Part of Agatha Harkness' (Kathryn Hahn) charm inAgatha All Alongis how she dresses. Although the Witches' Road trials often see her wearing specific outfits, she usually looks like the typical witch, with her long purple dress and cloak. The cherry on top is her special cameo brooch that features the three figures of a maiden, mother, and a crone, andin the series finale we finally learn why it’s so meaningful. As expected, it has to do with her son, Nicholas Scratch (Abel Lysenko), and it’s heartbreaking.
The Brooch Symbolizes Agatha’s Journey Through Life
Agatha has been wearing her iconic brooch since her appearance inWandaVision. In every era of television that Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) imagined for Westview,the brooch was the only constant in Agatha’s outfit, hinting that she wasn’t just Wanda’s nosy neighbor Agnes, but something more.Agatha All Alongreveals some interesting things about Agatha’s brooch, one of them being that it depicts her journey through life based on the Ballad of the Witches' Road, which he invented with Nicholas in the late 1700s. She “finds” the brooch in the series premiere, “Seekest Thou the Road,” at the crime scene she is investigating, and, later, Norm (Asif Ali) tells her thatthe three women on the brooch are the Triple Goddess, symbolizing three different aspects of womanhood—Maiden, Mother, Crone.
In the series,Agatha goes through all these stages between the present timeline and flashbacks. She starts out as the first when she was young in New England, stealing other witches' power and having a relationship with Death (Aubrey Plaza). Then, she becomesNicholas' mother, who is born with no spell or incantation — “from scratch.” Finally, she becomes a white-haired crone only after she dies, mentoring Billy Maximoff (Joe Locke).
Agatha’s Brooch Contains a Memento From Her Son
Also in the series premiere, Norm shows Agatha that the brooch is a locket containing a lock of hair.One of the earliest mysteries of the series was actually whose hair is that, but not much more is learned about it until Episode 8, “Follow Me My Friend / To Glory at the End.” When Agatha, Billy, and Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) finally make it to the last trial, Billy and Jen get what they were looking for and vanish, leaving Agatha by herself as time runs out, and the locket is the key to her escape.
Agatha opens the locket and holds the lock of hair inside for what seems like the first time in centuries. There is also a dandelion seed inside the locket and Agatha uses one of her tears to plant the seed with the hair on a crack in the ground. As the light runs out, the seed she plants blossoms into a flower in the nick of time. The lights turn back on and she makes her way out as the room collapses behind her. In the finale, “Maiden Mother Crone,“we learn in a flashback sequence that the hair comes from Nicholas, and we see a scene of Agatha making the cutting from her son’s dead body and guarding it inside the locket.
The hair blossoming into a tree is an indication that Agatha might have gotten what she really sought fromthe Witches' Road. The Road is said to grant those who walk it whatever they desire once they reach the end, and Agatha has always said she wanted power. But is what she says really what she means? When she plants the seed with her son’s hair, it does not bring her back her power, butthe flower growing and blossoming could represent Nicholas coming back to lifein some way, or it might represent some kind of closure Agatha has reached. Although she still states that she’s afraid to face her son in the afterlife, passing that final test indicates that something significant has happened and when we next see Agatha as a ghost, she’s no longer wearing her treasured brooch.
Agatha All AlongSeason 1 is available to stream on Disney+.
Agatha All Along
Agatha Harkness, following the events of “WandaVision,” embarks on a quest to reclaim her lost powers. Teaming up with unlikely allies, including the son of her former enemy, she faces new mystical threats while navigating a complex world of magic and intrigue.
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