Like most Disney properties, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been criticised for a lack of LGBTQ+ representation. Filmmaker Joe Russo's cameo as a gay man in Avengers: Endgame didn't go down well and, while Eternals was considered a step in the right direction, negative reviews overshadowed the project.
Last year, Disney+ series Agatha All Along strongly hinted at a romance between Agatha Harkness and Rio Vidal/Death. They locked lips in the penultimate episode, but there was again some disappointment over how the relationship was handled on screen.
Regardless of which side of the debate you sit on, Agatha All Along showrunner Jac Schaeffer finally set the record straight on Agatha and Rio's relationship status in an interview with Collider at the SCAD TVFest.
"We did a lot of work in the writers' room to build the history of these two women," she explained. "What ended up on the page wasn't all of that. It was, 'Where they are now?' And there were times where we were like, ‘Is it enough? Is it clear?’ Because in our minds, they were married, in some witchy way. And we were like, 'We need to make that apparent.'"
Whether Agatha All Along made it apparent enough is hard to say, though it was the impression many fans walked away with (while not confirmed, it's also been widely theorised Nicky was Agatha and Rio's son).
Schaeffer credited what Plaza brought to the table in the series with helping to deepen the relationship between the two characters.
"When Aubrey was cast, Aubrey is a force unto herself, but it was really the first time they were on set, and they were opposite each other, and I was like, 'Oh, I don't have to do anything,'" the writer recalled. "This is a whole universe unto itself. You felt it on set. It was incredible. It was crackling in the room."
"When we were in post, [for] Episode 4, where they sing the ballad in Alice's trial... to me, that episode was about their performance, about being a band, right? And it is, it's fantastic. But then, once we were cutting that final scene between Rio and Agatha, it was like, 'Oh no, no, no, this episode is about an almost kiss between these two women.'"
"It was so powerful when we were in post. Even then, I did not anticipate the fandom just running away with it," Schaeffer concluded.
Marvel Studios has yet to reveal how the Agatha All Along story will continue. While Vision may pick up where this series left off, it seems more likely that Billy Maximoff and Agatha will return - alongside the older Tommy Maximoff, perhaps - in the long-rumoured Scarlet Witch movie.
Recently, Patti LuPone - who played Lilia Calderu - confirmed that, as far as she's been told, there will be no Agatha All Along season 2.
"There won’t be one," the stage icon confirmed. "Jac Schaeffer, the creator, came into my trailer and she said, 'Patti, I’m just here to tell you that Lilia’s going to die,' and I went, 'But I wanted a second season.'"
"[Schaffer] said, 'I don’t do second seasons.' She said, 'They wanted me to do a second season of WandaVision and I didn’t.' She said, 'There’s too much to write,' so she does one-offs and I’m really hoping and praying that someday I get to work with her again because she’s magic," LuPone concluded.
All episodes of Agatha All Along are now streaming on Disney+.