In 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.
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 that Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, had put a spell on the entire town of Westview in WandaVision. And now Agatha All Along follows Agatha’s journey as she seeks to regain her rightful witch powers. But before she can reclaim her status as one of the most fearsome witches in the coven, she must make it down the Witches Road.
In celebration of the return of Agatha Harkness, The Koalition spoke to Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez to learn more about the creation of songs like Agatha All Along and The Ballad of the Witches Road that add a witchy layer to the show. Their song Agatha All Along from WandaVision took the world by storm, and now their work within this narrative will only up the ante and add a different emotion and depth to the series.
The duo makes sure the lyrics fit all the different parts of the story and that all the different iterations make sense, and there’s a throughline, but they’re all distinct. It’s such an enormous challenge, and they are such partners in that endeavor. It seems to delight them, which is wonderful, and they obviously love to play in all the different genres.
The filmmakers wanted to make sure the song would be integral to the story, so Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez wrote “The Ballad of The Witches’ Road,” which plays thematically and practically throughout the entire show. There are different stylistic versions of the song to accompany the different time periods along The Witches’ Road.
Episode 5’s “Darkest Hour/Wake Thy Power,” it is time for Agatha’s (Kathryn Hahn) trial on the Witches’ Road, which concludes with a shocking death and a highly anticipated reveal: Teen (Joe Locke) is actually Billy Kaplan/Maximoff, and Alice Wu-Gulliver is murdered by Agatha, who was blinded by power and haunted by her mother, Evanora.
Alice was the heart and soul of the coven, taking on a motherly role; she was very protective of the group and even Agatha. When we first meet Alice in episode 1, she is introduced as a protection witch who no longer wants anything to do with covens or witches after the disappearance of her rockstar mother, Lorna Wu (Elizabeth Anweis), who is also the creator of the Witches’ Ballad. However, when the opportunity arises of breaking the Wu generational curse and possibly seeing her mother again, Alice joins Agatha’s coven and walks the road.
There is a shift within Alice that represents the inner turmoil she faces. She’s very suspicious of the craft and blames it for her mother’s death and is determined others do not meet the same fate as her. She constantly saves the other witches from danger, casts protection spells for the group, and puts the other witches first despite going through her own trauma.
“We knew we had to write Lorna’s ballad. In fact, we wrote that one first, which was the first incarnation for us of Ballad of the Witches Road, because it was about the history of this song, and it was the kind of culmination of the song with Agatha’s version underneath and Lorna’s bridge, which is that little protection spell she threw in for Alice.”
“[While] this song is being used, all of these witches are walking The Witch’s Road to heal something, to find something. It starts with all these isolated women coming together and [forming] a sisterhood. [Therefore], it’s that isolation, and then in this trial, the fourth trial, there’s a big healing step that Ali Ahn’s character [Alice] needs to have, which is forgiving her mother, understanding what was going on with her mother beyond the pain of the addiction and the loss, that there was something else that her mom was protecting her from, and her mom was dealing with her own demon on her back that she was trying to heal.”
Healing is essential to the writers and Alice, whose curse affected her relationships and her inability to keep a job and to find joy. She was an integral part of the group, and her death only proved how much she was willing to protect others despite the danger it put her in. Agatha’s act of betrayal, which fueled her addiction to power, will set off a chain of events that could change the dynamic of The Ballad of the Witches Road in upcoming episodes. Possibly distrubed by Alice’s death, Teen revealed himself as Billy Maximoff, seeking to avenge Alice and punish Agatha for her crime.
“We started off reading the scripts they sent us; every episode, I got to read the scripts to her because we didn’t have any time to sit around a table and do it. I got to perform all the characters, and we were hooked right away by this story of these of these women on this journey. When I went to write the first version, I knew that it had to have these elements of fire, water, earth, and air. I knew it needed to have these hidden instructions; it needed to have these hidden plot points, and I knew that there were going to be layers that were stripped away and layers that were added. It was a really fun puzzle. I knew I was given by a very smart writer by Jack Schaefer. I was given all of the elements, and we had to cook something up that had all of the ingredients.”
“[With] all versions of this The Ballad of the Witches Road, there will be more secret information revealed. More secrets, more information, [and] more Easter eggs.
Agatha All Along streams new episodes Wednesday nights on Disney+. To learn more about Agatha All Along, check our full interview in the video above. To learn more about the cast, check out our cast interviews.
