Is Billy Maximoff Hiding in VisionQuest Episode 1? Terry Matalas Says No

A lot of online sleuths are convinced that a mystery figure walking behind Tommy Shepherd in VisionQuest episode 1 is Joe Locke as Billy Maximoff, aka Wiccan. The theory doesn't hold up, and VisionQuest creator Terry Matalas told me directly that it was an extra, not Joe Locke.

That doesn't mean Billy is absent from the show. Billy is looking for Tommy in the MCU right now, and I still think he'll appear in VisionQuest. Further down, I'll get into the evidence that points that way, from the London premiere to a shot in a recent Marvel promo.

The red scarf extra in Borough Market looks like he's following Tommy

In episode 1, No Strings, at around 40 minutes and 30 seconds in, Thomas Shepherd leaves the bar in London's Borough Market area, where he pulls the wrist watch grift. We then cut to an exterior shot, and passing through the frame from left to right is a thin young man with dark curly hair and a red scarf who steps right up to the produce stand. Thomas walks right by him. It's like they really wanted this guy in the shot.

The same extra appears 13 seconds later strolling in front of the French Comté cheese stand, one of the best places to get fresh cheese in London. But when we cut to Thomas and Lisa farther away, that extra has vanished. I didn't clock this in my Easter egg breakdown of the episode, but in the days since VisionQuest premiered on Disney Plus, many users on TikTok, X, Reddit and Instagram have become convinced this is a sly appearance by Billy Maximoff, Thomas's brother.

As of the end of Agatha All Along, Billy is searching for his brother. It's worth remembering that it was actually Billy working with Agatha Harkness to transport Tommy Maximoff's soul into the body of a random kid who was drowning somewhere 18 months before this.

Marvel hid Mysterio the same way in Spider-Man: Far From Home

Marvel Studios has pulled this kind of background move before. In Spider-Man: Far From Home, the origin of EDITH in the MCU, the early shots of Peter Parker touring a different European city, Venice, Italy, had Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio making subtle cameos in the background, stalking Peter. Members of Team Mysterio appear all over the background of that movie. One of them turns up behind Peter and MJ at the canal waterfront in Venice. And in Prague, when the fire elemental was attacking the carnival, you can barely make out William Ginter Riva in a window in the background, working on a computer running the Stark drone holo projector illusions.

That movie was secretly about the legacy of Stark technology and the consequences it now has on the MCU, and that's pretty much what VisionQuest really is too. Numerous trailer shots even show some of those same Stark drones being used in VisionQuest.

Billy would have had the time and the telepathy to find Tommy in London

At the end of Agatha All Along, Billy was searching for his brother, and over these past 18 months he would have had enough time to get from New Jersey to London to find him. As a telepath, he would be able to seek out his brother in a public setting like this.

I just don't know why Billy would be so sneaky in this context. Why not run right up to your brother and hug him if you know it's him? Maybe Billy could be astral projecting himself from some other location. Astral projection is certainly in the sorcerer's playbook.

But since this is a show with EDITH and Stark drones, we also can't really rule out the possibility that whoever is operating these drones, I'm assuming Paladin and his crew, might be able to have those drones project decoy imagery. For example, something that would look like an AI hallucinated version of Billy Maximoff, used to follow or haunt the target being hunted, in this case Thomas Shepherd. At this point, Paladin and his handler would have researched everything about Westview, Wanda, the Hex and Wanda's kids. And sure, they might have also located Billy by now and kidnapped him as well.

Reused extras are common in productions like this

Looking more closely at the production, it's easy to see this extra by the produce stand, then see the same extra 13 seconds later by the cheese stand, and conclude he must be stalking Tommy through the market. But the reality is that reusing extras for different shot setups is very common in productions like this.

In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, when Doctor Strange is facing that one-eyed creature chasing America Chavez through the streets, there's a shot where one guy earns his SAG-AFTRA union card by sprinting past Benedict Cumberbatch. Then, in the reverse angle immediately after, the same extra runs past him again. A glitch in the Matrix? No, just Hollywood production. If you look closely at the crowd scenes of any movie or TV show, teleporting extras like this show up all the time.

The extra's face and height don't match Joe Locke

In the second shot of the extra, when Tommy is with Lisa, he does look more like Joe Locke than in the first. His thinness and movement do recall Joe Locke's movement, and his complexion, jawline, pronounced cheekbones and dark curly hair do look quite like the actor. But in the earlier shot by the produce stand, on the far right, right as he turns his head before the cut, his nose looks longer and more pointed than Joe Locke's. He definitely doesn't look like Billy in those frames.

