all, of course, it caused the real death of Sharon.

[01:44:27] But also, the visions that they were all having were real visions.

[01:44:31] That Billy would not know about.

[01:44:33] Yeah.

[01:44:34] He didn't know about Lily is maestra and all that stuff, you know.

[01:44:38] And that's your, you know, that's coming to grips with your power.

[01:44:42] Yeah.

[01:44:43] You know, what did you do?

[01:44:44] You know, we often get these, you know, sometimes with mutants and the manifestation of their powers, how it causes harm at first, you know, to those around them.

[01:44:56] Um, so this is almost in the same vein, you know?

[01:45:02] Yeah.

[01:45:02] Yeah.

[01:45:03] Yeah.

[01:45:04] He's feeling really bad about it, though.

[01:45:06] He says,

[01:45:07] I'm a murderer.

[01:45:09] Alice.

[01:45:10] Well, I killed Alice.

[01:45:11] Lillia in the tower.

[01:45:12] That was her choice.

[01:45:13] Mrs. Davis.

[01:45:14] Who?

[01:45:15] She didn't even belong on the road and now she's dead because of me.

[01:45:18] Yes.

[01:45:18] The gardening lady.

[01:45:19] Mm hmm.

[01:45:20] Agatha.

[01:45:22] Agatha.

[01:45:24] I killed them.

[01:45:25] No.

[01:45:27] So, yeah, I mean, that's that's a hard pill to swallow.

[01:45:31] Agatha doesn't think they're ghosts that they've moved on, which doesn't mean we won't ever see them again.

[01:45:36] Um, but she points out he saved Jen because she wanted to kill them all in the basement.

[01:45:45] And now they would have all died that first night.

[01:45:48] But now Jen lives.

[01:45:49] Okay.

[01:45:52] All right.

[01:45:53] So my man thing mentions aside, do you have any thoughts on where Jen's flying off to?

[01:45:57] When she crawls out of the ground?

[01:45:59] In, um, New Orleans.

[01:46:02] Okay.

[01:46:05] She's like, I've got to see a doctor.

[01:46:07] Yeah.

[01:46:08] A doctor of voodoo.

[01:46:11] Exactly.

[01:46:13] Jericho drum.

[01:46:14] She's going to see a long lost friend.

[01:46:17] Mm hmm.

[01:46:18] They are not friends in the comics.

[01:46:19] FYI.

[01:46:20] They're not.

[01:46:21] They're not.

[01:46:21] They're not.

[01:46:22] Um, yeah.

[01:46:23] I'm shipping German and Jen.

[01:46:27] Okay.

[01:46:28] Yeah.

[01:46:28] Why not?

[01:46:29] Why not?

[01:46:31] She has pink magic.

[01:46:32] So, so much for my infinity stone theories.

[01:46:37] That doesn't match up with an infinity stone.

[01:46:40] I think just like the colors of the magic and the colors of the infinity stones are just like basic colors.

[01:46:46] So.

[01:46:48] Makes sense that they're the same.

[01:46:51] But yeah, she, again, she breaks, she says to Billy, get used to this feeling of being a murderer, basically.

[01:46:57] And he's like, I'll never get used to this.

[01:46:58] And we all hope for Billy that he won't.

[01:47:01] And it just, it reminds me of a, like a personal story.

[01:47:04] This is on a much lower scale.

[01:47:05] Uh, but like I had an older, my best friend.

[01:47:10] And when I was younger was, um, my next to neighbor who's a few years older than me.

[01:47:15] And, and we had very different personalities and I know it's going to shock everyone to find out that I was, I was a massive school nerd.

[01:47:22] Was like really into learning.

[01:47:24] I know.

[01:47:25] I was really into learning.

[01:47:27] Pick your jaws up off the floor.

[01:47:31] What a way to put it.

[01:47:33] I was really into learning when I was a kid.

