#hahndavision

[cissa-calls]

Reflecting on the scene of young Lilia in a gown the color of goldenrods in bloom and sunshine, racing to meet her teacher and begin learning what it is to be a witch. Learning what would have been the end, her end, was heartbreaking yet healing. She was full of anticipation and ambition and life, before the weight of prosecution, guilt for having predicted and watched her coven die, and having to bury her magic (once her source of power) became known. When she stays behind to trap the Salem Seven, she tells Jen with more love and conviction that she has spoken in the entire show:

“I loved being a witch”

Lilia finally realizes her path, steps and accepts what it means to know herself. To practice witchcraft, as proved in the trial by reading her own tarot instead of Billy’s, divination is not only more than kooky sector of the craft, but an act of her agency. An extension of herself. She can relinquish guilt and shame, but doesn’t grieve, despite only realizing this when her time seems to be running out. After all,

“The flow of time is an illusion”

When Lilia let go of the table in the trial room, falling in a gown evoking a character who represents all things good and dressed once again as a queen of cups, she is floating, flying. She is more than a batty woman. She is a cunning witch, and she always will be. So, while Death is guaranteed, it is not the end. That’s why the end of the episode is the earliest we see young Lilia. Her life is a tapestry, not a timeline. The cycle repeats and life goes on, as her mentor says:

“Let us begin.”

[cissa-calls]

Treasuring those looks of ecstasy when the coven rode their brooms and tasted the sky and LIVED beyond the darkness. They had just engaged in crafting brooms, reclaiming a part of their practice. A tradition that involves exchange and coven hood. Then, reveling freely in the blood moon. And Agatha looked at Rio with eyes that saw how utterly untamed a being, and infatuated, she still was with her. Lilia’s chuckle of “I haven’t done this in centuries,” because she, more than all of them, has remained hidden in her witchcraft the longest. The stars, the clouds and night air, all theirs.

[cissa-calls]

Lilia said, “I loved being a witch” with the same conviction and passion as if to say: I loved being alive. I loved who I am and who I was and who I will be, despite all the time I spent trying to deny it and force away my visions and powers. I loved being a part of something, a community, our small dysfunctional coven. I have loved this messy, scary, wonderful thing called existence and the heartbreak and power that comes with it - I have loved it all along.

[cissa-calls]

“You don’t have a heart.”

“Yes, I do. It’s black. And it beats for you”

*slams my head on the pavement*

[cissa-calls]

After the first episode, all I can say is:

Good luck babe

[cissa-calls]

Thinking about how within one scene at the very end of episode four, in one minute, Agatha experiences the ease of familiarity, joy, hope, and grief.

Within a pocket of night, Agatha, a woman so famously guarded and untrusting doesn’t even need to turn around when she feels Rio’s fingers carding through her hair. Sighing and allows herself to enjoy it and exist in solely the eyes of moonlight.

Agatha then turns around and places her hands with such ease on Rio. The Witches Road is Switzerland, she just heard that Rio remembers and bears the scar, Agatha, of her greatest pain. Maybe there is hope. Maybe Agatha will have what she desperately missed, or rather both of whom she misses.

Their hands cradle each other in a way that speaks of familiarity and time and longing.

“Agatha, that boy isn’t yours.”

And suddenly, she’s lost them yet again. The light behind her eyes dims.

How did Agatha feel watching Wanda and Vision experience the joys of love and building a family? She was at Westview for the purposes of Wanda’s magic. Most of the time, especially in the memory episode, she comes across as insensitive and agitative. But really, how did she feel having to watch Wanda lose it all?

[cissa-calls]

The covens reaction to the reveal of Rio as Death was instinctually, AGATHA YOUR EX IS DEATH???

It was not, hey whoa, guess what?! Our coven member is death! Even though it was never explicitly stated, they knew: oh these are sapphic ex’s with unresolved tension…obviously. She is my scar??? Okay. Okay. That’s tragic feminine pining 101, no need for clarification. But DEATH??? COULDN’T MENTION THAT FUN FACT?

[cissa-calls]

Jen taking out her retainer and putting it neatly in its case in preparation to punish (violently beat the shi- outta) Agatha took me out. Even in the figments of a trial, she was like: damn, this is too expensive to break

[cissa-calls]

Agatha’s Trial, her worst nightmare, was to be a teenager again seeking her mother’s validation.

“Mom…why do you hate me still?”

“You were born evil. I ought to have killed you the moment you left my body”

Agatha, reduced and undermined as she was in her adolescence (hammered home by the fact she is literally dressed to evoke that), fight back tears as she realizes that her mother only remained as a ghost to punish Agatha. To try and ensure Agatha remained alone by telling the coven to complete the trials without her. Even though Agatha is a centuries old witch, standing there in her purple jersey, ratty hair, and tears in lost eyes, she’s a child again. Rio, having been with her for so long, shakes her head knowing how this could only go. How many times has she watched Agatha crawl for affection she will never get?

“Don’t leave me with her! I can be good! Please!”

If Agatha was truly born evil, it was only because her body formed in the womb of Evanora. Then:

“Mama! Stop!”

Agatha’s other greatest fear. Nicholas watching this all happen. Was she a better mother to him than Evanora was to her? Did stealing Alice’s powers just confirm that she was evil, as Evanora said, all along?

[cissa-calls]

“WHY IS THE PRINT SO SMALL”

Lilia in literal tears about to self-combust in fear and take Alice by proxy

[cissa-calls]

"CONGRATULATIONS MY LOVE - I'm sorry I didn't have a ribbon for you to run through."

No matter your thoughts on the shift in dynamic between Agatha and Rio in this last battle, you CANNOT deny this line. It is so laced with bitterness and yearning, it brings me to tears caught between hilarity and absurbness, and grief and sorrow over change. THIS is how you write the complicated twist of passion that never died, what it warps and turns into and finally bursts out as. An eruption left in the wake of wanton waiting that says: If I cannot have you, you will have to notice me, remember me. You WILL remember me.

[cissa-calls]

Teen: “-that’s what it means to be a witch? Killing people to serve your own agenda? No. Not for me.”

Agatha: “Are you sure? You’re so much like your mother”

Within a chuckle that turns from sickly sweet to sour, Agatha sounds so disgusted with him. Disgusted with the fact that he isn’t Nicholas, that she even thought him to be her son at all. That he is another representation of Wanda superseding her. And that he has her moral superiority and “knowledge” to weld magical power, when his parentage, his legacy, the reason he is alive as created through the hex, was just for as self serving a use.

[cissa-calls]

HOLY HECATE I JUST REALIZED

THAT’S AGATHA!!! THAT’S AGATHA ZOMBIFIED AND POSSESSED DOING THE EXORCIST BACKBEND!!! LOOK AT THE SHIRTS - THEY’RE THE SAME!!

Also, during that scene in the teaser trailer, Rio says: “Sweetheart, you okay?” SHE’S TALKING TO AGATHA

[cissa-calls]

“WHOSE SHOES ARE THESE?”

Ralph’s, Agatha. They’re Ralph’s. Just like your Bohner Family Reunion t shirt.

[cissa-calls]

Agatha lounging in the background pulling the chaotic gremlin queer signature (unable to sit anywhere that remotely resembles a chair)

Totally focused on what Sharon is saying yes yes yes

[cissa-calls]

Alice asks for the new witch that they’re summoning to bring Advil RIGHT in front of Jennifer’s potion witch salad. She said: I don’t need a potion made out of moonlight and water - I need the nearest pharmacy