Agatha All Along's Latest Cliffhanger May Solve One Of Marvel's Biggest Problems (Unless It Doesn't)

This article contains spoilers for Agatha All Along episode 4, "If I Can't Reach You, Let My Song Teach You."

Last week's episode of "Agatha All Along" left off on a major cliffhanger, namely, what our witches were going to do with the body of Sharon/Mrs. Hart (Debra Jo Rupp) after the group failed to protect her during the first trial in the "Big Little Lies House of Poison" (not the official name). The coven needs another witch to join them on the road with Sharon down for the count, so they agree to summon a "backup green witch." 

The result is Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), a warrior witch known as Green Witch, an old (fren)enemy of Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), and quite possibly one of the most dangerous forces in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. We've met Rio already this season, posing as a federal agent while Agatha still believed she was Detective Agnes O'Connor. She was with Agatha as she slowly realized what Scarlet Witch had done to her, which gave her the opportunity to drop the charade and help pull Agatha back into reality.

Rio and Agatha go way back as witches, with the former pulling a blade on the latter in the most tantalizing way possible. Watching the two of them fight is like watching an episode of "Killing Eve," where the action was emphasized by the uncontrollable sexual tension. When Rio finally slices Agatha's hand open, she licks up her blood and Agatha chokes her out. I don't know who in the writer's room has been to an all-girl leather party, but I see you. Rio agrees not to kill Agatha in a vulnerable state but promises that the two will match wits again when Agatha is at full strength, so the two of them are a ticking time bomb, and we already know Rio prefers Agatha "horizontally."

Rio Vidal practically runs on her fury toward Agatha, but it's a type of vengeance that seems reserved for someone who broke your life ... or broke your heart. If the final moments of episode 4 are any indicator, "Agatha All Along" might finally fix one of Marvel's biggest problems unless they chicken out and don't admit that Rio and Agatha are at each other's throats because they're ex-partners, and I'm not talking about law enforcement agents.

Before the end of the episode, the coven spends time sharing stories around the fire. Rio announces to the group that she has a scar, and Agatha responds, "No, you don't." How would she know that unless she's intimately familiar with every inch of Rio Vidal's body? Rio clarifies by saying, "A long time ago, I loved someone and I had to do something I did not want to do, even though it was my job, and it hurt them. She is my scar." As she's telling the story, she is trying not to look at Agatha, but every so often, her eyes glance toward her. Agatha excuses herself to "stretch her legs," and Rio follows shortly behind. Without anyone else in the coven to see them, the two embrace, with Agatha holding Rio's face in her hands.

She leans in to kiss her but Rio stops her to tell her, "That boy isn't yours," referring to the Teen (Joe Locke), who at this point has been hinted at as possibly being Agatha's dead son, Nicholas Scratch. Agatha takes a moment, smiles, and leaves Rio alone in the forest. Sure, the cliffhanger story-wise is that Rio has left the audience with even more questions about the Teen and why someone would put a sigil on his identity, but the real cliffhanger is whether or not "Agatha All Along" is going to let Agatha and Rio kiss, damn it!

On the red carpet ahead of the series premiere, Plaza was asked by Variety about the rumors that this would be the "gayest project Marvel has ever done," and she promised, "It will be a gay explosion by the end of it." 

Listen, I'm not here to be skeptical of someone as beloved as Aubrey Plaza, but I've been through this song and dance with Marvel before. When I was first promised "the first openly gay character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe," I was given straight director Joe Russo in a cameo scene at a group therapy session talking about going on a date with a dude for the first time in five years after the Blip. I don't care how much "Grieving Man" likes baseball and misses his man, that is not gay representation.

"Agatha All Along" is bursting with queerness at a base level, because witches will always be inherently queer regardless — and the cast is front-loaded with people the queer community view as icons (HELLO, PATTI LUPONE!). Joe Locke's Teen character is most certainly queer, but we haven't seen him with a romantic partner. And of course, queer people don't magically stop becoming queer if they're single or asexual, but not showing queer love, joy, or intimacy is to deny queer people the ability to see that reflected on screen, while straight people never have to think about that being denied.

Allowing characters to be queer, canonically and textually, legitimately changes lives. In fact, that's true for one of the show's stars. "Saturday Night Live" alum and "Agatha All Along" co-star Sasheer Zamata recently told Them that she realized that she's a late-in-life-lesbian, and part of that realization came from playing so many queer roles.

"I kept getting cast as queer women. I played a lesbian on 'Home Economics.' I played a lesbian on 'Woke.' I played a lesbian on 'Tuca & Bertie.' A lesbian on 'Last O.G.' I kept getting these roles. And this is before I myself was figuring out my identity. I was like, 'Whoa, what are these casting directors seeing that I'm not seeing?'"

Zamata joked that "Hollywood turned her gay," but everyone with half a brain cell knows that's not what happened. Zamata was always gay, but playing these characters helped her see a possibility for her own life that she didn't know was possible. That's the thing about the magic of film and television — they give us insights into worlds beyond our own experiences and show us that we don't have to accept the roles we were born into. 

"Agatha All Along" is a fun show about witches in a world where superheroes exist, sure, but it's also a chance for Marvel to really double down on campy queerness. Bigots already think the show is "too woke" for simply making a women-led series with a diverse cast, so why worry about what those losers who aren't even watching the show will think? The people watching "Agatha" are already cool with queerness, so there's no reason for Marvel and Disney+ to not fully embrace it.

I've been out long enough to not need representation from multi-billion dollar companies in order to feel "valid" or worthy of existence, and I certainly don't look to four-quadrant entertainment conglomerates for projects that speak to my experiences. I have actual gay problems to worry about, like whether or not my marriage is about to be delegitimized or if doctors are going to be allowed to deny me healthcare.

But I'm not such a nihilist buzzkill that I don't recognize how important it is to the millions of queer people who are still at a place in their lives where they do need these stories. What sort of message would it send to all of them if "Agatha All Along" was only comfortable with "teasing" queerness and not actually following through? What does it tell people if one of the biggest and most powerful voices in Hollywood wants to push our lives to the margins to not upset the hateful creeps who might complain?

At this point, studios and streamers have a responsibility to either commit to telling queer stories, or they need to avoid it altogether and go back to the time-honored tradition of queer coding. This halfway "hinting at but not following through" practice is tiring, boring, and disappointing. Go big or go home, as they say. After this week's episode, I cannot imagine "Agatha All Along" is going to wimp out and not complete Agatha and Rio's will-they/won't-they arc, but I'm also extremely skeptical, because I've been burned by Marvel in the past over this ("Eternals," innocent). The company has certainly made strides in recent years, but there's so much more they could be doing. Just let the witches kiss and there won't be any problems!

"Agatha All Along" is available on Disney+.