[01:47:38] But, but like my, my friend, she didn't understand this, um, because that's just not how she worked.

[01:47:46] And she used to say stuff to me all the time.

[01:47:48] Like, oh, when, cause she was three years older when she was like, when you're my age, you will have given up on school and you will, you know, and you just expect people to become the cynical version or whatever to, as you are.

[01:48:03] And without recognizing that Billy is a different person from her.

[01:48:08] And he comes from a kinder background.

[01:48:10] None of his parents wanted to kill him.

[01:48:12] He's had four parents.

[01:48:14] All of them want him to live.

[01:48:15] Um, yeah.

[01:48:17] So I think I'm so afraid for Tommy.

[01:48:20] Yeah, exactly.

[01:48:21] Yeah.

[01:48:22] Me too.

[01:48:22] Me too.

[01:48:23] Yeah.

[01:48:24] Yeah.

[01:48:25] But Billy's real mad now.

[01:48:27] And he starts to banish Agatha.

[01:48:29] And he says, it's time to enter the light or Rio's toxic embrace.

[01:48:32] I don't really care anymore.

[01:48:34] Um, do you think he's mad because she didn't tell him the road was all him?

[01:48:42] I think he's mad because he's 16 or however old he is.

[01:48:47] Well, that too.

[01:48:48] Yeah.

[01:48:48] 16 now.

[01:48:49] You know, and, and just has gone through something so traumatic.

[01:48:58] Right.

[01:48:58] And gone and, and is learning that he caused such harm and not knowing where his brother

[01:49:10] is or how his brother.

[01:49:12] So all of these emotions, all of these feelings are roiling up inside and he, he's going to

[01:49:18] lash out.

[01:49:19] Yeah.

[01:49:20] And Agatha is, it's easy to lash out at because, you know, she's done such, such harm.

[01:49:27] She's done a lot of wrong.

[01:49:28] So he can look at her and, and safely say, you know, I can, I can be mad at you because

[01:49:35] you deserve to be mad at.

[01:49:37] Yeah.

[01:49:39] Yeah.

[01:49:39] I mean, I, I wonder if it's because he's still, you know, he, when he stormed, he got really

[01:49:44] mad about after the whole discussion about the murder.

[01:49:47] And, um, I'm wondering if he's like, you know, you could have stopped me from letting

[01:49:52] more people die.

[01:49:53] And obviously Agatha wasn't going to do that.

[01:49:55] She doesn't care.

[01:49:57] No, no.

[01:49:58] But so, but then when he breaks, his empathy breaks through again, he asks her, why won't

[01:50:04] you just die when he's trying to banish her?

[01:50:06] And she's fighting to hold on.

[01:50:07] And she says, because I can't face him.

[01:50:10] Um, and so I guess she must be talking about Nikki and I guess she's just ashamed of being

[01:50:16] a serial killer.

[01:50:18] Well, I don't know if that's the case, but I think she's definitely ashamed that she, you

[01:50:23] know, used him, made him a part of it.

[01:50:27] Hmm.

[01:50:30] You know, used him as a lure, as bait.

[01:50:34] So when the last words he really conversation they had was him telling her, I don't want

[01:50:39] to do this anymore.

[01:50:40] Why, why do we have to do this?

[01:50:42] Mm hmm.

[01:50:43] And what did she tell him?

[01:50:44] Like, you know, you have to, because that's how we survive.

[01:50:47] Yeah.

[01:50:48] Well, she said, okay, the last time, but I think she knew, you know, that was the end.

[01:50:51] But then in the century since she's just gotten worse.

[01:50:55] Yeah.

[01:50:55] She's gotten worse knowing that he would not approve.

[01:50:58] Mm hmm.

[01:51:00] Yeah.

[01:51:00] She's been stuck in the anger phase of grief.

[01:51:03] Yeah.

[01:51:04] But now that she admits this, Billy, he stops trying to banish her.

