Three years after one of Marvel’s most acclaimed TV series WandaVision debuted, Agatha Harkness is back in her own spin-off series, Agatha All Along.
The nine-part limited series sees Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) set out to recruit a new coven so she can walk the Witches’ Road and restore her wickedly, devastating powers back to their former purple glory.
With a teen boy (Joe Locke), a volatile nemesis Rio (Aubrey Plaza), and three down-and-out witches played by Patti LuPone, Sasheer Zamata and Ali Ahn, this ensemble cast serves up a host of nostalgic nods to witches gone by and the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Woven within this tale of deceptions are Easter eggs for Marvel fans to devour, as well as ones for horror fans and witch aficionados to relish. Here are some of the best Easter eggs from the first two episodes…
The tune Agatha hums
As episode one begins, Agatha, who is currently deep within Wanda’s illusion thinking she’s a decorated detective called Agnes, is humming the song that she will later use to conjure the door to the Witches’ Road. It’s a small sign that Agatha is still inside this true-crime reality and a tease of the future yet to pass.
The Jane Doe
Agatha heads to the crime scene of a woman who has been “crushed” somewhere else and moved to Westview – plus, she has blackened fingertips. Though Herb (David A Payton) says, “Oh she’s most sincerely dead,” Agatha replies: “Oh, you never know.”
All of these clues, including that the body was found in Eastern Europe and seemed to be “moved by magic”, hint that this is the corpse of Wanda Maximoff, before Agatha finally solves the case and remembers the woman with “scarlet” hair.
However, Agatha’s initial comment about Wanda’s death teases that the Scarlet Witch could still be alive. After all, this body was only a figment of Agatha’s imagination. The real one has never been found…
Agatha’s blue check shirt
Disney+ / WandaVision
Disney+ / WandaVision
Disney+ / WandaVision
While Agatha is in the depths of her fictional true crime existence, she wears a blue check shirt and has her hair scraped back into a low ponytail that resembles the dressing gown Wanda wore in WandaVision.
In the Modern Family-inspired episode, Wanda battles with her depression and struggles to get a grip on reality. Similarly, Agatha wears similar attire while living a bleak existence before breaking through the final barrier to come back to reality. It’s also a subtle nod to viewers that Agatha is still in a fictionalised show and not reality, yet.
The library card
The library card seen attached to Wanda Maximoff’s corpse is actually a record of every time the Darkhold has been used or stolen. When Agatha realises her true identity, ‘A. Harkness’ appears above Wanda’s name with the date Jan 21, which is when WandaVision was released and Agatha had the book in her possession.
It seems that the card is a list of every time the Darkhold has changed hands and as there are several entries, the chances are someone else in this series has had it in their position at one time or another too.
Rio’s relationship with Agatha
The first two episodes tease a historic intimacy between Rio and Agatha. Not only a feud, but a romantic relationship too. When the duo fight, Agatha says: “You can’t kill me, it’s not allowed.” Before Rio tells her to take her power, Agatha replies: “You know that would kill me.”
All this combined with Rio’s confession that her heart is “black and it beats for [Agatha]” suggests that the duo might have had more than a relationship, but crafted a blood pact, where neither of them can kill the other without killing themselves too, so they’re tied together in life and death.
Salem Seven
Rio teases that the ‘Salem Seven’ want to kill Agatha, causing Agatha’s facade to fall as she briefly shows her fear. In Marvel Comics, these seven supervillains were originally the enemies of the Scarlet Witch and the Fantastic Four and could shapeshift into creatures.
Later, Agatha sees a crow and a rat appear, both of which seem to be bad omens. She also calls her teen accomplice her “pet” or “familiar”, which could mean that these creatures were forbidding the arrival of the witches who can become animals.
The teen’s black fingertips
Disney+ / WandaVision
Disney+ / WandaVision
Disney+ / WandaVision
Agatha notices that her teen suspect has black fingertips when she questions him in custody, which he says is from the “ink” after the police took his fingerprints. Yet, this police drama has been nothing more than a figment of Agatha’s imagination, so where did the black marks on his hands come from?
Black fingertips are a sign of when someone has been reading the Darkhold – AKA, The Book of the Damned or All Things Evil. But, Rio later says that the book was destroyed when Wanda died. How does this teen have another copy of the Darkhold? And more importantly, who gave it to him? Regardless, it’s a bad sign.
The Salem Seven movement
As Agatha’s new coven rushes down the stairs they’ve just conjured, one of the Salem Seven witches crawls down, cracking her bones unnaturally, as she hisses Agatha’s name.
Horror fans might recognise this terrifying sequence as it replicates Kayako’s distinctive movement when she crawls down the stairs in Takashi Shimizu’s 2004 supernatural horror film, The Grudge. Safe to say, the glimpses of the horror sequences on this show aren’t for the faint-hearted.
The first two episodes of Agatha All Along are available to stream on Disney+ now