‘Agatha All Along’ Showrunner Talks Episode 6: Billy’s Backstory, Agatha’s Secret and That Cameo

She’s been Agatha all along, but Teen definitely hasn’t been Billy all along. In “Agatha All Along” Episode 6, we learned exactly how long Wanda’s son has been around in Eastview — and the answer is, not long.

Now streaming on Disney+, the latest episode of the Marvel series is mostly a flashback to the life of William Kaplan, a young boy living in Eastview when Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) created her hex in Westview. In fact, he was just becoming a man, as he celebrated his bar mitzvah.

Unfortunately, as he and his parents fled to their home to avoid any potential fallout from Wanda’s hex collapsing, they get into a car accident. It’s at this moment that William Kaplan dies, and Billy Maximoff moves into his body.

It’s a lot to unpack, but don’t worry, we went straight to showrunner Jac Schaeffer to sort out as much as we could in our latest episodic breakdown.

That’s right, we’re here a little early this week, and we’ll be running these every Friday from here on out. You’re welcome.

I was not prepared for the Bohner family reunion shirt. “Pitch a tent.” Just phenomenal.

Yes. That, I have to give credit where credit is due, that is consulting producer Megan McDonald. “Pitch a tent” was her idea. And we all, I mean, everyone knew that that was the most brilliant thing anyone ever uttered. It went immediately into production, and then on Kathryn’s body.

It was so good. Actually, before I get fully into Agatha today, I want to start with kind of a “WandaVision”-y question. Because I pregamed this episode by watching episode eight of “WandaVision.”

Oh!

There’s a moment in that episode where in the Salem flashback, when the women are like, “You betrayed your coven,” Agatha says “I can’t control it.” She said something similar in episode 5 of this show. So, can she control her powers? Is this something you can say?

I don’t think it’s something that I can or can’t say, because I really think it’s up to interpretation. I have my beliefs about it, but it’s one of those that I welcome everyone’s interpretation, because Agatha is duplicitous. She’s lying all the time.

It’s my feeling that, in the scene in question in “Agatha All Along,” when she tells Billy “I couldn’t control it,” I think she means it in that moment. In the Salem flashback, I’m not as certain. The auspices of that particular scene, it was a lot about trying to show how early she became a liar, how villainous is she? So, that’s just sort of a more slippery scene. But yeah, I personally believe she can’t always entirely control it.

That’s kind of where I landed too. But as we talk about “WandaVision,” especially in this episode of “Agatha,” it’s so fun seeing how everything lines up and how you layer it. You have this whole show you created, and now you’ve got this new show where you can put moments on top of each other. I have to imagine it’s challenging on some level, but also has to be so fun.

That’s exactly right. It is, like, excruciatingly difficult, and so fun, and rewarding. And that’s why I say we — people have been so lovely, and so devastated when characters die. But in this corner of the MCU, in the “WandaVision” universe, we are not linear (laughs).

You know, things are laid on top of each other all the time. And it’s like a 360-degree storytelling that, yeah, the writers and I delight in. I mean, going back to to “Agnes of Westview” through Billy’s eyes, totally delicious. So much fun.

OK, now we have to properly talk about the return of Ralph Bohner.

Yes!

I also wasn’t prepared — and I maybe should have been, right, because we’ve talked about how much we love Evan Peters — but nothing in that moment prepared me for him to turn around and for it to be Ralph Bohner.

You were legitimately surprised when he turned around?

Genuinely surprised. Until Billy said Bohneriffic69, I had no idea. It didn’t even cross my brain. I was really ready for a Mephisto reveal, if I’m being so honest with you.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m gonna pick Evan Peters as Ralph Bohner over Mephisto every day, and twice on Sunday. That’s my personal taste (laughs).

That is music to my ears. We have been protecting the secret for over three years. I did not think we’d get there, and that is exactly what I wanted for the audience. I wanted that slow turnaround and that gasp, and the joy of it, you know? The joy of “It’s Evan Peters back in another surprise, in another slow reveal.” Oh my God.

So this was in the works from the jump, you knew you wanted to bring back Ralph.

Oh yeah. So I had a checklist of what we were going to do. We were going to have music, we’re gonna have big costume moments, and Evan Peters was on that list. I haven’t been able to talk about that bullet point on my checklist, but he was on it from the beginning.

Any opportunity, just generally, to work with Evan Peters, but also just, Ralph Bohner, as you know, was controversial in the fullness of the “WandaVision” experience and I just wanted to bring him back. He’s so fantastic. We always had larger ideas of where he would go, what he would do, and just for fun things that entertained us.

