Agatha All Along, named for the titular song from Agatha's big reveal in WandaVision, picks up three years after the end of that series. Agnes, aka Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), is still confined by Wanda Maximoff's binding spell, and she lives in the small town of Westview, New Jersey, without her memories and no knowledge of her own abilities as a powerful, somewhat evil witch who has lived and thrived in the Marvel Universe since the late 17th century.

Agatha is locked inside a fantasy world, barely interacting with the other residents of Westview and believing herself to be a tough, hard-bitten police detective. But then a mysterious teenager (Joe Locke) breaks into her house and manages to break the spell over her; unable to reveal his identity because of a secret sigil, she simply refers to him as "Teen" or, when she's feeling less charitable, "my pet."

Wanting to regain the powers that Wanda stole from her, Agatha decides to walk the mystical Witches' Road -- but to do that, she needs a coven. She recruits several down-and-out witches, all of whom have some sort of unpleasant past with Agatha, but who also desire the power (or closure) that walking the Road will grant them. The team is Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone) and, oddly, "Mrs. Hart" (Debra Jo Rupp), who's a fish-out-of-water character from WandaVision. When one of the witches is unable to continue, Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) is summoned in her place.

All of the witches have some backstory, but Rio has more than most. The Teen's identity is revealed, too, and it comes with an interesting twist that, while not entirely surprising, could pay off significantly in the future. Of course, we'll learn a whole lot more about Agatha's past, too.

Overall, this series is a lot of fun, although not as cleverly put together as WandaVision. Still, it stands apart as very different from anything else we've seen to date in the MCU. The practical effects -- a dramatic change from Marvel's CGI-heavy movies -- are especially pleasing to watch.

A big problem for me was, none of the characters is very likable, and the ones we like at first are likely to turn sour in time, while ones we start off disliking might get some late-in-the-game sympathy ... before going off the rails again. I didn't find myself rooting for any of them, to be honest, although some of their backstories did conjure some genuine emotion. Even Agatha, who is hard to care about given her amoral energy -- no slight on Hahn, who does an amazing job -- tugs at a few heartstrings here and there.

Agatha All Along is worth watching for the risks it takes, the atmospheric production, and a story that will keep viewers guessing to the end. It also resurrects (sort of) a character who was lost in the past and could set up some involvement in future MCU outings.