Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Agatha All Along’s finale
It used to be the case that you could set your watch byMCU post-credits scenes, but times have changed. Starting way back withIron Manin 2008, stingers became immediately and irresistibly synonymous withMarvel’s tentpole franchise, and it wasn’t untilAvengers: Endgameover a decade later that the trend was broken. Now, MCU post-credits scenes are no longer a guarantee, even when they might seem to be inevitable.
Marvel’s Phase 5TV shows have actually almost all avoided a post-credits scene, which has been particularly gratifying for the growing crowd of voices who don’t think they’re entirely necessary. The MCU has worked itself into a situation where too many stingers set up vague future projects that aren’t being paid off, and - let’s face it - we’re all too impatient for a repeat ofEternals' post-credits promising Blade’s arrival when his actual movie wallows in development hell.
Echo is the only MCU Phase 5 show with a post-credits scene.
Despite that cynicism, you could have been forgiven for believing thatAgatha All Alongwould include a post-credits scene, particularly with the looming shadow of Scarlet Witch hanging about the place. It was a project that always felt destined to hint at her survival afterDoctor Strange in theMultiverse of Madness' ending, after all, but in a somewhat shocking turn of events:Agatha All Alonghas no post-credits scene at all.And even more shockingly, it was the right thing to do.
Agatha All Along Didn’t Need A Post-Credits Scene
The WandaVision Spin-Off Does Something Far More Satisfying
If there’sone thing to take fromAgatha All Along, it’s how well showrunner Jac Schaeffer crafted her artful deception. 3 years after the MCU Internet Fanbase lost its collective head over Mephisto hints that simply weren’t there, Schaeffer weaponized the potential for Scarlet Witch’s return in a way that consciously played into that same, painfully inevitable bubble of expectation.
There is, no doubt, a multiversal plane whereAgatha All Along’s post-credits scene jumped back to the ruins of Mount Wundagore, and showed rubble levitating at the spot where Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff made her sacrifice, but that’s not this universe, and we should be grateful.To do that would have been cheap and unnecessary, and instead we all get to continue the hopeful delusion thatScarlet Witch will return to the MCUsomewhere in the future without it overshadowingAgatha All Along’s excellent ending.
We Didn’t Need Wanda, But That Doesn’t Mean All Hope Is Lost For Scarlet Witch
In place of any post-credits scene,Agatha All Along’s ending instead sets up what comes next with the ghost of Hahn’s delightful antihero offering to become the “spirit guide” alluded to in the phony Ballad of the Witches Road to Joe Locke’s Billy Maximoff. Rather than leaping to a big tease to the - so far non-existent -Scarlet Witch solo movie, we got a tantalizing hook for whatever comes in place ofAgatha All Alongseason 2. If I were a gambling man, I’d suggest that would bea new version of Marvel’sAvengers: The Children’s Crusade.
In that story, set in the wake ofHouse of Mand Scarlet Witch’s spiral out of control that led to the death of several Avengers, Wiccan and the Young Avengers set out to find Wanda after her years-long absence from Marvel Comics. It’s a typically complex storyline that deals with the aftermath of Wanda’s infamous “no more mutants” spell, and unites far more Marvel characters - including the X-Men - who wouldn’t yet work in the MCU.
ButAgatha All Along’s ending offers some hints that Billy will now be on his own “children’s crusade” to find not Wanda but Tommy, in a story that would surely have to deal with the Maximoff kids' journey to closure one way or another. By avoiding a post-credits scene explicitly setting up Scarlet Witch, and ending on the promise of finding Tommy,Agatha All Alongserves its surviving characters perfectly. The next chapter is set up, and there could absolutely be a route back to Wanda, but we should all admire the bravery of not giving it up so easily.
Agatha All Along
Cast
Agatha Harkness, after the events of “WandaVision,” seeks to regain her magical powers. Joining forces with unexpected allies, including the son of an old adversary, she battles new mystical threats while uncovering hidden secrets in the magical realm.
