Why Agatha Harkness had to suffer that shocking fate in the MCU

Agatha All Along showrunner Jac Schaeffer has finally revealed why the series had to end in such shocking and surprising fashion for the title character.

Agatha Harkness was introduced in WandaVision as an MCU villain and certainly did villainous things across her own superhero show‘s nine episodes.

But no one saw what was coming at the end of the series, where over the course of a two-part finale, we learned about her tragic past, which fed into Agatha’s equally tragic present.

To talk about the character’s fate and reasons for it, we have to go into detail now, so beware of SPOILERS AHEAD…

As the climax neared, Agatha finally did the right thing, sacrificing herself so that Billy Maiximoff could live. This resulted in her character appearing to Billy as a ghost during the climax.

Head writer and showrunner Jac Schaeffer has now spoken about how Agatha’s story got there to The Hollywood Reporter, with that ghost always part of the plan.

“We knew she was going to die because we knew we wanted her to be a ghost,” explains Schaeffer. “Point A was getting Agatha out from under Wanda’s spell, and Point B of the show was turning her into a ghost/Billy’s spirit guide. Those were the poles of the show that we were all committed to, and so there wasn’t pushback to the kiss of Death.

“It’s the death blow of the big Marvel battle, but it also is the culmination of this romantic relationship. Those two things came together in a way that felt right to all of the creative folks on the show, and there wasn’t much pushback.”

Disney+

Indeed, both death as a concept, and Death the character – played by Aubrey Plaza – cast a sizeable shadow over proceedings, with Scheffer adding: “I really wanted to explore, in the scope of things, this small idea of Agatha having a son who died, something that simple and that human. And if we were going to do that, then we couldn’t play it fast and loose with all of the other deaths.

“The fact that we then brought Death on as a character, it felt like our job was to have a more honest exploration of death and how people meet their ends and the permanence of that. So it wasn’t me reacting to the landscape, but I did see it as an opportunity to do something unexpected.

“People are wired to expect a proper happy ending, and we did write that, but it felt disingenuous. So we went for the real.”

All nine episodes of Agatha All Along are now streaming on Disney+. For more on the show, check out our guides on the Darkhold and Nicholas Scratch, Agatha Harkness and Rio’s relationship, which was the best scene in the Agatha All Along finale, and why Agatha All Along didn’t need a post-credits scene.