S01.E01: Seekest Thou The Road

[AimingforYoko]

Quote

In small town Westview, Detective Agnes' murder case sends her down a road that changes everything.

They were really taking the piss out of Mare of Easttown, weren't they? It was obvious what they were doing in the first half of the ep, but I enjoyed them lampooning the tropes.

She may have been in hibernation for three years, but she reverted to Agatha right quick. 

 

[Brn2bwild]

The Mare fiction felt like it lasted longer than it should have, but it was still fun.  I would have liked to have seen more of the Westview residents, but I'm glad they seem to have recovered from their trauma.

This is pure speculation that might go nowhere, but it feels like if they took the trouble to create a fake Wanda body, we could end up seeing the real Wanda by the end of the series.

Edited September 19 by Brn2bwild

[tkc]

I love that all grim, dark crime shows are based on an original from Scandinavia…

[Chicago Redshirt]

So did the former Westview residents just voluntarily return there for reasons? Or were they revictimized by the spell?

[AimingforYoko]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So did the former Westview residents just voluntarily return there for reasons? Or were they revictimized by the spell?

They never moved out of Westview. Wanda didn't create the town, she just recreated it as she wished it was. 

[rwlevin]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So did the former Westview residents just voluntarily return there for reasons? Or were they revictimized by the spell?

It seems like they were in the normal world while Agatha was in her own world and while Agatha saw herself in the crime drama, the residents simply saw Agatha as crazy.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So did the former Westview residents just voluntarily return there for reasons? Or were they revictimized by the spell?

They stayed home, it seems that the woman they knew as Agnus remained under the spell. I think one of those guys in Agatha's dream state was that Damage Control Agent.

Aubrey Plaza did seem to say that there had been many copies of the Darkhold, not the single universe jumping book that the plots from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Wanda Vision and Dr. Strange Multiverse of Madness seemed to suggest it was.

[Chicago Redshirt]

Oh I see...all the other Westview residents were not experiencing what Agatha was. But they voluntarily were  in Westview and observing "Agnes" be crazy and not really intervening.

I guess if I had experienced a living nightmare like the residents of Westview did, I would have moved away from there ASAP, let alone before three years had elapsed. 

[Raja]

16 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I guess if I had experienced a living nightmare like the residents of Westview did, I would have moved away from there ASAP, let alone before three years had elapsed. 

Consider that this world had seen half of the population supernaturally disappear and reappear 5 years later along with alien invasions. That while the Wanda Maximoff's were rare those folks were not the one off unique and thus another one could literally  strike anywhere. No place beyond New York City that had more than its share had proven more or less immune from being hit

Edited September 19 by Raja

[MadyGirl1987]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

Consider that this world had seen half of the population supernaturally disappear and reappear 5 years later along with alien invasions. That while the Wanda Maximoff's were rare those folks were not the one off unique and thus another one could literally  strike anywhere. No place beyond New York City that had more than its share had proven more or less immune from being hit

Ha, now I’m just imagining the average person in the MCU watching the news, seeing big world ending events covered, and being like, “Just another Tuesday… What’s for dinner?”

[lovett1979]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Oh I see...all the other Westview residents were not experiencing what Agatha was. But they voluntarily were  in Westview and observing "Agnes" be crazy and not really intervening.

I guess if I had experienced a living nightmare like the residents of Westview did, I would have moved away from there ASAP, let alone before three years had elapsed. 

New Rockstars youtube breakdown pointed out that the Westview sign now shows the population as 2,251. In Wandavision, it said 3,892. So a fair number of people have left the town in the 3 years since Wanda's hex.

[DMK]

Heh, I hadn’t really paid attention to any of the media for this, just saw the promos that ran on tv, I had no idea Aubrey Plaza was in this— which I like. She’s great in everything I’ve seen her in.

