The Fantasy Review’s recap and review of Familiar By Thy Side, episode 6 of Agatha All Along.
Previous episode: Episode 5 Review & Recap – Darkest Hour / Wake Thy Power
Spoiler-Filled Recap and Review of Familiar By Thy Side – Agatha All Along Episode 6
Are We Looking Behind Us, Or Ahead?
After the big reveal at the end of episode 5, we begin Familiar by Thy Side with some backstory for Teen. He seemed like a happy kid with loving parents, living a normal life until he goes for a psychic reading at a party – and the psychic is Lilia Calderu.
Lilia begins by putting on a bit of a show, but then she notices something “real”. She says his “lifeline is broken in two,” which apparently can either mean personal growth and life changes ahead, or… we don’t know. But she looks like she’s trying to convince herself that everything will be alright, rather than him.
Then she has one of her “moments,” and says “ The tower reversed,” before ushering him out and putting the sigil in his jacket pocket.
Outside the tent, Teen is back enjoying the party when it is suddenly stopped and everyone is told to go home because something is happening at Westview. In the car with his parents, Teen notices the sigil in his pocket and has no idea what it is, but his mum (who is driving) gets distracted by Westview out of the window and crashes into a tree.
The parents are fine, but Teen – or, William – dies of a head wound. However, the body suddenly wakes up with Billy’s mind, calling out for his brother, Tommy.
William/Billy is very confused, but in the hospital no one can find anything physically wrong with hom (once the injuries get better) other than some amnesia. He is cleared to go “home” but there he is overwhelmed by the voices he can hear in his head, reading peoples’ minds.
He goes up to his room to get away from the voices and pull himself together. He looks in the mirror and tells himself that he is William Kaplan, showing us that he accepts his new life – not that he has much of a choice in that.
3 Years Later
We flash forwards in time to a sweet moment between William and his boyfriend. I wish we had more of a characterisation for the boyfriend so we might care more, but this show already has so much going on, and so much mystery to unravel, it makes sense they didn’t have time for this.
William hears his boyfriend’s thoughts – want to say “I love you” – and decides to tell him that he died in the car accident and came back a different person – he isn’t fully William Kaplan, and he doesn’t remember anything from before the accident, pretending to recover so he didn’t worry his parents.
William shows his boyfriend – Eddie – all his research in trying to find out what happened to him. He has worked out it is probably linked to what happened in Westview, and the spell cast there. He then takes Eddie on a trip to meet a guy who used to live there, during Wanda’s time there.
William and Eddie go to a dark, quiet car park and meet Ralph Bohner, who fans of WandaVision will remember as the guy who Agatha turned into a fake version of Pietro Maximoff in order to get close to Wanda. I didn’t remember either, but it’s all on the wiki.
Ralph tells them about what Wanda did in Westview, what really happened, and it finally explores the horrors Wanda put the people of that town through for all that time. It was torture, and awful, and I am surprised everyone in the town didn’t end up with PTSD or some kind of psychosis.
He then tells them about how Agatha used him as a puppet, and then mentions Wanda and Vision’s twin boys, Tommy and Billy. When he says that Billy could read minds, William starts to connect a few of the dots.
When he gets home, William finishes connecting the dots, image-searching Agatha’s face and finding out about all the death she is linked to, and eventually learning about the Witches’ Road. He then travels to find Agatha to take him to the Witches’ Road – as we see in episode 1 – because he wants to find his brother, Tommy.
I Do Not Wanna Poke the Bear
I absolutely love seeing the scenes where William is taken into “custody” by Agatha from his perspective. They are hilarious and wonderful and I wish we had seen more of other people watching her run about as a detective! Sure, it would have spoiled the narrative progression, but maybe just as extra scenes or something!
Oh, and the line “come on! I do not wanna go back in the closet” is the first line of this show to make me laugh out loud!. So, he releases Agatha from the spell, she locks him in the closet, and we come full circle.
It’s Nice to See You Again, Billy
Back on the Witches’ Road, in the “present day” – Agatha pulls herself out of the ground looking like Swamp Thing, and we see Billy crush the sigil in his hands.
Agatha and Billy have a chat, confirming again his identity, and indicating that he might have killed Lilia and Jen. Agatha is strangely motherly towards Billy, acting proud of his powers and telling him not to be ashamed of them.
When she says “it’s nice to see you again, Billy,” she actually means it. He might not be her son, but she seems to be using him as a surrogate son.
Billy says he can finish the Road without her, but when he goes to use his powers, he can’t get them to work. Agatha deduces that he wants to find his brother, Tommy, who Billy can sense but doesn’t know where he is.
“Gosh, you really are a Maximoff. Otherwise none of this would be nearly as dramatic.”
Agatha to Billy
They then head off down the Road together, onto the next Trial.
Concluding Thoughts for this Recap and Review of Familiar by Thy Side
I really enjoyed episode 6 of Agatha All Along, but the pacing of the series felt like it hit a bump. If all the episodes had been released at once, I don’t think I would have noticed, but other than getting some background on a character, we don’t know anything new, really, that we didn’t guess at the end of episode 5.
Now, that being said, I do appreciate the time they spent giving Billy some more characterisation. The addition of his motivation to find Tommy finally tells us what he wants and why, so now we can see the story from that point of view.
The fates of Lilia and Jen are still up in the air – or in the ground – but I think we’ll probably see them again. If Agatha tore her way out of the ground, then they probably can too. Plus, Rio is still missing… And we have no idea where she went.
