Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Agatha All Along Episode 6.
It’s official — it was Billy Maximoff all along… kind of. Agatha All AlongEpisode 6 does a deep dive into Teen’s history, and boy, is it a complicated one. Last week saw the return of Evanora (Kate Forbes), Agatha’s (Kathryn Hahn) mother, who traumatized her. This week sees the return of Ralph Bohner (Evan Peters), Agatha’s fake husband, who she deeply traumatized. It’s a vicious cycle, my friends, but it’s certainly an entertaining one, too. Let’s get into it.
Who Put the Sigil on Teen in ‘Agatha All Along’ Episode 6?
We open on a sequence of Teen’s (Joe Locke) bar mitzvah, revealing on the programs that his real name (at this point, at least) is William Kaplan. It’s beautiful to watch his loving parents and community celebrate him and clear that he grew up surrounded by a lot of love. The fact that the centerpieces on the table during the party look like the trees on the Witches’ Road is a nice touch as well. The production designers stay winning.
One of the people at his bat mitzvah is Lilia (Patti LuPone) in a fortune-telling tent. (I’m immediately jealous that Patti LuPone wasn’t at my confirmation party, but I digress.) Lilia tells William a long journey lies ahead of him — one of great transformation. That seems fine, right? Except she then reveals that his lifeline is broken in two as the lights flicker. Uh, less fine. He’s understandably nervous, though Lilia tries to reassure him this could mean many things. He’s becoming a man, after all. She also mentions the Tower Reversed card, and when he’s confused, she says she thinks she just remembered something. In a lovely moment reminiscent of Agatha telling Teen she doesn’t have to know his name to know who he is, Lilia tells him she doesn’t need to be a psychic to know he’s a good egg and tells him to enjoy the now. That’s all that’s guaranteed. When he leaves, Lilia draws a sigil on a block of wood, puts it in his coat pocket, and promptly forgets she’d done it.
William’s dad (Paul Adelstein) tells everyone something’s happening with the anomaly in Westview, and everyone heads home in a panic. On the way back to the house, William finds the sigil before looking out the window and seeing the red light of the hex. His mother (Maria Dizzia), who’s driving, gets distracted by it and crashes the car into a tree. His parents immediately call for the police (with one of them being Alice! Hey, girl!), but William is bleeding out in the backseat, badly injured. William dies, but he then wakes up again, calling for Tommy. Billy Maximoff’s soul is now in William Kaplan’s body.
Billy is extremely confused in the hospital, especially when he catches a glimpse of himself in the reflective window. He doesn’t recognize his parents, and he immediately gets upset when he hears them having a small disagreement, begging them not to fight. The doctors have said that his amnesia will wear off, and he’s cleared to be discharged soon. Is he ready for that? Yes, he assures them — yes, he is. He’s even more confused when he arrives at his unfamiliar home, and his dog begins barking, not recognizing him. His parents grow increasingly anxious that he doesn’t understand what’s going on, and things get more complicated when Billy realizes he can read their thoughts, all the voices loud and distracting. After this revelation and a small freakout, he tries to act normal and heads to his room to look around the space, then practices saying that he’s William Kaplan in the mirror.
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How Do Billy and Agatha Reunite in ‘Agatha All Along’ Episode 6?
Three years later, we see Billy and his boyfriend, Eddie (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) in the car. Eddie inquires about the block he always carries around, and Billy tells him it’s a sigil, which is like a puzzle he hasn’t solved. Billy hears Eddie debating in his head whether to tell him he loves him, which makes Billy panic. He pulls away from the kiss and admits to what happened on the day of that car crash, divulging that he’s not really William Kaplan and that he still doesn’t remember anything about what happened before the wreck. He then tells Eddie he loves him, and Eddie kisses him. He thinks he’s crazy, but not because of what he said. Eddie does want to know, though — if he’s not William Kaplan, then who is he?
Billy shows Eddie the evidence he’s pieced together, complete with newspaper reports about the hex. Eddie thinks that the anomaly turned out to be an Avengers training exercise gone wrong, but Billy tells him he’s too trusting. Billy and Eddie watch a quick Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) video before looking at footage of the anomaly online. Billy sees runes in the footage, which has given him a theory that it was witchcraft. Though most Westview citizens refuse to talk about it, he did connect with a guy on Reddit who agreed to meet up with him in a parking garage. Sketchy!
In the parking garage, the two see a man in a trenchcoat lurking in the shadows. He turns out to be Ralph Bohner, whose real name is Randall. Randall is paranoid, because who wouldn’t be?! He remembers everything about what Wanda Maximoff did — what it felt like. It was like watching your life on TV in your head, he says, but you couldn’t turn it off. Billy asks him if he has any special powers from this, and he acts like Billy is nuts. Billy hears him pleading not to ask about Agatha in his head, which, of course, makes Billy ask. Randall agrees to tell him everything if they either give him cash or promise to attend his one-man show. I respect the hustle.
Randall says everything was worse for him than for other Westview citizens, as Agatha treated him like his puppet when she was making him play husband. Plus, she stole his house, completely ruining the market value, and still has his entire Blu-ray collection! She made him be a terrible influence on Wanda’s kids and even poisoned a dog. Randall doesn’t know what happened to the kids — they just disappeared — but he thinks they probably got sucked up in the red bubble, like everything else Wanda created. Randall’s still scarred and refuses to face Agatha again. Word on the street is that she still lives there, but Randall warns Billy not to go. He does not know the kind of crazy that lady eats for breakfast.
