The Ultimate List of What to Watch Before ‘Agatha All Along’

Excluding credits and recaps and other assorted business that’s part of every project, a full rewatch or first viewing of WandaVision will only take right around four and a half hours. The early episodes certainly set the stage for the series’ twists and turns and the back half of the season has all sorts of juicy bits that you might need to take in before watching Agatha All Along. Trailers for the series have made it clear that in addition to the difficulty of traveling the Witches’ Road, Agatha will be dealing with the repercussions of her wicked past. And if that’s not enough, it’s widely accepted that Joe Locke’s character, Teen, is the re-embodiment of Wanda’s son, Billy. Though Billy, and his brother Tommy, were magically created within the Westview Anomaly, aka The Hex, and disappeared when Wanda lifted her spell, they have had plenty to do with Wanda’s story and are very likely to play a large role again down the road.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

According to Wong, the “Scarlet Witch is a being of unfathomable magic” who “can rewrite reality as she chooses, and is prophesized to either rule or annihilate the cosmos.” In a Multiversal search for alternate-dimension Variants of her children, the Scarlet Witch used her power to Dreamwalk into other realities, threatening their existence. We know how it all ended but it is likely not to be the end of Wanda’s story and while it’s unclear exactly how much of this will be referenced in Agatha All Along, Wanda will absolutely have an impact on the series.

Tier Two

With so little connectivity to the rest of the MCU, Agatha All Along occupies rarified air. New fans often seem overwhelmed by the amount of work it would take to catch themselves up to speed on the MCU’s next big thing but, in the case of Agatha All Along, the two projects in Tier One are the only ones that are truly necessary. However, given that magic is the heart of the series, there are a couple of other projects that might add some context to the series or, at the very least, give viewers a more comprehensive view of how magic works within the confines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Thor (2011),Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Millenia before Agatha Harkness was doing her dirty work in Salem, the Asgardians began to study and understand how to harness the energies of the universe and use them to their advantage. Asgard itself was a blend of magic and technology and many Asgaridans, such as Frigga and Loki, were known to be powerful magic weilders. The Thor trilogy also includes multiple weapons, relics and other assorted artifacts that are enchanted via spells by Odin and, perhaps, others as well.

Your ancestors called it magic and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they are one and the same thing.

-Thor

Watching the original Thor trilogy is certainly not necessary for fans to enjoy Agatha All Along but it does provide some historical context for magic within the MCU and features one of its most powerful practitioners in Loki. An argument could be made that if one was going to watch these films they could watch Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) and both seasons of Loki; however, there’s probably enough to be gleaned from the first three films to satisfy the need.

Doctor Strange (2016)

Doctor Strange not only introduces the titular Doctor but also the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Hidden in Kamar-Taj and led by The Ancient One, the Masters of the Mystic Arts are an order of sorcerers, founded thousands of years ago by Agomottos, who have learned to harness the energies of the alternate universes to protect Earth from mystical threats.

The language of the Mystic Arts is as old as civilization. The sorcerers of antiquity called the use of this language ‘spells,’ but if that word offends your modern sensibilities, you can call it a program; the source code that shapes reality. We harness energy drawn from other dimensions of the Multiverse to cast spells, to conjure shields and weapons, to make magic.

-The Ancient One

The film introduced different types of magic and warns against the use of many. There are some similarities between the way the Masters of the Mystic Arts harness and wield their magic and the way Agatha’s witchcraft is portrayed in WandaVision. If nothing else, Doctor Strange will open your third eye as to the great possibilities of magic used by humans.

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law (2022)

Any efforts to catch up on the use of magic in the Multiverse must include the latest adventures of the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth-616: Wong.

I need to make an example of Donny Blaze. Set a precedent that no unlicensed persons ever attempt to practice the Mystic Arts again.

-Wong

Episodes 3, 4 and 9 of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law follow up on Wong’s friendship with Emil Blonsky–as first seen in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings–and see the Sorcerer Supreme target Donny Blaze, a former student of Kamar-Taj who was expelled and now works as a stage magician. Wong crossed Blaze’s path when the latter opened a portal and sent Madisynn King to another dimension where she met a demon named Jake…

Tier Three

Tier Three inclusions are never, ever necessary for anyone to enjoy an upcoming MCU project but they can sometimes increase viewing pleasure by adding context, providing thematic connections or allowing viewers to watch films or shows that have inspired the creators of their new favorite Marvel thing! We’ve broken this very different Tier Three into two parts.

Part 1: More MCU Magic

While the Tier Two projects can help new viewers understand more about how magic works in the MCU, they are far from the only projects in which magic was used. To that end, we present a list of MCU projects in which magic played a role. NOTE: This list is intended to be comprehensive, however, if any projects have been left off please let us know and we’ll be happy to add them!

• Avengers (2012)
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) mid-credit scene
• Captain America: Civil War (2016)
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
• Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
• Avengers: Endgame (2019)
• Loki, Season 1 (2021)
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
• Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
• Moon Knight (2022)
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
• Loki, Season 2 (2023)

Part 2: Other Inspiration

As the press junkets and interviews used to promote Agatha All Along have started to emerge over the past few weeks, the cast and crew of the streaming series have named various projects that served as inspiration for the show.

• The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
• Poltergeist (1982)
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
• The Goonies (1985)
• Hocus Pocus (1993)
• The Craft (1996)
• Practical Magic (1998)

About Agatha All Along

In addition to Kathryn Hahn, Agatha All Along stars Joe Locke, Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, Maria Dizzia, Paul Adelstein, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Okwui Okpokwasili, with Debra Jo Rupp, with PattiLuPone, and Aubrey Plaza.

In Marvel Studios’ Agatha All Along, the infamous Agatha Harkness finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth Teen helps break her free from a distorted spell. Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious Teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down The Road…

The executive producers are Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Mary Livanos and Jac Schaeffer. In addition to series creator Schaeffer, episodes of Agatha All Along will be directed by Rachel Goldberg (Mayans M.C. and Gen V) and Gandja Monteiro (Wednesday, The Witcher and The Walking Dead: Dead City).