And the idea of bringing him back and having him be so traumatized as a regular Joe, as somebody who just suffered, and Evan is such a specific talent who is able to make that feel at once authentic and hilarious. It’s so hard to do. You know, we say all the time that Kathryn Hahn is the tone of our show, but Evan Peters is a close second.

Can you tell me what his one-man show is in Paramus? I’m really interested in what the concept of that would be.

I know! (Laughs) I have to say, we didn’t go that far, but yeah, just the idea and that it was in Paramus. Oh my gosh, so much of it entertained us. And Evan.

One of the other big reveals in this episode is that Lilia is the one who cast the sigil, and I am so interested in why. Is it because she saw his future, knew he was going to eventually meet up with Agatha? What is the motivation here?

So we will learn more about the why of it in future episodes. But I do think, like, instinctively, you know, what the audience knows of Lilia’s character and her relationship with Teen, now Billy, I hope it sort of makes sense to people that it was done in a protective capacity, absolutely.

I’m also curious about the rules of the sigil. Because he has it with him at all times. It’s not like a spell that was put on him, it’s something that he has with him. So does it work with any witch who’s near? Because neither Lilia nor Alice have any recollection of encountering him, and he doesn’t seem to remember encountering them. So, just the mechanics of the sigil.

Sure. So the “on him” isn’t actually part of it. The reason that he has it on him all the time is because, for the character of Billy, after the accident, he had it on him at the time. So it just becomes important to him in terms of his own personal mystery of what happened to him and what he’s experiencing.

So he sort of keeps it with him the way, you know, Alice has her amulets, and Agatha has her cameo. We believe in sort of, you know, totems and amulets and things that are important to characters. So it’s just emblematic for him. It doesn’t have to do with the potency of the spell itself.

And then, yeah, it works on the witch who cast it, so once Lilia casts it, she can’t remember him. But the reason that Billy doesn’t remember Lilia is because he was William Kaplan at that time. And then the reason that he doesn’t remember Alice is because he was unconscious.

Oh, duh! Oh God, OK, I just wasn’t watching closely enough.

No, no, no, no, it’s really complicated! And there is a scene that we cut for pacing, where Alice is interviewing Mr. Kaplan, and he keeps saying Billy’s name, and she can’t hear it. She keeps trying to write it down, she can’t hear it.

And it’s a great scene. They’re terrific performers. It’s a great scene. It’s just one of the many moments of like, it’s a pacing thing, and this is, it’s sort of a double beat. She also doesn’t really see his face, because he’s covered in blood and he’s in the backseat. And then later, Billy does know Jen because he knows her work, and her reputation, and her products.

Having each one of the coven have a connection with Billy in some way is so great.

This is a “Please see my writer’s room” moment. This was born of the hive mind. That is the writers. We just felt really strongly about this notion that we — because we were creating the culture of witches in the MCU — and we loved this idea that a coven is drawn together by mysterious forces of fate.

So the idea of underlining that by seeing that, even before the adventure on the road, that there were intersections in their paths, just felt like more support of that concept, which we collectively feel is beautiful.

It is beautiful. We talked about the rules of the sigil, but I also want to get into the rules of witchcraft. Because when we go back to the road, there’s a moment where Agatha and Billy are having a conversation, and she’s like, “You saw an empty vessel. You took it. That’s how you survived. So you broke the rules, whatever.” So it is a big no-no to take over a dead body?

So I wouldn’t put that under the heading of witchcraft rules. I would put that under the heading of rules of nature, you know? Like that’s just maybe not something that a soul can necessarily choose to do. I mean, in the real world, I don’t have an answer about any of that. I’m fascinated by reincarnation. But in our world, what Agatha is sort of, I think, speaking to larger rules. That’s not specifically a witchcraft thing.

I think what she’s trying to say is like, “You are surviving by any means necessary. And because you have special powers, you’re able to do something that others can’t.”

I want to ask about the mechanics of how Tommy might be alive too, but I already know that that’s going to be a “see future episodes” thing, right?

Yes, yeah (laughs).

I thought so, OK. One thing I do want to ask about with Agatha, now we know how long she’s known about Billy. What I’m interested in is, what benefit did it serve her to hold that information back? We know that she’s always kind of playing a long game, and she’s always the first to know, but holding back the secret of who his parentage is, why would she hold it back as long as she did?

I have a couple things to say about that. I would also say that I think the answer to this question, for audiences, will be sort of filled in, shaded in more ways, in future episodes. But I think even at this point, first of all, with a tactician like Agatha, someone who is a grifter, and is so shrewd, and is playing a constant game of chess with everyone around her even if they don’t even know that it’s happening, if she has privileged information, she is going to keep that under wraps. Because she doesn’t know, when’s the moment that deploying that will serve her?