I also started looking at my watch as the gritty crime drama started to drag on a bit, apprehensive that it was going to take 4 episodes like it did with WandaVision to get to the meat of it, but thankfully, Agatha broke out of it. I did love her look of horror when she saw herself in her 80s jazzercise outfit.

[lovett1979]

8 minutes ago, DMK said:

I did love her look of horror when she saw herself in her 80s jazzercise outfit.

So this was the one part of the episode that didn't entirely make sense to me, though it was visually beautiful (especially when she was the B&W 50s version in the color world).

I just re-watched Wandavision (to get ready for this) and I'm pretty sure that Agatha is never under Wanda's spell, though it's not made completely clear. She's drawn to the town because of the incredible amount of magic happening, figures out the source, and then makes herself up into the nosey neighbor to get close to Wanda. She changes herself to match the different settings and does things to try to learn about/disrupt Wanda's spell. This includes enchanting Herb in the 70s episode and saying "you want me to take the babies" in the 80s episode to make Vision suspicious. Also enchanting Ralph to be "Pietro" and talk through him to Wanda. She finally reveals herself to Wanda (and us) at the end of episode 6. After she's defeated in the last episode, Wanda puts her under a spell to make her think she actually IS Agnes, the nosey neighbor of Westview, and that's how she's been living for the past 3 years.

Now, when Rio gets her to claw her way out of the spell and she reverts back through all the outfits from Wandavision, it makes it seem like those experiences were part of Wanda's spell that she is now disgusted by and rejecting. But those were all of her own making, right?

Or maybe I'm mis-reading it somehow.

 

[Brn2bwild]

35 minutes ago, lovett1979 said:

New Rockstars youtube breakdown pointed out that the Westview sign now shows the population as 2,251. In Wandavision, it said 3,892. So a fair number of people have left the town in the 3 years since Wanda's hex.

Or died.

[DMK]

16 minutes ago, lovett1979 said:

Now, when Rio gets her to claw her way out of the spell and she reverts back through all the outfits from Wandavision, it makes it seem like those experiences were part of Wanda's spell that she is now disgusted by and rejecting. But those were all of her own making, right?

They were, but once Agatha was powerless after being defeated, Wanda put her under a spell where she thought she was Agnes. The particulars of the spell aren’t told to us, but from what we’ve seen, she spent three years thinking she was a character in various tv shows, like the original spell. 

[PurpleTentacle]

In the first few minutes it seemed like a nordic crime drama and I got all excited. Then it veered more into generic american cop show and my excitement dwindled.

When Agatha got her memories back this went really down hill. I don't think I ever not liked a performance of Aubrey Plaza before. Even when she plays broad and over the top, like in Legion, she is usually amazing and you can sense the fun she is having. This seemed so "well, it's a living", doing it for the paycheck.

I'll continue watching, but I'm a lot less excited than I was before the show started.

Edited September 19 by PurpleTentacle

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 hours ago, lovett1979 said:

So this was the one part of the episode that didn't entirely make sense to me, though it was visually beautiful (especially when she was the B&W 50s version in the color world).

I just re-watched Wandavision (to get ready for this) and I'm pretty sure that Agatha is never under Wanda's spell, though it's not made completely clear. She's drawn to the town because of the incredible amount of magic happening, figures out the source, and then makes herself up into the nosey neighbor to get close to Wanda. She changes herself to match the different settings and does things to try to learn about/disrupt Wanda's spell. This includes enchanting Herb in the 70s episode and saying "you want me to take the babies" in the 80s episode to make Vision suspicious. Also enchanting Ralph to be "Pietro" and talk through him to Wanda. She finally reveals herself to Wanda (and us) at the end of episode 6. After she's defeated in the last episode, Wanda puts her under a spell to make her think she actually IS Agnes, the nosey neighbor of Westview, and that's how she's been living for the past 3 years.

Now, when Rio gets her to claw her way out of the spell and she reverts back through all the outfits from Wandavision, it makes it seem like those experiences were part of Wanda's spell that she is now disgusted by and rejecting. But those were all of her own making, right?

