‘Agatha All Along’ Star Joe Locke Talks “Brain-Muddling” Final Two Episodes, “Respect” Between Agatha And Billy, Going Full Wiccan And More
SPOILER ALERT! This post contains spoilers for the final two episodes (and entirety) of Agatha All Along.
Marvel’s Agatha All Along has reached the end of the Witches’ Road, which turned out to be quite the alternate reality constructed by a very powerful young witch.
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Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal, aka Lady Death still had a major role to play in the final two episodes as Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), Billy (Joe Locke) and Jen (Sasheer Zamata) made their way to the final trial, set in a morgue, before veering off the road completely. Agatha and Billy shared some heartfelt moments in the finale after viewers learned what really became of Nicholas Scratch (Abel Lysenko). A second big reveal moment also came along for Joe Locke’s Billy with the realization that he had created the Witches’ Road from chaos magic.
“Us making the show, it was so, like, the subconscious, ‘Is Billy actually scared at this point? Does he subconsciously know he’s going to survive because he is making the road and therefore making it all happen?’” Locke told Deadline, relieved to be able to talk about this other big secret. “’But he should still be scared because he doesn’t know he’s gonna survive, but subconsciously he knows he is, because otherwise he wouldn’t.’ There are all these complicated layers. It’s brain-muddling, and also so cool and interesting, the meat of the story.”
In the below interview with Deadline, Locke discussed the show’s final two episodes, what he likes about Agatha’s villain story, Billy and Agatha’s bond, Billy’s future in the MCU and more.
DEADLINE: How are you?
JOE LOCKE: I’m good. I’ve been feeling really like, end of a holiday sad. That’s how I’ve been feeling today, being like, “Why am I so down? It should be a happy day. Because it’s over, it’s like, “Oh, back to real life.”
DEADLINE: How did it feel to put on full Wiccan garb in Episode eight, when you fly down, can you talk to me about that scene?
LOCKE: There’s nothing cooler than wearing the superhero costumes. You walk in and you just feel cool. Everyone’s like looking at you, and your cape swishes. I just felt so cool.
DEADLINE: I think I saw some runes on his red cape. Is that something you can talk about the details?
LOCKE: Yeah, there’s runes on it. Like his jumper, there’s a Wand crown and a Vision mind stone on each side of his leather 3D printed top. The attention to detail is amazing. On my normal road look jeans, there’s a square on the knee of leather, and it’s the same leather that they use then on the costume. We had it so the jumper would get red and more red and red after I get stabbed in episode four, and then that turns into the cape. So it’s almost like the road kit turns slowly into the Wiccan kit.
DEADLINE: In that scene when Billy decides to give Agatha some of his power, how does that symbolize their bond?
LOCKE: Billy and Agatha have such an interesting relationship throughout the whole show. And even after that point, it then goes through more different layers, but at that point, he really believes that they’ve bonded and believes that she both has the will and will not take all of this power. She’s just helped him find his brother and give his brother a life. I think he feels that he owes her with that and unwittingly, also as the person who has created the road,[he] is giving her the thing that she wants at the end of the road. It’s subtly Wizard of Oz-esque in that kind of way, but he doesn’t know that yet.
DEADLINE: I have so many questions about that too.
LOCKE: Just saying that about Billy making the road then, literally my heart was like [makes wobbly noises.]
DEADLINE: I did see a few theories of people wondering if that were the case. I also just saw something about the line when Agatha says “You and your mother have the same tell.”
LOCKE: “There’s so many. The one I think is the most obvious, is the, “I didn’t think you had it in you” after Mrs. Hart dies and n the wink, but it’s always obvious when you know, and then it’s like, you have to look at it like, if I’m someone who doesn’t know, it’s just Agatha being Agatha.
DEADLINE: The scene of Agatha’s betrayal and turning Billy over to Rio — did you guys talk about that scene a lot?
LOCKE: That scene was such a complicated one for me. I think it actually changed in post, I’m pretty sure, because the “Is this how Nikki died?” the telepathic line to Agatha, was a thing we added in post. So when I was playing, I was playing it that Agatha decides on her own, without any help, to turn around and then sacrifice yourself, which is how I still see it. I think that she would have, but I think you need to tell the audience that story.
