Death comes for us all, we cannot escape death no matter how hard we try. Sure, we can try to prolong our life but at that point, we have to ask are we living on borrowed time?
This is what we see in Agatha All Along, a sequel series to WandaVision. Which as I have said time and again is my all time favorite MCU thing, I’ve rewatched that show three times. WandaVision is easily in my top ten of favorite television shows. Needless to say, I was amped o se a new series from the same creative team behind that show and I was also curious but apprehensive when I learned that this new series would focus on Agatha Harkness.
Agatha is one of my favorite villains and my favorite MCU villain. The last thing I wanted was a show that would redeem her and thankfully, I don’t believe AAA ever set out to do that but rather to explain her and let the audience more into the mind of this centuries old witch. This is something I appreciate as Agatha is the type of villain who as proven by this show can serve as a lead and still be her snarky self. Agatha doesn’t need to be a good person to be a good protagonist and this is what we see here.
This begs the question though what type of antagonist do you give a character who when we last saw her was an antagonist and this is where Death or her other Rio Vidal enters the picture.
Again, there are many different ways to personify death as death is a concept. Death can sometimes be seen as a figure who is just doing their job taking those whose time it is to go. I think of Touched By An Angel and how Andrew knew it was a job to and takes very little pleasure in doing his job.
On the other hand, you have the Final Destination franchise which I’m too much of a wuss to watch where Death is never seen but personified s an angry figure who doesn’t like his design being messed with Ned will go out of his way to kill those that escaped his grasp.
Where does this place Rio? Honestly, she’s closer to the latter and make no mistake, she is evil. She seems to revel in her job to a point, even as the personification of Death, she does have a soul. In many ways, she’s the most complex villain I’m looking at this season.
First Appearance
Now Rio being Death and being the original Green Witch means that she has existed since the dawn of time and will continue to exist long after we exist this mortal plane. Let’s instead focus on the timeline we are given in regard to Agatha. Which in this case, instead of going through her appearances as they appear in show, I’ll look at them chronologically.
Which in this sense, we first see Rio as Death when Agatha is giving birth to her son, Nicholas Scratch. Death appears to take Nicky as his birth is unnatural as Agatha birthed him asexually and as we have established, Death doesn’t like it when you upset the natural order.
Agatha pleads to Rio to give her more time with her son. This is one of the few moments where wee Agatha be vulnerable and let her wall down. This IMO makes Agatha an even stronger parallel to Wanda. They are both mothers who lost their sons and in a way, they both let that drive them mad. Make no mistake, Agatha was already plenty villainous before losing Nicky but the loss of her son sent her over the edge. And spoiler but the Witches Road isn’t real and was instead just a song that Nicky made up that Agatha would co-opt as a way to drain witches of their powers.
With this, we see Agatha both holding onto the son she lost and using a simple silly children’s song to fuel her. For someone who when we first met her was presented as campy, we see there is a lot of anger built up underneath that exterior.
I know I am spending a lot of time on Agatha when this entry is about Rio as she is Death but well, the two are intertwined as they are exes and there has been speculation which I believe was confirmed that Rio is Nicky’s other parent and if that is the case, you can imagine the pain she felt having to take her son to the afterlife but again, Death is about natural order and Nicky’s birth went against the natural order. This is what makes Rio so complicated as there is a fine line between Rio and between Death. In some ways, I think you could argue Rio is a person while Death is her job.
Now we come to her modern day first appearance with which how Agatha All Along opens, we are tricked into thinking it will be doing something similar to WandaVision and how that used sitcoms but instead with police procedurals with Agatha thinking she is a detective and in this hex, Rio takes on the role of no nonsense FBI agent. Hm, I find this interesting when you consider people in that line of work often have to deal with dead bodies and here we Death herself posing as one but much like Agatha in the original series knows this is a hex and breaks Agatha out of it through a visually disturbing moment as Agatha goes through all of her different forms from WandaVision.
I don’t wanna go too much into the hex as it does confuse me considering when we last Agatha, Wanda hexed her to think she was Agnes while everyone else was free from the hex but here they are playing along in the police procedural.
I believe that Rio freed Agatha from this hex as she wanted to kill Agatha as Agatha and not Agnes. It’s made rather clear that Agatha had been using the Darkhold and its magic to hide from Death and now without it, she is vulnerable. And Death wants her and will stop at nothing to get her.
