Hopefully, well get to see when that happens, in some way or another.
Collider: To start with a fun and silly question, how is Senor Scratchy?
Will we hear from or see that rabbit again?
Image via Disney+
JAC SCHAEFFER: Oh, poor Senor Scratchy.
Senor Scratchy is a story for another day.
So, another day, Mr. Scratch.
Image via Marvel Studios
How frustrating was that for you?
SCHAEFFER: That was a tough one.
The number of people who touch this show, I love them all and Im grateful to them all.
That one was tough to take.
I knew that people would suspect Billy.
I was ready for that.
Image via Disney+
But the Death leak was a tougher one.
Although, things happen for a reason.
So, maybe it worked out for the best.
How soon are we going to see them on their journey to find Tommy?
Have you had conversations about a sequel series?
Agatha is someone who has been around for centuries.
Image via Disney+
At what point did she acquire the Darkhold?
Is that something were ever going to hear about again?
But Im sure theres a worthwhile story, should anyone be interested in how Agatha got it.
Does her child have a father?
Will we ever learn anything about him?
SCHAEFFER: Thats another story for another day.
Agatha Harkness, following the events of “WandaVision,” embarks on a quest to reclaim her lost powers. Teaming up with unlikely allies, including the son of her former enemy, she faces new mystical threats while navigating a complex world of magic and intrigue.
Buckle up we’re haunting the narrative!
It requires a lot of discipline to say, Were not gonna answer that.
Thats not our focus.
I think thats the trick.
Luckily, its the MCU and any of this can be explored in future properties.
Once Teen is revealed to be Billy Maximoff, we see the crown on his head.
Was all of that important?
I knew I wanted it to be an electric blue.
I knew I wanted it to resemble Wandas.
But the specifics of exactly the size and how it wraps around his head becomes a larger Marvel question.
Some people were immediately posting side by side photos of Joe Locke and Elizabeth Olsen to compare their crowns.
SCHAEFFER: Isnt it amazing?
When you put them side by side, its really arresting.
I was so thrilled to see that.
And I feel like this show has the most fantastic pair of eyebrows anywhere.
SCHAEFFER: Eyebrow Game 2024,Agatha All Along.
Was that something you always knew you were leading up to, or did that change?
Shes gonna be a ghost!
And it wasnt very loud, which was terrific.
That was always the thing we wanted.
This is a witch who is over 400 years old.
The show is about death.
We knew we wanted her to die and become a ghost.
Was it intentional that you also wanted to show her mother as a ghost before that?
SCHAEFFER: Yeah, that was the world building of it and the establishing of it.
Ultimately, we liked it being a little more instinctive, that somehow ghosts are beyond Rios reach.
Its tied to the idea that a ghost isnt ready to surrender to death yet.
Was this ending the ending that you had always wanted?
SCHAEFFER: The final final scene evolved quite a bit.
Going into prep, we knew the first half of episode nine would look the way it did.
Where do we go after the Witches' Road?
Was there a shot or a sequence that ended up being the hardest one to film?
SCHAEFFER: The demon stuff was very, very hard.
That was a person in a suit who had to be hoisted up on top of the partition.
That was very hard.
We had very little time to do that.
The cabin was a very, very difficult shoot.
Also, the rest of the show.
We already love Kathryn Hahn, as well as Aubrey Plaza and Patti LuPone.
Everyone in this series is great, but for me, Sasheer Zamata came in and stole the show.
Did you know what she was capable of when she came to this character?
Did that change and shift and grow, at all?
SCHAEFFER: What I didnt know is that Sasheer would bring the rigor of research to the role.
Sasheer was really interested in the history of witches, specifically Black midwives.
We spoke with a professor about the history.
Shes dropped in, in a way.
And then, it just grows and grows and grows.
We felt she had the longest arc.
Sasheer is tremendous in the show.
With some of the performers, theres the version of them on screen, and then theres the person.
If you met her, you would get it.
Theres so much weight to her.
She makes really great eye contact.
Shes just a very powerful person.
Could there be any cool extras down the road that we could see on Disney+?
Sometimes with these puzzle box shows, you realize, after the fact, that youve overwritten it.
SCHAEFFER: I think thats working at Marvel.
When I write on my own, its usually pretty small.
The ideas are big, but the scenes are small.
But theres an expectation, obviously, at Marvel that you make things big.
Thats what were all here for and why were doing it at Marvel Studios.
The MCU has not built a forest like this before, so it was great.
A final twist waits at the end of this path.
I found myself asking questions about Agatha while I was watching the finale.
How can you justify that kind of body count?
So, how do you view Agatha?
Is she a villain?
Is she the hero of her own story?
How did you look at that?
SCHAEFFER: I definitely dont think shes the hero of her own story.
I think that she still has work to do, and I think thats why shes a ghost.
She hasnt fully made peace and accepted the truth of her life and the truth of herself.
I find the hero/villain binary reductive.
Thats why I do these shows.
I want to explore it and I want to be like, You think this person is a villain?
Just a second, theyre a hero.
And then, vice versa.
Like everything, its a flow.
If you look at it too closely, yeah,Agatha is a mass murderer and thats not okay.
But this is the MCU.
What Im most interested in is, why did she go on a mass murdering spree after son died?
Its because she couldnt cope.
Its just a metaphor.
Shes not a real human person killing real human people.
She cant fill herself, and thats what the metaphor is.
That is the important distinction between them.
The body count is real.
There should be concern that the ghost on Billys shoulder is Agatha Harkness.
That should make everyone nervous.
SCHAEFFER: It depends.
Thats what happened with WandaVision and thats what happened with Agatha.
It was Daniel Selons idea to stitch the tarot into Lilias costume.
It was Daniel Selons idea to put the symbols in Billys sweater.
That is him and his brain.
Thats him looking at the material and enhancing it and carrying it forward.
So, in that particular instance, thats not me.
But my assistant Brittany [Horn] created the tarot cards.
Can it be like that?
Its case by case.
Was it important for you to include a kiss between them, at some point?
SCHAEFFER: Its funny, I didnt anticipate that the fans would need a kiss.
That was never part of the conversation in the room.
We wanted the kiss because we wanted a kiss of death.
Thats what I wanted.
They cant actually be intimate, in that moment, in a way that doesnt harm one of them.
Thats what I wanted out of it.
Everyone was like, Theyre not gonna kiss.
Theyre not gonna give it to us.
And we were like, Just wait.
But to answer your question,it was never about fan service because we didnt anticipate it.
It was really about what we felt to be the natural conclusion of this relationship at this time.
Theyre so great together that you just keep wanting to see more of them.
Had you planned to show us more of that, like how they originally met?
Were those things you wanted to get into, but it just didnt fit into the season?
I feel that those are stories for another day.
We did a lot of really fun ideating about their meet cute.
Did they live together?
What did it look like?
But it felt like we needed to cut to the quick of Agathas story.
Will we see Kahtryn Hahn as the delightfully vile sorceress again?
Its also a moment that clarifies some things and made fans very happy.
I also felt it served that purpose, as well.
To me, it felt like that perfect line thats hilarious and has so much meaning.
Shes never gonna really level with you.
To me, that is really the heart of that line.
But it also cops to the queerness which we love.
And then, the end of episode five with the Billie Eilish needle drop.
Agatha All Alongis available to stream on Disney+.
Check out the season finale trailer:
Watch on Disney+
