The Witches’ Road grants those who travel it and survive its trials with whatever it is they desire most at the end of their journey. On Agatha All Along, the mysterious Teen gets Agatha Harkness to assemble a coven to unlock the Road, with each witch seeking something important from the journey. Teen’s reason for wanting to walk the road isn’t made clear at the outset, but last week’s episode, “Darkest Hour/Wake They Power” cast the entire journey into a whole new light. “Teen” was revealed to really be Billy Maximoff and now, given his family’s history with Agatha, everything we thought we knew is now up in the air. But we also have a bitter question: What does Billy really want from The Witches’ Road?
According to Joe Locke, who plays Billy, the former “Teen” is definitely not looking for power. He has power, he demonstrated it last week with that big reveal of his identity and he’s been lying to everyone this whole time — especially Agatha.
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“We definitely know that he went on the road looking for power, which is a lie,” Locke told ComicBook. “He’s got power. So, what was he looking for? Why does he want to go on the road? Why has he been lying to Agatha this whole time?”
If power isn’t the goal, Billy clearly is looking for something else and a few ideas come to mind: revenge against Agatha for what she did to Wanda in WandaVision, to bring his mother back, or to find his brother, Tommy. Let’s break those possibilities down
Billy Wants Revenge
One of the things that could be Billy’s motivation for walking The Witches’ Road is revenge — or more specifically to see Agatha pay. Agatha is, in a very real sense, the architect of much of Billy’s suffering. Her actions in WandaVision not only pushed Wanda to fully come into her power, but one of the consequences of all of that was the taking down of the hex, seemingly destroying Billy, Tommy, and Wanda’s version of Vision. While we still don’t know how exactly Billy survived that, the situation still caused Billy to lose everything in some fashion. His mother is gone. HIs father doesn’t exist. We have no idea where his brother is, if he survived. For Billy, getting Agatha on the Road could very well be a way to let the Road test the powerless witch and make her endure suffering as part of the journey, forcing her to experience a fraction of what he has lived with. It doesn’t necessarily grant Billy anything tangible at the end of the Road, like the power he claimed he was seeking, but watching Agatha suffer — and potentially not even survive — might be heart’s desire enough.
The Road Will Bring Wanda Back
While seeing Agatha suffer certainly feels like a real goal, Billy’s heart’s desire might be something less aggressive and much more deeply emotional. Billy might just simply want his mother back — so much so that he may have made an arrangement with someone else to get it done. One of the things that is interesting about Billy is that we meet him somewhat in conjunction with Rio. Agatha is still deep under Wanda’s spell in that first episode, imagining that her life is essentially a police procedural, but the two strangers that enter the picture and bring her out of it are Rio and Billy. That can’t be a coincidence. It is possible that Billy made an agreement with Rio — or perhaps even someone else (cough, Mephisto, cough). Getting Agatha out from under the spell would still leave the witch vulnerable as she has no powers and getting her on the Road could allow Rio and whoever else is coming for Agatha to have a better shot at taking her down. For Billy, walking the Road may be less about what the Road can give him and more what whoever he’s serving can — and if various theories about Rio’s identity pan out, that could be bringing back Wanda and others he loves.
Billy Is Just Trying to Get Tommy Back
It’s the idea of getting back a lost loved one that also presents a third possibility: maybe Billy wants the Rod to bring Tommy back. For Billy, getting to the road might not be some grand scheme. He may have simply needed a witch with experience on The Witches’ Road — in this case, the infamous Agatha Harkness — to get him there and after that it’s just a matter of surviving to the end so that the Road can grant him his twin brother back. The twin bond is a powerful thing and it would make sense that Billy would do almost anything to get his brother back. With this in mind, Billy may never have intended on revealing himself or his powers. He may have just wanted to walk the Road, get his brother, and then move on with his life finally no longer missing his other half, as it were. This would explain why he’s largely kept things low key up until the third trial as well as why Alice’s death impacted him so much. Her death pushed him a little too far, causing him to reveal himself and lash out because, from his perspective, Alice was the witch most like him and the one that he got the closest to on the journey to that point. Her death — also because of Agatha, much like the loss of his own family — simply pushed him too far.
Heading into Episode 6, there are a lot of unknowns. We don’t know what happened after Billy chucked all the witches (except Rio) off the Road and into the mud. We don’t know how Billy survived the hex or even how he was outside of it (as was teased in the midseason trailer). We also don’t know exactly what he wants — but with just four episodes remaining, and with Billy’s identity revealed, the path to finding out seems to have presented itself and hopefully we’ll start getting answers as to if Billy wants revenge, his mother, or just to bring back his twin.
Agatha All Along is now streaming on Disney+. New episodes drop Wednesdays at 9pm ET.