The Witches Road is about to come to its final bend, and to celebrate the beautiful, funny, and heartbreaking series that has Agatha determined to gain her powers back, The Koalition spoke to co-composers Michael Paraskevas and Christophe Beck. In this discussion, we explore how the series finale impacts the emotional musical beats, a possible Rio and Agatha showdown, and how the music highlights the mystery behind Billy’s reason to travel down the road.
Episode five of Agatha All Along should have been titled ‘Did Agatha Know All Along?’ when the infamous Agatha Harkness whispers, “You’re so much like your mother.” It is a statement that sent shockwaves through audiences and anger through the character, formally known as ‘Teen.’ In a sudden moment filled with rage, Teen, who was presented as a powerless person referred to as ‘Pet’ by Agatha, sends Lilia (Patti LuPone) and Jen (Sasheer Zamata) into the mud before a blue crown materializes on his head, similar to Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff as “You Should See Me in a Crown,” making for the ultimate showdown between Billy Maximoff and Agatha.
“I’m really excited for these final episodes because it’s the culmination of what we’ve been building. We’ve set up these different characters who are on this particular journey, and seeing the fulfillment of that [is really special]. From episode three, when Mrs. Hart died, we established this show really has elevated stakes, and as each episode’s gone on, it’s gotten a little darker and a little heavier, so we’ll be exploring the finality of that.”
“With both Billy and Rio, we really talked about having a very distinct sound for both characters, and so for Billy, he’s the modern-day witch, and while some of the score is these orchestral or has bells and these other natural organic sounds, with Billy we really lean into the synth production and had some guitars. He’s an emo goth kid, and we’re leaning into that, and he also has this feminine energy, this youthful feminine energy to him, so we also have in Episode Six, when he first comes into his bedroom, solo female vocals from Suzanne Waters, who did an amazing job, and that builds out Billy’s world.”
“For Rio, the big thing we really focused on was this duality of her character. She has this past with Agatha and this creeping sensuality and eeriness, and so exploring that as well as being death, she’s this unstoppable force of nature. Her theme really goes from these tender and intimate moments to these very aggressive and darker broader moments. For Billy, Rio, and Agatha, they all straddle this line of darkness, but I wanted to make sure they’re not big bad super villains. We are all wanting to understand and empathize with these characters and the struggles they’re going through.”
Although the series is a spinoff of WandaVision, it is also a continuation of the show’s narrative. Agatha Harkness was the first person to discover Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, had put a spell on the entire town of Westview in WandaVision. Since Agatha All Along followed Agatha’s journey as she sought to regain her rightful witch powers, it required a different sound with teases of music heard in WandaVision.
“For this type of show, our very first conversations were about exploring the main mood, the intent of the music, and then breaking that down by our main characters. Before we even watched any picture, we were writing and establishing themes for Agatha, for Rio, for Billy, and for the coven, and working with that and shaping that. Once we finally started working on the actual show, we had these guidelines that allowed us to weave in and out.”
“We definitely referenced WandaVision in certain moments, especially more in Billy’s relationship to Wanda, and their themes have some relation to each other with a similar sort of three-note melodic structure and phrasing. Then with Agatha, we really wanted to develop her character and set it apart from what happened in WandaVision, where she’s just this ultra-bad supervillain.”
“For this show, she’s the main hero; she’s the anti-hero, and we want to make sure the audience can sympathize with her. So musically, we approached it differently in that we wanted to have this playful, mischievous quality to her. She also has this intimate sort of nostalgic character. Kathrn Hahn’s amazing performance has so many layers to it, and so we wanted to really reflect that. We do reference her old theme in one scene in Episode Five when she encounters her mom’s ghost and they’re confronting each other. Then we go back and play Agatha’s theme from WandaVision in a distorted alto flute, which we did in that show. It was fun connecting those moments together, but we really wanted to make sure we’re really growing and developing the world of Westview and developing the sound of Agatha.”
“It starts with the incredible vision of Jac Schaeffer and her guidance. By having such a clear picture from the get-go and knowing where we start and where we end, it allows us to write the music more holistically and really understand each character’s journey, the intent we want to have behind that, and how to resonate with them emotionally as they kind of undergo these different challenges as they grow.”
