Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

yeah that was v funny & enjoyable, love this show so muchhhhhh ugh

weeeeeeee next week is gonna be so good *rubs hands witchily*

am finally caught up and just wanna say I was very sure the ouija board was spelling MR SHART and I can’t believe an MCU show missed that joke entirely

Haha you weren't the only one I know to wish that had happened. But yes, bring on the next episode for sure.

Question: do I need to see wandavision to know what’s going on with this series?

Not entirely, but it absolutely helps, yeah. (Especially as this series is going on.) WandaVision is also just really good in its own right.

it does provide some good context if you feel like diving in - and yes, a great show regardless

I'm liking Agatha more than expected and it's making me wish I'd rewatched Wandavision. I also find the Screen Crush recaps (mainly for easter eggs/refs I wouldn't know in advance) on YouTube pretty good for these shows.

And as per Loki the credits visuals rule hard

Really fantastic and they've been having good fun with the song syncs.

Yeah, that was a great end-credits needle drop

i won’t tell anyone they have to listen because it’s a lot & the eps are VERY long lol: BUT Ringer’s House of R podcast does incredible & fun weekly deep dives into Agatha & it is so incredibly my shit

this week’s episode was so good, loved all the backstory and bonus Ralph Bohner!

Good fun, that. This new Variety interview worth it too.

Yeah it turns out that Joe Locke can be a teen in love, cutely!

so adorbs, i love him in his eyeliner being a baby goth

Strikingly good episode, that. (And also deep LOL at Teen getting the Maleficent makeover)

yeah i loved this episode so much! it was making me me weirdly emotional all the way through, even before the end. Patti Lupone is the best ❤️

I agree, this ruled

I think it's great we're getting a one-two finale next week right before Halloween. Honestly can't wait!

i dont want it to end :(

Strong ending despite being over ten minutes shorter than last week's episode (sorry but probably never gonna stop complaining about this)

I hadn't noticed that you'd started - is it the irregularity or that it should be shorter? I was surprised by how long the previous one was, but that was partly because it never dragged.

Nor did this - Patti LuPone was great, though obviously focus in an episode is not an omen of long life

I really loved the various instances of Bill & Ted time logic - Lilia stops being mad at the Teen because Jen tells her that they're over it, but she only knows that because Lilia told her

I liked that they lent into the timey wimey side of things... aka bill & ted logic.

also the taroty waroty.

best episode for me, probs going to double team the last episodes with the new WWDITS season at Halloween..

mmmm thats good spooky but safe TV.

Now that was a fine way to wrap it up. And that final episode took a nice stylistic swing for its first half.

I need to watch it again I think because I was weirdly unmoved by the last episode

I think it’s because they didn’t explicitly tie Agatha’s murderous ways to the pact that was keeping Nicky alive? It’s heavily implied but there’s no actual bargain stated, and Agatha keeps killing witches after his death so I guess she’s more of a witch vampire?

Penultimate episode ruled though and making The Witches Road be a long-running con Agatha was using to hunt witches was really, really great.

So when does Agatha start babysitting. iirc that was her main job in the comics.

DJP although I enjoyed the last episode I had similar qualms, I expected it to be more clearly illustrated that her providing Death fresh bodies was prolonging Nicholas's life, esp since the one day they didn't kill witches is the day he died, but it didn't seem to be the case, she was just power hungry I guess but now without a child to be a conscience I guess she didn't mind ratcheting up the volume in which she killed them

dang. i didn’t even make that connection!

going back to Ep 7, being a recovering theatre dork, have always loved LuPone, have seen her numerous times on Broadway in the last 20 years, but my issues is when she gets TV roles, they're often caricature-y performances on screwball sitcoms, playing up Italian stereotypes and with her basically leaning into her being herself, so I was so glad to see them give her one of the series' more complicated characters, with hefty dramatic moments, and giving her such a great send-off episode.

otm

That feels like a slightly odd take, Neanderthal - particularly if you think she was killing every day while Nicholas is alive? She seems to drop down to once a decade or two after that. That we see, anyway.