One great thing I think ,about our show is, I think with a lot of villain origin story shows, they make them into not villains anymore. They make them into heroes in some way, but our show doesn’t do that. She’s still a serial killer who murders people and cares about herself more than anyone. I like that we keep that. That does not change there the end. You see more layers to her. You see why she does things, but she’s still a villain.
DEADLINE: Teen’s spell book in episode eight is all smudged out, blacked out, and then he gets it back in the finale. Did you write anything in there? Can you tell us about what’s in there? Why was it smudged like that in in episode eight?
LOCKE: The spellbook, almost like Billy, goes through a journey in the show. Props to the props team, every page had handwritten doodles, and it was almost like, we would see it like in the Halfblood Prince, Harry Potter and all the doodles like, “Change this, do this,” and it was a real spellbook. All of the things I was reading out were written in there. I don’t know if it was a actually published spell book or one that the props team wrote themselves, but there was someone whose job it was was to every day, doodle in it more. It should have got my screentime because the doodles were incredible. I should have stolen one. I should have taken one and I didn’t.
I think in episode eight, the reason that it’s all smudged is it’s like, in the same way in Episode Five, Agatha says “Time to take training wheels off.” It’s like, “Okay, now you know your stuff. This trial is not about using the guides, you’ve got to get what you want.”
DEADLINE: So that trial, is it Rio’s trial, or is that a trial for Billy? Is it both? How did you approach that?
LOCKE: It’s Billy’s trial, but it’s so complicated because we always played it — obviously I knew that Billy had made the road from the start. We’d all read the scripts. We knew that. And everything that happens in the road happens because of Billy, or because someone says something to Billy, like, “I wish Lilia was here,” Lilia appears, “Oh look, here’s the start of the trial.” All these things happen because either someone tells Billy, like, even at the start of the road, “The road will test us with trials, our worst nightmares,” people are telling him these things, and then they happen.
DEADLINE: How did knowing he made The Road from the start inform you playing him in the beginning when we didn’t know who he was?
LOCKE: I think it helps that he doesn’t know he’s so powerful. He doesn’t know he’s capable of doing something. The thing that I tried to balance the most was the differences between his likeness and his darkness. Like he doesn’t mean to, but he kills three people, three people he likes and three people that he cares about. He is responsible for their deaths, which makes him like, not necessarily a bad person, but there is darkness in there that subconsciously he has allowed himself to do that, which is also so great as an actor to get to play. In that gray area of “Is he bad? Is he good?” I don’t know if he is bad or good. I guess that’s for the future of the MCU, if they would like bring me back, which I hope they would. It just adds so many layers of fun and ambiguity.
DEADLINE: Have you at all spoken with Elizabeth Olsen since the show came out, since getting cast? Have you heard from her at all?
LOCKE: I haven’t. I’ve like heard from her through people, but we’ve never spoken. I obviously would absolutely love to.
DEADLINE: Has anyone else in the big Marvel wings of cast members reached out? Obviously with Heartstopper, you are so famous now, but this is a whole other level too.
LOCKE: Yeah, It’s very strange. We had a coven Zoom call, when the show was coming out last night, and Kevin and all the Marvel team were on there. And it was just nice to have a celebration with everyone about the success of the show and how well it’s been received. It’s that weird like, breathing out, like, sigh of relief, but also, like, aw, it’s sort of sad that it’s not our secrets to keep anymore. It’s not, it’s not our child anymore. Our child’s gone off into the world and we have no say about it.
DEADLINE: Back to the beginning when Billy got Agatha out of Wanda’s spell. When Agatha says “Oh, you loosened the jar,” that made me wonder – was he responsible? Did Rio help because she was there too?
LOCKE: Me and Jack have spoke a lot about this. We always saw it as the combination of it all. It’s the combination of Wanda being dead, the combination of me fiddling with the spell. It’s a combination of Rio turning up and all of these things, but the ending, when I’m trying to banish her, I think, is the first time that Agatha really sees that, like, if I wanted to, I could. If I wanted to get rid of her, she could be gone. And that’s when she, like, changes the tack, and it’s like, “Oh shit. This kid’s actually like, maybe he did loosen the jar. He’s able to get rid of me now.” I’m pretty sure it’s a combination of all the things that cause it.
DEADLINE: Did you take, you know, anything from the Nicholas Scratch storyline when maybe you were still an ambiguous teen? I know some people thought you could be Nicholas. Did you try to weave that into your portrayal at all?
