Exploring Marvel’s Agatha: Behind the Scenes of the Disney Plus Series

Agatha All Along

will be the next live-action Marvel TV show to debut on Disney Plus. The first of two planned

WandaVision

spin-offs, the Kathryn Hahn-fronted series will see Agatha Harkness embark on a standalone adventure – one filled with plenty of earworm songs, we suspect – later this year. Now is as good a time as any, then, to find out more about it.

Below, we’ve put together a magical guide filled with the latest intel we have on the Marvel Phase 5 project. You’ll learn more about its official release date, confirmed cast, first-look footage, story

rumors

, and its potential impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Full spoilers for



WandaVision



follow

, so make sure you’re caught up on that show before reading on. And don’t forget: it was Agatha all aloooooooong!

Marvel conjured up an official launch date –

Wednesday, September 18

– for the show in mid-May; the comic book giant confirming

Agatha All Along

‘s release date alongside

Daredevil: Born Again

and

Ironheart

‘s during Disney’s Upfronts 2024 presentation. Before that, one of the show’s stars suggested it would arrive in time for Halloween 2024. But hey, we’re not complaining that it’ll debut earlier than we initially expected.

As for its episode count, the Disney Plus series will have nine chapters. The first two episodes will arrive on launch day, with new entries airing weekly.

Full spoilers follow for



WandaVision



. Potential



Agatha All Along



spoilers are also discussed.

Here’s the confirmed cast list (confirmed by

The Hollywood Reporter

(THR), anyway) for

Agatha All Along

so far:

• Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness
• Aubrey Plaza as Rio Vidal
• Joe Locke as Billy Kaplan
• Patti LuPone as Lilia Calderu
• Sasheer Zamata as Jennifer Kale
• Ali Ahn as Alice
• Kate Forbes as Evanora Harkness
• Debra Jo Rupp as Sharon Davies
• Emma Caulfield Ford as Sarah Proctor
• David Lengel as Harold Proctor
• David Payton as John Collins
• Asif Ali as Alibash Tandon

Everyone from Hahn down to Forbes on the list will play a dark magic wielder in the show. The final quintet will reprise their

WandaVision

roles as five Westview residents who were trapped in the New Jersey town by Wanda Maximoff in that MCU series.

Of the named magic users, Forbes’ Evanora, LuPone’s Lilia, and Plaza’s Rio are the only ones with ties to Hahn’s Agatha. Evanora is Agatha’s mom and the leader of the Harkness coven of witches, who appeared in

WandaVision

episode 8’s 1693-set sequence. Agatha killed Evanora during that scene, though, so Evanora’s appearance in

Agatha All Along

will be in another flashback. Lilia is a 450-year-old Sicilian witch with the skill of divination (the ability to see into the future). Rio is a warrior witch who wields a mean dagger and, in the Marvel comics, is Agatha’s on-off love interest.

As for Billy, according to LuPone (per

Entertainment Weekly

(EW)), he’s a Familiar – an individual with supernatural abilities – who’s also believed to be one of Wanda Maximoff’s sons. Billy’s presence in

Agatha All Along

has generated plenty of discussion among Marvel fans because, well, he died (read: disintegrated) in

WandaVision

alongside twin brother Tommy. Indeed, the pair were the fabricated offspring of Wanda and Vision (he was also a make-believe version of the deceased synthezoid that a grief-stricken Wanda created following Vision’s death in

Avengers: Infinity War

). If

Agatha

‘s Billy is the same Billy we saw in

WandaVision

, that raises questions about how he survived when nothing else from Wanda’s Hex spell did.

Billy, Agatha, Rio, Evanora, and Lilia will be joined on the dark magic-wielding front by two other magic users: Ahn’s Alice, who’s simply labeled as a witch, and Zamata’s Kale, a sorceress who, in the comics, is part of another mystical group known as the Cult of Zhered-Na. It’s unclear if Kale and her fellow Zhered-Na members will be a rival faction that the Harkness-led coven will have to duel with.

Other actors are bound to pop up as part of

Agatha All Along

‘s already extensive cast roster. The aforementioned THR article also claims Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Maria Dizzia will appear in as-yet-revealed roles. There’s every chance that Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda could also make an unexpected cameo, too, depending on how the story progresses. Speaking of which (or should that be speaking of *ahem* witch)…

Major spoilers follow for



WandaVision



. Potential



Agatha All Along



spoilers are also discussed.

Marvel hasn’t given us an official story brief yet, but one – for the show’s first entry – was revealed on the

US Copyright Office website

in September 2023. “In the first episode, we see Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) finally break out of a spell she has been trapped in. She can’t wait to go back to her old murderous ways, only to find that she is powerless. The only way forward for her is to embark on a perilous quest to get her powers back with the help of an unlikely friend or two.”

Anyone who’s seen

WandaVision

will know how and why Agatha is trapped in a magical reality, not unlike the one Wanda Maximoff crafted post-

Avengers: Endgame

. But, if you need a refresher, our

WandaVision

finale deep-dive piece provides more details.

