Who is Nicholas Scratch in ‘Agatha All Along’?

The Agatha All Along finale revealed the fate of Agatha's son

As if the literal kiss of Death wasn't beautifully tragic enough, the Agatha All Along finale had one last devastating piece to the witch's story. It involved a character we'd heard a lot about but hadn't seen up until that point. Here's the rundown on Agatha Harkness' son Nicholas Scratch on Agatha All Along.

The Disney+ series mentioned Nicky a few times before he appeared in the finale. In the Mare of Easttown parody-spell that Agatha is trapped in at the beginning of the series there's a room in her Westview house made up to look like a dead son's untouched bedroom, hinting at her tragic backstory. Then, in the first trial on the Witches' Road, Jen tells Billy that rumor has it Agatha traded her son for the Darkhold–the magic book Wanda took from her in WandaVision. Jen even says he might be an agent of Mephisto.

Agatha doesn't answer when Billy asks what really happened to him, even after the Ouija board seemingly summons him and we hear a boy's voice pleading. When Aubrey Plaza's character Rio, a.k.a. Death, asks why Agatha allows people to believe rumors that she killed Nicholas, she says "because the truth is too awful." Yikes! So here's what happened.

As we see in the finale, titled "Maiden, Mother, Crone," Nicholas was born in 1750. (For those keeping tabs, that's 57 years after Agatha killed her mother and her coven in Salem.) "I spoke no spell," Agatha says to the baby. "I said no incantation. You were made from scratch." Now, what this exactly means in the context of Agatha All Along is unclear. It doesn't really seem in line with Agatha's character that she had a one night stand with some man – but I guess it's not totally out of the question. (She was, according to the internet rabbit hole Billy followed in a previous episode, the woman who inspired the Dolly Parton song "Jolene," after all.) It does make sense that the miracle of childbirth and creation would comfort someone whose magic power kills people. Some fans have speculated that Rio's green magic, which can create life, helped Agatha get pregnant with Nicholas... but then would that count as "from scratch" like that? I don't know! It's something to think about.

Nicholas is supposed to be stillborn, but Agatha begs for Death–the love of her life–to spare him. Death says she can only give her time, and comes back to take him six years later. In that time, he wrote the ballad of the Witches' Road with his mom and helped her con other witches. Whether letting Nicholas live on borrowed time was the right thing to do, wrong, or just selfish is also up for debate. I'm sure that's one of the many reasons that Agatha feels shame and guilt about what happened to him. Imagine falling in love with Death and then realizing you're powerless to stop Death coming for your son. Heartbreaking!

Nicholas Scratch is a formidable foe in Marvel comics

Suffice to say, the character Nicky is based on does not suffer the same fate. He shows up in some Fantastic Four comics as the leader of a witch community in Colorado called New Salem. He causes some magical mischief and carries a "Satan staff" to wield his powers. At one point, wouldn't you know it, he was actually an agent of Mephisto.

Don't confuse Nicky with another boy on another witch series...

If the name sounds familiar, it's because Nicholas Scratch is also the name of Sabrina Spellman's fellow student and eventual boyfriend on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. That Nick Scratch, played by Gavin Leatherwood, was a polyamorous, bisexual bad boy warlock. He literally goes to Hell and back in the series. In a truly twisted episode of Riverdale, he even possessed Jughead's body. We must assume that Agatha Harkness would be proud her son shared his name with such an agent of chaos.

Oh, and the name might also sound familiar because "Old Scratch" and/or "Mr. Scratch" is an old alias for the Devil dating back centuries. The name is kind of a pun, too: nick... scratch... get it? Stay weird, Agatha and Sabrina!