For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Agatha All Along has revealed a major character identity one week after the “leak” of tie-in merchandise released as part of the show’s promotion.

The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) TV series – a spin-off to WandaVision – launched earlier this month, earning acclaim and reuniting viewers with a more stripped-down version of Agatha Harkness, who is played once again by Kathryn Hahn.

In the series, Agatha recruits a ragtag bunch of allies to help her regain her former powers and to learn the secrets of the Darkhold, a mysterious tome featuring dark magic spells that is made of a substance found in the Hell Dimension. (For those who don’t remember, this is the place in which Doctor Strange is shown repeatedly fighting Dormammu in his 2016 standalone film.)

Two new characters introduced in the series are generating plenty of fan theories. While their names have been mentioned in the show, it’s believed that they are actually two different characters entirely – who are far more important than they have initially been presented to be.

The latest episode of the series has confirmed one identity with the Funko Pop toys appearing to reveal the other theor to be true.

*Spoilers follow – you have been warned*

In the show, Aubrey Plaza’s character is called Rio Vidal AKA the Green Witch – but fans have theorised that she might have something to do with Blackheart, due to several comic book references featured in the show, including a nod to the character’s father, Mephisto.

However, according to an alleged Funko Pop toy leak, shared by @MarvelLeaks22m, Plaza will actually be revealed to be Death, who is known by Marvel comic book readers as Mistress Death/Lady – a character who was the one-time love interest of none other than Avengers villain Thanos.

Meanwhile, Teen, played by Heartstopper actor Joe Locke, is claimed in the show to be Agatha’s son, whom she swapped as a baby to score access to the Darkhold. But, as the Funko Pop figure leak revealed, this character has much stronger ties to Wanda Maximoff – and could even lead to a cameo from Elizabeth Olsen’s character.

This is due to the fact tha he is actually Wiccan, an older version of Wanda’s son Billy Maximoff. Now this revelation has come to light, it could pave the way for Wanda to be resurrected after her apparent death in the MCU.

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

Advertisement

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

Try for free

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

Try for free

open image in gallery

Advertisement

It’s worth noting that the initial images of the Funko Pops have been deleted – but this would not be the first time tie-in merchandise has prematurely spoiled MCU surprises.

Agatha All Along continues Wednesdays on Disney+.

SUKI Panesar is left stunned when a family member arrives in Walford – just as she and Eve hit a rough patch.

The soap matriarch will be left thrown off guard after Nish comes up with yet another plan.

3

Advertisement

3

3

Furious that Suki and Eve are flaunting their engagement plans in front of him, he tells Vinny to speak to Habiba to arrange for Tye to visit the Square.

When Eve and Suki’s engagement party is underway she is touched as Vinny reveals that Nish has arranged for grandson Tye to visit.

EastEnders viewers will see Suki given into pressure from Nugget and Avani to invite Nish to the party.

Nish is chuffed to have all of the family together, but the moment is sort-lived when he overhears Eve and Suki talking about his demise.

In a hot tempter Nish makes another mysterious phone call.

Latter scenes will see Eve receive news that means she has to temporarily leave The Square.

Despite wanting Suki to come with her, she declines so she can be at home with grandson Tye, much to Eve’s dismay.

With Eve out of the picture, Kathy spots Suki, Nish and Tye spending time together in the cafe.

She is immediately thrown and asks Suki if Nish can really be trusted after all he’s done.

EastEnders airs these scenes from Monday, October 14th.

EastEnders stars who QUIT

MICHELLE Collins has seen her second EastEnders stint boost her bank balance. Yet what stars have quit this year?

The Sun exclusively reported how Michelle, 62, was down to £20,000 in her company accounts when she agreed to a shock back-from-the-dead return to Albert Square last year.

Her character, Cindy Beale, was presumed dead off-camera in 1998.

Advertisement

Yet what about the 2024 exits?

Earlier this summer, loyal soap fans appeared to note how Stevie Mitchell had “quit” the long-running series.

It came after Alan Ford enjoyed just six-months on-screen.

Bobby Beale actor Clay Milner Russell also left this year after five years in Walford.

Advertisement

Fans also feared Martin Fowler actor James Bye would “quit out of boredom” over recent storylines.