Or maybe I'm mis-reading it somehow.

 

My take on this is that in her original experience of the hex, Agatha had been herself and for reasons never really fully explained took on the persona of "Agnes" and played along with the various scenarios to see how she could leech power from Wanda. 

Wanda then punished her by mind-screwing Agatha into thinking that she was really Agnes and had her enact TV fantasies in that persona. Whereas the Wandavision fantasies ensorcelled unwilling Westview residents, Agnes just was walking through whichever TV-based fantasies in her own mind, even though she cast fellow Westview residents.

So it may have been the case that Agatha revisited TV fantasies from WandaVision, or (as I think is more likely the case) she spent 3 years in "Agnes of Westview" keeping largely to herself and muttering like a crazy person. When she occasionally came across a normal Westview person in real life, they just kind of ignored her.

In emerging from the spell, she transitioned from having been a 100 percent dupe of the spell, to the portion where she was in control of herself but affected by the OG version of the spell, to being 100 percent herself and not affected by the spell.

[kay1864]

So she never really interacted with the “police chief” or the “librarian”? She just imagined the local residents in those roles?

And what was Rio doing all this time, just playacting, and waiting until Agnes’ scenario broke down, and she could claw her way out?

Edited September 19 by kay1864

[DMK]

1 minute ago, kay1864 said:

So she never really interacted with the “police chief” or the “librarian”? She just imagined the local residents in those roles?

Or they were there and they just played along to get her to go away.

[Sakura12]

Herb did say she was into True Crime this week. So she was probably living out different tv dramas. Wanda was into family comdies. Agatha would be more into gritty dramas. 

It would be more interesting if Aubry Plaza was playing her character from Legion. So we can't hear the teen speak his name. He's mephisto! Lol. 

I also lliked the end credits showing different witches in film. I loved seeing the Craft in there. 

[DMK]

22 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

I also lliked the end credits showing different witches in film. I loved seeing the Craft in there

Oh, me too! When I saw the shot of the pointy toes dragging across the floor, I was all, that’s from The Craft! I’ve only seen that movie a zillion times after all. And then they showed the shot of Nancy ranting and that sealed it.

I also recognized the artwork from The Wizard of Oz novel. And I also liked the shot of Lisa Simpson as a witch from one of the early Halloween episodes.

[lovett1979]

2 hours ago, kay1864 said:

And what was Rio doing all this time, just playacting, and waiting until Agnes’ scenario broke down, and she could claw her way out?

Here's my take on that. Wanda's original hex included a feature that people from outside Westview would have some kind of memory/knowledge block to not think about that town/those people (and thus come disturb her perfect world). So, her enchantment of Agatha maybe included a similar feature. When Wanda died (or whatever) in Dr Strange, that started to mess with the Agatha spell (I believe this has been stated as fact). The first thing it did was make Agatha's "reality" a dark gritty crime drama (and about the death of Wanda and/or the Darkhold). And maybe it also took down the knowledge block. So Rio finally "felt" Agatha's presence and came to Westview to find her. She entered Agatha's reality the way Agatha had entered Wanda's, played along for a bit, and then encouraged her to get out (with Teen's contributions as well).

[arc]

LMAO I watched the whole first season of The Killing (based on Forbrydelsen) so I laughed  when they revealed it was "based on the Danish series Wandavisdysen". And then of course the fake name of the procedural, "Agnes of Westview" evokes "Mare of Easttown" (which I never watched, but I'm guessing Agnes' scarf later in the episode is a bit of a reference to that too). Anyways, the title sequence is reminiscent of how Wandavision would mash up several related shows in each episode's opener.

(Google Translate renders "Wanda Visdysen" (with a space) as "Wanda the wisdom nozzle", which is probably less of the point than just referencing "Forbrydelsen". But still.)

I liked Aubrey Plaza's character poking at the whole premise of the fiction Agatha's trapped in.

