Honestly, who among us would not book down a magical glowing stairway, were something like that to suddenly appear? When such a portal did open at the end of Agatha All Along Episode 2, it was cool to watch the coven crew and Teen barrel down that thing without hesitation. In the moment, to escape the clutches of mysterious cloak enthusiasts the Salem Seven. But also because the manifested staircase meant that the show’s central quest was officially on. Only a few episodes in, and while its links to WandaVision are important, Agatha is already conjuring its own theories. Like who is Teen to Agatha, for example. Who muzzled him with a spellcast sigil. And why. “Did you know she traded her own child for the Book of the Damned?” Jen whispers to Teen in Episode 3 about their insta-coven’s leader. Seems important! And fodder for even more theorizing. And look, Marvel’s gonna Marvel. It can connect the characters of Agatha to a network of comic book appearances, and fuse the series to the mainline MCU films through the hex-ventures of the Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff. But for all of us, there is big fun in watching Agatha All Along cast more than one spell. That stairway’s appearance means the promise of many steps into a new great unknown.

“It’s giving ‘middle-aged second chance at love’ vibes, and I’m here for it.” We were told there would be trials on the Witches’ Road, and now we’re in ‘em. When a well-appointed home appears out of the green-tinted gloom on the subterranean horizon, it’s with phases of the moon carved into its front door, preened and glamoured new looks for the entire group, and an ominous riddle for them to solve. But also: copious amounts of red wine, which Sharon is happy to sample. It’s a trick, of course – the alewife’s revenge, a spell that refills glasses with liters of poisoned merlot – and pretty soon everybody’s face looks like WC Fields in a funhouse mirror. 

Everyone except Agatha, whose first impulse is still to be totally selfish. When the group names her a cheater, it gives Agatha All Along another chance to highlight how great Kathryn Hahn is at managing her character’s mercurial nature. “Why?! Who says?” In one moment Agatha sounds like a hectoring Wicked Witch of the East; in the next, she’s giving fuel to the madcap, kinda silly proceedings of this adventure. 

A spell to swole faces is one thing. Just like, general-issue mischief. But what about hallucinations tied to the coven’s collective worst nightmares? This Witches’ Road really does have it all. As Alice sees visions of her mother, the famous rocker who yearned to protect her, Lilia chases links to her experiences in Renaissance Italy, Jen has a distressing encounter with an old-timey doctor – “you are an inconvenient woman!” – and Agatha sees a bassinet, not with a baby inside it but instead the Book of the Damned. Like we said, seems important. 

Jen’s powers remain bound. But they could never take her knowledge, and with a list of ingredients improvised from around the house, the potions witch is still able to counteract the effects of the cursed tricks and trials. They all must drink the glowy blue antidote, even Sharon, the first to be laid low by the poisoned wine. And along the way they manage a few lighter moments, an affinity increasingly shared by this thrown-together group. Jeezy louisey, aren’t cultural stereotypes of their kind the worst? (Lilia: “I blame Halloween!”) And Alice compliments Teen’s glamoured hairstyle, but admits she misses the eyeliner. There is an enjoyment in watching these characters interact on a level that has nothing to do with comment fields raging about plugged-in lore or the neverending potential for MCU Easter eggs. Like in the energy Teen generates around this group – he might be Agatha’s witchly familiar, but he’s everyone’s sidekick. Or how Alice, Lilia, and Jen continue to carve meaningful personal spaces out of the Witches’ Road’s glowy green soil. It’s a chemistry that’s bound to come in handy once the trials begin to escalate.  

“Little rusty there, Jen?” With their freeing from the magic house more than a little bit chaotic, Agatha can’t resist a dig at her coven’s resident potioner. But she’s not off limits just because her name’s in the title. “Little traitorous there, Agatha?” Zing! With each turn of the road and the next trial revealed, Agatha All Along is balancing what these witches have known about each other for centuries against what they’re making together, which is a host of new discoveries. Like exiting the tricky, hallucinatory environs of the first challenge not via magic stairwell but instead through the lowered door of an oven. The coven has returned to the shadows and crags of the Witches’ Road, once again in the clothes they were wearing when they first jumped in. And despite the alewife’s revenge and a few foreboding moments channeled literally from the stuff of nightmares, the group made it through the road’s first test safe and unscathed. What do you mean safe? Unscathed who? Because Sharon Davis, the green witch stand-in, now lies dead at Agatha’s feet.

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.