Despite being the lead character of a Disney Plus series, Agatha Harkness is no hero. Kathryn Hahn‘s wicked witch with over 300 years of dirty deeds to her credit. Flashbacks in WandaVision revealed that in the 1690s, Agatha broke the rules of her coven by practicing dark magic. Accused and put on trial by the coven’s leader, her mother, Evanora, Agatha revealed the extent of her abilities by absorbing the powers of all the other witches and killing them all, including her mother. She done a bad, bad thing…but unfortunately, as revealed in the third episode of Agatha All Along, “Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials”, she was just getting started.
Episode 3 pits Agatha and her coven of chaos against the first of their many trials as they walk the Witches’ Road and, according to series’ creator Jac Schaeffer‘s grand design, lays bare each witch’s worst nightmare. While the house by the sea is technically where Jennifer Kale’s trial as a potions witch is held, a little is revealed about each member of the coven after they drink the wine poisoned with Alewife’s Revenge and begin to hallucinate. Working to locate the ingredients for an antidote for the poison, everyone who drank the wine is forced to relive her worst nightmare and for Agatha it’s a shocking revelation that lays bare the depths of her depravity and lust for power…and one that likely explains not only why the rest of the witches don’t trust her but also why Rio is rip roaring angry with her and wants her dead.
Dating back to WandaVision, there have been plenty of teases–both subtle and not-so-subtle–about Agatha’s comic book son, Nicholas Scratch. From the bunny she called Senor Scratchy to the child having an empty room in the house her spellbound persona Detective Agnes O’Connor inhabits, Agatha’s son has made quite an impression by NOT being there. And now we know why. As shared with Teen by Jennifer Kale and confirmed by Agatha’s hallucination, Agatha traded her son to Mephisto in order to acquire the Darkhold. Kale’s story alludes to the possibility that Teen may well be Scratch but we all know that’s just more misdirection but it does help make clear why Agatha has been so protective of the character: even she’s not sure how her own son might look. At this point, Agatha seems pretty irredeemable and there’s really no longer any reason to wonder why Rio–obviously a former lover of Agatha’s–wants her dead. It would seem Scratch wasn’t Agatha’s son but the son of both Agatha and Rio.
With these shows, so often there is something that is at once a joke and a wink and a nod, and actually has something legitimate underneath it. As we all know, Mephisto is a character who’s very wrapped into Agatha’s storyline. I mean, people have to watch, but we’re always playing with the audience in that way.
-Jac Schaeffer on Mephisto’s role in Agatha All Along, EW, September 25, 2024
While theorists who’ve been claiming for the past three years that Mephisto will show up in every MCU project can finally thump their chests at the name drop, the search for Scratch continues. In the comics, Scratch went on to father the members of the Salem’s Seven. That spooky group of shape-shifting freaks showed up in Episode 2 but don’t expect them to be Agatha’s grandkids in the MCU. Once Mephisto has his claws in someone, it’s typically for good but who knows exactly what becomes of a baby raised by a Class Two demon? Maybe we’ll find out at the end of the Witches’ Road.
Source: EW
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