‘Agatha All Along’ Episode 7 Recap: “Death’s Hand In Mine” 

Everything is out of order in Episode 7 of Agatha All Along, which actually means everything is in its right place. While Episode 6 was going backwards to reveal the origin of the William/Teen/Billy trinity, Lilia Calderu was not dead under the mud but falling, and accompanied by Jennifer Kale, landing in a tunneled sunken place below The Witches’ Road. Ep 7 of Agatha becomes Lilia’s trial, the centuries-old Sicilian divination specialist’s opportunity to rectify how she came to live her life out of time. And appropriately – brilliantly, as directed by Jac Schaeffer and written by Gia King and Cameron Squires – the episode itself is a sequential jumble, bouncing back to many of this season’s “shock” moments from Lilia to explore them with renewed perspective. They were all part of the flow of time, which as Lilia says, is a total illusion. So let’s repair to the latest trial site, a turreted wonder of a castle, complete with swords falling from its ceiling and witches imagined out of literary tradition. “She’s based on me, you know,” says a sniping Agatha, dressed as the Wicked Witch of the East; “Prove it,” retorts W/B/T, who’s done up as Maleficent. 

Tarot lies at the center of this trial, the cards with historically Italian roots, just like Lilia. With the deck splayed out on a stone table, its inscription reading “Your path winds out of time,” Agatha and her young counterpart proceed to argue about the validity of tarot itself, except for when Agatha’s razzing Billy about trying to read her mind. (Just ask, she says. “Where’s Rio?” he inquires. “Not that question.”) But the bickering stops when the swords start to fall, and the ceiling itself begins to lower. They are asking the tarot deck the wrong questions. 

Lilia is part of all of this, through the same experiential fog she’s lived with since she was a little girl in Sicily. In the past, her maestra (Laura Boccaletti) challenges Young Lilia (Chloe Camp) to define the source of her abilities. “Your task is not to control, but to see.” And in the show’s present, as it revists Lilia’s internal jump scares throughout the trials – “the Tower reversed!” – she realizes these temporal incongruities she’s always had are becoming more pronounced. Maybe it’s because she’s nearing the end. Maybe she’s finally realizing her full power. But maybe she’s not ready for it to return so fully. 

As Lilia and Jen arrive in the trial chamber – dressed, respectively, as Glinda the Good Witch and the poison apple-proffering Evil Queen out of Snow White lore – the tarot deck is commandeered by a veteran with a sick skill set. All of the flashes we’ve seen from Lilia, all of her jadedness and humor and pragmatism: in episode 7 of Agatha All Along, it all comes together and flourishes through the work of the wonderful Patti LuPone. At the table, Lilia designates Teen/Billy as the querent. (Or “the queer-ent,” as he kids.) The cards that tell are laid. Magician. Sun. And throughout, he keeps a question in his mind. “Am I William or am I Billy?” His memories, his very lifeline, is fractured; like Lilia’s view of time, it’s all jumbled up. It doesn’t help that Agatha can’t or won’t tell him if Wanda is even alive. She’s like a mischievous Magic 8-Ball on that question, “yes” or “no” or “maybe.” He can’t even land on an understanding of who his real mother even is. 

Lilia envisioned the kid’s future all the way back at his Magic Mitzvah. She probably even envisioned his future when she herself was still a teen, all the way back in Sicily, during lesson time with her Maestra. Seeing what the cards hold now, as the swords continue falling and the ceiling keeps lowering, Lilia comes to understand that it is she who is tarot’s Queen of Cups. She is the embodiment of sensitivity and support, which in this context means Lilia must save the coven she spent centuries believing she had no use for. There is an Iron Maiden nearby – the trial’s in a stylized medieval castle, after all – and its long internal spikes part to reveal an escape hatch. Lilia shuttles Agatha, Billy, and Jen through it with a few words of future wisdom. (Her words to Agatha feel important: “When she calls you a coward, hit the deck.”) But Lilia herself stays in the chamber, where the Salem Seven have caught up to the action.

As Lila finally understands her power and her past, and realizes the full reason for her power, does that also mean she’s finally reached her mortal end? Death is an open question in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so we’ll leave that be for now. But Lady Death, now there’s a character who’s always graced Marvel pages with dark mystery and allure. You know, like Aubrey Plaza basically does all the time. Billy’s question about Rio from earlier in the episode comes back in full towards the end, as Plaza re-enters the fray, now dressed as the tarot deck’s Death card itself. “In the end, all roads lead to me.”

With the events of Episode 7, which works so effectively across the expanse of actual time and within its own internal timeline, Agatha All Along is setting up a one-two punch ending that’s sure to be completely invigorating. And assuming we continue to receive more resolution on the true provenance of Plaza’s character, then it will be even more satisfying. “Is it true?” Billy asked Agatha in the chamber. Is Rio really Death? “What can I say,” she answered with a sly smile and a shrug. “I like the bad boys…”   

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.