It’s the witching hour, and that means one thing. It’s time for Agatha All Along. This is the third episode, but it’s only our second time doing this, because the premiere was two of them. And it’s another good one.

I’m joined again by my witchy expert, also known as Mrs. Know-It-All, and I’ll tell you what, we both really enjoyed this episode. They actually began their journey down the road. She started keying in on things immediately, the different elements, the different disciplines, and there’s a whole potion section that’s pretty dope.

There will be spoilers. If you haven’t seen the episode, go watch it and come back.

Mrs. Hart Is the Whole Episode, Until She Isn’t

Debra Jo Rupp, who of course plays Mrs. Hart, is sort of the focus of this episode. She isn’t a B plot, but she’s definitely running through the whole thing, right up until the very end, where we find her demise.

They’re all walking the road, having this conversation about what it means and what they should do, and Mrs. Hart walks off the path and finds herself almost eaten by a tree stump. Or at least falling into something like a tar pit, her and her Talbots purse, as she points out. She got it on sale. So immediately you’re very concerned for her well-being.

But she was the most laid-back one out of all of them when it came to their first trial, which is a beach house. Man, this house was something out of Better Homes and Gardens, which is why it didn’t surprise either of us that Sharon fell in love with it.

Girls’ Night, With a Clock On It

I love Jen Kale here. She walks in, sees herself in the mirror, and says, “I look like one of my customers.” That was very cool.

The road gives them a nice invitation. Beautiful. Great cardstock, according to Mrs. Hart, and very expensive. There’s a bottle of wine, so they proceed to have a girls’ night, and all of a sudden a clock starts ticking. Specifically, it starts the moment Mrs. Hart downs a glass of wine, no issue. It’s one of those little digital egg timers, and I was like, that’s super fancy for a Witches’ Road. But hey, it probably keeps up with the trends. Witches and Garden, something like that.

They realize something’s going on and they all start drinking. Agatha doesn’t at first, because she’s a fool. She totally is. Did you really think you were going to bypass all this? The road is stronger than you, sister.

Not to mention that clearly it’s a team sport. They have to work together as a coven, and I wonder how much it’s going to hurt them moving forward now that Mrs. Hart’s gone. They don’t manage to save her, because she’s the first one to drink. Kale even says it to her: “Since you were the first to drink, you’re our canary in the coal mine.” Tell us what you’re feeling.

Mrs. Know-It-All loves that I keep calling Jen Kale by her last name. She figured I was doing it because of the Kale Kare line, and yes.

The Potions Challenge Belongs to Jen

For the antidote, they have to find something with petroleum in it. Jen says hers is all natural, and Agatha’s like, no, no, no, we’re calling you out right now. And they take her stuff, which happened to be right there. Her products being on the road was hilarious.

Mrs. Know-It-All’s read is that each trial is focused around one person, and I think that’s right, but it also involves the group. Each of them will inspire how the road reveals itself, and they’ve all got to deal with whatever’s in that setting. This one was about Jen. She was the one who had to make it all come together. This was the potions challenge, if you will.

Part of the poison is that they hallucinate, so they all start seeing different things, and you see Jen’s backstory. She had her power stolen from her, and she was bound up. That’s her terror. At one point it isn’t working, and Agatha has to get real with her. Why do you think I haven’t messed with you in all this time? “I have always hated you, but I left you alone because what you were doing was important.” Not this Kale Kare crap. The real work. It was interesting to watch each of them have to deal with their own struggle, their own fear.

Finally they make it out, and it’s hilarious the way they make it out. Their escape hatch turns out to be the oven. At one point we even get the line: I had a friend once who had an accident with an oven. She had a really nice house, too.

No Aubrey Plaza, and I Think I Know Why

No sign of Aubrey Plaza in this episode, but I think I know why now. Mrs. Hart’s gone. She’s the other green witch, or at least that’s what it looks like, and she’s going to manifest.

I’ve seen spoilers, and if you’ve seen them online too, I’m not going to spoil this particular thing here. (Mrs. Know-It-All says she will hurt me.) There are spoilers that are pretty convincing about who Aubrey Plaza’s character is. I may have to alter my vote, but I’m sticking by last week’s guess, which is that she’s going to end up being Morgan le Fay. I could be way off. In fact I’m pretty sure I am, based on some rumors. Mr. Know-It-All is standing firm on that guess anyway.

Teen, the Sigil, and It’s Never Mephisto

The other character of mystery is Teen, and Mrs. Know-It-All was speculating the whole time, so I wanted to hear it. We both agreed he’s either Wanda’s son or, possibly, Agatha’s. We don’t know how long ago it was that Agatha gave up her child in exchange for the Darkhold.

Jen even gets into it with Teen. How old he might be. Maybe he survived. Who knows where he could be. And then she name-drops Mephisto. Others say he might be a demon, or an agent of Mephisto.

