‘Agatha All Along’ Episode 4 Recap: Rio Vidal Joins the Coven As THE Green Witch
SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the fourth episode of Marvel’s Agatha All Along.
Read on for a full recap of Agatha All Along Episode 4, titled “If I Can’t Reach You/Let My Song Teach You.”
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Mrs. Hart (Debra Jo Rupp) has died from the poisoned wine that every member of the coven had to drink to pass the first trial in Episode 3, which was solved by Sasheer Zamata’s potions witch Jennifer Kale.
Teen digs her a grave on the side of the Witches Road as a quiet Alice confirms that her mother Lorna Wu died on the road — which vaguely sounds like The Witches’ Road, but she really died “on the road,” as in on tour, in a hotel fire. Alice recalls that her mother told her the road would save her.
As Teen lays some baby’s breath on Mrs. Hart’s grave, Lilia questions how much antidote Mrs. Hart got because she had two glasses of wine.
Agatha tries to move on down the road after a half-hearted “R.I.P. Mrs Hart,” but the rest of the coven refuses to leave. Agatha calls Sharon “a bad draft pick” and tries to taunt the others with “more power for the rest of us.” Jenn and Agatha debate certain lyrics to the Ballad of the Witches Road: “Coven two” versus “coven true.” Alice asks Agatha how many other witches left the road with her last time she was on it, and Agatha holds up one finger, signaling why she things it’s “coven two.” Alice is consulted about the meaning of the line as her mother wrote the most popular version of the ballad.
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Alice, Jenn and Lilia don’t want to go forward without a green witch to complete the coven and replace Mrs. Hart. Agatha debates summoning a substitute for the road. Teen provides a spell book for the process. Each coven member establishes criteria — Lilia’s asking that she be strong and good at her craft, Agatha that she be not annoying and not super political. Jenn that she be pleasant-looking, and Alice that she bring Advil.
Who should sprout from a spot other than the leaf-shaped body outline in the soil but Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal. Teen worries that they turned Mrs. Hart into a zombie, but it was just Agatha’s old romantic antagonist dressed in green. She says she’s less A green witch and more THE Green Witch, before she starts skipping down the path.
Teen asks if Agatha wants to talk about the fact that her dangerous but charismatic lady is back. “Are we in trouble Agatha? More so than we were ten minutes ago?” he asks. Lilia’s observation that Agatha hates Rio goes in the pro column, meaning it’s a plus for the rest of the coven that Rio has arrived.
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The next trial manifests as a woodsy house nestled on the path. Alice wants nothing to do with the house, but the road will take them there no matter what. The waxing moon on the front door signifies the fire phase, and Alice dreads going inside. They enter the building transformed into people dressed up like a 70s rock band.
“We’re an album cover waiting to happen,” Teen says, and he’s not far off, as the six of them look like a witchy Daisy Jones and the Six or Fleetwood Mac. Teen then searches for a hint as to what awaits them in the next trial, like the card that was on the mantle of the beach house in Episode 3.
Lilia examines red panels in the jouse of women being tortured, which brings tears to her eyes. Jenn sees a bunch of masks hanging on one of the house’s stone walls. Alice finds a photo of her mom. Lilia asks Alice if Lorna was trying to open the road with her concerts. Alice confirmed that, yes, this was her intent, saying that Lorna’s fans were her coven.
Lilia has another out of place moment in which she says something that doesn’t fit the situation: “Which is it? Am I wispy or am I kooky? Alice, Alice don’t!”
Rio asks Agatha how the quest is going, and she says that “magic, as it always does, took the path of least resistance,” to place her as the replacement Earth witch with the rest of the coven. Then she asks Agatha why she brought “that boy,” or Teen. Agatha says she needed hands. Then she tries to say “What if it’s one last big adventure?” to Rio, who says “like old times?”
Agatha then presses the button that turns on the mic that connects the recording booth room where she and Rio have had their conversation to the main living room of the house as Rio claims Agatha’s going to kill all the witches once they get to the end of the road.
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Speakers start to screech out a cacophony of sounds as Teen attempts to play a record that he thought was a clue because “Play Me” is printed on the vinyl’s protective sleeve. Agatha smashes the record and the player to pieces to get the horrible noise to stop.
“We’ve been cursed,” Lilia says.
