‘Agatha All Along’ Creator on Directing Patti LuPone’s Mind-Bending Episode, Revealing [SPOILER]’s True Identity and Who Is Really Dead

SPOILER WARNING: This story includes major plot details from Episode 7 of “Agatha All Along,” currently streaming on Disney+.

Jac Schaeffer wasn’t supposed to direct this week’s episode of “Agatha All Along.” 

The creator and showrunner was always set to helm the first two episodes of the series, which continues the story of the scene-stealing witch from 2021’s “WandaVision,” deliciously played by Kathryn Hahn. But when the show was already well into pre-production, a scheduling issue opened up the director’s chair for Episode 7, and Schaeffer had to step in.

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“I was thrilled,” Schaeffer says. “It was a script that was really close to my heart.”

Titled “Death’s Hand in Mine,” the episode is an astonishing showcase for Patti LuPone as Lilia Calderu, a divination witch who, while on the Witches’ Road with the rest of Agatha’s coven, has blurted out non sequiturs — “Get off me!” or “I hated this the first time!” — that seemed to suggest some hidden insight. Written by Gia King and Cameron Squires, the episode reveals that these moments, which Schaeffer refers to as “Lilia’s bops,” are indeed examples of Lilia’s ability to slip in and out of different points within her own lifetime.

As we follow Lilia see-sawing through time, the episode connects all of her bops together, revealing why she said them as Lilia begins to realize how they’re related. All of this emerges as the coven tries to solve the latest trial: Trapped in a castle tower and outfitted as fairy tale witches — Agatha as the Wicked Witch and Lilia as the Good Witch from “The Wizard of Oz,” Jennifer as the hag from “Snow White,” and Billy as Maleficent from “Sleeping Beauty’ — they must correctly do a full Tarot card reading. Every incorrect move causes one of the dozens of swords hanging from the ceiling to plunge to the floor; worse yet, the ceiling itself is slowly sinking, bringing all of the swords with it.

Eventually, Lilia realizes that she, rather than anyone else in the coven, is the one who needs the tarot reading, at which point she sees flashes from pivotal moments through the show when she’d spoken the name of a specific Tarot card — “the High Priestess” or “the Tower reversed” — waiting for her in the deck. When she turns the final card, Lilia flashes back to the moment when she discovered that Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), Agatha’s ex-lover who joined the coven on the road in Episode 4, is really Death — a.k.a. the classic Marvel comics character Lady Death. 

Since the Death card is meant to signify her destination, Lilia understands that her time has run its course. When the Salem Seven, the witches relentlessly pursuing Agatha, begin to arrive at the castle, Lilia ushers the rest of the coven out of the tower, stays behind, and, once she’s surrounded by the Seven, flips the Tower card. Gravity magically reverses, and the Seven, as well as Lilia, plunge onto the ceiling of swords.

This episode, in other words, is A Lot. And yet Schaeffer orchestrates “Death’s Hand in Mind” to unfold with an emotional clarity that allows LuPone to shine in one of her best ever on-screen performances. Schaeffer talked with Variety about all of the mind-squeezing details that went into making the episode, as well as how they decided on everyone’s fairy tale looks, revealing Rio Vidal’s true identity, whether Lilia and the other witches are really dead, and what fans should know going into next week’s two-episode finale.

How did you arrive at the idea of weaving Lilia’s premonitions into the series? Did it start with her being a fortune teller?

Yes, she was a fortune teller from the beginning. I don’t remember how we hatched it officially, but I remember the sensation in the room where I was like, “OK, we’re going to do a non-linear episode and we’re going to sprinkle all the bread crumbs in earlier episodes. This show is already so hard and so challenging in so many ways, and I’m now adding this extra layer, and it’s so ill-advised, and I cannot help myself. Here we go!” That’s what I remember from the room.

Did you you write Episode 7 first and then take the pieces of it and sprinkle it into the earlier episodes? How did that work?

Yeah, I think that’s mostly how we did it. I hired two people, because I knew it would be so hard. The writers are Cam Squires, from “WandaVision,” and then our writers’ assistant, Gia King, was such a superstar in the room that I paired her with Cam. They wrote pieces separately and kind of stitched them together, and then we backfilled. 

How did you weave in the bops into the early moments?

