Spoiler warning

Within the seventh episode of WandaVision, the actual villain of Westview revealed her hidden identify: Agatha Harkness. After pretending to be Wanda Maximoff’s “nosy neighbor” named Agnes for almost all of the season, Harkness lastly confirmed her true colours, in all their purple glory. It was the defining twist of the collection, including a brand new perspective on the present’s grieving protagonist whereas introducing the depraved witch who had been manipulating her all alongside.

Greater than three years later, the sixth episode of Agatha All Alongside has revealed the hidden identify of one other pivotal character: Billy Maximoff. Effectively, actually each of his names: Billy Maximoff and Billy Kaplan. And whereas the massive reveal within the WandaVision spinoff was much less a twist than an inevitability, Billy’s backstory recontextualizes the occasions of Agatha All Alongside and raises the stakes of the collection because it enters the ultimate third of its nine-episode run.

With nearly any Marvel undertaking, hiding plot or character particulars from the viewers isn’t any simple feat. What with set leaks, script leaks, or actors with free lips, spoilers can come from all corners of the web. The studio goes to excessive lengths to keep up secrecy, to the purpose that actors won’t even know what present they’re engaged on till they’re seated for his or her first desk learn. However there’s solely a lot you possibly can maintain from the viewers when all of the supply materials is available in comedian guide shops, with explainers and Wikipedia entries a couple of clicks away. The fan theories aren’t at all times proper, however typically they’re.

WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer was effectively conscious of those challenges when she returned to make the spinoff to her Emmy-winning collection. Simply as many Marvel followers suspected Agnes’s true id in WandaVision earlier than it was unveiled, theories surrounding Joe Locke’s mysterious “Teen” character pointed to Billy earlier than Agatha All Alongside’s first episode premiered. However for Schaeffer, the storytelling behind the reveal is the paramount precedence.

“It’s about how we peel again the layers,” Schaeffer instructed Leisure Weekly. “It’s our job to make the reveals thrilling and satisfying. Now after I see the theories, I nonetheless get a little bit nervous, however I’ve the expertise of WandaVision, a voice in my head that’s like, ‘Effectively, nobody is aware of the how.’”

To Schaeffer and Co.’s credit score, the reveal was certainly satisfying. Whereas Billy’s identify was talked about for the primary time on this week’s Episode 6, the actual reveal of his character got here on the conclusion of final week’s installment. Episode 5 ended with Agatha telling Teen, “You’re a lot like your mom,” simply earlier than Teen used his powers for the primary time and a crown—which appeared awfully comparable to the one worn by the Scarlet Witch—shaped on his head. As well as, the credit had been accompanied by a really purposeful (and just a bit on-the-nose) needle drop: “You Ought to See Me in a Crown” by Billie Eilish.

The sixth episode, “Acquainted by Thy Facet,” goes again—like, all the way in which again—to the occasions of WandaVision, lengthy earlier than Teen met Agatha and began a coven with the notorious witch. It begins on the day of Billy Kaplan’s bar mitzvah. The celebration goes easily till studies in regards to the Westview Anomaly power everybody to return to their properties—which, for Billy and his loving dad and mom, means Eastview. Because the Kaplans drive previous the chaos in Westview, Billy’s mother (understandably) will get distracted by the huge hex across the city because it begins to shrink, and she or he crashes the automobile right into a tree alongside the highway. Simply as Wanda is releasing Westview’s residents from their captivity, letting go of the magic that was preserving her husband, Imaginative and prescient, and her two sons, Billy and Tommy, alive within the course of, Billy Kaplan is dying from the impression of the crash. Moments after his coronary heart stops beating, it abruptly begins once more, and he utters a single identify: Tommy.

Granted a second likelihood at life, Billy wakes up with the power to learn others’ minds, and he has no recollection of his life earlier than the accident. It takes three years—and a shock look from Ralph Bohner (Evan Peters, who’s having numerous enjoyable reprising his WandaVision position)—for him to grasp the character of his uncanny predicament. At a secretive assembly held in a parking storage, Ralph tells Billy and Billy’s boyfriend the whole lot in regards to the precise occasions in Westview, that are in any other case recognized to the general public as an “Avengers coaching train.” From Wanda’s sitcom fantasies to Agatha decreasing the property worth of his residence, Ralph spares no particulars, and he finally shares what he is aware of in regards to the mind-reading Billy Maximoff and his speedster brother Tommy. And so Billy goes to Westview to trace down Agatha and study extra, bringing the story again to the place Agatha All Alongside began within the season premiere.

