Agatha All Along episode 6: Billy's origin and Tommy theories

Episode 6 of Agatha All Along, starring Kathryn Hahn, Joe Locke and Aubrey Plaza, finally turned to Billy's side of the story. It was called "definitely our funniest episode so far" in our first discussion of it. It also left us less certain about where the show was headed than we had been the week before.

The episode, titled Familiar by Thy Side, followed William through his Bar Mitzvah and a car accident. When he woke up afterward, he was Billy Maximoff.

Joe Locke plays William and Billy as two different people

The thinking in our discussion was that this Billy is the boy played by Julian Hilliard in WandaVision. He lived his whole life in Westview and went to bed at about ten years old. The hex was collapsing at the exact moment William was dying, so the souls of Billy and Tommy flew away from it. Billy landed in a body in the back seat of a crashed car, with no idea whose body it was.

That moment was praised as amazing storytelling. It showed no staticky red glow drifting out of Westview. There was only the camera pushing in as life came back into him. That was put down to Joe Locke's performance and to great writing. Locke seemed like two different people. First William is more carefree, then his heart slows, and when he wakes as Billy his whole demeanor changes.

Billy can now hear people's thoughts, specifically those of people he cares about, in intense moments. He still can't control it. The discussion compared this to the X-Men, where mutants get their powers when puberty hits. That is probably why the Bar Mitzvah was shown.

Evan Peters returns as Ralph Bohner in Agatha All Along Episode 6

Evan Peters returned as Ralph Bohner, the man Agatha once used as her puppet. His scene was described as insane, unhinged humor, and the reaction while watching was immediate: "we need a boner spin-off." His plan for a one man show set off a run of jokes about which versions of Ralph he might play.

The episode also replayed Billy breaking into Agatha's house, probably to steal her brooch. It turned out he was an amateur burglar, which was clumsier than the slick version seen in the earlier episode. When Billy said his real name to Agatha, it came out as Billy Maximoff regardless of the word he used, because his identity was blocked. When he tried to read his own name, he drew a sigil.

Where is Tommy, and why Wanda looks less likely

Billy is now clearly looking for his brother on the Witches' Road. Several theories came up. Tommy may have gone into another dying kid in a nearby town. His soul may be disembodied and floating somewhere. The road itself might be able to pull him from the ether. Billy may have managed his jump because he could hear someone's thoughts as they died, and Tommy might not have that ability. If Tommy faded into nothing and comes back as the same kid, that would be bad luck for Julian Hilliard.

The thinking was that if the show was giving us Ralph Bohner, it probably wasn't going to give us Wanda, and that Billy searching for his brother, not his mother, was the show's way of saying it knew many fans wanted her back but wasn't giving it to them. Based on this, it sounded even less likely that the show would bring back Wanda or Elizabeth Olsen.

Jen, Lilia and the missing Rio

The mid-season trailer showed Jen and Lilia muddy, somewhere beneath the mud, but Agatha presented them as dead. It was unclear whether that was to play on Billy's guilt or whether she believes it. The view in our discussion was that Billy's attack was an uncontrolled show of force, like Wanda pushing away the Ultron sentries.

The bigger mystery was Rio. Agatha mentioned Jen and Lilia but never asked about Rio. In the scene where Agatha was supposedly talking to Rio, Rio was obscured by curtains, leaving it unclear whether she was there at all. That raised an interesting theory that Death has cloaked herself so they don't remember her.

Our verdict on Agatha All Along Episode 6

Possible next steps included Billy and Agatha reaching a castle, with Death bringing back the dead for a trial. In the end, the episode was described as "so much funnier than I could have hoped" while still packing in a lot of information. As the discussion wrapped up: "I have no idea what's going on in this show and I love it."