Agatha All Along is out now, and its premiere countdown was a witchy five-hour ASMR stream
Actors working overtime.
Agatha All Along's marketing and PR campaign hasn't been the greatest Marvel Studios has pulled off, but we're happy to admit its launch countdown ASMR stream was pretty original. Wait, what?
The show that would've been huge like two years ago, with WandaVision (its televised predecessor) still fresh and people genuinely hopeful about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, has received okay reviews so far, and it seems that fans of the Marvel universe's spookier side might be entertained, but at this point, most folks just want this whole enterprise to regain some focus.
After star Joe Locke (who's totally not Billy Maximoff, but 'Teen' for sure) not doing the best press tour and the previews released so far failing to impress beyond the biggest MCU diehards, the unexpected countdown stream, which had much of the main cast working overtime to toy with ASMR, actually feels refreshing and funny in a way that may tempt people on the fence to check the show out. You can watch (or listen to) it below:
Surprisingly, main lead Kathryn Hahn, who reportedly delivers a killer performance across the entire series (no shock there), isn't around for that much of the stream. Instead, Aubrey Plaza, Patti Lupone, and Sasheer Zamata get more time to play with cards and all sorts of trinkets. Plaza was clearly the one having the most fun, and true sickos will surely appreciate her licking a knife and whispering in their ears before stabbing some tree stumps.
Given Disney and Marvel's resources and level of control over modern pop culture even during rough times, this whole thing is the sort of very dumb but ultimately kinda attention-catching effort we'd like to see more of. You know, if more slop is coming our way, we might as well extract some genuine laughs and memes out of it.
Agatha All Along's synopsis reads as follows: "A spell-bound Agatha Harkness regains freedom thanks to a teen's help. Intrigued by his plea, she embarks on the Witches' Road trials to reclaim her powers and discover the teen's motivations." The first two episodes are now available on Disney Plus, making it Disney's big pre-Halloween bet before the focus shifts to Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Will you be tuning in?