Friday, October 18, 2024

Agatha All Along Ep 6: Heeere's Billy!

I love that Episode 6 is a complete break from the pattern that began on the Road, and was starting to get repetitive. It's clear that Teen is Billy, Wanda's kid. And now we get some answers about how that came to be. The clues were there all along.

Half the episode is spent on connecting the dots of Teen's backstory which in itself is a lot of fun as we see fragments of the puzzle fall into place, explaining how a life conceived in a delusional woman's fever dream could possibly manifest itself in corporeal form, along with his true motivation for walking the Road. The other half is a complete re-shoot of Episode 1, but from Teen's perspective rather than Agatha's. It's hilarious as we get to see how her neighbours would have interacted with someone whom they would have rightfully considered delusional for the past three years. It's nice that they treated her kindly all that time while she behaved like a complete lunatic in their midst.

Although it's Agatha's show, this episode is almost entirely Billy's vehicle. Agatha survives her attempted drowning in the bog -- which seems to be her forte -- so she gets to be the sole audience to hear Billy's sigil-uncensored self-reveal. I'm not clear how she knows, but with Billy seemingly having killed off Jen and Lilia in the previous episode, Agatha senses a kindred witch-killing spirit in him. As the two surviving members of the coven that started this journey proceed further down the Road looking for the next trial, their relationship dynamic is now more unwilling master-apprentice, less owner-goldie. In the meantime, Rio's whereabouts are unknown and no one's looking for her anyway.

How will Coven Harkness pass the next trial if it's meant for Lilia or Rio? Could a resurrection be in store for Lilia if it's hers? Will we return to formula and the Oz motifs in the next and subsequent episodes? Only a week to find out.

Wait. I just realized that Billy has replaced Agatha as Dorothy. Like Dorothy who recognizes that her travelling companions on the Yellow Brick Road are people she knows and met in real life, so too has Billy/William Kaplan encountered the members of Coven Harkness before their journey on the Witches' Road. The Oz theme is still driving the story, but it's taken an unexpected detour. Awesome!

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