[01:51:09] And, um, having admitted this somehow, it gives her more, she's finally able to pick up

[01:51:15] the brooch.

[01:51:16] She had been trying to take the brooch back from Billy and now she can finally pick it

[01:51:20] up and put it on and it becomes like a ghost brooch part of her outfit.

[01:51:25] And, um, Billy says to her, I'm sure he'd forgive you.

[01:51:29] And she says, see, when you say things like that is when you remind me of him.

[01:51:33] Yeah.

[01:51:34] Now, do you think I, I have to assume that we will meet Nikki at some point.

[01:51:39] And I'm wondering if he's going to be grown up.

[01:51:44] No.

[01:51:44] And if he's going to be more like comic book Nikki, who, by the way, is not a nice guy.

[01:51:50] No.

[01:51:50] He's worse than the Salem seven.

[01:51:52] Yeah.

[01:51:52] No, I don't think so.

[01:51:54] I don't think so.

[01:51:55] You think we'll pick back up with kid Nikki?

[01:51:58] Yeah.

[01:51:58] Yeah.

[01:51:59] And he won't be a villain in this version?

[01:52:01] No, no.

[01:52:03] If they, if they turn him into a villain, I riot.

[01:52:05] Jen even said, you know, there were all kinds of rumors or maybe he was even an agent of

[01:52:10] Mephisto, which is what he becomes in the comics.

[01:52:13] No, I can't.

[01:52:15] No, that would be, that would be terrible.

[01:52:17] That would be horrible.

[01:52:18] Okay.

[01:52:19] Okay.

[01:52:20] Okay.

[01:52:21] Well, so then we were back to a coven of two again and they have this exchange.

[01:52:27] Maybe being a ghost suits you.

[01:52:30] Spirit is my guide.

[01:52:32] We can make a good team.

[01:52:34] You and me.

[01:52:35] Coven two.

[01:52:36] I do tend to kill my coven members.

[01:52:39] So do I.

[01:52:41] He's lumping himself in with her, but he's not the same.

[01:52:45] And then there's a door that opens and they walk into the lights and say, let's go find

[01:52:50] Tommy.

[01:52:51] And then we get the credits and we get a Japanese breakfast version of the ballad.

[01:52:58] No Mephisto, no man thing, no Wanda or vision clues and only a tease of Tommy.

[01:53:04] But I don't know.

[01:53:05] I kind of think that's for the best.

[01:53:07] What do you think?

[01:53:08] Yeah.

[01:53:08] I thought this was, yeah.

[01:53:11] I'm not upset with this at all.

[01:53:14] I'm not upset with this at all.

[01:53:16] So I'll be, I think I would be more critical or more upset or even upset if we don't get

[01:53:26] a season two or some sort of continuation of the story.

[01:53:31] If there's no continuation of their journey to find Tommy, we riot.

[01:53:38] Yeah.

[01:53:38] No, I mean, I think a lot of people will riot.

[01:53:41] Like they'd set that up.

[01:53:42] Come on.

[01:53:43] Yeah.

[01:53:44] But then again, so many, and maybe this is better.

[01:53:47] Like they've done these post-credit scenes that don't pay off for years or we're still

[01:53:51] waiting for a bunch of them.

[01:53:53] Maybe this is a more better direct way of like, they're realizing that you can't keep just

[01:53:58] dangling these things.

[01:53:59] You have to just, you know, push the story forward or people are going to lose interest.

[01:54:04] Right.

[01:54:04] Right.

[01:54:06] I, I, you're, you're much more gracious.

[01:54:08] Not then I am.

[01:54:10] I don't think that's what it is at all.

[01:54:12] I think it's because they knew where they were going with the future of the MCU.

[01:54:20] And I don't think they thought that this would fit into that future.

[01:54:24] And now they have to recalibrate because the show did so well.

[01:54:30] Well, I mean, the way, the fact that they ended it like that does imply that at least

[01:54:35] Billy and Agatha are going to be turning up elsewhere.