I remember earmarking, “This is going to be a Lilia bop moment,” and then the actual things that she said changed as we moved through [writing them]. There was only one that we changed on the day. It caused me to have such a sweaty panic, because I was like, “Will this fit?” It was the “I love you guys” [from Episode 3]. We realized whatever it was wasn’t going to sync. It’s a little fudge-y in the emotional turn of it, but I think we pulled it out.

Did you work out a linear timeline of how the episode actually unfolded?

Yeah. If you do something like this, it has to make sense in the actual order. There’s the timey-wimey fun of the stuff that Lilia knows because Jen told her earlier, but Jen knows because Lilia told her later. There’s a little bit of the cheating of that, that you can’t fully square. But for the most part, if you string it together, it does make sense.

When did you bring Patti into the process?

When we cast her, the episode was what it was, but once we hired Patti LuPone, it was that thing of like, this has to be spectacular. So it was about tightening the screws on the mechanics of the episode, but also really making sure the emotional moments were exactly how we wanted them to be. 

What sort of feedback would she be giving?

She has a number of mini-monologues, and as we got closer, I tweaked a few of them. She came to me and was like, “Can we please just do it how it was?” And I was like, “You’re the boss, absolutely.” She’s a theater actor. She respects the page. I was trying to streamline and get us moving, and she was like, “No, I want to say all these things.” And bless her, I’m so glad she said all the things.

There are really two different tracks in the episode: the linear timeline as the other characters are experiencing it, and the emotional timeline as Lily is experiencing it. How did you and Patti navigate that?

Patti asked for a script in correct order so she could understand what she was doing. She really did have a solid handle on it, but she would get lost a little bit. Her focus was, “Where is the big emotion? When do I really unravel?” That’s why she wanted to see the episode strung out linearly, but I was like, “You’re the one bouncing around.” She’s the constant, so whenever she’s feeling the deep emotion of it, that is correct, because she’s being wrenched all over the place. So I think her process was finding when the pulling around really starts to trigger her vulnerability.

So how did filming all of this work throughout the season?

Filming Lilia’s bops was on the schedule. We had to stop in the setup, put the light behind her and swing in a specific lens. I forget what it’s called, but it gave this gauzy look. Those are the bops where Lilia says a piece of a sentence that we then join up later. 

But then there were the Tarot moments, and that was even more challenging, because we shot some early ones without actually having the tarot cards designed yet. My assistant, Brittany Horn, actually did the art of the tarot cards. It was so great, because she was right there, and I was like, “Well, here’s the shot we already did, so make the tarot card look like that.” Then there were a few that we could actually design with a little bit more intention.

For the earlier episodes, were you stepping in to direct just the bop moment you needed for Episode 7?

Yeah. There was a lot of that on this show, jumping in and getting a piece and then leaving. It was really hard, especially because our show is practical. We do have classic VFX, in that we use blue screen, but we already possessed the assets — there were no backgrounds that we built with CGI.

What was one of the biggest logistical challenges for you while filming?

The transitions — lining up those transitions frame to frame. So we had a document that had images of what had been shot so we could get the right lens and the right frame size and everything. That was the stuff that really made me sweat. I just want to take a moment to acknowledge my colleagues. Kimi Weber was my primary script supervisor, and I would not be here without her. My associate producer, Ishi Metkar, was my second brain. 

The other thing that was very complicated about this episode was the practical part. Those swords are real, and they’re on piano wire. We had to number them and know the order and decide where they went before any actors set foot on the set. So we had this sword map that was nuts, and Ishi was my sword angel, keeping all that in both our minds. And the actors — they were so lovely — they were willing to let me say, “We cannot explore dancing around the space. I need you here right now, otherwise a sword is going to hit you in the face.”

How did you decide what each witch’s fairy tale look would be?

That was so fun. I think Maleficent was early. We need to see Joe Locke with all of that drama. Also, in this episode, he is feeling himself, and we wanted that on screen. We wanted to see him swanning around in a gown, with the gorgeous headpiece and the full makeup. That is the moment he is at on his arc. He’s got a little nastiness — he’s not taking any of Agatha crap. We are running so hard at that. And then Agatha as the classic evil green witch, that suited her, and, of course, our primary cultural allusion of “The Wizard of Oz,” the book.

