Agatha All Alongside episode 7 recap: "Loss of life's Hand In Mine"

Agatha All Alongside‘s seventh episode, “Loss of life’s Hand In Mine,” is out of time—each out of order and working down the ever-dwindling clock. The nonlinear construction cleverly jumps forwards and backwards between the current and the previous—typically centuries in the past, typically just some moments in the past—to offer Lilia the most effective sendoff we’ve seen to this point on this present. “I’m near the tip,” Lilia says, someplace within the center, and Jen misunderstands her. “Of the Highway, like your full energy is returning?” she asks. “I’m not so certain I would like it—” Lilia begins, after which she’s screaming, someday sooner or later, persevering with a dialog from the previous.

“Loss of life’s Hand In Mine” opens with a close-up of Lilia’s face. She’s falling, dressed as Glinda from The Wizard Of Oz, via a black abyss, devoid of context. Agatha All Alongside has given us simply sufficient clues within the earlier episodes that the imagery is intriguing fairly than irritating. In episode 5, Teen threw Lilia and Jen into the mud alongside the facet of the Witches’ Highway; possibly that is how Lilia perceived that have as she sank under the floor. Perhaps it’s one thing to do with the visions she’s had all through the present, the phrases dropped in conversations with out rationalization, the dearth of reminiscence when confronted about her unusual conduct. Perhaps it’s a imaginative and prescient of the long run—she is, in spite of everything, the coven’s divination witch, able to seeing ahead and backward and plenty of issues in between, with a couple of caveats. Perhaps it’s all of these issues and none of them directly.

As that scene fades, we swap to a distinct one: Agatha and Teen are strolling in uncomfortable silence down the Highway. It’s awkward sufficient that even Agatha can’t stand it. “You simply can ask me your questions. Aloud,” Agatha tells Teen. She refuses to reply his first query (“The place’s Rio?” which, to be truthful, was certainly one of our most urgent questions, too), however she responds to the second, albeit in essentially the most unhelpful method potential. “Is Wanda Maximoff actually useless?” he asks. “Sure,” Agatha replies instantly. A pause, then a teasing smile. “No. Perhaps.” It’s apparent he’s not getting a transparent reply out of her. The Highway leads them to the setting for his or her subsequent trial: within the episode’s second Wizard Of Oz reference (although in no way its final), it’s a Depraved Witch Of The West-style fort on a hill. Earlier than they head inside, Teen throws yet one more barb at Agatha and questions whether or not she’s ever been on the Highway in any respect. She appears bewildered, although it’s exhausting to inform if it’s real bewilderment or performative, like when Lilia (rightfully) accused her of goading the opposite witches into attacking her so she might steal their energy in episode two.

Contained in the fort, Agatha and Teen endure one other costume change. This time, she’s the Depraved Witch Of The West and he’s Maleficent from Sleeping Magnificence. The trial facilities on tarot playing cards, and so they need to face it with out their divination witch. They fight, unsuccessfully, to do readings for one another. Every time they get one thing flawed, one of many dozens of swords hanging from the ceiling drops to the ground—after which the entire ceiling begins to drop. “I want Lilia was right here,” Teen says.

The present cuts abruptly to a distinct scene: Lilia and Jen are in the course of a confused dialog. Regardless of what Agatha stated in episode six, they’re each nonetheless alive. As an alternative of drowning within the muck, they only type of fell via the bottom and right into a subterranean tunnel. Jen is recounting a dialog we didn’t see and Lilia can’t bear in mind; although it apparently occurred solely moments in the past, Lilia has no reminiscence of telling Jen that they wanted to move additional down the tunnel and search for a bookshelf. There’s a fast collection of flashbacks, and a few puzzle items begin falling into place. Throughout Alice’s trial in episode 4, Lilia interrupts an unrelated dialog and says, “Alice, don’t.” The scene jumps once more: right here’s Lilia throughout Jen’s trial in episode three blurting out “Attempt to save Agatha.” One assertion, minimize in two, delivered out of order, too late to assist by the point it untwists itself in Lilia’s thoughts.

Immediately, we’re watching a scene between a younger lady and an outdated lady, seated throughout from one another at an outside desk. They’re talking Sicilian. The younger lady asks, in confusion, “Maestra?” “Ah, I see,” the outdated lady replies. “You’re visiting, eh? How lengthy has it been?” The digicam cuts again: it’s Lilia as we all know her seated throughout from the girl now. “Centuries,” Lilia replies. The girl informs Lilia that that is her first lesson, and she or he’s studying learn tea leaves.

Again within the tunnel, Lilia comes again to herself and Jen brushes it off as Lilia being confused once more. However she’s not confused, and she or he lastly explains what’s occurring. “The movement of time is an phantasm, Jen,” she says. “Most individuals don’t notice that. Once I was a toddler, I skilled my life out of sequence. I’d get these flashes, these gaps. Now it’s occurring once more and it’s… it’s getting worse.” Then, we’re again the place this recap began: a misunderstood dialog between Jen and Lilia, near the tip, someplace within the center.

Lilia’s on the ground of the trial fort now, and she or he’s ending her sentence: “—Again!” I’m not so certain I would like it again. That’s what she was making an attempt to say.

The fantastic thing about this episode is that it reveals us the world via Lilia’s eyes: till now, we’ve skilled her flashbacks from different folks’s views. From the skin, it looks as if she simply drops out of the dialog for a short while, then comes again with a small hole in her reminiscence. From Lilia’s perspective, she’s successfully touring via time. It’s alarming and wildly disorienting.