I also think, and this is more sort of interpretation, but the question of, when she says, “I wasn’t sure sure.” Inherent in that, for me, is, were there hopes? What did she see in him, if not Billy? So I think that sort of speaks more to her character, and kind of her source pain.

Well, and when she says his name, she says, “It’s good to see you again, Billy,” there are tears in Kathryn’s eyes. Which, thank you for choosing that take, because I assume, as Kathryn always does, she gave you levels there. But it seems sincere from her that it is good to see Billy again. And I just want to know where this comes from.

It’s so funny that you’re calling out that take. So, I just want to take a moment to shout out editor Libby Cuenin, who did an extraordinary job on this episode. And we did deliberate on that, and we talked it through, do we want the take with the tears in the eyes or not?

And I remember that conversation because, with an actor as gifted as Kathryn, yeah, you get kind of everything, and you are afforded the opportunity to shape the narrative based on the beauty that she gives. And I wanted the tears, because to me, I feel that moment is about her beholding his potential. I mean, I think it’s about her seeing this powerful witch in front of her.

And you know, all she did with Wanda, once Wanda knew who she was, all they did was fight. And so, at this point in the narrative, there’s conflict between Agatha and Billy, but they’re standing there and they’re talking, and I think she is just enraptured by who he is.

I do think part of that is, I think that there are fond feelings and fond memories of of their time together when he was little Billy, and I think she was, in a way, nosy neighbor. She was, in a way, the babysitter. Like, I think every role that Agatha plays, she believes a little bit. It’s a little bit of herself, and a little bit of her essence, and her soul. But I do think that the tears in the eyes, I think it’s pride.

You talk about the roles that Agatha plays, I want to talk about seeing the interrogation through Billy’s perspective. The garden hose head for a gun, I lost it. But I really want to know, was Rio actually there? Because we don’t see her when he looks in through the window. And the conversations, we find out, at least with Billy, Agatha wasn’t even hearing those conversations as they were actually happening. So was Rio actually there?

Again, this is a bit of an interpretation one. I think she was. That POV shot is obscured, there’s not an empty chair there. So I think she was, but it wasn’t — the story of episode 6 is Billy’s path and and what he’s focused on.

While we talk of Rio, there is a text that Billy gets from his boyfriend that says, “You are my heart.” It is a black heart. So is this coming down to interpretation again, or can you give an answer here? Because everyone assumed, I assumed, that Rio was the black heart, because she says, “My heart is black and it beats for you.” So who is the black heart? Can you say?

Yeah, Billy’s the black heart.

But this means now the math is not mathing. Because according to Lilia’s list, the coven was supposed to be Agatha, Lilia, Jen, Alice, and then Billy. Do we have an extra on the road with Rio?

First, I would say, you know, please see future episodes. And when I say it at this point Andi, when I’m saying “please see future episodes,” it’s no longer about — to me, and the way that I consume content — it is now less about the sort of concrete answers of things, and more about, as we move forward, there will be more information and more fleshing out, both in terms of character and just a richness that will enhance interpretation, if that makes sense.

But your point about how the math is not mathing, witchcraft is not mathematical. Witchcraft is so much about intention. It is so elusive. And I’ve been so delighted at how seriously fans are taking the rules, and the trials. And I would say to that, bravo and thank you. And also, witchcraft is murky, and witchcraft is imprecise.

Let’s also talk about the trials, because this is the first episode you have without a trial, at least since the road began.

Yeah!

I’m interested in how that impacted filming. Because you have Episode 1, and you get to film it as this tribute to “Mare of Easttown,” and it’s its own thing. Then Episodes 2 to 5, you’re on the road, you’re doing what you need to do. And then you’ve got this flashback episode. So how did that change how you formulated things, how you approached the tone of everything?

So I always wanted this episode to have similar DNA to Episode 4 of “WandaVision,” where, in “WandaVision,” you get into the rhythm of three sitcoms, and you think you know what’s up. And then in Episode 4, you jump all the way outside of it, and you get what we call “the rewind episode” that shows you how we got to this point. And so I wanted to do that again.

This audience is smart. I couldn’t do it in Episode 4. We decided to do it in Episode 6, and we decided to pair it with the Billy backstory, so that you would actually get so much more out of it, because you’re getting the answers that you’re craving about who is this kid, and unpacking the primary mystery of the show, while also stepping outside, stepping off the road.

I felt that audiences would need a break. The road is quite claustrophobic. The trials have a cadence to them, and I thought it would serve the experience, the linear watch of the show, to get a palate cleanser and to feel different stakes.

