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Don't look now, but the Agatha All Along showrunner has finally confirmed a widely-held MCU fan theory
Listen up, Rio and Agatha shippers. Agatha All Along creator and showrunner Jac Schaeffer hears your prays and has decided to answer them, once and for all.
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I don't think it's unfair to say that there are more ships in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than there are in the entire US Navy. Around Halloween-time last year, the biggest ship on everyone's mind was the one between Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Rio Vidal, AKA Lady Death (Aubrey Plaza) in Disney+'s Agatha All Along. So strong were the characters' ship, in fact, that viewers began speculating on what would become one of the largest MCU fan theories in recent memory - that is, that Rio was the mysterious father of Agatha's child, Nicholas Scratch.
And guess what, True Believers? Agatha's showrunner recently confirmed that those fan theorists were correct.
In case you don't know, Agatha All Along's showrunner was Jac Schaeffer, who also created hit series WandaVision and co-wrote the story for the MCU's Black Widow. Schaeffer recently appeared at PaleyFest LA 2025, along with a few of the key faces from the series. Toward the end of the panel, a fan question brought the idea of Rio and Agatha as Scratch's parents into the discussion, and Schaeffer was only happy to confirm that it was correct.
"When we were developing [Scratch's character]," began Schaeffer, "My executive producer, Mary Livanos, and I got a lot of questions about ‘Who is the dad?' And we were like, ‘Why you want to know?’ They don't need dads. But then, when we were casting Nicky, we were like ‘That that kid looks like Aubrey [Plaza].'"
This was followed by a bit of confusion on stage about whether this means Lady Death could be considered a 'father.'
"We didn't want to answer the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of it," Schaeffer clarifies, "Because it's witches."
Works for us.
"It was just something that was important to the writers and to me," the showrunner concluded, "And felt like something special. So it was really lovely that it was something that the fans said that we could confirm."
Now to be fair, this is not the first time that Schaeffer has hinted at the possibility of Rio being Scratch's other parent. As early as November of last year (right after the Agatha All Along) finale had aired, the MCU vet told Variety that the question of Rio being Scratch's father had come up in the writing room. But as of that conversation, Schaeffer said that the ultimate answer to Scratch's father was, "a story for another day."
I guess that day is today.
Agatha All Along is streaming on Disney+ now.
Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:
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