Because it’s an M. It’s constantly an M.

We do find out, because the ladies call it out, that he’s under some sort of a sigil. So the sigil could be an M for Mephisto. The idea is that whatever’s being covered or protected by it is hidden from witches, which I thought was very interesting. We can crack that egg later.

There’s a very complicated storyline in the comics, and you can look it up, Comics Explained has a video on it and everything. In essence, the spirit of Billy from another universe, another world, comes in and inhabits a body at the point of its death, and that’s ultimately who this kid ends up being. Very convoluted. I think he could just as soon end up being Blackheart, who is Mephisto’s son.

Mrs. Know-It-All has her own guess. We don’t know when Agatha did this. So what if it was 13 years ago? He would have been 13 at the time Westview happened with Wanda. He just would have been a kid in the same town, and a lot of kids got messed with in that whole thing. It wouldn’t surprise her if Wanda had something to do with placing Agatha’s child in Westview. I keep realizing how bad Wanda ended up being. She really was. Who’s Ralph? And that’s why there’d be an M now, for Maximoff.

The reason I keep hearing the Mephisto bug is that all of you were going crazy back in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Mephisto this, Mephisto that. We all wanted Mephisto constantly, and it’s never Mephisto. I believe it’s going to be the new “it’s not lupus” from House. It’s not Mephisto. Stop it.

Real Talk: I’m Starting to Lose the Gloss

I asked Mrs. Know-It-All if there was anything she didn’t like, and she really didn’t have complaints. It was a tad shorter than she wanted, and she feels like there’s so much more they can do.

For me, we’re going to get real talk, and I wish I had a glass of wine so I’d be in character. I’m starting to lose the gloss. I like everything they’re doing. It’s fine. But I’m beginning to feel like we’re living on a sound stage, and that can be a problem.

Take Mrs. Hart sitting there before her hands got sucked in. I feel like it was a practical effect, and I understand that, but it just wasn’t well done.

The house stuff made sense. It was a nice off-balance thing. But you have the road change into a really nice CG image of a house on a beach, then they go to a close-up in the walkway of said house, and then you’re on a sound stage on the inside of it. It all felt disconnected as a set. Maybe it comes from our experience in the industry, and sometimes I can see the edges a little better, but this was kind of obvious for me. I need you to elevate this for me.

Mrs. Know-It-All understood what I was saying, but she was just in the moment. The story sucks her in. She was going right along with them for the drama, because this isn’t high action, but it’s very engaging.

Magic Desperate Housewives

What this episode honestly feels like is that show on Wisteria Lane. Desperate Housewives. This is magic Desperate Housewives, because they’re in the Better Homes and Gardens of the Witches’ Road.

Which is funny, because last week I tried to defend the first episode online. The reason you saw the true crime opening was because Wanda left her trapped in the show. Then you get to the show itself, and now here’s an episode where I feel like we’re still nodding to the history of WandaVision. This does feel like a TV show episode. They had outfit changes, the whole nine yards, and a different vibe. The intro was the same, though, and I thought it would be different. We’ll see how episode four treats it and whether they continue the trend. I dig it, though some people think it’s a little bit derivative.

Mrs. Know-It-All thinks we’re always going to have that issue. It can be separate and different, but it’s still going to have that vibe. Wanda’s going to keep coming up, and what happened in Westview is going to keep coming up, because the rest of that coven is from Westview or the surrounding area. I’m okay with that. I can understand people saying this is supposed to stand on its own, but it’s going to weigh heavily toward being part of WandaVision.

I’m still very much here. But this is episode three, and I’ve heard critics say otherwise about this show, and I don’t know what show they were watching. Real quick, though: we loved She-Hulk for the first three episodes, and I’m really nervous.

We did get a little glimpse of what’s to come. Lilia, the clairvoyant one, saw something, and it was a pretty ghoulish moment. Skeletons and death. It wasn’t pleasant. If that’s the type of scariness we’re getting, just a little bit at a time, that’s fair.

The Verdict

Agatha All Along Episode 3 gets a solid 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index from me and an 8.5 from Mrs. Know-It-All.

I went first this week. Some of the gloss started to wear off, so I’m backing off a little bit, and it’s a solid eight.

Mrs. Know-It-All went a little higher, probably because I saw the seams more than she did. Her words: I have a more trained eye for those things. But she loves the story, she’s still fully in, and she’s going 8.5.

As for next week, I don’t think we’re going to have to wait for Aubrey Plaza. With the way the episode ended and where they’re at, I think she’s going to pop right up like we saw in the preview. I think we get her back, and I think it’s going to get a little scarier. It’ll be interesting to see whose trial it is.

What are your scores? Is Teen Agatha’s kid, or Billy from another universe? And are you feeling the WandaVision of it all as derivative, or is it doing it for you? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.