During Agatha All Along‘s time-skipping seventh episode, Lilia’s mother told her, “Death comes for us all.” Only it turned out Death had been there from the start of the show. The coven learned the secret Agatha Harkness had been keeping from her fellow witches about her ex. Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal is the MCU’s Death, a figure who must do her job no matter who she hurts. And, as the show’s sad finale revealed, that’s exactly why Agatha came to hate the Green Witch she once loved and will now try to stop from claiming another child.
When she was a young girl, Patti LuPone’s divination witch Lilia experienced life out of order. It was a miserable way to exist, so she put that aspect of herself “away.” Her time-jumping malady only returned when she met the ill-fated William Kaplan. It then got much worse when she joined up with Agatha Harkness. On Agatha All Along Lilia would enter trance-like states and speak what seemed like nonsense. Lilia herself never even remembered those moments.
She finally pieced the puzzle of her prophesies and cries together at the end of her life. The Tarot Card castle was her trial, and as she placed the final card to name her “destination,” she told her coven that Rio is the figure “all roads” lead to. Agatha All Along‘s Rio Vidal, as we suspected she might be, is literally the MCU’s Death.
That is Rio’s “job,” the one she vaguely referenced earlier in the season. Rio Vidal is why the Ouija board said “Death” was in the room in Agatha All Along‘s fifth episode. Rio made it onto the Road not because of a summoning spell but because she came to claim Mrs. Hart’s body after the witches buried the sweet gardener. That’s also why Agatha turned to Rio and quietly pleaded “don’t” when she thought Teen would die. Rio, “the original Green Witch” who will take every body returned to the earth, would have been the one to take him, just as she had taken another boy long before. That sad responsibility centuries earlier is why her and Agatha split up.
Agatha All Along‘s finale went back to Salem 1750 to show the truth about Agatha’s son Nicholas. He earned the surname “Scratch” because his mom created him from “scratch.” She didn’t use incantations or spells. The nature of his conception (or possibly conjuring from nothing like Wanda did with Billy and Tommy) almost didn’t matter, though.
Right before Nicholas’ birth, Death showed up. Agatha pleaded with her “love” to spare him, but Rio said the best she could do was give Agatha more time, even though Agatha said she’d hate her partner forever if she took her boy. Death left Agatha and Nicholas alone for six years. During that time Agatha kept delivering Death more bodies, as Agatha kept killing witches to gain their power in a desperate attempt to not just satiate Death but to try and keep her son safe.
Ultimately Death had to do what she must no matter how much she disliked it in this specific instance. On the same day Nicholas stopped his mom from killing witches, Death came for him. Agatha continued supplying Rio with bodies, but she also kept her promise and never forgave her ex. The two never reconciled even though, as Death said, Agatha got more “special treatment” than anyone in history.
The two reunited when Rio needed Agatha to help her. Billy Maximoff deprived Death of a body when he took over William Kaplan’s life. However, Death couldn’t simply take him. Death needed Billy to come willingly, and she was using Agatha to make that happen along the Road Billy himself had created.
In episode eight, when Agatha thought she had survived the Witches’ Road and was owed her powers back, Death instead came for her. Billy showed up and gave Agatha her magic back before the two fought with Rio. It was pointless. As Agatha said, one can defeat Death. Billy offered himself up, and Agatha was going to let him die before he asked her about Nicholas. After hearing her son’s name Agatha made what she called a “calculated risk.” She kissed Death and died, saving Billy in the process.
Unlike Alice, Lilia, and Sharon, though, Agatha did not go to the afterlife. She became a ghost. Death wanted Agatha’s body, but that didn’t mean she got Agatha’s soul. Even if she did, Death has a bigger concern now. She still has the same problem she did before Agatha died.
Rio Vidal isn’t inherently good or evil. She just is. She’s “The” Green Witch, the natural “cycle of all living things.” Rio is “growth and decay in constant flow.” And now Billy Maximoff has has once again interrupted that flow. He deprived Death of a body when he gave his brother Tommy a new one. He gave Tommy the body owed Death.
Agatha Harkness is still not ready to face her son, the boy she could not protect. She refused to enter the afterlife and became a ghost. Now she is going to help Billy find Tommy. And based on everything we know about Rio Vidal, Agatha will also need to help Wiccan find a way to keep Death at bay once more.
This post originally published on October 24, 2024.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist who would try and get along with Rio Vidal. You know, just in case. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
