"We couldn't afford that": showrunner Terry Matalas on why VisionQuest's biggest Marvel absence wasn't a creative decision

VisionQuest's finale brought back Billy Maximoff, letting him reunite with his twin brother, Tommy Maximoff and their father, Vision. After Wanda brought down Mount Wundagore in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it looked like she had died.

But VisionQuest's post-credit scene revealed that after dying, she was brought back to life by Doctor Doom, directly suggesting that we will most likely see Wanda in Doomsday. Despite so many reunions, the one Marvel absence that was felt heavily was that of Agatha's (played by Kathryn Hahn). As revealed by the show's creator and showrunner, Terry Matalas, not including her wasn't a creative decision.

Why Kathryn Hahn did not return in VisionQuest as Agatha

In VisionQuest's finale episode, Forever, twin brothers Tommy and Billy are able to reunite through dream binding. After Tommy tells Billy about Vision, he asks him to come help save their father. Billy says he can't because he is in New Jersey, which is far from the UK, where Tommy is. We then see him talk to someone who isn't on the screen. He says:

"Yeah, but you know I'm bad at portals... You saw what I did to that cat!"

Tommy is puzzled at who Billy is speaking to and asks:

"Does everyone in this family have an imaginary friend?"

He then glitches out of the place because his body, which was in a bathtub, was running out of oxygen. The invisible energy Billy was talking to was the ghost of Agatha Harkness, who is only visible to him. While Kathryn Hahn played Agatha in Agatha All Along, she did not reprise the role in VisionQuest, not even as a ghost who is visible to only Billy.

Fans were thus disheartened that while VisionQuest confirms Agatha's ghost's presence in Billy's life, the show didn't bring back Hahn as Agatha. However, the reason Hahn didn't return was financial rather than creative. Talking about not bringing back Hahn, the creator and showrunner of the show, Terry Matalas, told EW:

"We couldn’t afford that."

He added:

"That wasn’t ever really an option."

Since viewers did get to see Billy talk to Agatha's ghost, it became a funny scene as a puzzled Tommy asked if Billy also had an imaginary friend like Vision (since to Tommy, Vision's AIs were likely imaginary friends up to a point). Speaking about that moment, Matalas said:

“I just thought that was funny."

He continued:

“Tommy had watched Vision speaking to invisible people, and to me it seemed pretty clear that he would not be able to see Agatha. So the idea of Billy doing that felt like a great bit.”

But thankfully, fans did get to see Billy, Tommy, and Vision reunited as a family, hugging each other, as Vision finally called them:

"My boys."

Addressing the much-awaited reunion, Matalas said:

"It felt like this family needed to be reunited by the end... It had to be at the right time, the most hard-hitting emotional moment… [Billy’s] a kid who just learned he’s got witch powers, but he’s not amazing at it. He’s got Agatha as a guide, but is he gonna be able to get over to London from New Jersey in a few hours? You forget about that, so by the time he does come back, hopefully it’s chills.”

Ever since Wanda had to undo the hex, which separated the Maximoff family from each other, fans have been eagerly waiting for a reunion. While fans felt Hahn's absence deeply, the reunion scene at the end of VisionQuest did feel like the perfect ending to the show.

All episodes of VisionQuest are streaming on Disney+.

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