Kathryn Hahn's Agatha All Along Episode 1 Nude Scene Was Improvised

With its first two episodes, "Agatha All Along" has already announced itself as a Marvel show unlike any we've seen before. Gone are the kid-friendly quips and franchise in-jokes, replaced with bits about kegels and an extended "Mare of Easttown" parody. Despite its fairly universal appeal, the show also feels like it's by, for, and about grown women in a way that few previous Marvel properties have. Plus, it's clearly already focused on themes of feminine power and those who wish to strip it away.

It's only natural, then, that "Agatha All Along" would also be daring (for Marvel) in its portrayals of women's bodies. The show's first episode featured something that's been few and far between in the blockbuster franchise over the last 16 years: a bare butt. When Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) finally uncovers the secret to her own identity, she also realizes she's been drained of her powers. After stripping off her many personas, the witch ends up in the buff — a state she wasn't at all self-conscious about when she went to interrogate her unfortunate neighbor Herb (John Collins) about what she's missed.

In an interview with Variety, Hahn revealed that she actually brainstormed the idea for Agatha to flash her neighbors. "I came up with it," Hahn told the outlet. "I thought it was good to see her as stripped down, literally, as we possibly could, which spoke into her powerlessness at the present moment." 

Showrunner Jac Schaeffer explained that the scene had originally included a pause in which Agatha grabbed a dressing gown before storming outside to speak to her neighbors, but Hahn wasn't sure that felt true to the character. "Kathryn was like, 'Would she grab the robe? I don't feel like she would grab the robe. I feel like she would really not care about being naked in front of the neighbors,'" Schaeffer recalled. "I told her, 'That is the greatest idea I've ever heard.'" 

The change was reportedly made during shooting, and the crew was able to go with the flow by covering most of Hahn's nudity with her long hair and strategic camera shots. The exception, of course, is the final comedic shot in which she stomps away, still unbothered by the fact that she's baring it all in front of the residents of Westview.

Hahn is no stranger to putting her whole self into her work, having recently starred in two fantastic TV shows — "Mrs. Fletcher" on HBO and "Tiny Beautiful Things" on Hulu — as complex protagonists on messy sexual journeys. While there's no word on whether or not "Agatha All Along" received pushback for the inclusion of nudity (which shouldn't have been a problem, since both Thor and Hulk have gotten naked before), Schaeffer does acknowledge that the choice to include the scene was "subversive." As she put it: "Kathryn has done so much work, and she's done a lot of nudity and other things, and so it also felt very subversive to get Kathryn Hahn's nudity into the MCU."

The scene's comedy would've been reason enough to include the nudity, but Hahn also argues that it's relevant to the character's journey. "She's been stripped of all of her power at this point in the series," the actress explained. "She really had nothing at that point, and so it became about illustrating that gap between that moment and her finding her power again." 

Schaeffer puts it a different way: "It is so true to her character, and it makes me laugh out loud." She's not wrong. In a show that's already featured several laugh-out-loud moments, Agatha's casual streaking on the streets of trapped-in-tedium Westview is one of the funniest. It's also a great way to signify that "Agatha All Along" won't be much like the Marvel shows that came before it — which, as a superhero fatigued fan, is all I could really ever ask for.

New episodes of "Agatha All Along" drop Wednesdays at 9 pm E.T./6 pm P.T. on Disney+.