SPOILER WARNING: This story discusses main plot developments in Season 1, Episode 5 of “Agatha All Along,” at present streaming on Disney+.
Practically since the information broke that “Heartstopper” star Joe Locke was becoming a member of the solid of “Agatha All Along,” Marvel followers have been gleefully speculating about who Locke’s character might be. At the very finish of Wednesday night time’s episode, “Darkest Hour / Wake Thy Power,” the present successfully confirmed that Locke is certainly taking part in who the overwhelming majority of followers had agreed was the more than likely candidate: Wiccan.
Before that reveal, an ideal deal occurs in a bracingly brief quantity of time. Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) is possessed by the ghost of her mom, Evanora (Kate Forbes), throughout a Witches’ Road trial that evokes Nineteen Eighties teen horror films. When Alice (Ali Ahn), newly liberated from her household curse, makes use of her magic to free Agatha from the possession, Agatha begins draining all of Alice’s powers. The solely factor that stops Agatha is when Locke’s character — nonetheless referred to in the credit as “Teen” — yells out the identify of Agatha’s useless little one, Nicholas Scratch, and she hears a toddler’s voice say, “Mama! Stop!”
It’s too late for poor Alice, alas: Agatha drained her to loss of life. Teen is devastated, and lashes out at Agatha, who protests — with seeming sincerity — that she couldn’t management her skill to empty Alice’s powers. Teen is unconvinced.
“You wanted her power,” he says. “That’s what this has always been about for you, isn’t it?”
Before Agatha can reply, Jennifer (Sasheer Zamata) solutions for her: “Of course it is. That’s what all of this is about — for any of us.”
“So that’s what it means to be a witch?” Teen says again to Agatha. “Killing people to serve your own agenda? No. Not for me.”
Teen’s righteousness shifts Agatha’s complete demeanor. She appears to treat Teen with a brand new sense of understanding, and chuckles to herself with a depraved smirk earlier than leaning in near him.
“You’re so much like your mother,” she says, prefer it’s an accusation.
In a method, it's: As Marvel followers and astute viewers may have surmised by this level, Agatha is referring to Wanda Maximoff, a.ok.a. the Scarlet Witch, who created her sons Billy and Tommy in “WandaVision” out of magic, just for them to vanish from existence when Wanda had to surrender her fantasy world. Agatha has clearly concluded that, in some way, Billy — who as a child demonstrated a facility for magic, like his mom — has returned.
Unfortunately for Agatha, she’s proper. Teen’s arms start to spark with pale blue magic, which instructions Jennifer and Lilia (Patti LuPone) to seize Agatha and throw her into the muck simply outdoors the Witches’ Road. Agatha is rapidly sucked beneath; in a flash of anger, Teen plunges Jennifer and Lilia into the muck as effectively. In the episode’s ultimate shot, Teen seems on with an enigmatic expression, his head instantly sporting a crown strikingly just like the one Wanda wore as the Scarlet Witch.
So, yeah, Teen is definitely Billy, who in the Marvel Comics takes on the superhero moniker of Wiccan. But whereas “Darkest Hour / Wake Thy Power” does resolve the largest thriller of the present, it also conjures an entire slew of new, beguiling questions.
Prior to this second, Teen/Billy behaved as if he had no innate magical skill in any respect. Was this only a ruse? Or did Agatha, by evoking Wanda, awaken one thing inside him? Was Billy the one who positioned the sigil that prevented the different witches from figuring out his actual id — and if not, who did? Was Billy already conscious of who his mom actually is, or is that this revelation as a lot a shock to him as it's for his (now submerged) coven? How did Billy come again from nothingness? Did Billy’s brother Tommy also return? Do Billy’s mother and father — Jeff and Rebecca Kaplan (Paul Adelstein and Maria Dizzia) — know who he actually is? Also, the place the heck is Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza)?!
“Agatha All Along” will doubtless reply many of these questions in its ultimate 4 episodes. In the comics, Billy’s origins are twisted up in some severely bizarre magical metaphysics: When Wanda created him, she might — or might not! — have inadvertently used a fraction of the soul of Mephisto, Marvel’s model of the satan. After Billy’s physique passes into oblivion — which can, or might not, have been Mephisto’s doing — his soul principally hooked up itself to a different random child. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe has by no means fairly dabbled in something this abstruse, and since alternate variations of Billy had been launched in 2022’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the present might as a substitute go for a extra multiversal rationalization of this Billy’s resurrection.
Where Billy got here from, nevertheless, appears a lot much less vital than the incontrovertible fact that he’s returned in any respect. Even a cursory search of social media demonstrates that, though most hardcore followers had already found out Teen’s id, it’s nonetheless been thrilling to have it validated by the present. While the MCU has began to include real LGBTQ illustration over the previous few years, Billy is one thing new: A queer superhero who's central to their undertaking and integral to the ongoing MCU storyline (in contrast to with Phastos from “Eternals” and Korg from “Thor: Love and Thunder”); whose sexuality isn’t only a conduit for profane comedy (in contrast to with Deadpool); and whose LGBTQ id isn’t referenced so obscurely that it barely exists (in contrast to with America from “Multiverse of Madness” and Valkyrie from “Thor: Ragnarok”).
In different phrases, Billy is a strong and consequential Marvel character who also occurs to be unmistakably homosexual. And there’s a lot extra of his story left to inform.