Additionally, a host of stars have quit the BBC soap for Hollywood fame.

One of the most successful stars to come from the BBC One soap is Rob Kazinsky.

He played Stacey Slater’s brother Sean Slater from 2006 to 2009, he has starred in Hollywood blockbusters Pacific Rim and Captain Marvel.

Advertisement

Ben Hardy, who quit EastEnders as Bobby Beale almost a decade ago, went on to break Hollywood the following year, when he starred as Archangel in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Since then, he has played Roger Taylor in Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, and he starred in Michael Bay’s Netflix movie 6 Underground.

Michelle Ryan played Zoe Slater until 2005.

She starred as the lead in short-lived American series Bionic Woman from 2007 to 2008.

Advertisement

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

It’s a format as clever as it is stupid. A celebrity sits at a table; in front of them lies a tray of 10 hot wings, each spicier than the last. As they eat their way through the platter, they answer normal interview questions. By the end, they’re sweating, crying, chugging milk – barely able to form sentences. This is the grand humanising spectacle of Hot Ones.

Initially launched on YouTube in 2015, the hot sauce-slathered interview series hosted by Sean Evans has been nothing short of a revelation for the talk show format. While its early episodes often spotlighted obscure C-listers, with the odd big name such as Machine Gun Kelly or DJ Khaled thrown in, the format rapidly found an audience. Within a few years, Hot Ones had become the first promotional port of call for any A-lister on a press tour: everyone from Ariana Grande to Jennifer Lawrence to Will Smith has been filmed taking on the so-called Wings of Death. On the surface, Hot Ones seemed like abject internet-era gimmickry, but in a sense, it was a throwback – well-researched, quietly probing interviews, conducted one-on-one and at relative length. In its strange, sweaty way, it was rehabilitating the format that mainstream US talk shows had spent a decade slowly cheapening. There’s a reason that Netflix is reportedly in talks to release a live version of the series. But pride, like a too-spicy hot wing, usually precedes a pretty nasty fall.

Over the past couple of years, Hot Ones has, sadly, lost some of its heat. It’s not so much a full shark-jumping as a gradual slide into corporatisation. There are bigger guests, sure, but more predictable ones – and the truly memorable interviews are fewer and further between. There’s been an influx too of promotional stunts: earlier this week, Hot Ones released a clip of the CGI Marvel character Venom attempting the challenge. Recent weeks have also seen Donald Duck and Beetlejuice (not just Michael Keaton, but his character) take on the wings challenge. These are amusing ideas in principle, but one that reduces the series to its crudest gimmick, abandoning the canny human interviewing that was, underneath it all, the real reason for the show’s success. Watching Eric Andre chug hot sauce straight from the bottle and spontaneously smash crockery over his head was an experience of surreal comic beauty. There is nothing funny or spectacular about watching a CGI Venom eat CGI wings and pour CGI milk over his CGI head.

open image in gallery

It may be that Hot Ones is simply running out of road. The eating of hot wings is not a premise that can possibly sustain a Johnny Carson-like longevity, no matter how incisive the questions are. After you’ve watched a few dozen celebrities sweat and dither at the business end of the Scoville scale, you’ve probably seen it all. Rapidly shrinking, too, is the pool of celebrities to pluck from – at a certain point in the not-too-distant future, Evans will have interviewed more or less every A-lister who’s ever likely to agree to appear on the series. (Assuming, for instance, people like Michael Caine or Helen Mirren are a polite “no”.) Already several celebrities have appeared on it twice; the appeal of seeing someone repeat the 10-wing challenge is limited, to say the least.

But there are still pleasures to be found in Hot Ones. In April, talk-show maverick and ex-Simpsons writer Conan O’Brien orchestrated what may be the series’ best and most anarchic episode, a sly and subversive interview that devolved into absurd, grotesque physical comedy. (The episode’s parting image is that of O’Brien, ranting, filthy and with milk spilling from his mouth.)

Many fans suggested that the series should have called it quits there and then: this, surely, cannot be topped. But no. Hot Ones is too big to stop, too heavy to even slow down. The story of its rise is the story of modern entertainment: take something that’s inventive, and fun, and a little offbeat, and start piling money around it. Sooner or later, all you can see is the pile.

‘Hot Ones’ is available to stream on YouTube