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Fans have already hailed the Disney+ series Agatha All Along for its extreme gayness, in both content and tone, but with news that two of its upcoming episodes used an intimacy coordinator comes speculation that it might get even gayer.
On Wednesday, a post from social media user @harknessvidal containing a screenshot of Agatha All Along’s IMDB page, which showed that episodes six and eight credit an intimacy coordinator, went viral. (Them has confirmed that the IMDB page does, in fact, match the screenshot.)
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Since the rise of the #MeToo movement, intimacy coordinators have become a staple in many Hollywood productions. As stunt coordinators might do with stunts, they are there to make sure that actors feel safe during intimate scenes or scenes that involve nudity.
Agatha All Along’s intimacy coordinator is listed as Samantha J. McDonald, who has previously worked in the same capacity for the Showtime series American Rust, and as a stunt coordinator for numerous other productions.
Those who have been watching Agatha All Along are already well aware that the show has been a cauldron of sexual tension bubbling between Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), including an almost-kiss during a scene at the very end of episode four, and repeated allusions to Agatha and Rio's relationship stopping just short of explicit confirmation.
Jac Schaeffer, the showrunner for Agatha, even spoke about the chemistry and sexual tension between the two actresses in an interview with The Wrap.
“It is on the page. Like it is on the page that there is crackling chemistry between the two of them,” she said. “We peel back layers as we move through the show. So that’s the conversation is like, what is the history that we’re we’re going to be portraying?”
She added, “Everything they’re saying is coded, you know what I mean? And you feel that. So it was, yeah, we just super leaned into it. It was so combustible from the beginning.”
While Agatha has hired an intimacy coordinator, there is no confirmation as to who or what will be involved in the scene, though the show has plenty of queer characters, including Joe Locke’s Teen and Sasheer Zamata’s potions expert Jennifer Kale.
Even without overt queer sexuality, the show has been recognized, by both fans and critics, for its text-level LGBTQ+ representation. Prior to its release, more than one actor on the show touted the series’ rampant gayness, so much so that some conservative Newsmax television hosts even went so far as to call it a gay “recruiting video” on an actual news program. If an intimate scene is on its way, there’s no better way to make good on much of the show’s pre-launch queer publicity.
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