The book title did feel weird but honestly I still didn't see "Darkhold" coming. Whoops.

In comparison to Wandavision, where the whole first episode was slightly off-kilter, but didn't really get going, this ep really moved along. I was a little worried the procedural would take the whole episode. And haha, she's been there for three years. Man, it is legitimately ridiculous how long a gap there is between seasons these days.

[thuganomics85]

At first, I thought all of the crime stuff in the beginning was the show having fun with True Detective, but it seems obvious that it was more spoofing Mare of Easttown.  With a maybe a little of The Killing tossed in due to the opening credits claiming it was "based" off of of a Danish series, heh.  Definitely some fun stuff there even if it probably overstayed its welcome a little.

So, Agatha has been stuck as "Agnes" for these past three years and has basically been unwittingly cosplaying as a gritty detective while everyone in Westview was playing along.  But I'm guessing Wanda's death was the first step towards it being vulnerable and then Rio/Aubrey Plaza took advantage of it?  Or does it have something to do with teen that broke into her house and started chanting something?

Can definitely tell that Aubrey Plaza is going to be one of the highlights here.  She was having so much fun once the "real" Rio came out.  Kind of like the idea that she's basically waiting around until Agatha hopefully gets her powers back because she wants to have a real fight when it is all said and done.

I know the Disney+ shows have gotten a little more racy recently but I was still a little surprised by the Kathryn Hahn butt shot.  

The end credits with all of the various witches from media and whatnot was a fun bit.  Got a kick out of Lisa Simpson there from the Treehouse of Horror episode.

Onto the next one!

[Sakura12]

I'm wondering if Westview thinks of Agnes as the one that saved them since she got Wanda to finally free them. And that's why they went along with her delusions and tried to help her. 

[Stardancer Supreme]

Oh I'm all in! (Yes, I am a Comics nerd AND a MCU heaux, so I would have watched this series anyway...)

I was tickled by the murder mystery and seeing the book title initials spell out "Darkhold" was awesome! So the dead body represented Wanda? I may have to rewatch DS:MOM again. It's been 3 long years...

[vb68]

I love that they are still using the Bewitched house. So iconic.

[arc]

1 hour ago, vb68 said:

I love that they are still using the Bewitched house. So iconic.

They were, but since filming, Warner Bros Ranch has been sold, leased back, and demolished for redevelopment. I think the land will be converted into more enclosed studios?

[Nacos for Rufus]

On 9/18/2024 at 9:02 PM, tkc said:

I love that all grim, dark crime shows are based on an original from Scandinavia…

Ha! At the first few minutes while she was driving, I turned to Mr. Nacos for Rufus and said “This looks like Jordskott.”😂

[Bruinsfan]

On 9/20/2024 at 1:54 AM, thuganomics85 said:

So, Agatha has been stuck as "Agnes" for these past three years and has basically been unwittingly cosplaying as a gritty detective while everyone in Westview was playing along.

No, it seems she was the Mrs. Kravitz-esque "nosy neighbor" archetype she'd pretended to be in Wandavision until recently from what John (Herb) said to her. She was probably popping into neighbors' kitchens uninvited to chat and gossip, with Wanda's spell translating whatever she saw and heard into her sitcom reality. The "Agnes of Westview" delusion was probably only a few days as Wanda's spell collapsed, due to Rio and/or Teen's interference.

[PurpleTentacle]

On 9/28/2024 at 9:19 PM, Bruinsfan said:

No, it seems she was the Mrs. Kravitz-esque "nosy neighbor" archetype she'd pretended to be in Wandavision until recently from what John (Herb) said to her. She was probably popping into neighbors' kitchens uninvited to chat and gossip, with Wanda's spell translating whatever she saw and heard into her sitcom reality. The "Agnes of Westview" delusion was probably only a few days as Wanda's spell collapsed, due to Rio and/or Teen's interference.

It started collapsing because Wanda died. But other than that, correct.