She doesn't have to be killing every day of course - maybe it's weekly, and she's always leaving it to the last minute like homework. Or maybe it's random, and it's just that was the wrong day for him to have qualms.

I was a little freaked out about how much Nicholas, in his first non-baby appearance, looked like Katherine Hahn. Then I relaxed into being freaked out about how much he looks like David Foster Wallace.

I was racking my head about where I'd seen the twist before - I suppose a bit of The Usual Suspects, but I think more Labyrinth?

Yes, love LuPone - I thought I'd said but I can't see it: I wonder if the actress playing Jen reflexively apologised after accusing her of being flat after the first Ballad :)

i really loved the way they weaved the Witches Road song itself into the backstory, the way it changed so completely for me during the end credits was so impressive

Yeah, that was great. Really looking forward to watching this again in a while!

it'll be interesting to rewatch it through the lens of Agatha's and Rio's history. "he's not your child, you know"

i didn't understand at first Rio's motivation in regards to Billy but i guess it's because he essentially cheated death / stole a body from her?

yeah she said Billy "disrupted the sacred balance" when he became William Kaplan

thought that finale felt a bit rushed but agree that the show as a whole will be fun to rewatch - there were a ton of hints sprinkled throughout the earlier episodes that only make sense or is funnier when you've seen the whole thing (e.g. Rio saying she hates ghosts, and then Agatha becoming a ghost)

My daughter/viewing partner had no interest in the show after the first ep so I only just now got around to episode two, and ... I dunno, man. It's kind of clunky, and a couple of the actors/characters are pretty annoying. I wish it was taking itself a little more seriously. I'll probably stick it out, though, I like witches.

Which reminds me, I never made it past the first episode of "Echo" (even though it seemed fine), did anyone watch that? That one and "Secret Invasion," feels like no one talked about them at all.

Yeah those just came and went -- they did Echo as a full series drop too, doesn't speak much of faith in it. I think I will catch up with it at some point here if only because I gather it serves as a bit of a leadin to the new Daredevil series next year.

I liked Echo a lot

Secret Invasion was actively terrible

Echo was good but also kinda clunky — and yeah Secret Invasion wasnt my favorite

I still need to watch Echo. Secret Invasion had so much potential with that cast but, yeah, not great.

I just watched half of episode 3 of Agatha, and woof, this is like a '90s kids show. The writing is pretty bad, and pretty much all awkward exposition, and the acting is super broad. I want to believe, but ... woof.

look if you aren’t onboard for a Kathryn-Hahn led show about witches that is a YOU problem not a show problem.

gtfo with “woof”

I like Kathryn Hahn! I like witches! But so far this just isn't that good. Like, in the second episode, when the hooded figures were showing up, and the Joe Locke character is running around in a panic, clutching his face and flailing about like Bud Abbott? That's just goofy. I'm at the part in episode three with the swollen faces and there's a lot more silliness and that's where I had to take a break. Just so broad.

Really, I can say is lol at taking a break there

again: this is a you problem

Of course it's a me problem! I'm the one not liking it that much, lol. But hey, not everything is for everyone.

Sad lol I had in the wine episode was when they suggested Joe Locke drink wine, and someone has to say "no, he's underage!" And I was like, oh yeah, it's Disney.

i was losing interest after the first 4 episodes (and only stuck around for Kathryn-Hahn), but it did pay off as the last 5 eps step up the game quite a bit. and some goofy aspects will actually make sense later

my main problem is that it's not actually about Agatha, and can we please get a whole season of hardboiled procedural

For what it’s worth, if memory serves, ep3 was by far my least favorite. The one where they act like a rock band toward the end. But overall I thought the series was good. It did a good job of laying foundations for solid payoffs later on.

Ok, what’s the deal with Billy and Tommy. They weren’t real, right? Wanda made them, so how is the Teen one of those kids. Is this just fuzzy comic book logic or am I missing something?