‘Agatha All Along’ Episode Three Recap: “Through Many Miles, Of Tricks and Trials”

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for episode three of Agatha All Along.

With episode three of Agatha All Along premiering on Disney+, titled Through Many Miles/Of Tricks and Trials, we finally have an idea of how its week-to-week structure will operate after its introductory episodes set the table for Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and her coven, comprised of Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Alice-Wu Gulliver (Ali Ahn), Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp) and “Teen” (Joe Locke) to walk the Witches Road.

Directed by Rachel Goldberg, the third episode of Agatha All Along chronicles the first “trial” that Agatha and her band of witches must face to reach the end of the road. Each trial will focus on a specific craft that each respective witch carries. While the road itself is beautifully designed and definitely puts us in the mood for spooky season (to be honest, the two-episode series finale airing on October 30 is an ingenious marketing bit), Goldberg immediately shifts our attention to a coastal house Jennifer discovers while they are walking a road that seemingly leads into nowhere.

When they enter the lovely house, not only do their costumes (and hairdos) change, but the aspect ratio shifts to 1.90:1. This was a common aesthetic approach in WandaVision, contrasting sequences inside the sitcom and outside Westview with differing aspect ratios. It’s great to see this continue in Agatha All Along, albeit with a different meaning than the 2021 show. We’ll see if they will do this again in subsequent episodes, but it won’t surprise us anymore if they do. Still, it’s always welcomed whenever the visual conventions it establishes are suddenly broken in favor of a different pace and setting.

The coven finds a card leading them to their first trial, where they all have to drink wine. Once they do, a timer begins, and they quickly realize it has been poisoned after Sharon’s face becomes extremely swollen. It brings a great sense of danger to the coven, who must not only make an antidote before they all die but escape a house that is currently underwater and will sink when it reaches rock bottom. This trial is directed explicitly at Jennifer, the potions witch, who unites the coven in finding ingredients to make the specific antidote required for them to survive.

There’s only one problem: everyone is experiencing hallucinations. While they’re not as ‘scary’ as some have said they are (sorry, this feels like the SpongeBob rollercoaster meme to me, especially after seeing Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance two weeks ago, with its vivid imagery still fresh in my mind), they’re still quite effective. Lilia sees a younger version of herself, Jennifer is being choked underwater by a doctor, Alice reunites with her mother seconds before she kills herself, while Agatha imagines a crib featuring a crying child, which turns into the Darkhold. It was revealed earlier, by way of Jennifer, that Agatha traded her child for the elusive book, showcasing just how far she has fallen to obtain power. It’s an interesting visual cue that is far more compelling than the haphazardly inserted Mephisto drop occurring in a conversation between Teen and Jennifer. However, I’m happy for the WandaVision fans who went absolutely crazy in believing random fan theories online. This is indeed an absolute win.

Of course, this being an episode where time dictates their fate, they will obviously succeed at the very last second. Unfortunately, they did not have enough time to give the antidote to Sharon, who was the first person to become poisoned. Honestly, this is a rather gusty decision to kill her off this early in the series. I may be one of the few who thought she was bound to die eventually because she’s not a witch! However, one could also envision her gaining powers and becoming just as strong as Agatha’s coven, which would’ve elevated her arc to funnier horizons had this been the direction taken for the character. Still, making her the show’s first victim could prove divisive amongst audiences, especially regarding her already crowd-pleasing status. However, it does set its large stakes in such a way that posits Agatha’s supporting cast as disposable, though the decision still doesn’t sit too right with me. A crowd-pleasing character like her should have a ‘fitting end,’ instead of killing her in a rather blunt and unsatisfying fashion.

Still, we never truly know if the Witches’ Road is deceiving our eyes. We will find out next week if Sharon’s fate is what we’ve seen at the end of the episode. It’s now clearer-than-clear that Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal will be making her grand return next week since the witches are now short of their ‘Green Witch’ (Sharon was their stand-in since Agatha was too afraid to call Rio). And with the next trial targeting another witch, they will need all the help they can get to succeed…

The third episode of Agatha All Along is now available to stream on Disney+.