“I think this music trial’s started,” Rio says, as a metronome sitting on top of the piano starts clicking.
Alice starts to feel lighter, asking if the rest of them do. Lilia’s body starts smoking as if she’s on fire. Alice draws a circle around Lilia uttering some sort of incantation as Patti LuPone’s witch writhes on the floor in her glittery jump suit and orange coat.
“What if we reason with the witch that cast the spell?” Teen asks.
But the only way out, for the coven, is through. Jenn gets a circle drawn around her, and Teen points out that there are what look to be burn marks on her shoulders. Lilia has similar or wounds in the exact same place.
“The Ballad of the Witches Road” by Lorna Wu is on the record. Agatha asks if Alice brought in the curse with her. She has faint scars on her shoulders too.
“I didn’t think it was real!” Alice says. “I convinced myself they were birthmarks,” she tells everyone. “Even though [my mom] had the same ones.”
Teen then gets thrown through the glass pane separating the sound booth from the main chamber of the house after the witches freak out about the generational curse that is threatening them.
Agatha reaches the same conclusion as Alice, that they have to play Lorna’s version of The Ballad of the Witches’ Road to quell the curse. Lorna’s intention was to save her daughter by opening the road.
Lorna’s ballad is a protection spell that has shielded Alice from burning to a crisp throughout her whole life because at any given moment, someone somewhere out in the world is singing the song Lorna left behind.
Teen offers to play guitar, and Agatha makes Jenn play base. Lilia’s on zills, or the triangle and later maracas, and Alice takes the piano. Her cue starts the song off. Rio is on the drums. Agatha starts to smoke singe, but as keep playing the song, she is safe, and they all join in singing.
A breeze rushes past Agatha as she sings “Risk this heart of mine.”
Parts of the house start to catch on fire as they get to the second verse. A sharp spike of some sort starts to poke through Teen. Alice gets a nice solo moment singing.
The curse takes form as a terrifying red and black winged creature, and Alice vows to kill it once she sees it. It flies to cling to her shoulders, but she belts out a note that vanquishes the creature, which dissolves in flakes of ash.
Teen faints right after the piano lid opens to reveal the exit, similar to the oven in Episode 3. It turns out a glass shard was protruding from his stomach. Agatha tears up as she is desperate to revive Teen. Lilia suggest they leave him, and Rio just mysteriously watches from afar. Jennifer heals the gash with water and moonlight.
“Jennifer, look what you did,” Lilia says, ominously and proudly.
Jennifer confesses she’s an eleventh-generation root worker and midwife as Agatha watches over Teen’s unconscious body. Jenn tells the story of how she got bound. She was invited to the brand-new obstetrics association of Greater Boston. It was a trap, and a man bound her without magic.
“When mom died, I stopped believing everything she ever taught me,” Alice says. “I was so angry. Part of me hoped that the road wasn’t real so that I could stay angry.”
“Now you know that it was all for you,” Lilia says. “And that makes you sad. Sad is better than angry.”
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Lilia goes on a rant about misconceptions and rumor mongering when it comes to witches — about how they talk to ghosts and are covered in extra nipples. Rio says she’s covered in nipples, offering everyone to see.
Teen stirs awake, asking Agatha if she put the sigil on him. She says no, but then she amends that statement to the fact that she wouldn’t know because sigils work on those that cast them too. Teen asks if it can be lifted. Agatha says it can be broken, and before he asks her how, she says that a sigil gets broken when there is no longer a need for it.
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“You don’t have to know a person’s name to know who they are,” she tells him.
Teen then asks her what really happened to her son. All she says is “Heal fast. We’re not staying here long.”
The coven asks Agatha to show them her battle scars. She showcases her elbow, which took a knitting needle from the Daughters of Liberty.
Rio then says that she has a scar.
“A long time ago, I loved someone.” She went on to say that she regretted doing something, but that she had to do it because “It was my job, and it hurt them. She is my scar.”
Agatha goes off for fresh air, and Rio follows her. Lilia takes Rio’s arm and warns her “Don’t think for one second I’ve forgotten what you said in the sound booth.”
Agatha and Rio share a long embrace.
“Agatha,” Rio says, right before Agatha tries to kiss her. “That boy isn’t yours.”
Agatha smirks and walks away.
Two trials down and five to go, if things are to go to plan for Agatha and her ragtag coven, as well as Teen.
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