Through Many Miles/Of Tricks and Trials

The witches are on the road. Suddenly their dream house appears as the witches turn to the Real Housewives of Oz.

It is not going to be plain sailing despite Sharon finding her dream kitchen in the house.

There is even some classy wine to drink. Agatha knows it is a trick. The rest end up with horribly contorted faces.

To get back to normal they need to make an antidote. Before that Agatha needs to gluck some wine.

In essence this was an escape room scenario. With digs at some of the Hollywood executives, those who like their plastic surgery.

It was fun yet at times laborious. I also think that you cannot have a trial as the episode of the week for the rest of the series. It will get tedious.

This episode was unexpected with its choices to drive the story but it deserves merit for its effective exposition. I can't give it the highest rating because the series spans 9 episodes, leaving room for further judgment. This episode was pivotal in character development, delving into their traumas. Personally, I would have preferred more action to steer it towards a more horror-oriented direction. Nonetheless, being only the 3rd episode, the show benefits from a slower pace for world-building and character depth, an area Marvel has been lacking in. The show has 9 episodes so it has the luxury to run slower and it is something needed given the large cast. The episode excels in revealing the unique personalities and backstories of the cast.

It's frustrating that immediate answers aren't provided, but if that were the case, we would be running post-credit scenes from the 4th episode. On that note, the story's progression introduces promising setups for future episodes. The conflict centered around trust among the characters was a refreshing choice over a more conventional approach.

Can Marvel finally receive praise for this? The set pieces and effects are impressive! Marvel's departure from hastily re-shot scenes and reduced use of CGI indicates a good sign. Also, Agatha's character consistently reinforces her antagonist side, yet the episode adds depth to her story by revealing her traumas. Moreover, the official name drop of a long-awaited character is a significant WIN for comic fans. These details add excitement to watching the show, with anticipation building for how they will further develop the plot and cast, potentially delivering big surprises.

For the first two episodes, the show was suffering from a lack of a clear direction. While it was told that they would be travelling down the Witches' Road for something, it was never really clear why or what was going to make that travel interesting. However, they decided to waste no time in actually bringing people onboard with the story and introducing them to these tasks that our heroes will be facing, and in this episode, it was done with a pretty amazing set. This is definitely the show's best episode yet, as it interestingly pulls back the curtains for what's actually going on.

The coven is definitely an integral part of the show, and while they saw the foundation in the previous episode, this really highlighted how they're going to get through this together. They are not a perfectly matched band, and that's totally great, because it adds to the dynamic between them all, and the episode forces them to work together amidst screams and arguments, and puts pieces in motion for some great character development. And this episode actually had some amazing development for Agatha, who is clearly hiding some dark secrets and has a lot of regrets that she will be facing on the road. And that's where the development of the plot comes in as well, because while Agatha's motives were pretty clear at the first, there are other things that could come into play there. And obviously, it had a certain shoutout that's going to make fans happy, but also continue a horde of expectations that have been haunting the Marvel show since the inception of their Disney+ era. The ending was very unexpected, but also shows that this is not afraid to take some big swings and take a piece of the puzzle away if it feels like it's necessary. However, there are certain aspects of the show's pacing that still needs a bit of work, and the mystery surrounding Joe Locke's "Teen" is still not interesting enough for me to actually care, despite the show's really desperate attempts to make me. Maybe it'll work sooner or later, but for now, not really.

"Through Many Miles / Of Tricks and Trials" seems to be laying some interesting groundwork for the future and puts real stakes into this magical journey. The episode is still fun and full of fantastical elements, but it's not afraid to go dark and does a good job of developing the characters and the overall storyline.

The first trial is set in a rich Hampton home inspired by famous television shows of the same nature (eg. Keeping up with the Kardashians, big little lies, real housewives franchise, etc).

It plays out as as an unimaginative escape room with very low stakes. Although a slow burn of an episode, each character is given their own storyline that will tie into the hopefully climatic finale.

As much as this episode a little boring at times, the narrative for Agatha is well written and we can see the contrast from Wandavision. In Wandavision, Agatha is a selfish, manipulative and conniving witch but in this season she's more posed having lost her powers. It feels like two completely different written characters but it works in showing how her powers change her.

I really enjoyed the first two episodes and was excited to see what would come next.

Unfortunately, this episode didn't live up to the anticipation. It felt disjointed, with random elements thrown in seemingly just to spook the characters, only for elements to conveniently disappear without resolution later on.

Overall, it reminded me of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, where things quickly spiraled into chaos purely for dramatic purposes, only to be resolved just as conveniently by the episode's end.

As others have noted, there were too many forced jokes in every scene, which started to turn the characters into caricatures. Marvel used to do funny puns effortlessly, with impeccable timing. Here, the humor felt forced and unnatural and at times rather mean.

I hope the remaining episodes will get better, but it seems the tone and pacing have already been set, which is a bit concerning.