Agatha’s latest MCU cameo All along is a callback (and probably not the Marvel villains fans were hoping for)

(Ed. remark: This post discusses spoilers for Agatha all the time episode 6, “Known by Your Side.” Only go down the road if you want some witchy spoilers.)

The show is called Agatha all the timebut Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) certainly isn’t the only Marvel star to make an appearance. As of episode 6, “Familiar by Thy Side,” we now officially have Billy Maximoff, aka Wiccan (or, now in the MCU, Wiccan-to-be) on board. What pushes Agatha all the time towards Wanda Maximoff and WandaVision call back. So it makes sense that Agatha would bring back many people’s (least) favorite part WandaVision: Ralph Bohner.

Still, the reveal feels a little strange after fans speculated from the show’s trailer that the mysterious stranger would be in the parking garage Mephisto, Marvel Comics version of Satan. Is Ralph Bohner who he says he is after ‘Familiar by Thy Side’?

…Probably yes! Let’s look at the evidence.

Evan Peters came in for the first time WandaVision as Pietro, Wanda’s long-deceased brother. For fans, Peters’ performance was a fun bit of stunt casting: Pietro, aka Quicksilver, was played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the MCU, in Avengers: Age of Ultron. But Peters played Quicksilver in Fox’s X-Men universe, especially in one X-Men: Apocalypse scene where he brutally saves all his fellow heroes. (It’s about the only thing worth remembering about that movie.) So when Peters appeared as Pietro in the MCU’s WandaVision Right when the X-Men were cleared to join the MCU, it seemed like his version of Quicksilver might find a way into this franchise after all.

But then real life took over. Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) discovered that “Pietro” was actually just a Westview citizen under Wanda’s spell (and more importantly, under Agatha’s secret control). His name was actually Ralph Bohner, and he was the actual resident of the house that Agnes (aka Agatha) lived in, and the mysterious husband that Agnes kept making sitcom jokes about. Fan dreams for a legitimized Fox mutants-in-the-MCU scenario sank.

Agatha all the time brings Ralph back in a way that feels consistent with his character thus far. When he appears in Episode 6, he’s kind of a crazy MCU version of Deep Throat, a Westview resident still deeply haunted by his time under Wanda and Agatha’s control. Unfortunately, the only person who seems to believe “Bohnerrific69”’s story is Billy Maximoff. We even see Agatha wearing a “Bohner Family Reunion” shirt when she first meets Billy.

Ralph puts Billy on the trail of Agatha (an “old, crazy witch who will erase your shit”), noting that she has hijacked his life, stolen his house (and “completely ruined its market value”) and done horrible things to him had done. things. It’s no surprise that Ralph is on the run.

Some fan chatter followed Agatha‘s midseason trailer that we might have caught a glimpse of Mephisto after seeing the back of a head in a bucket hat. But now we know it’s just Ralph showing off his incognito look.

So far, Agatha all the time hasn’t really provided any evidence that he could be Mephisto in disguise. It would be a nice narrative callback WandaVisionCertainly, the late reveal of Agatha as the ‘real’ villain. But given the one scene we’ve seen of him, he just seems like a guy who’s lost it a bit after undergoing some serious mind control. The few details we see in his costumes appear to be merely protection spells (a cross on his bucket hat, an evil eye necklace, and apparently a few items sewn into the inside of his jacket). And while there have been references to the de facto devil of the Marvel Universe – previously one of the witches spoke of Agatha’s son as a rumored “agent of Mephisto” – Agatha creator Jac Schaeffer has been coy about whether this is a nod or a tease for a future pop-up.

“So often on these shows there’s something that’s both a joke and a wink and a nod, and actually has something legitimate underneath it,” Schaeffer told Entertainment Weekly. “As we all know, Mephisto is a character that is completely absorbed in Agatha’s storyline. I mean, people have to watch, but we always play with the audience that way.

So did Billy just contact the devil? Could be! It seems unlikely, but as the saying goes, the best thing Mephisto ever did was convince the world he didn’t exist. We’ll see what future episodes bring.