Agatha All Along's Wiccan Backstory Reveal Falls Flat

I thought the Wiccan reveal in last week’s Agatha All Along was fantastic. I thought this week explaining how this version of Wiccan, Billy Maximoff, came to be was lacking. And confusing.

First of all, the trailer for the episode essentially spoiled the main reveal, that this was not simply a grown-up version of Wanda-created Billy, this was Billy’s uh, spirit, I suppose, entering the body of William Kaplan as the Westview magic dome collapsed.

What follows is…very strange. William/Billy does not remember anything from before the accident in which he died and was brought back to life by Billy’s life force. But he also doesn’t know who he actually is until he does a research project to discover that he’s Billy Maximoff. Or at least part Billy Maximoff, as he doesn’t seem to have nearly any of his memories either. I’m not sure how he’s functioning at all with essentially no memories from either version of himself.

He is not out “seeking revenge” on Agatha, he is simply trying to free her from her magic fantasy world spell where she’s a detective (this scene was very funny) in order for her to take him to the Witches Road. He was being totally truthful about this, and this comes very shortly after he figures out who he is.

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One surprise is that his main objective is to find his brother Tommy, rather than his mother, which was theory at least before we knew that his memories are all messed up (Wanda very much loved him!), but he at least feels Tommy as his brother out there somewhere. So a Wanda resurrection may not be in the cards after all in this show.

Last week, it felt like this was all a very elaborate ploy where Wiccan knew who he was with all his Westview memories and was simply pretending to be someone else, hence his heel turn assault against the witches. But…this appears to be the first time he’s ever actually used magic like this, mind control with the summoning of his Scarlet Witch-ish crown. Then he…can’t do it again. He cannot control these powers, and before this, all he could do was read minds. Sometimes.

This all played much better when it seemed like this was a master plan of a Billy who knew who he was and was using his mother’s enemy (remembering their entire conflict) and already having mastered his powers well before this. This double-amnesia idea and newly-emerged powers only when he’s raging does not feel as cool or like as good of an explanation. I could have bought the “soul entering his body” part of this, but everything after that did not strike me as making much sense or hitting the emotional beats it needed to.

I am not turning on the show of course, I just think this aspect of the series could have been handled better, especially after such a cool reveal the week before.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.