WandaVision’s Kathryn Hahn Responds To Agatha Mephisto Theory

WandaVision's Kathryn Hahn responds to an Agatha/Mephisto theory. Hahn played Agatha Harkness in the hit MCU series, a centuries old witch who was Wanda Maximoff's (Elizabeth Olsen) perfect magical foil. One of the reasons WandaVision generated such a huge buzz on social media during the show's run was the plethora of fan theories that grew exponentially week by week.

A prevalent theme among the fan theories was the appearance of the Marvel comic book villain, Mephisto. The character was Marvel's version of the devil in the comic books, and Mephisto was involved in several dark storylines that further traumatized Wanda (like when Wanda's twins Billy and Tommy were actually shards of Mephisto's soul.) Naturally, due to Mephisto's involvement with Wanda in comic book storylines, fans theorized that certain show moments were hints that he was the villain pulling the strings. That fan theory turned to be wrong, and it was actually Agatha all along.

Hahn recently revealed her favorite WandaVision fan theory during an MTVAwards fan Q&A. The actress didn't have social media accounts when WandaVision episodes were being released on a weekly basis, so she heard about the show's buzz from friends. Check out the fan theory Hahn said she enjoyed the most below:

It's challenging to imagine anyone holding anything against Hahn after her phenomenal performance as Agatha Harkness. Hahn did say she read up on Mephisto after hearing the theory, but she still doesn't use social media. What's interesting is that even WandaVision's showrunner, Jac Schaeffer, didn't know who Mephisto was before doing press for the show, so Hahn has always been in good company.

Even if Schaeffer had known about Mephisto, the WandaVision team ultimately made the right choice by not bringing Mephisto into the mix. As Schaeffer has noted repeatedly in interviews, the main villain was always Wanda's grief. Agatha forced Wanda to face her inner demons before Wanda really wanted to, resulting in their epic season finale fight that won Hahn and Olsen an MTV TV award for "Best Fight."

It's rather unfair to Hahn's portrayal of Agatha to simply classify her as a WandaVision villain. Although Agatha's intentions towards Wanda weren't exactly pure, and she wanted to steal Wanda's chaos magic, Agatha was also ironically responsible for snapping Wanda out of her grief. While it's yet to be officially confirmed, more than likely, fans will see Agatha return in some capacity in the future of the MCU. The devil's always in the details.

A big part of the magic of WandaVision is based on misdirection, as evidenced by the show's numerous red herrings mysteries that led to completely unexpected outcomes from Agatha Harkness to Mephisto. A "red herring" is a piece of information that seems to point at the real resolution of a mystery while it distracts from the real clues. Red herrings are often dangerous narrative tools, as the audience can easily feel betrayed if the actual reveal comes out of nowhere. Such was the case with The Mandarin from Iron Man 3, who was revealed to be a random actor called Trevor Slattery. In this case, the twist only kept fans from seeing Tony Stark's archnemesis in the MCU.