The following story contains spoilers for Agatha All Along episode 6, “Familiar by Thy Side.”
WITHOUT QUESTION, AGATHA All Along has been one of the best television shows Marvel Studios has made, and that’s in large part to how similar in tone, format, and structure it’s been to 2021’s WandaVision, which remains one of the best projects the studio has made to date, period. The two shows share a creator in Jac Schaeffer, and Agatha All Along has been rightfully billed as a proper sequel/spinoff to WandaVision.
But that connective tissue has never been more apparent than in the show’s standout sixth episode, “Familiar by Thy Side,” which follows up a surprising episode 5 cliffhanger by telling us the most vital backstory of the Teen/William Kaplan/Billy Maximoff (Joe Locke) character—and explicitly tying into the events that we all saw depicted in WandaVision. There have already been several returning characters in Agatha All Along who we first met in WandaVision; Mrs. Hart (Debra Jo Rupp) has played a larger role, several of the residents of Westview, NJ made guest appearances in the first episode, and, of course, there’s Agatha herself.
But “Familiar by Thy Side” had an important task in front of it: explain how William Kaplan and Billy Maximoff became one in the same, and explain how that person learned about what happened in WandaVision, in Westview, NJ, in Wanda’s Hex, and so on and so forth. And that meant bringing back one of the most important surprise characters from WandaVision: Ralph Bohner. Yes, that’s right, it’s a guy named Ralph Bohner. And, believe it or not, he’s important.
But who is Ralph Bohner? We’re glad you asked.
Who is Ralph Bohner in Agatha All Along and WandaVision?
Ralph Bohner plays a vital role in Agatha All Along, as he’s the only one willing to share any information about what happened in Westview with Billy. The two eventually arrange to meet in a quiet parking garage, where Ralph spills the beans (worth noting that the two met on Reddit; Ralph’s username is “Bohnerrific69,” because of course it is).
Ralph’s role here is relatively straightforward: tell Billy what happened in Westview with Wanda, and how he was under Agatha’s magical possession, and how he’s basically been living with some PTSD in the aftermath.
But what did happen in Westview?
When we first met Ralph in WandaVision, we legitimately thought he was Wanda’s brother, Pietro Maximoff. Pietro was originally played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the credits scene of 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the following year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, but the character died during the Battle of Sokovia at the end of the latter film.
While Pietro was dead, we truly believed that he’d been revived thanks to some possible multiversal shenanigans when Ralph showed up at Wanda’s door about halfway through WandaVision, because Ralph is played by actor Evan Peters—who played a different version of Pietro Maximoff known as Peter Maximoff in FOX’s X-Men films. WandaVision was one of the first projects to release after the completion of Disney’s purchase of Fox, and so the possibility of the MCU integrating X-Men characters (something we’ve seen since with the likes of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and others) looked very real.
Bohner, under cover of Pietro/Quicksilver, remained a part of WandaVision through to the end. But, as it turned out, he wasn’t a multiversal version of Pietro, but rather a regular dude named Ralph Bohner who was in the witness protection program and who had Agatha Harkness living in his house and using her magic to possess him. Even before Ralph began appearing in character as Quicksilver, Agatha (while herself under cover as a nosy sitcom neighbor) was referring to an unseen husband named Ralph.
We also see in “Familiar by Thy Side” that even when Agatha was still under Wanda’s spell—when she was living out her Mare of Easttown fantasy in Agatha All Along‘s first episode—she was still living in Ralph’s house and even wearing his clothes. Late in the episode, we see her wearing a fantastic “Bohner Family Reunion: Pitch a Tent” shirt. Which, quite frankly, we would wear too.
As it turns out, the fake Quicksilver/Pietro was a tool being used by Agatha to get more information about Wanda’s situation and the Hex she had placed over Westview. Agatha used Ralph/Fake Pietro to kill a dog, to hold Monica Rambeau hostage, to fight Wanda, and so much more. We can see how it would’ve been traumatizing! But, ultimately, he escaped with Monica’s help, and, as we now see in Agatha All Along, isn’t doing too hot.
Evan Peters, who plays Ralph, played Peter Maximoff in FOX’s X-Men movies—and remains a multiversal possibility for the MCU.
A key part in making the Ralph Bohner trickery work in WandaVision was the fact that Evan Peters, who played Ralph, did indeed play Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver in three X-Men movies: X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix. His version of the character was depicted as Magneto’s son, and had a number of very cool scenes where his speed was put on display by time (and everything) massively slowing down around him. Since Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were technically both mutants and Avengers, the characters were somewhat split back when these movies came out; that’s why Pietro was only briefly in the MCU, and why there was no Wanda/Scarlet Witch in the FOX X-Men films.
However, as we see now, with FOX and Disney now one in the same, these rights issues are no more. We’ve already seen a number of X-Men characters show up in MCU films, including but not limited to Patrick Stewart’s Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Kelsey Grammer’s Beast in The Marvels, and all sorts of mutants in Deadpool & Wolverine.
We’re talking about a comic book/superhero franchise. He may be Ralph Bohner still for now, but it would be extremely easy to find a way to retcon him to become Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver, or to even somehow have been him all along. Hell, we just saw Billy Maximoff’s soul go into William Kaplan’s body; why can’t the same thing happen with an already deeply-troubled Ralph Bohner?
We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but in any event, the way that WandaVision and Agatha All Along have subverted expectations in how they’ve used Evan Peters has been a delight to see.
