Kathryn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza and Patti Lupone on the witches of Agatha All Along

Agatha Harkness is a villain. The witch played by Kathryn Hahn was revealed as the Big Bad of the 2021 Marvel series WandaVision, pulling all the strings to steal and amass power.

By any traditional definition of the bad guy, Agatha is it. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Agatha the evildoer became Agatha the fan favourite.

A large part of that is down to Hahn’s intensely charismatic performance as a character who started off as Wanda’s nosey neighbour before being unveiled as a witch with a lot more going on. She had sass, she had wiles and she had a plan. We love a woman with a plan, even if that scheme was not on the up-and-up.

It’s a no-brainer to spin-off the character into her own series, Agatha All Along, which premieres on Thursday with Hahn now front and centre.

In the show, Agatha is on a quest to reclaim her power but to do this, she has to form a coven and together they must embark down the Witches’ Road. There are challenges along the way, including emotional reckonings for all the characters, but particularly Agatha who must confront her past choices and misdeeds.

It’s not a classic hero’s journey but a redemption arc which raises questions of whether someone who has done what she has done can come back from the darkness.

But even before that, it’s clear the audience is down with Agatha, no matter where she ends up.

“A lot of people dig a villain, especially a villain with a sense of humour, because it’s aspirational in a weird, sick way,” Hahn told The Nightly. “(We) want to be able to be that loud and say exactly what you want to say about somebody to their face.

“There’s something about it that feels like, ‘God, I wish I could do that’.”

The eight-episode series is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but once you get past the first half of the opener, you could easily forget Agatha All Along technically ties back into the rest of a complex franchise that spans 34 movies and 12 seasons of streaming shows. In other words, you don’t need to do your homework.

It’s not necessary to have a detailed understanding of the MCU to get into Agatha All Along, which plays with historical and cultural biases against women accused of witchcraft.

From barbaric “tests” in the Middle Ages to the Salem Witch Trials, an accusation of witchcraft have been weaponised by men against women they wanted to control.

Broadway and screen legend Patti Lupone, who plays one of Agatha’s coven, a 450-year-old witch named Lilia, said that to consider the historical persecution of witches, you had to look at who defined what a witch was.

“Men who feared women and feared women’s power,” Lupone said. “Witches have been maligned for simply being powerful, as we all are.”

Added co-star Aubrey Plaza, not without a dash of her signature deadpan cheek, “(The world) has been blind and we will not stand for that. People should know witches are healers, they’re connected with the earth and they understand nature and use their powers for good also.

“They’re not just flying around on brooms, trying to eat children and little tiny babies.”

Hahn was also quick to point out the beauty of witches’ connection to nature, as well as to each other.

“A witch needs a coven,” she explained. “There is a deep friendship, respect and kindredship with each other, and safety. It isn’t just wanting to take someone down or throw a finger into a cauldron and eat it.

“There’s a lot of connection to nature and the power of a witch is harnessing that.”

Agatha All Along might be out to dispel perceptions of witches and witchcraft, but it doesn’t mean it’s not also trying to play with the stereotypes. The final episode of the series has been scheduled to be released on October 30, the day before Halloween, a day replete with pointy hats and warty noses.

The witch has been a mainstay in pop culture, including Samantha Stevens in Bewitched, Willow in Buffy, and the Sanderson sisters in Hocus Pocus.

For Hahn, her favourite remains the Wicked Witch of the West, played by Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz.

It’s a character that has gone through her own cultural redemption story thanks to Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked, which gave her a much more complex backstory, motivations and inner life, and then popularised through the stage musical of the same name which, in turn, has been adapted into a film out later this year.

But Hamilton’s version, to Hahn, is a classic. Plaza agreed. But she also namechecked The Witches of Eastwick and Charmed.

“Charmed is a big one for me,” Plaza expanded. “I’m a Charmed-head. I come from three sisters, we grew up believing in the power of three.”

While it’s debatable which of three Halliwell sisters from the 1990s TV show she most identified with, she said she felt more like a Prue than a Phoebe or Piper.

Prue’s power was telekinesis but what Plaza would like to possess is the ability to read people’s minds, “so I can catch all the liars lying to me”.

Lupone was less combative. “I would like to be able to heal,” she added. “If I had witchy powers, I would love to be able to use the earth to heal. I would also like to have divination powers. So, a combination of potions and seeing into the future.”

Agatha All Along may yet usher in the season of the witch.

Agatha All Along is streaming now on Disney+, with new episodes weekly

The writer travelled to Los Angeles as a guest of Disney