Spoilers below for anyone who isn’t caught up on Agatha All Along through its sixth episode, so be warned if you’re falling behind!
With Billy Maximoff’s origin story being laid out in “Familiar By Thy Side,” Agatha All Along is laying the groundwork for Young Avengers to join the lineup of upcoming Marvel TV shows and future MCU movies. But you know what they say: you can’t make an omelet without cracking fans up over the return of Evan Peters’ Ralph Bohner. And it was quite the glorious reprisal, adding meaningful and legitimately harrowing context to WandaVision’s biggest punchline.
From his witch repellent to other handcrafted wards, Ralph has clearly been living on edge in the years since he was released from Agatha’s spell and left Westview. But he definitely didn’t shed his acting dreams, given his one-man show in Paramus, New Jersey. But that just added more confusion over the character’s backstory in WandaVision, and his comment after the dog-poisoning confession also raised my eyebrows. So let’s go over my two biggest questions inspired by that shocking return.
Was Ralph Bohner’s Witness Protection Storyline Ignored, Or Is He Just Extremely Terrible At Staying HIdden?
For those who may have forgotten about WandaVision‘s missing witness protection person, that’s what brought Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo to Westview in the first place. And while it technically remained a loose thread by the end of the series, a deleted scene was unveiled ahead of the Blu-ray release that finally addressed that mysterious detail: Evan Peters’ character was indeed that missing person, and was wearing an ankle monitor presumably as a form of pre-trial monitoring.
Even then, it still wasn’t clear whether or not “Ralph Bohner” was meant to be understood as his “new” identity, or if that was who he’d always been. WandaVision‘s “The Series Finale” revealed that the house was under the Bohner name, and he also had a bunch of actor headshot photos with that name printed on them. So theoretically, it could be believed that he was attempting to utilize a new identity to break into the world of theatre work, despite the inherent problems with being a publicly recognizable figure.
But then Agatha All Along seemed to throw a huge wrench in that line of thinking with one of the funniest sight gags of the season so far: Kathryn Hahn wearing that Bohner Family Reunion shirt. (Pitch a tent!) The costuming choice seems to confirm that Ralph Bohner was the character’s name from birth, with the only alternative being that he personally had that shirt printed specifically to serve as backstory ephemera for…whatever criminal entities came looking for him, I guess.
Given how ridiculous that seems, I have to now assume that Ralph doesn’t understand how witness protection works, and that no one from the government stepped in to help him understand how to stay hidden. I can buy into the idea that the headshot photos were being storied in the attic as relics of the past, but that wouldn’t explain why bills and other mail would still be addressed to “Ralph Bohner” specifically. So I guess the bottom line here is: Ralph sucks at life.
Even his lone attempt to obfuscate his name was botched when he told Billy to call him “Ralph,” and then frustratingly corrected himself to say his name was “Randall.” (A nod to Jimmy Woo’s portrayer, possibly?) But does that name have anything to do with his presumed identity swap, or was it just a spur-of-the-moment bit of failed trickery?
One alternate explanation here that could clear things up: the witness protection for Ralph Bohner was more or less eradicated by the ankle bracelet scene being edited out of the finale. So without that as a narrative obstacle for showrunner Jac Schaeffer & Co., it’s possible they just kept him the same as not to further muddy up the already complicated process of keeping up with everyone’s identities in this universe. It’s less fun, sure, but also less confusing overall.
Did His Confession About Poisoning Billy And Tommy’s Dog Have Further Dark Implications?
For all that Ralph appears to be in dire straits after his experiences in Westview, he still seems to be keeping current with what’s happening, as he tells BIlly that Wanda is dead, and that Agatha is still living in the town under Wanda’s spell. But when Billy assumes that means she’s no longer as dangerous as she was when she made Ralph poison the Maximoff family’s new dog Sparky, Evan Peters’ character quickly strikes that idea down, saying:
Word to the wise: don’t go sniffing around there. Or you’ll end up buried in that yard with that dog, or worse! You seriously do not know what kind of crazy that lady eats for breakfast.
Maybe I’m reaching here, but considering no one specifically mentioned Wanda and Vision’s house or yard during that parking garage conversation, it seemed as if Ralph was talking about his own yard surrounding the house that Agatha took from him. (Along with the Bowflex and Blu-ray collection contained within.) Which may or may not contradict what I’d assumed happened to Sparky’s body by the end of WandaVision‘s “On a Very Special Episode…”
Just prior to the titular couple’s argument over the closing credits, Vision enters the house and washes his hands, and makes a comment about getting a dog and having to bury it the same day. At the time, I totally inferred that Paul Bettany’s character was coming in from burying the dog himself, but what if that was just another part of Wanda’s sitcom-friendly reality that glossed over some truly dark details?
Agatha All Along seemed to confirm that Elizabeth Olsen’s traumatized witch was responsible for killing off Mr. Hart in WandaVision‘s freaky dinner scene, and it was one of several situations where the idealized scenes viewers watched did not line up with reality. So is it all that strange to believe that no one from the Maximoff household actually did anything with Sparky’s remains, and that Agatha ended up forcing Ralph to bury it in his own yard instead?
Also, considering Sparky seemed to be a Hex-specific creation for Billy and Tommy, what actually happened to the dog’s body whenever Westview was freed from captivity? Would it have just disappeared like the twin’s bodies did, or did was it already corporeal in the real world and put under a spell? I guess the only way to answer that question once and for all would be to use a ground-penetrating radar to find and identify Sparky’s bones.
I think we can probably also draw some interesting conclusions from Agatha falsely assuming responsibility for killing Sparky at the end of WandaVision‘s “Agatha All Along” bop, only for Ralph to say she made him do it. Perhaps that speaks to the ancient witch’s specific sympathies and how she feels about getting her hands dirty in such ways. (Or not dirtying them, as it were.) If anything, let’s just hope it means nothing bad ever happens to Señor Scratchy.
Agatha All Along will keep fans questioning everything with new episodes streaming every Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m. ET for viewers with Disney+ subscriptions.