Based on what the previously referenced plot synopsis confirms, though, Agatha will escape from her fabricated reality nightmare. Ordinarily, it would be easy for someone with her power level to do so, but Wanda stripped Agatha of her dark magic abilities in

WandaVision

episode 9. As such, it’ll apparently take her a long time to snap out of her false reality – prominent MCU leaker CanWeGetSomeToast (per

Marvel News Films

on X/Twitter) claiming three years will have passed between

WandaVision

‘s final episode and

Agatha All Along

‘s premiere. Agatha will need to ‘shed’ her WandaVision costumes as part of her escape effort as well, according to CGWST (see below).

As for the “unlikely friends” she’ll need to round up to help her regain her abilities, those individuals should include Rio, Lilia, Billy, Jennifer, and Alice. Why does Agatha need to surround herself with witches and other supernatural beings? Because the depowered enchantress will reportedly need to embark on a dangerous journey down The Witches’ Road (per

Nexus Point News

), a life-threatening plane of existence where only sorcerers can tread.

Clearly, Agatha will need to assemble her own coven to not only keep her safe on said journey but also help her navigate it with their powers and expertise. And, as a recent

Empire magazine

interview with showrunner/executive producer Jac Schaeffer confirmed, this “disparate, mixed bag of witches”, all of whom are “covenless” and self-serving

like

Agatha, will join the untrustworthy titular character on her quest to get her powers back. The same article seemingly confirms Rupp’s Debra, who was only thought to be a Westview resident, is also a witch. Interesting, very interesting…

Anyway, in order to travel to this alternate

dimension

, it seems Agatha and her bewitching crew might need to employ a classic witch trope. Indeed, an image (posted on the Scarlet Witch Updates X/Twitter account (see below)) from Disney’s 2024 Upfronts presentation shows Agatha and company flying on broomsticks. There’s no word on whether there’ll be, say, a black cat or a cauldron attached to one of these transportation methods.

But we digress. There’ll be a few callbacks to previous MCU projects in

Agatha All Along

, including

Doctor Strange 2

and (obviously)

WandaVision

. Speaking to

Deadline

after Disney’s Upfronts panel, LuPone also reconfirmed that

Agatha All Along

will be a musical. Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who penned the hugely popular ‘Agatha All Along’ from

WandaVision

episode 7, which stormed the music charts in early 2022, were already confirmed to have written new musical numbers by LuPone (via

THR

). It’s nonetheless pleasing, though, to learn that this element hasn’t been cut from the final product.

Other rumors about the series’ plot have circulated online recently but, to preserve some of the mystery, we’ll refrain from mentioning them here. We’ll add more story details as and when Marvel releases more information about it.

Marvel hasn’t released an official trailer for

Agatha All Along

. We might get one at San Diego Comic-Con or D23 Expo but, right now, the only footage we’ve seen is via an extras featurette on

WandaVision

‘s 4K Blu-Ray release.

There’s little in the way of actual footage in said bonus feature, but we do get a cursory behind-the-scenes look, with Hahn, Schaeffer, and co-executive producer Mary Livanos discussing Agatha’s

WandaVision

legacy, plus the spin-off’s creation.

We also get a glimpse at Agatha’s new costume, which *ahem* harks back to her 17th-century roots, a couple of brief looks at some of the show’s sets (including the aforementioned Witches’ Road), and a fleeting glimpse of Locke’s Billy/Wiccan walking alongside Agatha on the Witches’ Road. Again, it’s not much, but it’s a magical tease ahead of the official trailer reveal. We’ll update this section once one is released.

It’s possible. Marvel is still focused on telling its Multiverse Saga, which began in Phase 4 and will continue in Phases 5 and 6. That hasn’t stopped the comic book giant from branching out and telling standalone tales that have few to no ties to its overarching multiverse narrative.

So, which movies or shows might be born out of

Agatha All Along

? There’s only one project whose events could be set in motion by the series, and Marvel hasn’t formally announced it. That untitled show is a second

WandaVision

spin-off that’ll supposedly star Paul Bettany as White Vision, whose release has reportedly been set for sometime in 2026 (per

Variety

).

If Billy Kaplan is the same Billy we saw in

WandaVision

, and if he survives the events of

Agatha All Along

, we suspect he’ll embark on an adventure to track down White Vision – the closest thing he has to Vision, aka his ‘birth’ father – and/or his twin brother Tommy, with the aim of seeking their help to find Wanda, aka Billy and Tommy’s mom. She was last seen in

Doctor Strange 2

, where she seemingly perished after destroying the Darkhold and Mount Wundagore. However, we didn’t actually see her die and, given Wanda’s popularity among MCU fans, it wouldn’t be in the studio’s best interests to consign her to the MCU’s history books. Expect some plot details for this White Vision-focused series to be revealed as part of an

Agatha All Along

post-credits scene, and/or once the show is out in full.

For more Marvel and Disney Plus-based coverage, read our guides on

Deadpool and Wolverine

, the best Marvel movies, and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.