Billy does not heed the advice, immediately going home and listening to Lorna’s version of the ballad as he makes notes about what Randall told him before searching “Agatha Harkness ancient witch” on Google (efficient!) and finding a photograph of her, as well as information about her past on Brujapedia (hilarious!) — including the fact she’s the only survivor of the Witches’ Road. He does some research on the Witches’ Road and realizes this could be the thing to give him what’s missing and makes his way to Agatha’s house in Westview.
After Billy angstily looks at Wanda’s old house, he checks his spellbook for a release spell, which says he’s going to need an important personal item to complete it. He texts Eddie mushy messages before taking the plunge and sneaking into Agatha’s place. He finds her brooch before clumsily knocking over a lamp and climbing out her window, and we see the chase from the pilot from his perspective. It’s much slower and less climactic in his reality, which is hysterical. Unlike in Agnes’ spell, he’s also a total sweetheart, even offering to help Agatha after she falls.
The interrogation happens in her living room as she’s wearing a Bohner Family Reunion shirt and brandishing a garden hose nozzle gun — and is also much less intense than Agnes’ version of things. He tells her that she’s typecast him as the guilty teen, but he swears — that couldn’t be further from the truth! He also notably doesn’t ever see Rio when she does. Once he begins to do the spell, she brings out the duct tape. Once we get to the scene where she rips it off, we see her tell him his name is William Kaplan before admitting he’s Billy Maximoff.
How Did Agatha Know Teen Was Billy in ‘Agatha All Along’ Episode 6?
Back in the present on the Witches’ Road, Agatha crawls herself from the mud — with an immense amount of struggle. She throws her jacket off — basically, an extremely sad character death! — and goes to find Billy, who crushes the sigil block in his hand and takes down his hood. That was quite a debut, she tells him. She calls him out on his lies about not knowing what a sigil was and wanting power. He tells her power isn’t what he wants, though she seems unconvinced.
When did Agatha figure it out? She suspected it when they first met. Even without his name, he and Wanda have the same tell — very inconvenient for him. She wasn’t sure-sure until the big explosion, though. She tells him it’s nice to see him again and calls him Billy, which makes him realize she can hear him again. Every witch with a beating heart can, in fact. He feels bad about what he did to Lilia and Jen, but Agatha assures him that life goes on — she’s killed more than she can count, so he shouldn’t let it hold him back. He says he’s not like her. Yet even more Wanda parallels
Agatha tells him not to feel guilty about his talent — he survived like witches have been doing for centuries. Who cares that he broke the rules? That’s what kept him alive, and special, and a witch. Billy tells Agatha he doesn’t need her anymore — he’s not sure he ever did. Right then, his powers cease to work, and she mocks him. How is he going to finish with all that power he can’t control? She gets all nasty and scary again, asking what he wants at the end of the Road. It’s not Wanda — she chose a town of strangers over him. It’s not Vision. Who knows where he is? It must be Tommy — he can sense him; he just can’t find him. Billy says that if she really wants to finish this together, she needs to know he doesn’t trust her. At all! She laughs in his face and tells him they should go find the next trial. Last one there is a nice person. But there are tears glistening in Agatha’s eyes on and off through this entire scene; Hahn is once again infusing her with much more depth and emotion than the character wants to let on. Give her the Emmy now! The episode ends with Billy muttering that he’s not that nice.
How Does ‘Agatha All Along’ Episode 6 Stack Up?
This is by far the longest episode of the show so far, and it certainly feels like it! I’m so glad we’re finally giving this show some room to breathe, though it’s a double-edged sword. This episode shows it’s possible to slow down and do a deeper dive into characters instead of burning through plot at a breakneck pace, so why haven’t we been doing that? Billy deserves all of this compelling development, and while Alice (Ali Ahn) may be a smaller character in terms of lore, I would argue she deserved significantly more than she got. With only three episodes left, I don’t have high hopes that Jen or Lilia are going to be fleshed out to this extent, either. Of course, hard choices have to be made, but all the characters are so rich that it’s a shame they’re likely not all going to be able to get this treatment. On a more positive note, I was delighted to see the coven make cameos in William Kaplan’s life. The reveal that Lilia is the one who made the sigil was unexpected but excellent — and gives us some more insight into her character.
Hahn and Locke continue to be excellent scene partners, equally engaging in their dramatic and comedic moments. Seeing the tame reality of the car chase and interrogation scenes had me laughing out loud and will make rewatching the pilot a blast. Agatha’s overwhelming supportive (at least for her) reaction to Billy feels somewhat surprising (at least for me), though it makes perfect sense for her character, who has survived for centuries and values power above all else. I will say, the fact that the Marvel social media team released the final clip of this episode earlier in the day seems like a huge misstep, as it undercuts the tension and cliffhanger for those who watched. Still, that scene is a juicy one, showcasing Agatha and Billy’s new dynamic that is very reminiscent of her and Wanda’s relationship in ways. It makes for some fascinating parallels. Speaking of which, it, of course, made the WandaVision fan in me thrilled to see how the hex impacted everything — and to get an update on Ralph/Randall!
New episodes of Agatha All Along drop every Wednesday at 9 PM ET on Disney+.
Agatha All Along Episode 6 finally gives the show a moment to breathe by doing a deep-dive into a crucial character’s origin.
- It feels satisfying to finally solve some of Teen?s mysteries, particularly in regards to Lilia?s role in it.
- Getting to see key scenes from the pilot from Billy?s perspective adds great humor and retrospectively strengthens the first episode.
- The return of Ralph Bohner is a delightful surprise for WandaVision fans, and his character is used smartly.
- The lack of plot progression in the present day on the Witches? Road weakens some of the momentum the show has built up.
- The show?s intensive exploration of Teen?s origins make the lack of detailed backstory for the other characters more glaring.
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