Agatha All Along has Agatha and Billy facing the next trial which focuses on Lilia, her story is winding around moments through the entire series! Re:cap - “Familiar by Thy Side”; After the revealation of The Teen as the son of Wanda Maximoff, he has trapped Agatha into the Road, and also did the same with Lilia and Jen. The episode opens on William Kaplan’s bar mitzvah at thirteen, he sees Lilia working as a fortune teller, and she gives him the sigil! Reports come in about the Anomaly in Westview and everyone is sent home. His family gets into a car accident that leads to his death, still he wakens calling out Tommy’s name. Three years later, the curren time, William goes with his boyfriend, Eddie, to meet with a contact who turns out to be Ralph Boehner! William researches Agatha and then we see his perspective as William breaks into her house. We find when the sigil hid his words that he was saying his name was William Kaplan and then Billy Maximoff!
Agatha is about to pull herself out of the muck of The Witches’ Road, Billy crushes the sigil, and she wonders about how he got his new body. Billy says he doesn’t need Agatha now. Agatha goes over what Billy wants from The Road, not his mother, and not “robo-papa”, funny! Then, she brings up his twin brother, “Toby”! Billy has sensed Tommy and says he doesn’t trust her. The uneasy partnership continues to the next trial. Agatha says the last one there is a nice person. Billy whispers, “I’m not that nice.” The seventh episode is directed by Jac Schaeffer, the show’s creator who returns after directing the first two episodes. The writers are Gia King, she wrote for the comedy series, The Breakdown, and Cameron Squires, who also wrote the third episode. The "Death's Hand in Mine" lyric and title make me believe the last episode will be "Mother, Maiden, Crone"; the phases that we find Agatha going through? The dissolve from Billy on The Road opens to a closeup of Lilia’s distorted gasping. She is falling in a pink dress like Glinda the Good Witch. A resolution of what happened to Lilia and now her trial!
Billy and Agatha and walking the Road and he asks her where’s Rio, but she brushes that question away. Then, Billy asks her if Wanda is dead, she has seen the body. In front of them is a castle perched on a mountainside, classic horror setting! They enter the gate and are transformed, Agatha into the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz, complete with green skin, and Billy is now Maleficent! She points out a circular table where Billy finds Tarot cards. An hourglass spins to drop the sand for their timer. He draws the “horse drawn-“, Agatha cuts him off to tell him that it is The Chariot which is on the card!, Billy says it represents movement. It actually means victory over a conflict through will power. He sets the card down and a sword plunges down! Different suits of Tarot cards involve swords with different meanings. The Ace of Swords is quick action. Billy looks upwards to see a roof of hanging swords!
Billy’s next card is the Seven of Swords, he says, correctly that it is about deception. It is reversed, he sets it down, and another sword falls! Agatha takes the cards and a sword falls when she pulls one. Then, she drops card after card with the swords falling around them, Billy looks up and dodges a sword striking his chair! Agatha says they should keep drawing cards, but all of the six places are taken. The rings of the table starts to turn and the ceiling with the swords starts to drop! Billy says he wishes Lilia was there. We see Lilia’s eyes and face muddied by The Road. She tells Jen that she was falling. They are in some underground passage with bright yellow roots. Jen said she told her to find shelving. Also, that the son of the Scarlet Witch took them off The Road! Lilia is shocked and then realizes that she had told Jen. Jen brings up that she is being “wispy.” This flashes back to the fourth episode where Lilia asked Alice if she was “wispy or kooky.”
Lilia says, “Try to save Agatha” which shifts to her saying this to Agatha at her house. We finally get where Lilia’s outburst originated. This brings her to an elderly woman (Laura Boccaletti) who asks is seen. Boccaletti is in the thriller, Painter (2020). Lilia is a young girl in a yellow dress, a return for the actress from the third episode, who speaks to her teacher. It moves to Maestra who says Lilia is “visiting.” This turns back to Lilia in her present form. She asks and her Maestra says it is her first lesson. This episode is an interesting weaving of time, characters, and story that must have been fun for Schaeffer to direct. Maestra asks again and Lilia focuses on the bowl of tea leaves. On the Road again, Lilia gasps, Jen says she hasn’t heard the Salem Seven since the subway station? Lilia tells her “time is an illusion” and she had grown up out of sequence, a mix up, Merlin in Once and Future King lived life backwards. Lilia admist her gaps are becoming worse. Heartbreaking, this feels like a supernatural version, the disorientation of Alzheimer’s. Then, she screams and finds herself in the Glinda the Good Witch dress.