The scene performs out very similar to the one within the tunnel: we come into it midway via, the opposite characters remembering what occurred up to now jiffy whereas we, and Lilia, are in the dead of night. Lilia was in the course of a tarot studying for Teen and it wasn’t going effectively; she ended up on the ground after Agatha tackled her out of the best way of a falling sword. We leap round in time extra; first, we’re again in Sicily, then within the tunnel, selecting up on the dialog about Lilia experiencing her life out of sequence. She and Jen hear Agatha and Teen shut by. There’s a bookshelf round a bend within the tunnel and it opens into the fort, the place Lilia transforms into Glinda and Jen turns into the Queen in her outdated hag disguise from Snow White. Now, we’re seeing the complete scene that Lilia blinked into the center of earlier. “I want Lilia was right here,” Teen says, and Lilia bursts via the shelf, proper on cue. Since Lilia’s already skilled a part of this scene, she is aware of the stakes instantly and will get to work on Teen’s tarot studying. It doesn’t work, and Agatha tackles her to the ground.

Then, we’re again in Sicily once more, and Lilia will get a brief however highly effective monologue about how her foresight has induced her nothing however ache for hundreds of years as she foresaw the deaths of everybody she beloved and was powerless to cease it. “Loss of life comes for us all,” the Maestra shrugs. “When will it come for me?” Lilia asks. She pauses, after which she remembers one thing: “I used to be falling. I’ll fall.” Previous and current, out of sync. Near the tip and the start on the similar time.

The present jumps again to the tunnel once more. This time, we’re seeing the scene that Jen recounted for Lilia when she couldn’t bear in mind the place they have been, the quick aftermath of them falling via the earth. “I can see all of the items falling into place,” Lilia says. “The gaps are filling in. I’m telling you now as a result of quickly I’m not going to recollect any of this.” As they head down the tunnel, Lilia realizes what she did flawed within the tarot trial, after which we’re again there, on the desk, as Lilia clears the deck and begins a distinct studying: her personal, this time.

It’s a Protected Passage unfold, a sort of studying that foretells a journey or quest. The primary card represents who she is as an individual. She pulls the Queen of Cups. “Empathetic, intuitive, interior voice to be trusted,” Lilia explains. Subsequent, she pulls a card representing What’s Lacking, or the rationale for her quest: she flips over the Three of Pentacles. “Collaboration, group, singular voices ready to harmonize,” Lilia says. “I wanted you. My coven.” The third card represents her previous, the Path Behind. This time, it’s the Knight of Wands, a nod to her combating spirit. The fourth card represents the Path Forward, or “an area for development and discovery,” as Lilia explains it. She pulls the Excessive Priestess, which represents “Immense religious energy, unable or unwilling to make use of it.” Subsequent up is a card that represents Obstacles: the Three of Swords, signifying sorrow and grief. Then the Windfall: Lilia pulls the Tower reversed, representing a miraculous transformation. Within the tunnel, Lilia wakes up earlier than Jen; there’s a determine approaching within the darkness. “Who’s that?” she asks. “Don’t you acknowledge me, Lilia?” Rio responds. She steps into the sunshine, her face remodeled right into a cranium. Lilia says, “Rio is…”

Again within the fort, Lilia pulls the final card, the one which represents her vacation spot. “…Loss of life,” she finishes. The ultimate piece of Lilia’s reminiscence clicks into place. Agatha confirms that Rio is, in truth, Loss of life, however the Salem Seven have caught as much as them, and they should get out of the fort earlier than they’ll tackle the Rio scenario. Lilia ushers all of them out—via an Iron Maiden this time—and, simply as Jen turns again to assist her via, Lilia shuts the door in her face. “I beloved being a witch,” she says. The Salem Seven have arrived, however Lilia has one final trick up her sleeve. The Tower, upright. “Catastrophe, destruction, sudden upheaval,” she explains. Lilia turns over the cardboard and the room flips the wrong way up, sending everybody flying and impaling the Salem Seven with the swords on the ceiling. Lilia catches the sting of the tarot desk, suspended for a second between life and demise, previous and current. She was falling. Might be falling. After which, she lets go of the desk, and at last, she is falling.

Stray observations

• I’m going to maintain referring to Joe Locke’s character as simply Teen till he makes his id clear—this episode revealed he’s nonetheless uncertain about whether or not he’s William or Billy, so I’m not ascribing both of these names to him but.
• Agatha’s response to Teen’s frustration along with her dodging questions: “Hey, you need straight solutions, ask a straight girl.”
• The moon is on the walkway in entrance of the fort door this time. It’s a waxing gibbous (I believe), the final section earlier than the complete moon. Any astrology consultants have extra perception?
• Agatha on the Depraved Witch Of The West: “She’s based mostly on me, you understand.” “Show it,” Teen shoots again. I’m actually having fun with their evolving relationship—he can’t snark fairly in addition to her but, however he’s doing an admirable job of making an attempt to maintain up.
• I wished to focus the core of this recap on Lilia’s journey, as a result of I believe this episode lastly lived as much as its potential and did a trial episode proper: it targeted squarely on Lilia and gave her backstory influence and that means. This episode was about her and her energy in a approach that not one of the different trials have been about their respective witches earlier than.
• That being stated, yes, we do want to speak about that dialog between Lilia and Teen concerning the sigil. “I noticed what was going to occur to you that night time. I noticed who you have been and who you’ll grow to be. I knew you’d want time,” she tells him.
• Me, in a nutshell: