Spoilers

What do you do with a powerful but selfish woman who was ‘punished’ in a very cruel way and left to fester? This is the question for Agatha Harkness at the start of this series.

Agatha Harkness, who we first met in WandaVision and played by Kathryn Hahn, is trapped. She’s trapped in a television show of her own making.

This start, reminiscent of WandaVision’s format, makes thematic sense but also isn’t particularly compelling as a premise. Fortunately, the show picks this apart pretty quickly and neatly, talking to us about the constructed nature of stories and how we represent them as versions of ourselves.

We quickly see that what we’re given at the open is nothing more than a façade and that then opens the whole story out into something bigger. What that bigger is remains to be seen because the show is attempting to combine equal parts camp, nonsense and powerful women. It’s a strange set of flavours to mix together, as are the horror and comedy tones that have, at least in the first two episodes, been a little jarring in their shifts.

That’s not to say it’s bad, more that the show is trying to do a lot and that juggling hasn’t been perfect so far.

I liked it but there were moments where I was also pulled out of the story telling by odd choices such as the dubbed singing of a spell towards the end of the first episode. That song is great but the layering over of the actual singing in a way which is clearly done in a recording studio rather than on set is just one of those elements that takes away from the tone I felt I was being shown everywhere else.

What is fantastic though are the cast. They’ve not quite gelled by the end of the second episode but each of them feels well enough established and each of these women have their own ideas, agendas and thoughts. This is great. There’s some handwavy nonsense about how within three miles of a witch there’ll always be enough magic-slinging loners who also need a coven that Agatha just so happens to be able to form a coven within a couple of hours, but hey, this is the MCU and Agatha needed a coven. If you want gritty realism head elsewhere.

Verdict: Agatha does enough to earn its keep. It sets out its stall quite clearly from what came before and, in a moment reminiscent of Dorothy landing on the Yellow Brick Road, gives us a clear sense of the stakes to be overcome and the mysteries to be unravelled.

Rating? 7 covens out of 10.

Stewart Hotston