‘It’s like the plot doesn’t add up’: Marvel just erased one of the MCU’s most contentious sequels from canon, so everybody say thank you

Yes, Joe Locke is playing Wiccan in Agatha All Along. Get over it, that’s old news. The truth of Teen’s identity was practically spelled out for us at the end of episode 5, and then his real name was finally said aloud in a mid-season trailer, confirming the Heartstopper star has been Billy Maximoff all along. But enough about “is Joe Locke Billy Maximoff?” The big question now is: “How is Joe Locke Billy Maximoff?”

The fact that Wanda’s twin sons were erased from existence when the hex ended in the WandaVision finale was a pretty big deal — don’t pretend you’ve forgotten it, I know you cried — and yet here Billy apparently is, right as rain. Fortunately, the aforementioned trailer might have given us enough new material to work out what happened. Unfortunately, it looks like it breaks MCU canon in the process. Although maybe that’s a good thing, depending on your stance on Scarlet Witch.

In the Agatha promo, we see Locke’s Billy Kaplan end up in a car crash in Eastview when the hex comes down on Westview, in what is no doubt a flashback to the events of WandaVision episode 9.

This seems to confirm the theory that Billy Kaplan and Billy Maximoff are two different people who merged — Kaplan might have died in this crash, but Billy Maximoff’s soul survived the end of the hex and bonded with the other Billy’s body. Hence, how the twins’ deaths in WV hold up, but Billy is now resurrected.

The only problem? This drives a bulldozer through the middle of Wanda’s arc in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

If Wiccan has been living as Billy Kaplan this whole time then surely Wanda — in her all-powerful, multiverse-spanning, Darkhold-fueled state — would’ve sensed his presence in the Sacred Timeline? And, therefore, she wouldn’t have needed to cross realities and hunt down America Chavez in order to find Billy and Tommy’s variants on another world. In essence, Agatha seems on the precipice of negating the MOM movie’s entire purpose.

And, you know what, this is sweet music to the ears of her stans still stinging from that sequel’s treatment of Wanda, which seemed to clash with WandaVision‘s ending, anyway.

Remember the WV finale post-credits scene? The one that saw Wanda reading the Darkhold when she heard the echoing voices of her twins, seemingly confirming they still existed? Doctor Strange 2 completely junked this, but now it seems we’re finally returning to this abandoned plot-thread… as if Multiverse of Madness never happened.

As it stands, though, Wanda’s arc just became even more tragic, and a lot more darkly humorous. It turns out she didn’t need to get a Sam Raimi Evil Dead makeover, try to kill a portal-hopping teen, and then make John Krasinski into spaghetti, after all. Her kids were literally in the next town over.

At this point, what with Deadpool & Wolverine forgetting when Logan is supposed to be set, it’s seeming increasingly like the Marvel canon doesn’t actually exist outside of the fandom’s heads and spreadsheets. Guys, are we the TVA?