We decided Lilia would be the classic good witch because, first, Lilia is the hero of the episode. She saves the coven; she solves the trial. But also she has this contentious relationship with witch stereotypes. We knew she would be appalled at her outfit, but that it would ultimately be the most accurate representation of her soul. The reverse was true for Jen. Her hero color is pink. She sees herself as this very femme, very beautiful creature, and she dresses herself as such and behaves as a princess. So to put her in the crone look also felt accurate for where she is in her arc.

Why is Lilia still using “Teen” or “Teenager” for Billy’s name?

At that moment, in her linear experience, she doesn’t know that he’s Billy.

So she knows that he’s the Scarlet Witch’s son, but she doesn’t know what his name is?

Right. It’s in the moment that he reads her mind that it all clicks into place for her, and then she remembers the bar mitzvah.

The area where Lilia and Jennifer first land, with the subway station — what is going on there? It almost seems like it’s halfway under construction?

Well, if you recall, in Episode 3, Mrs. Hart makes reference to an incomplete public transit system that Westview was building and abandoned.

Oh, I forgot about that!

You forgot one line in Episode 3?! For shame, Adam! For shame.

Will the show return to that location?

[Pause] Sorry, doing all of the mental calculus. No. We’re not returning to that set. But like everything in the show, the things that you see are of consequence.

Lilia, Alice, Mrs. Hart — are they all really dead?

I anticipated this question today, and I’ve been thinking about my answer. What I want to say is that this is a show about death. We actually have the character of Death in our show. I am interested in that conversation, and I am fascinated by how how death is used in the comic space and in the MCU. Personally, I feel that when a person dies, you can still talk to them and feel them, and they can still be in your lives. But death is immutable. It is permanent. With this show, we wanted to pay respect to that. So this a more earnest and grave conversation about death than maybe you would find in another superhero project.

So are the Salem Seven dead?

Yeah, the Salem Seven are dead. They’re off the board in our show, is what I will say. Lilia has saved everybody!

Lady Death has been a significant character in the Marvel Comics for a long time. When did you decide to include your version of that character in the show?

Oooh, it’s so fun to be talking about this now. We wanted a pursuant character. We wanted somebody who was going to be after Agatha, and therefore after the coven, because we liked the logic of whatever Agatha’s problem is, once they become a coven, it becomes the problem of the whole group. Very, very early, we had this character we called the Debt Collector. Witchcraft is a lot about intention and exchange and checks and balances. So we had this notion of someone being after them for unpaid debts of witchcraft. I don’t remember when we pivoted to death, but it was just so sexy. We were just like, who is the perfect ex-lover of Agatha Harkness? It was just so obviously Lady Death. It felt so right. 

Executive producer Mary Levanos and writer Giovanna Sarquis were instrumental in the character. Giovanna came in with the Dia de los Muertos [look] and having her be Latinx, and Mary was very much an influence on Rio’s darkness and toxicity and how enmeshed Agatha and Rio are. It was something that needed approval from on high. We had to get the sign off from Kevin [Feige]. There was a moment where we were all holding our breath, worried we weren’t going to get it. We were really delighted that we got the OK.

You said Rio is a “pursuant character” — is she a villain, or at least an antagonist?

Yes, I would classify her as an antagonist. I would classify everyone in the show as a villain and a hero at one point or another.

Next week is the two-episode finale. With “WandaVision’s” finale, you experienced the challenge of some fans theorizing about possible endings and surprise cameos — like Mephisto or Doctor Strange — and then being disappointed when they didn’t happen. So what would you say to fans about where their expectations should be going into the conclusion of “Agatha All Along”?

I have dipped into the discourse a little bit more these last weeks, because, like “WandaVision,” we designed this show to really take off dramatically in the back half. I’ve been really interested to see how that lands with people. I think for the most part, people are on the track that we hope they will be. It’s not about the specifics of characters showing up or cameos or revelations, really. But it sounds to me like what people are emotionally interested in, I hope that we deliver on that. There is more Agatha, there is more Rio, and there is a conclusion to this story, and there is some truth to be shared about Agatha. I can’t imagine giving anyone instructions on what they should be expecting in the end. I think what I would say is I feel so grateful that the viewers of this show are are seems so invested in in the emotional story. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.