(spoilers)

There are many trials along the road…

Episode 3 takes us along the blue leaf Witch’s Road. And straight to a Hourn and then to a locked room mystery involving the kind of trickery you might find at a LARP. This makes it sound amateur and actually, for me, the episode was tightly written and well delivered.

It’s still missing Aubrey Plaza’s mesmeric presence but the rest of the cast get enough to do that they don’t feel like also rans and create the feel of a proper ensemble in the making.

Which is an odd thing because for a show named after one of the characters, Agatha is under-utilized. I can understand why – you have a large ensemble cast squeezed into, roughly, 30 minutes. Each of them has an aspect and the show has explicitly outlined how each of them is critical to successfully walking the road and meeting the challenges their coven will be facing.

Agatha All Along can’t quite work out which way it wants to lean – is it an ensemble show or is it about Agatha Harkness? This indecisiveness results in Hahn’s titular character not having room to breathe. The damage this does is subtle but it leaves the main character without a leading role. I’m not sure if this is intentional but it does feel like she’s underserved. That may well change – and I’m not offended by the rest of the cast – it’s more that I’m not sure the balance between them all is right.

Anyway. There’s some nods here to everyone’s backstory. There’s also nods to just who our mysterious Teen might be, all of which is interesting.

Verdict: In the end it’s a solid episode but is nevertheless a little less than the sum of its parts.  

Rating? 7 locked rooms out of 10

Stewart Hotston