Jac Schaeffer Talks 'Agatha All Along' With New Sneak Peek Image
Jac Schaeffer Talks 'Agatha All Along' With New Sneak Peek Image
Keep pulling the strings Jac, you’re still going to talk.
It’s been about six weeks since Marvel Television had anything going on. Well at least aside from the What If…? Apple Vision Pro thing. Maybe we’ll hear about the third (and final?) season of What If…? soon, but at the moment, only one series has a publicly announced premiere date, the WandaVision spinoff Agatha All Along, which announced its September 19 premiere date last month at Upfronts. Empire has the first image of the series starring Kathryn Hahn reprising her role as the witch Agatha Harkness, and creator, head writer and lead director Jac Schaeffer was ready to talk.
She describes Harkness’s gang as a “disparate, mixed bag” of covenless witches including Patti LuPone’s Lilia Calderu, Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer Kale, and Ali Ahn’s Alice. Debra Jo Rupp’s Sharon is also here, though it’s unclear why. Empire implies her to be one of the witches, which would be quite the reveal to slip up on. It’s not elaborated on either. Schaeffer describes “What they have in common is that they’re covenless witches,” with a generality that doesn’t reinforce Empire’s lump. “Witches are defined by deception, treachery, villainy and selfishness. What do you do when you have a group of witches who [demonstrate] those notions and you need them to work together?” Chaos magic is at hand.
While plot details aren’t all that public, the first episode description lays at the United States Copyright Office and tells of Agatha breaking out of a spell she has been trapped in, eager to return to her old murderous ways, but it dawns on her that she’s still powerless. She embarks on a perilous quest to get her powers back with the help of an unlikely friend or two. Maybe Sharon serves as one of those unlikely friends.
Hahn first told in January 2023 that the series would be rather musical, building on the “Agatha All Along” song that helped launch Harkness into gaining this spinoff. Of course that means bringing back its writers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez for even more songs. As for the spinoff’s purpose, Schaeffer has said it will thematically “riff on all kinds of witchy lore”. “[Where] WandaVisionplayed with the form of classic TV sitcoms, [here] we do a lot of playing with what the assumptions about witches are,” Schaeffer explains. “Like, what are the shorthand visuals for witches?” A similar emotional core is expected for this series as well “We certainly didn’t want a one-dimensional nasty witch,” says Schaeffer. “We will have moments where we see Agatha’s true heart.” It looks like Agatha might truly be a sympathetic character all along. The series premieres with two episodes on September 19 on Disney+.
Source: Empire