Warning! This article contains major spoilers for Agatha All Along. If you've yet to catch up with episode 7, and don't want to know anything that happens, turn back now!
Agatha All Along fans were left emotionally devastated by the Marvel spin-off's most recent episode as Patti LuPone's clairvoyant Lilia slowly worked out that she'd have to sacrifice herself to save Billy, Jen, and Agatha.
The latest installment, titled 'Death's Hand in Mine', plays fast and loose with time, flitting from past to present, as Lilia makes sense of the premonitions she's been having about the Witches' Road – and realizes how integral she'll be to the coven making it to the end. With that, viewers have compared the outing to 'The Bent-Neck Lady', the fifth episode in Mike Flanagan's series The Haunting of Hill House and how it sees Victoria Pedretti's Nell heartachingly come to terms with her own fate.
"[Agatha All Along's] version of jumping through moments of one's own life is a great sister version of the tragic one from The Haunting of Hill House," wrote one fan on Twitter. "They are both different contexts and executions but both similar in stunning, memorable, emotional impact."
"Yo, that episode of Agatha All Along was AMAZING! Reminded me of those mid-season episodes of Haunting of Hill House & Bly Manor," said another.
"Who would have thought that Lilia from Agatha All Along and Nell from Haunting of Hill House would have this in common," joked a third, while a fourth wrote: "That episode reminded me a lot of The Haunting of Hill House episode 'The Bent Neck Lady' with how it jumps through time, and Lilia seeing how she died all along. It was insane to see how all the random things she said finally connected."
they have been trapped in their own timelapse/destiny ever since they were kids 😢 #AgathaAllAlong pic.twitter.com/sjwKv0T0FBOctober 24, 2024
Having suffered terrifying visions of her since she was a child, Nell discovers halfway through The Haunting of Hill House that the horrible "Bent-Neck Lady" is actually herself – essentially, in layman's terms, from the future. It's just like how Lilia has been seeing visions of herself and her pals on the Road since she was a youngster, but could never make sense of it until now.
With flashbacks, it makes clear that her seemingly random outbursts in previous episodes were her seeing flashforwards the others weren't privy to; Alice trying to save Agatha from her mother, Teen revealing himself to be Billy Maximoff, and... well... her own death.
After helping Jen, Billy, and Agatha pass the tarot-centric trial, she ushers them through a door in the tower, so that they continue on the Road. Then, accepting her long foretold destiny, she chooses to stay behind and fight off the Salem Seven, who have been hot on the coven's tails. As the septet gather around her, she turns one of the tarot cards she picked for herself upside down, flipping the room and sending the unsuspecting septet plummeting towards the sword-filled ceiling-cum-floor. For a moment, she clings onto the tarot table, but eventually lets herself fall with a triumphant smile. In a flashback, her childhood mentor tells her younger self, "Let us begin", suggesting, as Lilia claimed earlier, that time really is just an illusion.
Since the episode aired, fans have been calling for LuPone to get some serious award love when the time comes, with some even suggesting that she deserves a Primetime Emmy for her work in the episode.
Patti LuPone deserves an Emmy for this episode of #AgathaAllAlong. pic.twitter.com/WO2S4UxaDtOctober 24, 2024
In Hill House, a struggling Nell learns the truth when she pays a visit to the titular mansion and is tricked into putting a noose around her neck by its ghosts. After doing so, her mother's spirit pushes her from a mezzanine balcony, and as Nell's neck snaps, she starts travelling through time, looking at her past selves through the Bent-Neck Lady's eyes.
Interestingly, enough, Flanagan's The Haunting of Bly Manor has a similar episode, too. In 'The Altar of the Dead', T'Nia Miller's Hannah Grose finds herself jumping through time unwillingly, before finding out that she's actually a ghost.
Agatha All Along episodes 1 to 7 are streaming now. Ensure you don't miss a thing with our Agatha All Along release schedule.
For more on the wider MCU, check out our guide to all of the upcoming Marvel movies and shows or get up to speed with our breakdown of the Marvel timeline.
