Last week’s episode of Agatha All Along ended with a big cliffhanger: Joe Locke’s Teen is the son of the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). That should make him Billy Maximoff, aka the Young Avengers character known as Wiccan. Except on this week’s episode of the series, we discovered he’s not Billy Maximoff… At least, not at first. Spoilers past this point, but He’s a 13-year-old kid named William Kaplan, who lives in Eastview.
Huh? How did this happen? How did William Kaplan end up as the son of Wanda Maximoff? Great question and that’s exactly what “Familiar By Thy Side” lays out over the bulk of the running time.
Right at the top, we begin at “The Magick Mitzvah of William Kaplan.” Or more specifically, William Kaplan’s Bar Mitzvah, followed by his magic-themed after-party. His parents, Jeff and Rebecca Kaplan (Paul Adelstein and Maria Dizzia), are incredibly proud of their son, and it’s a big party afterward, where he’s having a great time. That is until he consults a fortune teller hired for the party who is none other than… Lilia Calderu (Patti Lupone).
When Lilia reads William’s palm, she discovers that his lifeline has been split in two. She’s shocked, he gets nervous, but she assures him that could just mean choices. And then she has a flash of something, likely from next week’s episode: “The tower reversed,” says Lilia, referencing the Tarot card known as The Tower. Per a website I just checked, that means “Personal transformation, fear of change, averting disaster.” So keep that one in your pocket until next week’s episode (or possibly the week after, whenever Lilia is back alive, and we’re on her trial).
Anyway, William gets freaked out enough to leave her fortune-telling tent but leaves his jacket behind. And that’s when we get the answer to “Who put the sigil on Billy?” It was Lilia, all along, as she draws one on a small piece of wood, and slips it into his pocket.
Why did Lilia do this? Hard to say yet (again, stay tuned), but it’s clearly the same sigil that’s been on Teen’s mouth whenever he tries to say his name. And cutting to the end of the episode, he breaks the piece of wood and is finally able to say that he’s Billy Maximoff.
Regardless, he gets his jacket back, and then the party goes amok as they get an alert that something is happening with the anomaly in Westview. We viewers know this is coinciding with the finale of WandaVision, and Wanda is removing the hex from the town. But the Kaplans rush back home, narrowly avoiding a truck headed in the opposite direction, and crash into a tree. While Jeff and Rebecca are both fine, though they don’t know it, while they go to get help, William dies.
That’s the same moment when over in Westview, Wanda is tucking in Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jeff Klyne) and saying goodbye to them — because they’re not real, and only maintained by the magic of the hex. We even get to hear Billy say “Good night, Tommy,” and Tommy say, “Good night, Billy.” That’s when somehow the spirit of Billy enters the body of William. He yells “Tommy!” And Jeff and Rebecca come back.
William gets taken to the hospital, and he has amnesia. He can also hear the thoughts of his parents, which freaks him out. It seems like perhaps he’s faking, but as we discover three years later… He’s not. He really can’t remember anything from before the accident, but he knows that he’s tied to what happened in Westview in some way — which he tells his boyfriend, Eddie (Miles Gutierrez-Riley). They track down a Westview truther — the government has suppressed what happened, saying it was an Avengers training incident — who turns out to be Ralph Bohner (Evan Peters).
…And that’s when it all comes together. Bohner tells Eddie and William about what happened in Westview, Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), and that Wanda and Vision (Paul Bettany) had two kids. When he hears that one is a mind-reader, the lightbulb goes off in William’s mind. It isn’t until the end of the episode that he says he is Billy Maximoff when he’s on the Witches’ Road talking to Agatha. But it’s clear, he knows.
The rest of the episode speeds up, as Billy Maximoff — not William Kaplan — realizes what he wants is to get his brother Tommy back. And to do that, he needs to track down Agatha Harkness. Which he does, and you’ve been watching that show for the past six episodes. By the episode’s end, he knows he’s Billy, Agatha knows he’s Billy, the sigil is broken, and we’re off to the races. Billy wants to find Tommy. Agatha wants power. The last one to get to the end of the Witches’ Road is a nice person. Seems like the worst witch might win…
Agatha All Along Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
The first two episodes of Agatha All Along premiered September 18 at 6 pm PT / 9 pm ET on Disney+. It streams weekly, leading up to the two-episode finale on October 30. There are nine episodes, in total.
Here’s the full list of episodes in Agatha All Along, with premiere dates:
- Wednesday, September 18, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 1: “Seekest Thou The Road”
- Wednesday, September 18, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 2: “Circle Sewn With Fate Unlock They Hidden Gate”
- Wednesday, September 25, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 3: “Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials”
- Wednesday, October 2, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 4: “If I Can’t Reach You Let My Song Teach You”
- Wednesday, October 9, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 5: “Darkest Hour, Wake Thy Power”
- Wednesday, October 16, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 6: “Familiar by Thy Side”
- Wednesday, October 23, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 7
- Wednesday, October 30, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 8
- Wednesday, October 30, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 9
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