Agatha is on top of her and says she stopped her from getting impaled by a sword! Lilia pushes Agatha off her. Billy tries to check on Lilia, but she pushes him against the wall. Watching them is Jen with long, grey dreadlocks and black robe like 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarf’s Evil Queen as a witch. He tries to apologize to Lilia about his power and it comes out fragmented. Billy says he could have used his power to save Alice and Lilia realizes that he is reading her mind! She remembers his bar mitzvah. Jen takes Lilia to the side and says she is not mad at Billy. Lilia tells Billy that she was reading his fortune. He asks if she cast the sigil and Lilia says she knew who he was and needed time. More swords plunge down! Lilia wonders what she did wrong. She moves back to the fourth episode saying she hated it the first time. She screams and then is back in her kitchen with Billy and Agatha. She panics and repeats stop over and over. Then, Lilia finds herself back with her Maestra.
Lilia says her first coven didn’t work out as well as this one, she says she is better as a fraud, Maestra says she still has fear. She wants control, Maestra says her task is “to see”, this moves from the sun to the light falling in the tunnel. She is walking with Jen and says she knows the next trial. Jen says it is Tarot because Lilia told her. She looks down and finds the spellbook of Billy! Jen says Lilia told her the episodes happened when she was young. Lilia tells her that they stopped when she ignored them. She says all she saw was death! An acting feat for LuPone, crazy, frightened, all in different moments and characters, throughout the show!, I hope she gets award recognition for this challenging role. They hear Billy and Agatha’s muffled voices. Also, around a corner, Agatha sees shelves! In front of them is Agatha and Billy when the table ring starts to turn. The ceiling drops, Lilia and Jen drop out of the bookshelf, and Agatha points out the ceiling with swords.
Ignoring the ceiling, Lilia concentrates on the table with the Tarot cards, and says, “My tasks is to see.” Lilia asks who is the quarant, the subject of the reading, and Billy says he is the quarant. She has Billy shuffle and cut the cards. They argue about the question and Billy finally asks if he is William or Billy. The ceiling stops. Lilia explains the card spaces of the “Safe Passage” spread. She calls Billy, Teen, and he is the Traveler, then the reason for his quest, and then lastly his destination. This is the first time that we see Lilia focused, professional. He choses the Magician card, Billy has potential, Lilia sets down the card and a sword falls! The next card is the reason, The Sun, Billy brightens at the reunion mentioned by Lilia. Another sword falls which disturbs Agatha, but it is not failure, it is the completion of the Tarot. Lilia asks for the Path Behind card, a sword is about to fall, and Lilia says, “Get off me!” There are flashes from several moments!
She is back with her Maestra who confronts her about the reason she is on the Witches’ Road. Lilia admits she didn’t want to go, then that she wanted her power back, and Maestra counters that her power never left. Then, Lilia admits she doesn’t want to be a “forgotten woman.” There is some real emotion here, I always like the teacher figure like Yoda, trying to set right the apprentice. Also, great acting by Boccaletti. Lilia asks about her worth, she says their coven died by fever, and she saw it. Maestra says, “Death comes for us all.” There are tears in Lilia’s eyes. Lilia says she was falling and Maestra asks what she will do with her time before dying. Lilia covered in mud wakes up Jen and updates her on what happened. She is excited in a storehouse that is also a cave that she has the gaps filling in. One path leads to a room. Lilia hears the Salem Seven and they go to hide! The robed figures pass and Lilia points out the tunnel with the yellow roots, like the Yellow Brick Road? She wants to take it to help Billy and Agatha with the divination test.
Lilia asks Jen to join her, she looks to the comfort of the room, and then heads down the tunnel. She says to herself, “I know what I did wrong.” Lilia gathers the cards and says she is the Traveler. She says, “I am -“, this goes back to her younger self who says, “the Queen of Cups.” A meaning of a caring person who helps others on their path. Maestra happily says she can now see. She sets down the card and the ceiling spins. Agatha notes that no swords have dropped. Lilia takes out the next card, her quest’s purpose, and it is the Three of Pentacles. She sees the Three Star Rental eviction notice. Lilia says it is “singular voices waiting to harmonize.” She says she needed them, her coven. Next card, the past, the Knight of Wands, and she sees Alice using her power. The ceiling closes down shutting out the light from openings. The future, The High Priestess card is drawn, and she sees Jennifer. Power, but not able to use it. This is an impressive episode weaving Tarot cards, narrative across the episodes and characters, and showcasing Lilia Calderu who has been fascinating!
Five+ Lockets out of Five!
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