Personality
Honestly, I find this a bit hard to pin down and it goes again to the line between Rio and Death. When serving as Death, she seems to keep her guard up and is doing her job taking those that need to move on the afterlife kinda like what is seen when Alice is escorted after she dies protecting Agatha.
Whereas when we see her as Rio, it seems as though she lets her guard down. We see this best in my opinion when she shares the story of her scar and how Agatha is her scar because of what she did taking Nicky. With the Rio side, we see a person who seemingly still loves her ex but also feels jilted by her and again as I said will stop at nothing to get Agatha. Agatha and Rio have a complicated relationship as there are still feelings there. They both love and hate each other at the same time. If we go back to the birth of Nicky, Agatha tells Rio that she’d never forgive her if she took him. And I don’t believe Agatha ever did forgive her. You can also see how much Nicky haunts both Agatha and Rio. In the second episode when Agatha hears his voice, she has hope that who we only know as Teen at this point is her son but Rio knowing those who have crossed over tells her
That boy isn’t yours
The way she speaks this line shows there is hurt on both sides as it seems as though Rio would also love to see Nicky again butt that’s just not possible. On the same token however, he takes a sadistic glee in going after Agatha and trying to kill her. Heck, look how she covers Agatha in scars and blood in their final battle.
Is this Death or is this Rio? I think the answer is both. While normally she is guarded when escorting the dead, she wants to see Agatha dead and I believe this comes from them exes/scorned lovers and no one hates you more than an ex. In some ways, there is still some love there but these two have hurt each other so many times. They are the textbook example of a toxic couple.
Grand Desire
Again, I think we have to look at this both as Rio and Death considering what she wants. Starting with the latter, Death wants Billy (Teen) as he goes against the natural order of things. Once we learned that he is one of Wanda and Vision’s kids, it makes sense as again much like Nicky, him and Tommy weren’t birthed naturally and Billy not even knowing how when the hex over Westview came down took the body of another which he shouldn’t have.
This goes back to the tarot reading trial when ask if he is Billy or William. Death wants him but Billy has to turn himself in as she can’t just go after him.
Meanwhile as Rio, she is after revenge against Agatha. She would do anything to get Agatha and we see how many times she angrily attacks Agatha especially after the hex is lifted. Yes, there is a sense of sexual tension underneath all the attacks. It oozes off he screen but Rio wants Agatha as Agatha has cheated death many times and she can’t stand that.
Most Evil Deed
I feel like I’ve touched upon this briefly already and I believe she would agree but in my mind it has to be coming for Nicky and taking him to the afterlife in the night. Yes, she was just doing her job and Nicky had lived longer than he should’ve even if he only lived to the age of five but the fact that she took him without giving Agatha the chance to say goodbye speaks volumes. Rio knew how much Agatha loved her baby boy and to do this is just cruel. Agatha even told her when she gave birth that if she ever did this that
“I’ll never forgive you”
And I believe this is true to this day as the relationship between Rio and Agatha remains complicated. There are still feelings but Agatha will always hate Rio for what she did and a small part of me believes that Rio also hates herself as again if we look back at how she refers to Agatha as her scar. This speaks to how tricky their relationship is, there will always be feelings for one another but in many ways, the show shows how they can never work as a couple. Sure, there are toxic couples but this seems to be more than that.
Fate
Death can’t die, that’s just how it is. Instead, we see Rio and Agatha battle each other in a final battle after all the trials are completed but of course Rio being Death means it’s hard to win against her. And we see how beaten and scarred, Agatha is. Billy returns and we see him as Wiccan for the first time and he gives some of his power to Agatha to allow her to fight Rio.
Agatha was willing to give up Billy as Death wanted but through telepathy, Billy was able to talk to her and make her realize she could be a better person. And in a rare moment of selflessness, Agatha grabs Rio and kisses her which leads to Agatha’s death which gives Rio what she wanted and she allows Billy to walk.
We see Agatha’s body buried in her backyard but you can’t keep a good witch down as Agatha returns as a ghost.
Is Death a Good Villain?
I uh uhm I’m not sure how to answer this tbh. She’s a very complex figure who leaves me feeling confused about how I feel about her. I believe she serves as a great antagonist to Agatha and I find it eerie how much we have an antagonist that can takedown and nearly frighten my favorite MCU villain.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed my look at these set of villains this Halloween.
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