‘Agatha All Along’ champions Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs

HI GAY! Agatha All Along episode 6 is what we’ve all been waiting for. It’s about time the Marvel Cinematic Universe got with the program!

Major spoilers ahead for Agatha All Along episode 6.

Episode 6, “Familiar by Thy Side,” primarily focuses on the backstory of our favorite queer MCU hero, Billy Maximoff (Joe Locke), aka Wiccan, aka William Kaplan. We see the fallout of the town neighboring Westview and the car crash referenced at the beginning of the series. Billy’s “soul” appears to have jumped from Westview to William Kaplan’s body, which is how Wanda’s imaginary child took shape in reality. Along the way, we get glimpses into the parameters of Billy’s powers.

After a 3-year time jump, we see Billy KISS his BOYFRIEND! Partner. Situationship. Eddie (Miles Gutierrez-Riley). And it was pretty intense until Billy started to hear his boo-ting’s thoughts. It was cute. It’s not Heartstopper cute, but perfectly adorable in that lovesick teenager kind of way. (Who am I kidding, I was kicking and screaming!)

This little gay kiss has broken barriers for the MCU. We’ve had hints that led to fanfiction to keep us on the hook, as we fantasized about rendezvous between Captain America and the Winter Soldier and Captain Marvel and Valkyrie dating intergalactically long distance. We got a little peck in The Eternals between Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and his hubby, Ben (Haaz Sleiman), but it wasn’t what we’d all been hoping for (though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a long overdue momentous moment). No, in Agatha All Along, BILLY FRENCHES EDDIE! At last, we no longer have to suffer with scraps of “queer representation” in the form of director Joe Russo playing a nameless gay man talking about a really depressing date in group therapy.

(Photo by Chuck Zlotnick/Disney+)

Thankfully, episode 6 of Agatha All Along does not drag its feet nor congratulate itself profusely for being “groundbreaking.” We simply move on from the moment and delight in the fortuitous presence of other witches in Billy’s backstory; Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone) is the fortune teller at Billy’s bar mitzvah, and it appears that she was the one who put the sigil on him as well. Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn) is the police officer who helps Billy’s parents after the car crash. Billy has Jennifer Kale’s (Sasheer Zamata) vlog open on his laptop. And finally, we get to see Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) in her detective era from Billy’s perspective.

This brings us to a point of contention, though. Several actors have referred to the show as being queer during the press tour; it was hard to take them at their word with the rumors of Disney pulling back on queerness in their projects after Lightyear’s brief sapphic kiss scene. It’s restored my hope that Billy gets to kiss Eddie, not once but twice. However, when Aubrey Plaza agreed that Agatha All Along would be the “gayest” MCU show yet, I hoped what she meant was that she and Kathryn Hahn would be the ones swapping spit.

My worst fear is that Rio Vidal (Plaza) and Agatha won’t get their moment. We’ve had an almost kiss and some lingering gazes, but those are the scraps queer women have dealt with for decades. It’s always felt like gay men are considered far more palatable, with the rest of us waiting our turn. However, there is still hope, with three more episodes remaining.

And if that isn’t enough news for you, at this point, we may be at the highest tally for key characters murdered in a single MCU project. I’m counting three witches and one townie. Sure, the snap took out half the planet and half the Avengers, but they came back, and it wasn’t nearly so gruesome. Agatha All Along has a poisoning, a stolen lifeforce, and two bog drownings. Does any other Marvel project have a kill count that high? Gosh. What a night for queer goth Marvel fans. We’re really winning with this one.

To see the temporary truce between resident nosy neighbor Agatha and angsty spectre-baby Billy plays with our emotions. These powerful witches are toying with us. Their chemistry is so right, but their collateral damage is so wrong … I feel like channeling Jennifer Coolidge: “These gays, they’re trying to kill me!”