why does no one ever mention that maybe Rio is so adamant on Agatha dying because she wants their boy to finally have both his moms in the same place again...
BECAUSE THAT’S A CONCEPT THAT’S TOO HARD TO SWALLOW
Rio is Death. She has a job. She collects. She balances the scales.
But she’s also a wife and a mother and a lover and somewhere deep in that shattered black heart of hers, she just wants her little family to be together.
She cannot bring Nicky to Agatha. She can only bring Agatha to Nicky.
It’s been, what, 200 years? Nicky (I’m assuming) is frozen at six—still wearing the same little jacket, still waiting for bedtime stories that never came. And Agatha’s out there, ducking fate like it’s jury duty.
Maybe Agatha thought she was protecting him?
But the reality? She left.
She left Rio holding all of it.
Rio’s been stuck with the aftermath. Stuck being Death and a mom and a brokenhearted wife all at once.
And just think how exhausting that must be.
This whole chase or cat and mouse game with Agatha isn’t about vengeance—it’s about grief. About trying to close a wound that’s been bleeding for literal 👏 fucking 👏 centuries 👏
So when Agatha finally dies… it’s not for Rio, not for Nicky, but for some human boy? That hits Rio hard.
But now that Agatha’s a ghost, she’s still running. Just… more dramatically.
Because of course she is. She’s theatrical like that.
And I just imagine Rio coming home to Nicky again—back to the same quiet place outside of time where he’s still six, still waiting—and he runs up to her, eyes wide, asking, “Did Mom make it across okay?”
And what does she say?
How does she explain that Agatha finally surrendered… but not for them? That she crossed over for someone else. That she’s still not home. That even in death, Agatha found a new reason to run.
How do you tell a child who’s waited two hundred years that his mom still isn’t ready?
That’s the part that guts me.