When it came to designing and building the sets for Agatha All Along, there was one mantra: keep it practical and old school. When you have a story with so many fantastical elements and places, getting as many of the visuals as possible in camera grounds the adventure and helps us process what we are seeing as real. It’s invaluable in bridging the gap between fantasy and reality, and it helped to put the composers in the right headspace as well. They took a fully practical approach, which means no CGI or computer-generated imagery. Agatha lost her purple magic, so it only really seems fair that this series loses its CGI as well.
“The trials are very inspiring, and the set design, the costumes, just the visual richness on screen really informs us of how to approach it. Musically, we have a general idea of the ticking clock and the covens racing against time, which laid the foundation in each episode. Then we would explore further through the different eras by choosing specific instruments like psychedelic guitars or the 80s John Carpenter, reflecting on the changes the coven has gone through. We really leaned into those different sounds.”
“The trials of each episode take place in different eras, and therefore the music changes stylistically with each time period. The music for Agatha All Along is rooted in themes that play out across the whole series, however the way in which they are presented adapt and vary according to the different trials of each episode, said Beck.”
“We worked with the Lopez’s, who wrote the amazing ‘Ballad of Witches Road.’ Once [composer] Chris Beck and I came on board, there were specific moments throughout the show where we knew where the songs were occurring, and we could interweave the melody and the score. It really laid breadcrumbs for that, especially in Episode One’s’ Seekest Thou the Road.’ It actually opens with Agatha whistling the tune while she’s driving in the car, and then we take that in the score, play it on piano, and keep building these different moments so when the coven finally performs it together, it’s this very rewarding and fulfilling moment.”
“Agatha All Along is so well-acted and well-written that the music doesn’t need to hit the audience over the head with most of the emotional beats. The music is able to be more subtle and is free to play the subtext and the nuance of each scene. When we hit the most important climactic moments of the show, using the music to reinforce the strong emotional beats lends even more weight to the story and to its impact on the audience,” said Beck.
There were some fun moments for Paraskevas as well, especially when the show parodied Mare of Easttown. In the first episode, Agatha is still trapped under Wanda’s spell, believing she is Detective Agnes O’Connor. As a result, the show turns into a true crime procedural about the murder of Jane Doe (Wanda), and Agnes, taking on a tough nonsense persona with a regional accent, is trying to solve the case.
“That was a really fun episode to do because we’re teasing the audience and then pulling the rug out from under them. In that episode we lean into the synths in this sort of almost folksy production like True Detective; there’s an established sound you hear a lot in these small-town true crime shows. Once she gets to the morgue and she starts taking off all her costumes and then finally realizes who she is, that’s the first cue that we have orchestra, and from the rest of the episode we established the main sound palette for the show. In the same way Agatha is ripping the clothes off, we’re ripping off the facade of the synth and the true crime sound into what Agatha’s dark magic.”
Another highlight for Paraskevas and the fans was the critically acclaimed Episode 7 that explored Lilia Calderu’s backstory. Easily one of the most beautiful and satisfying episodes, audiences learn Lilia experiences time differently from others. Her strange and kooky outbursts actually have meaning; they are just out of sequence. To her, they are fragmented “gaps” caused by her suppressing her ability after being surrounded by death as a child. In episode 2, Lilia would have screamed random parts of dialogue, and it only became worse as she continued to travel down the road. However, everything made sense by episode 7 when Lilia embraced her power to warn Agatha, “When she calls you a coward, hit the deck.” While it’s still not known what that phrase means in the final episode, Lilia’s sacrifice was a choice that brought her peace, closure, and understanding.
“This episode was really fun to work. The cool thing about that nonlinear structure and playing with this idea of time. I think that’s why this episode in particular feels like the full embodiment of the trial sounds we were building throughout the rest of the show. We start building these ideas, like ticking clocks and the coven racing against time, and then once we get to episode seven, it’s the full-on manifestation of that laid groundwork for the show and our approach to Lilia’s journey.”
Agatha All Along is streaming on Disney+. To learn more about the sound of the series, check our full interview in the video above. To learn more about the creation of ‘The Ballad of Witches Road,’ check out our full interview with Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez.
