Agatha All Along – Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials review S1 E3

Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials was an interesting mix of decent sitcom style comedy and some intense creepy horror. Agatha All Along is an improvement over some MCU shows — looking at you Secret Wars and She-Hulk — but the ensemble nature of the series is hindering its greatest asset. Its star.

Tom Hiddleston’s Loki could afford to share the spotlight in Loki as he’d been prominently featured in three Thor films and three Avengers films. Kathryn Hahn’s only had her appearances in WandaVision and now has to split screen time with a decent sized ensemble.

Pairing Agatha with her own coven seems like a fine idea for AAA Season 2 or 3, but it’s too early in her solo series. And Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials reinforced that notion as all the cast needed time in the spotlight while it’s still a matter of caring if Agatha gets her magic mojo back.

Agatha’s coven ponder their predicament as they’re on the Witches’ Road with no clear direction. What’s odd and a little weird so far is how annoyed Agatha is with this ragtag magicians Avengers crew she’s assembled.

If the main character finds them irritating, how is the audience expected to react? Agatha certainly doesn’t seem very invested in their wellbeing acting very self-serving. That’s consistent with the character from what we saw in WandaVision though it’s hard to care if Agatha screws over any of her crew.

Lilia and Agatha warn the others that the Road will test them — one for each skill. Jennifer, Lilia and Alice are shocked when they see the sigil preventing anyone from learning about his parents. Hopefully the big reveal will be worth this seemingly unnecessary build-up considering the secret identity of his heritage is hardly a shock.

Sharon keeps providing most of the humor in Many Miles, which is a problem since she’s the most entertaining aspect of Agatha All Along instead of…oh, I don’t know…Agatha? The worst aspect of this approach is it’s too similar to how she was used in WandaVision — the snarky side character popping in with some random dismissive lines instead of the focus in her own story.

The coven heads to a beach house that once inside doesn’t have any knobs for the doors or windows that open. Teen gets a funny line about how “It’s giving middle age second chance at love vibes and I’m here for it.”

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Jennifer warns Teen not to trust Agatha as she traded her child for The Darkhold. That should cause him some doubt in fully going along with her. Jennifer name drops Mephisto and opens up a more intriguing possibility of Agatha probably not even knowing her child if he showed up in front of her. That’s a solid red herring — Teen is Agatha’s son, but no go.

Some of the humor in Many Miles was pushing it — the puffed-up faces after drinking the wine sequence was goofy in a bad way. Agatha tried to get out of drinking the wine, but the writing didn’t explain why. Was she just suspicious? Or wanted to see what happened to everyone else even though she needs them to go further on The Witches’ Road. Again, these are questions that would have logically been answered with more time focused on Agatha and developing her beyond a catchy jingle.

After their faces heal, the coven sees different hallucinations.  This was actually a really solid scene with good character scares. Agatha hallucinates about Wanda and it felt like a bit of a missed opportunity to at least show a silhouette of Scarlet Witch lurking in the background.

Once they complete the fear factor aspect of the trial, it’s time for them to leave the beach house as it’s starting to flood. Director Rachel Goldberg made excellent use out of whatever cut of the series budget was allocated for Many Miles. Beyond the goofy puffy faces, the practical effects and CGI work was very well done. This wasn’t a budget-busting episode, but Goldberg and the rest of the behind the camera crew didn’t make it look cheap at all.

The coven barely escapes the flooding kitchen, but not everyone survives. Did Sharon actually die? That actually surprisingly raised the stakes, not just for Many Miles, but for the rest of the season. A little shocking death puts everyone else on notice.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney

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