[01:54:38] Yeah.

[01:54:38] I mean, and they already had vision quest planned and you know, who knows what else they were

[01:54:44] thinking.

[01:54:44] There's been lots of rumors about midnight suns movie.

[01:54:47] Um, and obviously they've been setting up young Avengers.

[01:54:51] So I don't know.

[01:54:52] Yeah.

[01:54:52] We'll see.

[01:54:53] I don't know.

[01:54:54] We'll see.

[01:54:55] All right.

[01:54:55] So let's do a final character check in with our full coven.

[01:55:01] So Lilia, do we think she had the most complete arc in the series?

[01:55:06] For me?

[01:55:06] No, it was Jen.

[01:55:07] Yeah.

[01:55:08] For you, Jen.

[01:55:09] So Jen is quote unquote the way forward.

[01:55:12] And, um, yeah.

[01:55:14] And, and so actually I would say Jack Schaefer agrees with you.

[01:55:17] She said in that rap interview, her sort of wellness crap had actually hurt people.

[01:55:21] And there's a little bit of cruelty in what she'd done and the vanity kind of curdling

[01:55:26] and turning her into kind of a materialistic charlatan.

[01:55:29] She became the thing that she had been persecuted by.

[01:55:32] So it felt like she had the longest runway.

[01:55:35] And we really felt that we could earn a true arc with her and that she would return to

[01:55:40] her former self, who is someone who is a helper, who is a healer, who looks out for others

[01:55:45] and who is so in touch with her internal power.

[01:55:47] And that's what Shashir, the actress gave us.

[01:55:51] Um, yeah.

[01:55:53] So this was part of the discussion of, you know, cause they considered having the witches

[01:55:58] live and they, and then, and they considered killing them all and they kind of, they landed

[01:56:04] on this for that reason.

[01:56:07] In part, I also think they should land on this because they haven't, they took one of the

[01:56:12] most prolific witches in the comics and they haven't used any of her backstory yet

[01:56:17] almost.

[01:56:17] So I want to see, I'm really happy with what they did with her in this show, but I want

[01:56:24] to see that tie in also to, you know, she's the, I keep bringing a man thing obviously,

[01:56:30] but also, uh, just to remind people or who, or who maybe haven't listened to previous

[01:56:36] episodes that she's the cousin of two ghost riders as well.

[01:56:40] Right.

[01:56:40] So she, if this, these rumors of a midnight suns project are real, she could be a key person

[01:56:49] to connect members of that team, including Agatha who appears on the team.

[01:56:53] Right.

[01:56:54] Right.

[01:56:57] Alice, I guess, does she have the most realistically frustrating arc?

[01:57:00] Oh yeah.

[01:57:03] Yeah.

[01:57:03] I mean, that's, that's just, we all wanted Alice to get another shot, to continue to, to

[01:57:10] have the life that she seemingly deserves.

[01:57:13] She got the curse lifted, this thing that had been weighing her down, holding her down and

[01:57:22] she doesn't.

[01:57:23] Mm-hmm.

[01:57:25] And that's, that stinks.

[01:57:27] Yeah.

[01:57:27] Yeah.

[01:57:29] But Rio made sense though, when, what she told her.

[01:57:33] What do you mean?

[01:57:33] Oh, about, yeah.

[01:57:35] Yeah.

[01:57:35] That's, uh, she said, if I had a nickel for everyone who said that to me, basically.

[01:57:39] Yeah.

[01:57:39] You know, what are you?

[01:57:40] You're a protection witch.

[01:57:41] Mm-hmm.

[01:57:42] You.

[01:57:43] You died during.

[01:57:44] The thing that you were destined to do.

[01:57:46] Mm-hmm.

[01:57:48] For the first time in your life.

[01:57:51] Do you think we will, or do you think we should see Lilia and Alice again in the afterlife

[01:57:58] somewhere or some other way?

