Agatha All Along – If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You review S1 E4

If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You had another clever spin as Agatha and her coven continue on The Witches’ Road. For the occasional really strong moment it still feels like not a ton of things actually happen from episode to episode. Unlike some other recent Disney+ MCU shows sans Loki Season 2 (now available for pre-order at Amazon), AAA has been intriguing enough to keep me invested in what’s going on.

Thankfully, the writing team didn’t decide to start a trend of killing off a member of The Coven each week, which would have been too dark for this mainly frivolous and goofy fun series.

Agatha wants the crew to hurry up in paying their final respects and burying Mrs. Hart. As usual, Agatha’s horrible attempts at being a good teammate (coven-mate?) leads to a solid pithy remark. “Ok, Mrs. Hart was a bad draft pick.” Just absolutely no sympathy. Agatha might be a jerk, but she’s committed to it.

In the wake of Mrs. Hart’s death some other harsh statements come out, including a savvy observation from Lilia — Sharon drank two glasses of the poison and only had one dose of the antidote. That’s some very appreciable attention to detail instead of coming up with some uninspired way to kill a character off to establish the stakes of Witches’ Road.

Short one witch, Agatha suggests summoning a backup green witch. Not shockingly, Rio emerges from the ground in a fun creepy horror movie manner by Director Rachel Goldberg.  Jennifer and Alice aren’t sure if they’re feeling her or terrified of Rio.

This time, the road leads them to a house that gives them a Fleetwood Mac 70s style makeover. The costumes and hair are very nicely done again.

Again, the coven discusses Alice’s mother, Lorna, who wrote an iconic song talking about the Witches’ Road. Alice said she tried to gain access to the road through her concerts with the audience as her coven.

As he’s wont to do, Teen starts investigating and spots a potential clue — an album that reads “Play Me.” Convenient. The record is playing backwards and unleashes a new curse on the coven that gives them all a mark. To break this curse, the coven doesn’t have to enter an oven. They’ve just got to play a jam session of Lorna’s Ballad of the Road song.

Agatha figures out that Lorna’s Ballad is a protection song that protects Alice every time someone is listening or singing it. This the second really clever story element in If I Can’t Reach You that elevated the episode.

Then there’s that other side of Agatha that feels out of place as the coven sings the extended mix of Lorna’s Ballad. This feels like a gag the writers thought would be amazing, but it comes off more like an inside joke that’s taking up way too much time.

It seemed like the demon in the room was going to engulf Alice in flames as she sang the final lines to remove the curse, but she emerged unscathed. Teen on the other hand was bleeding from something.

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After exiting the house, Jennifer is able to save Teen using some other skills she hadn’t shared with the others yet. They get a moment to rest as Teen heals up allowing for some genuine pleasant moments with the crew. There are some solid team-building moments in If I Can’t Reach You that’s setting the coven up nicely to be a unified group through the second half of the season.

As he recovers, Teen asks if Agatha if she put the sigil on him. She tells him sigils are destroyed, not lifted when they’re no longer needed. Adding “You don’t need to know someone’s name to know who they are.” This suggests very strongly that Agatha suspects Teen might actually be her long-lost son. Kudos again to the writing team for actually working to cultivate this big reveal of Teen’s identity. For non-comic fans this reveal should really deliver.

Agatha seems ready to pounce on Rio — in a “let’s get it on” manner, but Rio would prefer to hit Agatha where it hurts telling her that Teen isn’t her son. That’s a solid cliffhanger for If I Can’t Reach You and sets up the next obvious question of who is Teen’s mother?

If I Can’t Reach You had some pretty good moments, but the fascination with long singing numbers that aren’t that great dulls too much of the fun.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney

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