I'd say maybe this could be an issue of details on the edge of the frame looking stretched out, but it doesn't look like this was shot on anamorphic film. No other details are being stretched on either side of the frame.

I've also been to Borough Market myself several times, and I've passed this specific cheese shop, including with my future wife in 2018. I know how high those signs are, and I'm 6'2". Whoever this extra is, he's shorter than 5'6". Joe Locke is actually taller than you think at 5'9", so if this were him, he'd be taller than this. And when they hid Jake Gyllenhaal in the background of Far From Home, you'd totally miss him if you weren't paying attention, but once you spot him there's no confusion. This guy is kind of the opposite. The longer you look at him, the more it seems like it's not Joe Locke.

Terry Matalas confirmed it was a background actor

I was fortunate to talk to Terry Matalas in an exclusive interview this weekend, and he confirmed that this was an extra and not Joe Locke. He said he had seen someone freeze framing Tommy and Lisa walking in Borough Market and claiming it was Billy.

"It's an extra. We had a background actor who had a very similar haircut and a hoodie," Matalas said. He added, "I wish we had seen that on the day. We might have flagged that," before making it clear that "Billy is not walking around Borough Market."

The London premiere and Tommy's actor point to Billy being in the show

That said, I'm pretty sure Joe Locke's Billy Maximoff will be in this show. Joe Locke showed up on the red carpet at the London premiere and posed for photos with the rest of the cast. While many VIPs and special guests get invited to premieres, you only really get to pose like this with the cast when you're in the show.

The actor who plays Thomas Shepherd has also said in interviews that he shot scenes with Joe Locke for this show. Asked about reuniting with Locke, he said, "We actually shot our MCU stuff before we did the play." He explained that they met for coffee beforehand, became good friends instantly, and then did a play on the West End together while carrying a big secret that slowly started to leak, with people bringing secret MCU fan art to the stage door.

A blue energy shot in a Marvel promo looks like Wiccan's magic

In a promo Marvel released in the past week, there's a shot of Vision receiving some kind of enhanced CPR, with Tommy's hands on the left and blue energy coming from another set of hands on the right. This has got to be Billy, because his Wiccan sorcery is this exact color. I don't know exactly what's happening in that moment, and I haven't watched ahead to the full season yet. But if Marvel is putting this shot in a promo, I think Marvel's not exactly hiding Billy's return.

Episode 2 establishes that Thomas Shepherd is confused and traumatized by having two different souls and two sets of memories. Billy's experience was different, because William Kaplan died by the time Billy Maximoff's soul took over the body, so Billy is really just the kid from Westview in an older teenager's body. I think Tommy really needs his brother to help him heal and explain what happened.

I'm dropping my Paladin client theory, but Ultron may need Billy

So how will Billy appear in VisionQuest? I'm now withdrawing my theory that Paladin's mystery client on the phone is Billy. It makes less and less sense the more I think about it.

I do like the theory I broke down yesterday that Ultron's plan is to kind of reboot WandaVision, with the whole Westview Hex pocket reality expanded around the world and Ultron as the star of the show, playing Redd Foxx to his son Vision's Lamont in a Sanford and Son scenario. To do that, he would need all sources of Wanda's ongoing magic existing in this universe, including Vision, Tommy and Billy. That could be what all those shots of magic flowing through London past St. Paul's Cathedral are about.

Brad Winderbaum on Young Avengers: Hollywood is a funnel

Marvel's head of television, animation and comics, Brad Winderbaum, was asked by my colleague Brandon Davis about the many potential Young Avengers showing up, including maybe a couple of them in VisionQuest, and how he thinks about Young Avengers projects. Winderbaum said he gets to develop a lot of cool ideas, but "Hollywood's a funnel," adding that "Not everything makes it to the screen." He said he's had his heart broken many times, but you keep trying to push the things you love forward, and sometimes things sit around for a while and then suddenly happen.

Assuming Billy shows up on the series, I think this WandaVision trilogy needs to be expanded into a quadrilogy with a Vision's Crusade spin-off following the two brothers on a search for their mother Wanda. So is the Borough Market extra Billy Maximoff sneaking around behind his brother? I don't think so. He's not tall enough to read all those fromage names. But will Billy Maximoff appear on the series? Oh, yeah.

Do you think Billy Maximoff will turn up in VisionQuest, and if so, how?