[01:58:00] Oh, I, I, yes, I see, I think we'll see all three of them.

[01:58:03] Yeah.

[01:58:04] I mean, Jen, obviously the implication she flew off.

[01:58:06] She's alive.

[01:58:07] No, I'm not talking about Jen.

[01:58:08] I'm talking about Lilia, Alice and Sharon.

[01:58:10] Okay.

[01:58:11] Okay.

[01:58:11] Yeah.

[01:58:12] So Sharon, especially, she was a fan favorite.

[01:58:14] So I'm hopeful with the like reaction of people that, that they, they're going to bring

[01:58:21] her back for a cameo somehow.

[01:58:22] Like, okay.

[01:58:23] Who do you want her to be?

[01:58:25] Like we had Madison and Wong as a perfect odd couple in She-Hulk.

[01:58:30] Who is Sharon teaming up with in the afterlife that we're going to have great banter with?

[01:58:35] Oh man, I don't know.

[01:58:37] I don't know.

[01:58:37] I got to think about that one.

[01:58:39] Wow.

[01:58:39] I don't want her to be in the place where Mephisto is, but that would be funny.

[01:58:43] No, no, Sharon's not there.

[01:58:44] Sharon is in a wonderful, beautiful, filled with light and trees and flowers.

[01:58:51] Yeah.

[01:58:52] You know, she's frolicking, she's gardening, she's baking apple pies.

[01:58:55] With her husband, hopefully.

[01:58:57] Yes.

[01:58:57] Because, oh no, Sharon is living this afterlife, her best afterlife.

[01:59:03] That's what I'm saying.

[01:59:04] Mm-hmm.

[01:59:05] But I, I think we'll see all three of them at some point.

[01:59:10] I hope so.

[01:59:11] I hope so.

[01:59:12] I mean, okay.

[01:59:13] In Rio Vidal, no way they're not bringing her back, right?

[01:59:16] Oh, no, no, no.

[01:59:17] She's, that's, this is Aubrey Plaza's role until she says no.

[01:59:23] I mean, they did, as, as Jack Schaefer said, they could have someone else as death because

[01:59:29] death can take on different forms.

[01:59:30] Yeah, but no.

[01:59:31] We don't want that.

[01:59:31] That would be, yeah.

[01:59:33] You've got Aubrey Plaza.

[01:59:34] Yeah.

[01:59:34] Nobody wants that.

[01:59:36] Nobody wants that.

[01:59:36] Keep a booker as much as you can.

[01:59:37] Yeah, we don't want that.

[01:59:38] We don't want it.

[01:59:38] Okay.

[01:59:39] All right.

[01:59:40] So, Teen and Agatha off together.

[01:59:42] Where are we going to see them next?

[01:59:43] Is it going to be, is there going to be some sort of Tommy Quest 2.0 before Vision Quest?

[01:59:49] Is there going to be like a Wiccan show?

[01:59:51] Or do we have to wait till, we probably have to wait till 2026 regardless, to be honest.

[01:59:57] Yeah.

[01:59:58] I'm thinking it's going to be Vision Quest.

[02:00:01] Hmm.

[02:00:02] I'm thinking it's going to be White Vision that we see them again.

[02:00:07] Maybe get a tease of them in Wonder Man.

[02:00:10] Because it feels like, though, that Vision, he has his whole own journey to go on without,

[02:00:18] you know, just to refine himself before he even worries about his ex-wife and kids.

[02:00:25] Yeah, I don't think there'll be like a major, let me not say that.

[02:00:32] Mm-hmm.

[02:00:33] Let me not say that.

[02:00:34] I think for him to refine himself, he has to find his wife and kids.

[02:00:38] But it has to be addressed.

[02:00:40] See, the thing is, I'm super looking forward to Vision Quest.

[02:00:45] I'm very much looking forward to it.

[02:00:46] But it is not a witchy show.

