Summary
“Familiar by Thy Side” provides some important backstory and context as it delves into what happened to Teen/Billy in the past, and also suggests where Agatha All Along might be going in the future.
Having dropped the bombshell reveal that Teen is really Wanda Maximoff’s son, Billy – otherwise known as Wiccan in various Marvel ephemera – there were many directions that Agatha All Along could have taken. In Episode 6, “Familiar by Thy Side”, it goes mostly goes backwards, exploring Billy’s backstory and floating some new ideas into the lore that tie in with previous MCU happenings, including many of the events of WandaVision.
While it catches up to the present-day Witches’ Road trials eventually, the context of this flashback episode is important and illuminating, and unlike most flashback episodes, it really does feel like it’s going to matter in the long-term. So, that’s nice.
Anyway, let’s get on with it, shall we?
The Tower Reversed
We catch up with William Kaplan during his bar mitzvah. At this point he is just William Kaplan, too – the transition to Billy Maximoff happens later, putting paid to the theory that he knew all along and had sinisterly ingratiated himself among the coven to take revenge.
There’s a fortune teller at the bar mitzvah, for some reason, and it happens to be Lilia, who is shocked to discover that William’s life line is split in two – don’t you hate it when that happens? – and his future is ominously marked by a vision of “the Tower reversed”, which a cursory Google search about Tarot readings informs me symbolizes “significant personal transformation and upheaval”.
Well, you don’t say.
Lilia sneakily draws a serpent symbol on an amulet and hides it in William’s coat pocket, so I guess that was the source of the Sigil that prevented him from revealing his true identity earlier in the series?
William Kaplan Is Dead
One of the more interesting ideas in Agatha All Along Episode 6 is that William Kaplan, the original version, is dead. And his death allowed the spirit of Billy Maximoff to use his body as a vessel.
This all comes about in a confluence of weird factors tied to WandaVision. William Kaplan was from Eastview, and he was having his bar mitzvah at the exact time that Wanda’s hex around Westview collapsed. Cue all kinds of carnage, including a car crash that spared William’s parents but, unfortunately, killed him.
Nobody knows that William died, though, since Billy immediately inhabited his body. But it isn’t like Billy totally remembers being Billy either. He’s like a double amnesiac who has to recall an old life through the prism of another one to really manifest his true identities and powers. That explains why it took him so long.
Also of note: The attending Eastview PD officer who attends the scene of the Kaplans’ car crash? Alice. Billy also watches Jennifer on YouTube.
Joe Locke as Billy Maximoff in Agatha All Along Episode 6 | Image via Disney
Ralph’s Return
Billy’s investigations lead him to Ralph Bohner, masquerading under the very mature Reddit handle “Bohnerrific69”. You’ll recall an extraordinary fuss being made of Ralph’s debut in WandaVision at the time, since he was played by Evan Peters, who also played Wanda’s brother, Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver, in Fox’s X-Men movies.
This turned out to be a cheeky red herring since the MCU has never acknowledged those movies. Ralph was mind-controlled by Agatha to pose as Pietro to manipulate Wanda. The fact he was very much a normal Westview resident before that – much like how Billy was a normal young boy before he was embodied by the spirit of a witch’s son – Billy reasons Agatha is the witch he needs to find.
Billy, Meet Agatha
Billy’s investigation into Agatha reveals some more of her backstory – she was somehow involved with the Hindenburg disaster and Dolly Parton (“Jolene” is about her”), and was sent to the stake by her mother and her coven, which we already knew – and brings us to the events we already saw in Agatha All Along’s premiere.
Billy broke into Agatha’s house to help her break free of the illusion that Wanda had created for her, which he was able to do, albeit in a slightly ad-hoc way.
I’m not going to tell you that this is the cleanest possible explanation for everything we’ve seen thus far, but the context is definitely appreciated, and I, for one, enjoyed seeing – or indeed re-seeing – all of this from a new vantage point. It gives the present-day Witches’ Road sequences some more nuance, especially since we return to them right after.
Billy Is Looking For His Brother
After being dipped in the swamp in the previous episode’s cliffhanger, Agatha emerges unharmed, but Lilia and Jennifer crucially do not. I don’t believe either are dead – Lilia hasn’t even completed her trial yet! – but that’s something for subsequent episodes to address.
In the meantime, Agatha acknowledges that Billy has come a long way and tells him that he shouldn’t feel guilty about being an all-powerful mind-controlling sorcerer. But she’s still a bit confused about his motivations.
As it turns out, Billy is looking for his brother, Tommy, who he believes is alive somewhere. Sure, why not? This is all perfectly comics-appropriate and there’s plenty of scope for introducing Tommy in the MCU. Now we’ve got the backstory out of the way, I suspect we’ll be returning to the Witches’ Road proper in Episode 7.