LOCKE: We definitely wanted to play with the idea that that Billy could have been Nicholas. It doesn’t even necessarily matter that he’s not. There is that maternal, mother-son bond between them. It’s a weird and toxic one, but it is definitely there. That’s also why I think that, even when Billy goes to banish her, I think he knows he’s not going to. It’s almost to prove to her that he she knows that he could because he’s angry at her and upset with her for letting him kill their friends, but he there’s an affinity between them, there’s a connection there, and a respect by the end of the show. They respect each other, and my favorite line of the whole show is, and I cry every time I say it because I am emotional this week, is when Agatha says, “You’re not bad,” and then I say, “Neither are you.” And she goes “You’re only one who thinks that.” I just think it’s really beautiful.
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DEADLINE: Did you have a favorite trial or costume throughout the show on the road?
LOCKE: I’ve been asked this question so many times, and I kept saying, my Road kit, but obviously my favorite costume was my Wiccan costume. Like, you can’t ever get cooler than that. It’s just such an incredibly put together costume, and once it was on, it was on it was a half an hour to go pee kind of costume because it was so tight. This is one of my greatest achievements, they made three [versions]. They made one for me, but like normal, a stunt one for me and one for my stunt double. I was in my stunt one with all my, wire stuff, my harness and stuff underneath, and I bent over, and I ripped the bum of the costume, and because my bum was too big, and I was so — Everyone was like, “Oh no.” I was so stressed about it, and I was just like, “Oh, such a shame, everyone. I’ve just got too big of a bum.” It wasn’t really my bum it was because the harness and stuff. But I’m gonna say it’s because my arse is too big.
DEADLINE: Did that scene when you’re floating down on the wires and stuff, did it take a while to shoot? Was it challenging?
LOCKE: I think we shot the fight scene in three or four days, which seems like a lot, but it really wasn’t, when there’s so much technical, all of that was all practical effects, The fire and the wind and the wires and the stunts, and it meant that all three of us, basically shot it all separately so we were never really there at the same time, which is hard, because there was just cranes and things. There was one time that they were doing Kathryn’s coverage, and then me and Aubrey were with megaphones sat away from the side, saying our lines so she could hear us, but she couldn’t see us because there was so much going on. So that made it complicated in that way, but also it was the coolest thing ever, yeah? Like, being sat superhero costume and being flung around on wires is just the coolest thing ever.
DEADLINE: I know you had a bit of say on the decoration in Billy’s room. I wanted to ask specifically about, the moments where he’s looking at certain figurines and things and realizes, like, “Oh shit, like I made the road.” Was that kind of all planned out? Did you add anything in that scene? What was that like?
LOCKE: That was definitely planned out. They had specific beats they wanted to hit. I wanted to add the cabin lights that, they’re in the corner. I don’t know if they point them out, but they’re in the corner of the room. Everyone was hemming and hawing with the leaves from the road being from the what do you call that?
DEADLINE: The mobile?
LOCKE: Mobile, yeah – was too obvious or not. But I was like, no, it’s cool. We have to keep it because again, there’s things that can be really obvious when you know, but if you don’t know, you don’t even see it. That was a fun, but hard scene to film, because it’s a hard thing to realize as a person. There’s all these different thoughts.
DEADLINE: Looking ahead, is there any Marvel character or Avenger, maybe aside from, Wanda, that you would want to work with in the MCU in a project?
LOCKE: I think Billy would learn a lot from Doctor Strange or someone. He’s such a young magic person who knows what they’re doing. Obviously, in the comics, they have a connection. So I think that would be cool, but who knows?
DEADLINE: Heartstopper-related query for you. Have you gone to see Kit [Connor] in Romeo + Juliet?
LOCKE: I have not yet, but I am going, I’m going very soon.
DEADLINE: I know that we haven’t heard anything about that, but aside from these two shows, what else do you want to do in the future? Your career is just starting, it seems like, and you have these big roles.
LOCKE: I’ve been very lucky in my career so far, to play parts that are meaty and have had complexity to them. I’ll always be like, a character-focused actor. I love getting to know the characters I play. I love, also, playing flawed people. Perfect people are boring. I want someone who’s got flaws and does bad things. That’s the fun bit, that’s the meaty bit. But right now, I just want a job so … I’m just kidding.
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