Author’s Note: This review contains huge spoilers for Agatha All Along episode seven.

Last night’s Agatha All Along involved brilliant storytelling, hilarious gay jokes, and an epic reveal. Let’s talk about it!

We haven’t really gotten much more progress on the Agatha and Rio front since their electric exchange(s) in Episode 4, with Agatha’s trial (or whatever that was that happened in the treehouse) and Teen’s flashback episode, and while they didn’t share a scene in last night’s episode either, enough happened regarding each of them that feels worth talking about.

Much like last week was Teen’s episode (I know we know his name now but the nickname stuck and HE doesn’t even know if he’s William or Billy, how could I?), this week was Lilia’s. All of her out-of-time outbursts got sewn together, and we got a peek into the world as Lilia saw it, not quite linearly. The episode starts with the coven split apart. Rio had stayed behind with Alice, Agatha and Teen are still making their way down the Road, and Lilia and Jen find themselves underneath the Road, winding through tunnels.

While heading to the next trial, Agatha reminds Teen that he can’t read her mind and tells him to just ask her questions instead. Just nothing about Rio. Perhaps specifically about his mother. Wanda was, after all, her “ex…best friend.” And don’t think I didn’t notice the pause she took between “ex” and “best friend.” Teen asks if Wanda is dead, and Agatha says “yes, no, maybe.” She says she saw a body, but it was during the time when she was seeing a lot of things that weren’t real. Then she said one of the funniest lines of the episode, “Hey, you want straight answers, ask a straight lady.”

I appreciated this line for two reasons. One, because it’s relatable as hell. My friends and I are constantly making jokes like this. To the point that if we’re all walking in a group and need to convey the direction, we tell each other to continue “gayly forward” because we can’t even walk straight. And two, because, bafflingly, some (straight) people still don’t get that Agatha and Rio are queer? Queer people clocked that they were exes the second they were on screen together, but despite the palm licking, the banter, “she is my scar,” and the literal almost kiss, some people are still in denial. So for Agatha to continue to make jokes to make it perfectly clear is a win-win in my book. Also, as someone who can never give a simple yes or no answer to a simple yes or no question, I’m absolutely stealing that line.

At first, Teen tries to read Agatha’s tarot, but that goes very poorly and they realize it’s Lilia’s trial. Luckily the group is reunited before Teen and Agatha get sliced by any of the swords that keep falling from the ceiling as they try and fail to beat the trial themselves.

Did I mention everyone is dressed as classic movie witches? Because they are and it’s amazing.

To complete her trial, Lilia needed to do a tarot reading. First, she thought it had to be for someone else, and asked for a querent, to which Teen offered to be her “queer-ent” and Agatha did that stilted laugh you do when someone made a really bad joke and you don’t want to laugh at it but you want to acknowledge the joke. Eventually, Lilia realizes the tarot had to be read for herself, and reveals the cards she’s been predicting all season as she lived her life out of order. She pulls cards for herself (queen of cups), her coven (three of pentacles), Alice (knight of wands), Jen (high priestess), three of swords (Agatha), Teen (Tower reversed). This whole sequence was so stunning. The way this episode revealed what all of Lilia’s outbursts meant, and also the shots of the witches from previous episodes in what would be the positions for their tarot card, and Patti Lupone’s performance — perfect storytelling, stunning acting, beautiful visuals. While I was watching, I just kept saying, “I love this show.”

For the last card in the tarot spread, in the destination spot, where all roads lead…Lilia pulls a card for Rio, and realizes that Rio is Death herself. The original Green Witch.

Sorry to the Grim Reaper but I love the “Death is hot” trope.

And now, we knew this. Or we had been speculating it. The way Rio was “the closest green witch” after Sharon died, the way she cackled when the Ouija board said “Death” was there with them, the way she stayed behind when Alice died, the way she talked about wanting bodies, and having to take Agatha’s son. But that didn’t lessen this reveal for me. I still got chills when Rio’s voice crept out of the shadows, “Don’t you recognize me?”

When Teen turns to Agatha for confirmation of Lilia’s reveal, Agatha just shrugs. “What can I say, I like the bad boys.” She takes the phrase ‘flirting with Death’ quite literally.

Also this is neither here nor there, but I like that in both this show and The Fall of the House of Usher, Death is portrayed as a hot, queer woman. This is a trend I could get behind.

In the end, Lilia ushers her coven out the door to their next trial. She gives Agatha a warning (“When she calls you a coward, hit the deck,”) she gives Teen his spellbook back, and she tells Jen she is the path forward. Before she closes the door and saves them all from The Salem Seven, Lilia looks at Jen and says, “I loved being a witch.”

Seems important to note that the other three were dressed as stereotypically “evil” witches (though both the Wicked Witch of the West and Maleficent have had backstory redemption tales told) and Lilia is dressed as Glinda the Good Witch.

Maybe it’s because she’s literally dressed as Glinda, but it sort of felt like the end of the Wizard of Oz when Lilia is giving out gifts. Agatha got the gift of courage, Teen got his brains, Jen was told to take heart. And Lilia? Lilia got to go where the road leads, and back to the beginning of her endless mental time loop. Lilia went home.

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