[02:00:48] No, it's not.

[02:00:48] And it's also not going to be run by Jack Schaefer.

[02:00:51] It's another team doing it, which I'm sure it's going to be great.

[02:00:53] I'm super looking forward to it.

[02:00:54] But I do hope we get more Marvel witchiness.

[02:00:58] Witchiness.

[02:00:59] No, that's fair.

[02:01:01] By Jack Schaefer.

[02:01:02] Yeah.

[02:01:02] No, definitely that's fair.

[02:01:03] But I just think we'll see them in Vision, in the Vision show.

[02:01:07] Okay.

[02:01:07] All right.

[02:01:08] Fingers crossed we see them as soon as possible.

[02:01:11] When Jack Schaefer was asked about the possibility of a season two, she said, you know, it's

[02:01:15] hard to speak about because I have a lot of awareness of what the handoffs are between

[02:01:20] different properties.

[02:01:21] So really, all I can say is I, as a fan, am so excited about this duo of Billy Maximoff

[02:01:27] and his spirit guide, Ghost Agatha.

[02:01:29] And I think there's a lot of opportunity there.

[02:01:32] So it sounds like she knows.

[02:01:35] She knows something.

[02:01:37] Something is up.

[02:01:38] Something is brewing.

[02:01:39] And I'm so happy that they forced Marvel Studios to rethink what they thought.

[02:01:51] Right.

[02:01:51] Yeah.

[02:01:52] You did something so fucking good that they were basically saying, you know what?

[02:01:59] Like, oh, wait.

[02:01:59] Creativity might actually be a good thing.

[02:02:02] Exactly.

[02:02:03] Yeah.

[02:02:03] New stuff.

[02:02:04] Thinking outside the box.

[02:02:06] New cast.

[02:02:07] New directors.

[02:02:07] Anyway.

[02:02:07] Oh, I'm actually saying bring Jack Schaefer back.

[02:02:10] So I'm not advocating for new.

[02:02:12] Yeah.

[02:02:14] Okay.

[02:02:14] Well, any other thoughts on these last two episodes?

[02:02:17] On these two episodes?

[02:02:18] No, I think we, I said everything that I wanted to say.

[02:02:23] And I just really am grateful that we get an opportunity to talk about shows like this

[02:02:27] and to watch shows like this.

[02:02:30] So very happy with the direction that it went.

[02:02:36] And the way that these shows, you know, we can be both entertained and also have it trigger

[02:02:44] deeper thought about our own lives and.

[02:02:48] Circumstances.

[02:02:49] Definitely.

[02:02:50] Definitely.

[02:02:51] And that's for me, that's kind of like the Holy grail of entertainment.

[02:02:54] Like give me something that's just like a super fun ride, but that also makes me feel real things.

[02:03:00] It makes me think about it when I'm not watching about the world, about, you know, the world we live in.

[02:03:07] Right.

[02:03:08] Well, we are going to be talking about these two episodes again in our feedback recording, which again, we are doing separately because there was so much excitement and discussion and a bunch of emails.

[02:03:19] So thank you to everyone who sent in your feedback.

[02:03:22] And said something and who's listening and we appreciate it all.

[02:03:27] And can't wait to dig into the feedback.

[02:03:30] Yeah.

[02:03:30] Yeah.

[02:03:31] So we're going to be recording that first thing tomorrow.

[02:03:33] So probably before you guys even hear this, like I said, any future feedback that comes in, we can, if we get it before our wrap up, we'll include it there.

[02:03:41] But just a preview of, of what we're getting tomorrow.

[02:03:46] We know David sent in a voicemail and we know he is very happy with how this wrapped up.

[02:03:51] And here's just a clip of why.

[02:03:54] The human heart in conflict with itself.

[02:04:03] It was like the great Oz.

[02:04:07] The great, wonderful Oz.

[02:04:10] There's nothing he loves more in storytelling than that.

