The first episode of Agatha All Along is a gritty crime thriller reminiscent of genre icons Seven and Zodiac, for the theatrically defiant 13 year old tapped into the Disney Channel for the Halloween special of a generic teen drama like Hannah Montana or something.
The outlier; the odd one out - the misplaced: Kathryn Hahn, is a fresh, round and shiny cherry tomato tossed into a salad pit of plastic vegetables.
This sentence attempts to fit Aubrey Plaza into the review, similarly to how she awkwardly fit into the entireity of the episode - despite that, I forgot she was in the series; thus, requiring this little appendix at the end of a perfectly fine paragraph.
The second episode improves gradually, but Kathryn Hahn's flourish is instant. Joe Locke is no longer observing his own performance through an out of body experience, and pulls himself together. He had seized the responsibility and permitted the episode to flow, as he and Kathryn Hahn are liquid smooth for the 43 minute duration. Sasheer Zamata, Patti LuPone and Ali Ahn were placid and generic; Patti LuPone outperformed the other two, still.
I've believed that the problems at Marvel Studios stem from writing, but let's stick with Agatha All Along for now. The dialogue in particular begs for the talent grade of Kathryn Hahn to make it worth listening to. In the second episode there was a segment of sublime quality that stood out like the needle you needed, jumping out of a haystack. This segment had no dialogue beyond a collective singing of a witchy chant in the basement of Agatha's home, whereby the characters aren't required to have personality and the actors had nothing to do except pretend to sing in a circle. Intercutting back and forth between the singing witches slowly growing in intensity, and the horror-esque scene with Joe Locke and David A. Payton terrified by a demon-like entity draped in a black cloak and hood, approaching the home from the night's fog as Joe Locke desperate races to baracade all the windows. This was a clear demonstration of what Marvel Studios is capable of through directing, VFX, cinematography and choreography, as well as focused action writing. The moment the dialogue and personalities returned, everything fell apart. Joe Locke and Kathryn Hahn were the only saving grace. This tells me that Marvel casting slipped up somewhere and the writers continue to plague Marvel Studios television department. It seems like they hire writers with a talent ceiling that cuts off at music videos.
Disney are desperate for Disney+ content but for years now, it's been more of a chore than a pleasure to keep up with the MCU's TV ventures. The pressure that Disney place on Marvel to make content for their service is an obvious quantity over quality consequence. WandaVision remains my favourite series, and that was the very first Disney+ MCU series. That is a big deal, especially since we literally have a great series in Moon Knight! Loki, for me, was more filler than substance for me (especially season 2). I'm not one to blindly hype something up just because I like the main character or whatever else, so I say it how it is and I'm happy with my opinions on Loki.
Marvel need to fix the writers issue before it becomes a consistent fixture for the films, mirroring the fate of the television side. Blade is a dangerous realisation of how close that prophecy is to coming true. Deadpool + Wolverine was a refresher everybody needed to reset the fatigue and negativity. The Fantastic Four: First Steps sounds very promising; likewise, Captain America: Brave New World looks promising and hopefully next year will be a big year for Marvel and MCU fans because of it.
That being said, the film slump should be over, but Blade is hanging by a thread as a constant reminder that we may not be out of the woods yet. Unfortunately, the TV side of things is fully consumed by the woods.
Agatha All Along has 7 episodes left, and I hope they give Kathryn Hahn something worth her talent because I believe she is the 2024 version of Christian Bale from 2022's Thor: Love and Thunder
Simply give exceptional talent exceptional projects and everybody will win. You cannot put exceptional talent in mediocrity to please the people who get excited by casting and neglect to watch and listen to the story objectively.
Rating
4/10Mosa