Agatha All Along – Episode 6 “Familiar By Thy Side” Recap & Review

Familiar By Thy Side

Episode 6 of Agatha All Along begins with a look at Wiccan growing up. He’s known as William here and he’s at his Bat Mitzvah. Whilst partying it out, he meets with Lilia, who’s a fortune teller. She reads his palm and mentions how there’s a big journey ahead and his life life has been split into too.

Lilia mentions something called the Tower reversed, which causes her to spiral and encourages him to “enjoy the now”. When he leaves, she marks a stone with what looks like a curse and drops it in his jacket.

Just like that, panic grips the place as everyone is forced to head home as there’s trouble in Westview. They head over to the aptly titled Eastview, where Wiccan’s mum and dad crash the car as they’re not paying attention.

Billy suddenly awakens after being knocked out and calls for his brother, Tommy. He’s taken to the hospital, still holding onto this strange wooden sigil. He starts to hear things, with the power to hear his parents’ thoughts. Things are different for Wiccan now though. He heads home and barely recognizes himself or his surroundings. It all becomes too much and Wiccan continues to hear his parents’ worries.

Fast forward 3 years and Billy is in his emo phase with his boyfriend. He’s contemplating saying I love you but Billy hears his boyfriend’s thoughts before he says it. Billy is also holding the sigil in his hand too. He believes he’s been different since the crash, as if he’s in the wrong body and has come back to life… but it’s all wrong. He doesn’t think he’s this William character and decides to look into the case deeper.

YouTube footage from Westview crops up and Wiccan recognizes runes in the red sky and knows that it’s Witchcraft. Billy has found a guy from Reddit that used to live in Westview so they head off to question him. He’s skittish and points out that he remembers everything. He discusses Wanda’s sitcom shtick and how she controlled everything in town.

This guy, Ralph, is clearly mentally traumatized by the incident and admits he wakes up screaming every hour at night as a result of this. He also mentions Agatha and how his deal, compared to everyone else in town, was way worse. Agatha hijacked his life and forced him to be her husband. He held a lady hostage in his attic and believes he was a terrible influence on Wanda and Vision’s kids. The fake kids, Billy and Tommy.

Ralph doesn’t bring up the extent of Wanda’s disgusting torture on the entire town of Westview, but does mention how Agatha is under a spell there too. Ralph warns Billy not to go sniffing around but this is enough for him to understand his role in all this.

If this wasn’t blatant enough for you, Billy writes out everything we’ve just heard on a sheet of paper, the Witches Road song plays on the radio, and he does some research into Agatha and the Road.

Billy shows up in Westview and this is where we tie into the beginning of Agatha All Along. He looks through Agatha’s stuff to find a personal item and then finds her doing her detective schtick.

We then get a recap of episode 1, this time with Billy calling himself Wanda’s son right in front of her. As Agatha crawls up out of the mud, she finds Billy, who has embraced himself and destroyed this wooden sigil. Agatha has figured it out 5 episodes ago (just like all of us) and now Agatha calls him Billy properly.

Lilia and Jen have apparently been killed so Agatha speaks to Billy and tells him he needs to embrace who he is. Billy decides he no longer needs her and decides to go through The Road on his own. Agatha figures it out and realizes Billy is after Tommy. So the pair head off and find the next trial.


The Episode Review

What a slow, ponderous waste of time that was. We get the confirmation and backstory that Billy is who we thought he was and then we see replays of episode 1 with Billy revealing his true name to Agatha. Why would he do that though?

At this point, the only thing Billy knows is what Ralph told him – that Agatha is dangerous. Revealing his true name to her makes no sense but then neither does this show to be honest.

The “rules” around the sigil and how it works really aren’t explained that well here. Why did Lilia make the sigil for him? Was this to protect him from Agatha? It’s assumed that she saw his future with him dying and then coming back as Billy but she had no idea that he’d hold onto this wooden sigil for the entirety of his life without fear of it breaking, right? Especially as he just crushed it in his hand like it was nothing down the Witch’s Road. And that’s before mentioning that Agatha seemingly knew who Billy was and didn’t kill him because… reasons?

The rules around Agatha’s spell though is still a big point of contention too. You’re telling me that this woman has just been wandering around Westview for years pretending to be a detective and everyone else there is just… ok with it? Nobody mentions anything to her or wonders what she’s doing?

We have to talk about the overacting from Kathryn Hahn here too, which is super cringy. It’s completely unnecessary. For an episode that plays everything so straight (no pun intended), the campy, over the top performance proper takes you out of it.

While better than a few episodes before it, this is still a poor chapter, all things considered, for a spin-off that’s increasingly becoming utterly pointless.

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