[02:04:13] Those are the facts.

[02:04:16] So, yeah.

[02:04:17] So we have that feedback episode.

[02:04:19] We've got a wrap up pod coming and we're working out the scheduling and how we're going to do that.

[02:04:24] But yeah, it was a fun idea.

[02:04:26] John, you and I talked about it.

[02:04:28] Yes.

[02:04:29] Other people have signed on, not exactly knowing what they're getting into, but ready.

[02:04:36] So hopefully that'll be coming in about a week.

[02:04:38] We just have to work out the scheduling.

[02:04:39] And if you are enjoying our coverage of Agatha all along, you can help us out a lot by passing it on and also by leaving us positive reviews.

[02:04:48] That really makes a huge difference.

[02:04:52] Next up, you and I have also been talking about a bunch of other plans that we have in the pipeline.

[02:04:56] Yeah.

[02:04:57] So you want to talk about some of it?

[02:04:59] Yeah.

[02:04:59] So we're going to do a Sony live action Marvel power ranking, but after Kraven comes out.

[02:05:07] Right.

[02:05:07] And let me say, I'm kind of digging what I'm seeing from the Kraven so far.

[02:05:15] Okay.

[02:05:15] The letter snippets.

[02:05:17] So I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for Sony on this one.

[02:05:21] I'm skeptical, but I have been more forgiving of them than a lot of people.

[02:05:27] I'll keep my fingers crossed for this one.

[02:05:29] I still haven't seen the new Venom, but I'll watch it this week.

[02:05:34] Yeah, I'll probably check it out this week as well.

[02:05:35] Yeah.

[02:05:36] Then in January, we're going to do the one shot for what ifs final season.

[02:05:41] The daily episodes starting on December 22nd and nine episodes lasting until December 30th, I think.

[02:05:52] Yeah.

[02:05:52] So I guess we'll probably do that in January.

[02:05:55] Yeah.

[02:05:55] That's going to be in January.

[02:05:56] And Catherine Hahn is going to show up as Agatha Harkness in one of those episodes.

[02:06:00] Should be big fun.

[02:06:02] And then we know 2025 is going to be a big year.

[02:06:07] So we're planning a preview pod for the 2025 schedule of Marvel releases.

[02:06:15] So that will also be in January.

[02:06:18] Over in our comic verses, we're going to do a Joker 2.

[02:06:23] Plus it's going to be a versus.

[02:06:26] Yeah.

[02:06:26] Our first versus episode.

[02:06:28] It's going to be the first versus episode.

[02:06:29] We're not going to tell you right now who the two combatants are.

[02:06:35] One of them's Joker.

[02:06:36] We'll say, yeah.

[02:06:37] We won't tell you who the other combatant is.

[02:06:41] So we're just going to talk about these two very different or very alike or similar characters from DC and Marvel.

[02:06:49] We'll talk about the comics and anything on film.

[02:06:53] And then we'll talk about their differences, their similarities, their power sets, things of that nature.

[02:07:00] And figure out if they were to ever be in a drag out, knock out, brawl out fight.

[02:07:11] Who would be the victor?

[02:07:16] And then we're going to do the penguin.

[02:07:18] We get the penguin.

[02:07:20] We get the finale next week and we'll have a pod on what we felt was great about that show, which, you know, obviously if you're a listener of this pod, you know that we love the penguin on these parts.

[02:07:35] And hopefully we'll be joined by David for that as well.

[02:07:37] So, um, spooktober just ended, but you can still check out poltergeist on the lorehounds feed, the craft coverage on the wool ship dust feed plus extra subscriber episodes on both speeds.

[02:07:54] And, um, we're also recording a one shot talking about the first two seasons of pachinko, David, Nate, and I, and Nate, for anyone who didn't listen to our show gun coverage, Nate is a, uh,

[02:08:07] he's a PhD candidate at Princeton in Japanese history.

