Spoilers below for Episode 6 of Agatha All Along, so be warned if you haven't yet witched...er...watched.
Agatha All Along’s fifth and six episodes finally connected the pieces behind one of the Fall TV season’s biggest mysteries. While hearing Billy Maximoff named as Joe Locke’s Teen alter ego wasn’t entirely surprising, given the leaks and rumors, that didn’t lessen the joy of watching a full-episode backstory for William Kaplan becoming Wanda’s son and finding Agatha. Connections to past episodes were plentiful, and I’m pretty sure it gave us an explanation for Lilia’s seemingly random prophetic outbursts.
On top of that, in a most certainly connected way, “Familiar By Thy Side” also revealed the source of the sigil that kept the teen from revealing his real name to other witches. Which understandably explains why the same sigil was seen on each of the promotional tarot cards unveiled ahead of the season’s premiere. So let’s revisit what the episode laid out there, and how it very likely explains that Lilia wasn’t just being weird or forgetful in past episodes.
Lilia Was Responsible For Billy's Sigil, And Immediately Forgot About It
On what turned out to be a traumatically fateful day for both the Kaplan family and the citizens of Westview — like everybody's favorite DM buddy Bohnerrific69 — William Kaplan had his palm read by Liila, and her words rattled him enough that he left his jacket behind. (Are palm-reader tents a common sight at Bar Mitzvah parties, either in New Jersey or anywhere else?) Having also been rattled, presumably by foreseeing William's impending death, Lilia crafted the sigil and dropped it in his jacket pocket.
Strangely enough, Patti LuPone's character almost immediately lost track of what she'd just done, and seemed to have no memory of just having met William. For those who may not remember Agatha's minor exposition in Episode 4, or for those who skipped past the "Previously On..." section, that bit of confusion was contextualized. After denying responsibility for crafting the sigil, Agatha rethinks it and says she actually wouldn't know, because:
A sigil works on the witch who casts it as well. That's why we don't use them as much.
I guess Lilia lacked any better means of keeping William/Billy safe from other witches, and was forced to take the less-than-ideal route of using a sigil instead. So if she was the one behind the sigil that makes people forget things, then it stands to reason that one instance of Lilia appearing dazed is connected to other ones.
I Think The Sigil Was Stopping Lilia From Understanding And Remembering Her Predictions
Everything viewers know about Lilia points to her being a genuine prognosticator whose abilities don’t often leave her bewildered and without memory of having said them. Otherwise, she might not ever remember that she had powers in the first place. So it’s safe to say that something has been affecting the witch’s mindset that goes beyond just “The Road does weird things.”
As such, I think that each of Lilia’s sudden exclamations have foretold a particular moment in the future, likely related to an upcoming Agatha All Along episode. But because those moments almost necessarily have something to do with Billy, the sigil previously stopped her from latching onto that fact, thus her inability to remember anything she’d just said in those instances.
Of course, Lilia and Jen are still stuck in their swampy tombs at the end of Episode 6, with only Agatha having clawed her way up out of it. (Not entirely dissimilar to Rio arriving on the Witches’ Road in Episode 4.) As such, we’ll have to wait to see whether or not Lilia has any further verbal eruptions when she does return, and whether or not she’s able to recall them.
If she can’t, and still seems out of sorts, then I’ll use my own blue magic to shove this theory down into the muck. But I’m confident that I’ll be proven right and won’t require the soul of a witch’s son to inhabit my body for the aforementioned magic to happen.
Regardless of all that, I'm also still wondering where Rio went after Alice's death, and whether or not we'll see any more big moments from Emma Caulfield's Sarah Proctor. Not to mention wondering if Sharon is going to return in any way, or if Debra Jo Rupp's appearance in Billy's backstory was her final scene. If only Lilia were here to let us know what the future holds.
New episodes of Agatha All Along are available to stream with a Disney+ subscription every Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m.