“Acquainted by Thy Facet” is successfully the origin story of the hero who will come to be often known as Wiccan. It’s about as unusual and complicated a backstory because the comics model, although it’s instructed in a a lot faster and cleaner means. Billy and Tommy Maximoff’s comedian guide origins are notoriously convoluted, due largely to the many years that handed between the characters’ births (and subsequent deaths) in Imaginative and prescient and the Scarlet Witch within the Nineteen Eighties and their reincarnations as Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd in Younger Avengers within the mid-2000s. The Maximoff boys—created by author Steve Englehart and artist Richard Howell in 1986—had been initially born by means of Wanda’s magic, simply as they had been when WandaVision tailored them for TV. It wasn’t till author Allan Heinberg and artist Jim Cheung repurposed the comics characters for Kaplan and Shepherd’s origins, nearly 20 years later, that they grew to become totally realized superheroes.

The truth that Agatha All Alongside is even going for this entire soul-transferal story is one thing of a shock, as it might have been easier to only alter the lore relatively than try for comedian guide accuracy. However regardless of the winding path that it took to totally notice this origin, from actor Julian Hilliard enjoying younger Billy Maximoff in WandaVision and Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity to Locke turning into Billy Kaplan in Agatha All Alongside, it’s a story alternative that matches into the magical nook of the MCU that Schaeffer has created.

Due to the inspiration laid in WandaVision, Agatha All Alongside is ready to simplify Billy’s origins to some extent. Within the comics, the Maximoff twins are linked to the notorious Mephisto (who’s principally simply the satan). They exist solely when Wanda is considering of them, they usually finally get absorbed into one other demon’s physique to supply terrifying demon-baby arms. It’s so much. A few years later, Billy Kaplan’s powers manifest after he will get bullied at school, however he discovers his relation to Wanda and Tommy solely after teaming up with the Younger Avengers and doing a little severe soul-searching. It’s troublesome to totally clarify this sequence of occasions with out actually stepping into it, as typically is the case while you broaden the comedian guide timeline throughout many years of tales instructed by creators who repeatedly retcon Marvel’s historical past.

In Episode 6, Agatha summarizes what Billy Maximoff has achieved in easy sufficient phrases, with the whole lot now rooted in witchcraft. “You survived, like witches have been doing for hundreds of years,” Agatha tells Billy. “You noticed a possibility, an empty vessel, and also you moved in.”

As Billy himself says on this episode, the actual Billy Kaplan died within the automobile crash, and “Teen” has been making an attempt to determine who he actually is ever since. Till this week, his actual identify had been hidden—censored on display any time he tried to talk it—and his motives for desirous to journey the perilous Witches’ Street had been unclear. The identical sigil that was shielding his identify was revealed to be the work of Lilia, who after studying his fortune at his bar mitzvah positioned the sigil on Billy to guard him from any witches who would possibly come on the lookout for him sooner or later. Whereas there’s nonetheless extra to be revealed every time Lilia finds her means out of the mud pit, the timing of the sigil placement additionally retroactively explains why Wanda couldn’t find Billy’s soul on this universe in Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity. (It doesn’t make that film any much less of a large number, nor does it account for the whereabouts of Tommy’s soul, however Agatha All Alongside would possibly proceed to fill among the movie’s narrative gaps because the season proceeds.)

Earlier than the massive reveal, Billy acted as if he was little greater than a fan of witches, desirous to study from the legendary Agatha Harkness and achieve energy for himself within the course of. Along with his secret out within the open, Agatha asks him the all-important query straight: “What does Billy Maximoff need on the finish of the Street?”

Agatha goes down the record of choices herself, eliminating the opportunity of Billy trying to find Wanda or Imaginative and prescient earlier than touchdown on the proper reply: Discovering Tommy.

“He’s on the market someplace,” Billy tells Agatha. “I can sense him. I simply … can’t discover him.”

With three episodes left within the season, Agatha All Alongside has made Billy’s quest as vital as Agatha’s, because the duo begrudgingly travels the rest of the Street collectively, with the remainder of the coven both useless or lacking. After being little greater than a passenger to begin their journey, Billy is within the driver’s seat as a lot as Agatha is. And though the present’s connections to the Scarlet Witch at all times existed, for apparent causes, there’s now a good stronger tie to the narrative thread that began in WandaVision and continued in Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity. Within the 2022 movie, Wanda broke unhealthy as she let the Darkhold lead her down a villainous path to reunite with Billy and Tommy, even when it meant sacrificing others’ lives within the course of. With Wanda useless, Billy is lastly again within the flesh, albeit the flesh of some poor child who died on the identical day he grew to become a person.

Now, Billy is choosing up proper the place his mom left off, trying to find his brother by means of the usage of magic, and pushing apart anybody who stands in his means. Whereas Teen’s id has been the most important reveal of the season so far, there’s nonetheless loads of time for it to be topped. If Agatha All Alongside continues to comply with the recipe that Schaeffer whipped up within the magical world of WandaVision, the collection may need one other trick or two up its sleeve earlier than Billy and Agatha attain the tip of the Witches’ Street.