I just want to take a moment to speak to the writer of the script, Jason Rostovsky, who really did an exceptional job. I hired him to be the voice of Billy. There’s so many things about him that make him right for that assignment, and I knew from the beginning that he would be the one to write this episode.

And when it came in, it had such a different texture than the rest of the episodes, and we all in the room, when we did the table read, we knew immediately that it was something very special. It just was Billy. His work on the page was so kind of tender, and melancholy, and poetic, especially the first half before we really — because the first half is quite sad and quite intense, and then the second half is very, very funny.

It was that feeling of being inside this character’s story in a very POV way that kind of informed everything else. Then [director] Gandja Monteiro, this is her first episode of her block, and she came in really attaching to the Billy POV. There’s so much that feels very much like his literal POV of what’s going on. It feels kind of drifty in a way, that we’re with his psychology.

And then to the score Christophe Beck and Michael Paraskevas gave us. My conversation with them is like, “How can the score be more aligned with Billy?” So it’s a far more synth-y score. We are very orchestral and very organic instruments, and kind of tools.

Especially Rio’s, like, her theme is, it’s a lot of sort of non-instrument instruments, but they’re all very tactile. And then for Billy, we wanted it to feel a little more synth-y, a little more electronic. So anyway, this is all to say that I see this episode as kind of a funny island in in the middle of the show, which is something in my viewership that I enjoy.

We talked about, last week, the idea of bringing Billy in, and it was always something you wanted to do. I also am curious if the intention was always to do the soul switching. He’s William Kaplan first and then he’s Billy Maximoff. So, was it always the intent to have William Kaplan die? Were there other ways you were going to bring Billy in, other ways that you considered making his existence work?

Yeah, so we always knew the priorities were that we wanted to preserve what was canon in the comics, that we felt was necessary. So that’s William Kaplan, his kind parents the Kaplans, the fact that they are a Jewish family, the fact that he is a gay young man, these were the things that we were like “We are doing these things that are about his character” that felt vital to our story.

The sort of larger mechanics of what we sort of refer to as a reincarnation, that was very tough to figure out in the room. The idea of literally how it happens, and what does it mean? What are we saying about William Kaplan? What are we saying about Billy Maximoff? And it was Peter Cameron who had the idea early on of the car crash. He described it in this really lovely way of like a car sort of wrapping around a tree in a way that is both violent and kind of weirdly beautiful.

The idea that I think we kind of attached to in the room was, like a severing in a cataclysmic moment where there is a very clear before and a very clear after. It felt like a way to really streamline this, what had the potential to be a very convoluted plot.

And we want it to be easily digestible for the audience, still very poignant and kind of Shakespearean in how big the stakes are and the feelings are. But that was a sort of a tough piece to figure out correctly. And it also, I think the biggest challenge was, comic book folks know the story. Regular viewers do not. So how plain to make it was a real question.

But we sort of landed on, it needed to be a regular non-comic-reading viewer needed to understand what they were seeing on screen.

So I need a definitive answer on this one. I need a yes or no here. Is Agatha the real Jolene?

(Laughs). In the MCU, hell yeah.

Making Agatha, over the years, a Titanic survivor, the real Jolene, all so funny. So just leave me with this, what kind of ideas did you bat around? Where else did you see her popping up in history?

So, one of the ways that I like to work is, I really enjoy — I give my writers homework. And the way that I do that is I give them a big assignment, like “What’s the engine of Episode 3,” huge assignment. And then I give them what I consider to be a smaller, kind of amuse-bouche, more fun assignment.

And there was a day where the assignment was, “Give me five low-level, nefarious things that Agatha has done in her deep past.

And they went with Hindenburg? That’s not low level!

I don’t think Hindenburg was on that one, but Jolene was. That was a Laura Donney idea. And it was one of, I remember being one of the most fun days in the room, was everybody coming in with their sort of low-level Agatha nasties. And that was Laura Donney. She was like, “She’s Jolene.” And we were just like, everybody fell out. It was so funny.

What were the rest of them? What didn’t make it to the screen?

The ones that I remember, some of them aren’t really appropriate. I’m trying to remember some of the other ones, but it was just sort of mean-spirited stuff. I’m gonna ask our writer’s assistant and see if they can remember, because it would be fun if I could fill in another one for you.

Note: this interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

“Agatha All Along” is now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes dropping on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. PT.

TheWrap will have a new deep dive with Schaeffer for each episode on Fridays. You can check out our breakdown of the first five episodes here.

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‘Agatha All Along’ Showrunner Talks Episode 6: Billy’s Backstory, Agatha’s Secret and That Cameo

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