The witching hour is almost upon us, with Agatha All Along set to premiere on Disney Plus with its first two episodes tomorrow. The heavy horror-fantasy genre stylings look to be a key boon for the series, as is WandaVision maestro Jac Schaeffer’s spearheading of the project, and with Marvel on a perpetual creative downswing these days, Agatha All Along needs to punch as far above its weight as possible.
In order to do that, the series needs to start moving away from the franchise’s safe storytelling, and it already has chaos incarnate in Aubrey Plaza amongst the main cast, so that’s step one taken care of right there. And, according to Plaza herself, there’s another boundary that Agatha All Along intends on pushing, and it involves a certain tension between her character Rio Vidal and Kathryn Hahn‘s Agatha.
Speaking to Variety, Plaza was all too happy to confirm that Agatha All Along was probably the gayest Marvel project, which is precisely what she “signed up for.” And while she didn’t reveal any details about further episodes, she happily assured us that the show would culminate in a “gay explosion” by the end, presumably between Rio and Agatha.
Plaza’s comments alone are gayer than all the gayness in the MCU to date. Indeed, while there’s been a fair share of touches between lovers, unceremonious coming-outs, and a single queer kiss courtesy of Eternals, there’s actually been very little in the way of honest queer representation in the franchise.
This is to say that Marvel’s queer characters have largely had their queerness sidelined, only popping up briefly to remind us that they’re queer before moving on with their business-as-usual CGI fights and MacGuffins and cameos. The franchise never actually tells queer stories so much as they tell stories with a few characters who happen to be queer. Even Deadpool, who wears his pansexuality on his sleeve, has been narratively utilized in a way where his queerness is mostly confined to raunchy jokes.
Agatha All Along might change that. Not only has Plaza seemingly promised queerness that isn’t sidelined, but the show’s aforementioned pagan stylings would loan themselves immaculately to a queer story, to say nothing of the found family vibe of Agatha’s coven. Also worthy of note is that one member of that coven is Joe Locke’s character Teen, who, regardless of whether or not he ends up being Billy Kaplan, will surely be shoring up this cast in in a significant way, and his queerness appears to be no small part of his character. And if he does end up being Billy Kaplan, and if Marvel continues to allows him to inhabit his queerness as much as he probably will here, then Agatha All Along may be setting a far bigger precedent than a “gay explosion.”
Agatha All Along will premiere its first two episodes on Sept. 18, with additional episodes releasing every Wednesday at 6PM PT until the two-episode finale on Oct. 30. The series will consist of nine episodes.