[02:08:13] So he's got a lot of great historical context to give us for, uh, pachinko, excellent show on Apple about generations of Korean Japanese, uh, living through from like 1915 to 1989, the show goes so far.

[02:08:27] And, um, yeah, we've got, if we've got silo coming up, starting in like 10 days, doom prophecy starting in like what?

[02:08:37] 13 days.

[02:08:38] Silo is going to be covered weekly on wool shift dust.

[02:08:41] Doom prophecy is going to be covered weekly on the lorehounds.

[02:08:44] And if you want more witches, then coming up in the start of December, there's going to be a one shot for wicked, the new movie adaptation of the musical, which is an adaptation of one of my favorite books as a teenager.

[02:08:56] And the first reviews are in and they're calling it a musical masterpiece.

[02:09:02] Yeah.

[02:09:02] I haven't read the book and I haven't seen the show, but I'm definitely going to watch the movie.

[02:09:08] All right.

[02:09:08] Well, we need that perspective too.

[02:09:10] So I want to hear what you think.

[02:09:11] Cool.

[02:09:12] Cool.

[02:09:13] But yeah, if people are writing these witchy vibes and that's supposed, that's a great, I definitely recommend this movie.

[02:09:19] I haven't seen it yet, but, um, I, I know the story and the reviews are excellent.

[02:09:26] And then we also have, um, the Sober's Canon timeline podcast, uh, has, has been sadly neglected due to this overwhelming Agatha, uh, silo can flag.

[02:09:38] Yeah.

[02:09:38] Yeah.

[02:09:38] And all this spooktober and everything and, and other work that I have to do to try to earn money.

[02:09:44] Um, and also in the network, radioactive ramblings, they're doing the red rising series of books, a few chapters at a time.

[02:09:53] So, um, I know this is a book series.

[02:09:55] I'm super eager to pick up, but, uh, yeah, definitely going to jump in there.

[02:10:00] I only hear the most wonderful things and nevermind the music.

[02:10:03] Definitely check them out.

[02:10:04] If you haven't, they're releasing at least one weekly episode.

[02:10:08] They're also releasing these, um, sidetracks, which are just kind of these really interesting conversations that go off and tangents.

[02:10:16] Like the most recent one I think was about AI and how it's used in music versus psychology, because that's all about, nevermind the music is all about the overlap between music and psychology and how they interact.

[02:10:30] So definitely check them out.

[02:10:34] You want to know what my song is for the outro for the, for the thank yous?

[02:10:39] You know what?

[02:10:40] No, I want to, I want to be surprised.

[02:10:44] Go ahead.

[02:10:45] Don't tell me what folder it is.

[02:10:47] Just go into it.

[02:10:48] All right, here we go.

[02:10:49] So this, I'm going to say our thank yous to our discord server boosters.

[02:10:53] And then most, especially to our lore masters.

[02:10:54] Now we really want to thank everyone who's listening and we especially want to thank our lore hound subscribers.

[02:11:01] Uh, our lore masters are our highest tier of subscribers and they really make it possible for us to do this at all.

[02:11:09] So thank you.

[02:11:09] Thank you so much.

[02:11:11] Thank you.

[02:11:12] All right.

[02:11:12] Thank you.

[02:12:05] Thank you.

[02:12:16] All right.

[02:12:18] Any final thoughts that we need to communicate with a certain Kevin Feige?

[02:12:22] Yes.

[02:12:23] Uh, I alluded to it earlier.

[02:12:28] Recast T'Challa.

[02:12:32] The lore hounds podcast is produced and published by the lore hounds.

[02:12:36] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the lore hounds.com slash contact.

[02:12:42] Get early and ad free access to all lore hounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the lore hounds.

[02:12:48] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.

[02:12:54] Which is wrong.

[02:13:01] Which is wrong.

[02:13:01] Follow me, my friend.

[02:13:04] To glory at the end.

[02:13:07] Which is wrong.