[Ed. note: This post contains end spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and WandaVision, and setup spoilers for Agatha All Along’s premiere episodes.]
When Disney Plus’ new Marvel Cinematic Universe show Agatha – All the time takes up the story WandaVision The protagonist Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) is not quite in reality – or even in the reality of the MCU. How WandaVision ended, Wanda defeated Agatha in a battle of explosive CGI Magic and locked her in her “Agnes” personality. Wanda continued on her unfortunate path, heading for another confrontation in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of MadnessAnd Agatha apparently just went along as Agnes, caught under a spell.
But the premiere of Agatha she breaks out, dangling a tantalizing detail, alluding to the importance of the Darkhold. If you remember your MCU factoids, you’ll remember that this is the book Wanda was referring to in the teaser at the end of WandaVisionand what ultimately corrupted them into Multiverse of Madness.
What is the Darkhold and where is it in the MCU?
The Darkhold is basically the Book of the Damned, Marvel’s version of HP Lovecraft’s cursed Necronomicon. In-universe lore says that an ancient Elder God wrote down all of his evil deeds and spells at Mount Wundagore, and those writings became a textbook of magic that could corrupt people. That’s exactly what happened to Wanda in the MCU: She turned to the Darkhold after defeating Agatha to seek her happiness (and the imaginary children she raised with her powers in WandaVision
Eventually, however, Wanda realizes her mistake and rejoins the good side. She sacrifices herself to destroy all copies of the Darkhold in the entire multiverse. This puts Agatha in quite a dilemma at the beginning of the film. Agatha – All the time…
Does Wanda appear in “Agatha All Along”?
Somehow? When Agatha thinks she is Agnes, a hard-boiled detective in a drama called Agnes of Westview, She is investigating a mysterious corpse that has appeared on the outskirts of town. It is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to WandaVisionThe trick of is to base individual episodes on specific series from throughout television history.
At the end of the episode, it is revealed that the corpse is Wanda. (Her face is never shown, likely so Disney didn’t have to pay Elizabeth Olsen for the cameo or create a disturbing CG version of her squashed face.) Agatha visits the morgue, and as the truth dawns on her, the previously blank sign on the sole of the corpse’s foot changes to now show the name “W. Maximoff.” It’s not that Wanda’s corpse is physically in Westview; it’s a symbol that the witch who cursed Agatha is dead and her spell is warping, either because of her death or because the Darkhold was destroyed. Agatha needs a little help to break that curse.
Although technically before Wanda’s name appears on the toe tag, there are a number of clues that point to her being the mysterious (and metaphorical) corpse.
Policeman, I have given you all the information…
When Agatha sees the body for the first time, the police on site tell her that the victim apparently died from crush injuries caused by heavy falling objects. This fits with Wanda’s death in Doctor Strange 2after she destroyed Darkhold Castle and it collapsed on top of her.
Later in the episode, another officer tells Agatha that the soil beneath the corpse’s fingernails contains a microbe sample that is only found in Eastern Europe. In the comics, Mount Wundagore – where Wanda finally sacrificed herself in 1945 – Multiverse of Madness – is set in Transia, one of several fictional Eastern European countries in the Marvel Universe.
The officers find a library checkout card on the body, indicating that the body had checked out a book with the title “DARKHOLD.” Agnes goes to the library to investigate, but learns that the book was stolen and all other copies burned. This isn’t exactly how the Darkhold was destroyed across the multiverse, but turning a major cosmic event into a mundane fire fits the genre shift for Agatha – All the time‘s first episode. And the hole that was blown into a shelf full of books also reflects the fight that Vision and his counterpart White Vision had in the library, exactly in WandaVisionjust before they decide to speak out about their problems Ship of Theseus Metaphor – another little callback that finds its way into Agnes’ delusion.
And finally, just before the reveal, Agatha describes the corpse as being 5’7″ tall (Wanda Maximoff’s canonical height), with green eyes and (here she pauses dramatically) scarlet hair.
There are other details – like the theory that the body was transported from another city in a particular car – that don’t necessarily add to the procedural or the metaphor. But what’s a good crime story without a few scarlet leads?