Agatha All Along broke one of the most common Marvel rules this week and the show is one of the strongest Disney+ efforts to date because of it. Episode 5 of the MCU show brought massive reveals about Joe Locke’s Teen actually being Wanda Maximoff’s son Billy. The final moments of this installment set social media on fire. But, more importantly, they bucked a years-long MCU Disney+ trend. In a lot of the other Marvel Studios streaming programming, the big massive reveals are saved for the final two chapters of a season. Be it Sam Wilson becoming Captain America or Loki confronting He Who Remains. (Two times in that case!) Those last two episodes are always trying to catch the audience off-guard and it usually works.
But, this time, we’re getting the mystery of Billy out of here before 75% of the series has played out. He even got his diadem, just like dear old mom before the credits rolled. Director Jac Schaeffer and her team are clicking on all cylinders at the halfway mark of Agatha All Along. The Marvel fandom is as engaged online as they have been in a long time, and even attempts to ruin this surprise have fallen flat by the methods Marvel Studios had chosen to deploy it. After all, in most other MCU shows, Billy would have been a massive highlight saved for the final chapters. Now, fans are wondering what else might be hiding in the back end of the show if Wiccan has already been partially confirmed!
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All of these developments helps explain how Agatha All Along is doing so well on Disney+. We’ve gotten reports and word from Marvel Studios itself that the series is the lowest budget show of this new era. In addition, Agatha’s solo outing also has the highest retention rate of the MCU shows. That means people got caught up in the curiosity around the premiere episodes and decided to stick around. Maybe, a big part of this positive appeal is how different the entire enterprise feels to other superhero TV? (And in its own way, a vindication of the subtle goals of Phase 4 to craft a big tent where there’s a little something for everyone in the MCU.) If the rest of the show can entice viewers the way the first five chapters have, Agatha All Along could find itself alongside WandaVision as the class of the Disney+ Marvel offerings.
Agatha All Along Exceeds Expectations On Disney+
Every week it seems like Agatha All Along finds a way to exceed expectations. Some MCU fans believed that the WandaVision spinoff series wasn’t going to be an essential installment in the Multiverse Saga. However, the latest MCU series has proven to be surprising in Phase 5. Agatha All Along probably got greenlit because of the dynamite performance of its predecessor. Flashback to 2021, and there weren’t many Marvel fans that weren’t partially in love with Kathryn Hahn’s nosy neighbor. Fast forward to late 2024, and that seems to still be the case among a ton of the viewers out there. ComicBook asked Marvel TV head Brad Winderbaum about following-up WandaVision and he called the decision a no-brainer because of the creative team involved with the project.
“Well, it really comes down to Jac [Schaefer, showrunner]. And Jac brought that world to life in WandaVision. And Kathryn Hahn embodying that role, I mean, she became an icon on screen,” Winderbaum told us. “Agatha was always a side character. She’s a villain in WandaVision. But like Wolverine showing up in an issue of Incredible Hulk, you never know what the audience is going to respond to. And Agatha was no different. So, as soon as Jac became inspired, we all just went down the road with her.”
For Marvel Studios, it’s been really important for fans to be able to enter Agatha All Along without having the requirement of watching WandaVision beforehand. Yes, people might be coming from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and other MCU titles to visit Westview again with Agatha. But, it’s important to remember that not everyone that picks up their remote and scrolls over to Disney Plus has followed every single bit of Scarlet Witch’s MCU history since Avengers: Age of Ultron. Striking that balance is key, and Agatha All Along is doing a great job of making room for newer viewers.
“I mean, I would say that if you know the MCU, it might justify a few things that happen in kind of a prologue way,” Winderbaum added. “But if you’re coming to it straight from WandaVision or you’re coming to it, frankly, never having watched another Marvel show before, you get the information you need about the characters you need for the journey.”
How did you like the big Agatha All Along reveals? Catch all of our pop culture discussion at @ComicBook on social media!
