‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Deep Dive

Summary

House of R: ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Deep Dive

Podcast: House of R | Hosts: Mallory Rubin & Joanna Robinson
Date: August 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson unite for a comprehensive deep dive into Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the latest Tom Holland-led Marvel/Sony collaboration. With their trademark blend of affectionate critique and lively banter, Mallory and Joanna discuss the film’s triumphs, its place in the MCU, character arcs, comic and genre genealogy, and the high emotional stakes of Peter Parker’s journey from isolation back toward connection. They also examine the movie’s importance to Marvel’s ongoing efforts to refresh its roster and public perception.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

[00:54] Industry Context & Recent Marvel News

• Wonder Man’s Whiplash: The hosts open with reactions to the abrupt cancellation of Marvel’s Wonder Man Season 2 and its odd collision with an Emmy nomination.
  • “Season one of Wonder Man was wonderful, and we were all looking forward to being back in that world with those characters...” — Mallory Rubin [03:04]
  • They mourn the loss of Marvel’s “weird, special, different sorts of swings” in favor of more conventional movie-focused content.

[09:11] Brand New Day: Opening Snapshot

• Creative Team & Reception
  • Directed by Dustin Daniel Cretton, written by Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers, music by Michael Giacchino.
  • Early box office: $72 million in previews, outpacing Avengers Endgame in same release window.
  • Rotten Tomatoes: 91/98 split, Metacritic: 66.
  • “That beats Avengers Endgame... just quite a sentence.” — Mallory Rubin [10:26]

[11:04] First Impressions

• Mallory & Joanna’s Initial Reactions
  • Mallory calls it “wonderful,” highlighting emotion, action, Spider-Man’s evolution, and Tom Holland’s performance.
  • “It did such an expert job of feeling like it was part of this... MCU progression... but rooted to what is like a day one experience that many people have with the character.” — Mallory Rubin [13:09]
  • Joanna praises the ending, the dynamic between Holland’s Spidey and Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, and Jean Grey’s introduction, though she finds the film “slightly overwhelming” and paces slow at times.
  • "Tom Holland is born to play this character... the perfect marriage of person and demeanor and character and evolution." — Joanna Robinson [25:52]

[17:50] Re-Evaluating Past Spider-Man Films

• Both revisit their rankings with the benefit of time and context. Mallory feels No Way Home has lost some luster; Joanna finds herself more charmed by its communal experience and the final act.

[31:39] Thematic Deep Dives

Peter Parker’s Isolation: “Peter All Alone”

• Examination of Peter’s lonely post-No Way Home state, living in near-total isolation, and emotionally cut off from MJ, Ned, and his old life.
  • “He’s constantly masked. No one ever sees his face. And that is just devastating.” — Joanna Robinson [32:12]
• Links to universal themes of young adulthood, FOMO, and the pressure of milestones.
• Both hosts appreciate that the film doesn’t immediately undo the “forget Peter” spell, instead rooting Peter’s early arc in his loneliness and search for connection.

Spider-Man’s Balancing Act: Work/Life/Spider

• Extended callback to the Homecoming suit confiscation scene with Tony Stark to illustrate Peter’s lifelong struggle to balance self and duty.
  • "If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it.” — Tony Stark (clip played at [33:36])
• Discussion: For Peter to thrive, he needs relationships—but the premise robs him of them for half the film. Mallory sees narrative value; Joanna misses the chemistry.

The Mentor Roller Coaster: Tony, Bruce, and Now Peter

• Peter’s pattern of finding (and being used by) mentors: Tony Stark, Mysterio, Dr. Strange, Bruce Banner. Now, Peter steps into a mentorship role for Jean Grey.

The Monster Inside: Embracing/Repressing Power

• The hosts unpack the movie’s handling of the “shadow self”—the Spider within, Jean’s Phoenix force, Bruce Banner’s Hulk—pondering if the film resolves or muddies its metaphors of self-acceptance.
  • “What you’re saying is pretty dangerous.” — Bruce Banner to Peter [56:20]
• Mallory: For Peter, “embrace the totality of who you are” is a moment of triumph; for Jean, the story is intentionally messy.
  • "Try to embrace all aspects of who you are and recognize that it will be hard." — Mallory Rubin [62:02]

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Character Highlights

[64:03] Yelena Belova

• Florence Pugh cameo as a comedic, scene-stealing Yelena delights both hosts.
  • “She’s a charisma bomb... the perfect deployment of information, parallel text, and charm.” — Mallory Rubin [68:20]
  • The running potato gag and bathhouse scenes are spotlighted as inspired choices.

[71:00] Bruce Banner/Hulk

• Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk appears as mentor to Peter, used sparsely but effectively. Classroom gags (students want to talk Thanos, not quantum mechanics) are audience-pleasers.

[77:14] The Punisher (Frank Castle)

• Praised as the best screen use of the Punisher ever (“nothing about this wasn’t perfect” — Mallory Rubin [77:12]), with authentic chemistry between Bernthal and Holland.
  • The Staten Island jokes (“move over, Budapest”) and “dad energy” add texture.
  • “Frank actually always thinks he’s right... He’s not trying to quiet those [demons]; he’s leaning in full and then dealing with the consequences.” — Mallory Rubin [80:01]
  • Both note the nuance: Frank’s darkness serves as a warning—but he doesn’t want Peter to follow his path.

[84:20] Jean Grey (Sadie Sink)

• A complex introduction: an antagonist with buried trauma, set up as a future cornerstone of the MCU’s X-Men saga.
  • “This is definitely the first, like, you’re going to be watching movies with this person in this crucial, key, central role for 12 years and it’s really fun.” — Joanna Robinson [90:40]
  • The hosts note the film deftly avoids calling her a mutant (“specials”), likely for rights reasons.
  • Mallory: The Sarah flashbacks work in parallel to Peter’s arc but feel awkwardly placed.

[94:43] MJ (Zendaya)

• Discussion of MJ’s changed personality—more conventional, less quirky. Joanna suggests MJ’s evolution is tied to not having Peter to reinforce her weirdness; Mallory sees it as a plausible effect of memory erasure and maturation.
  • “It’s not even... if this dude... wasn’t there to tell you it’s OK to be a weird chick. It’s also just like, what if a part of your brain was zapped out of your head?” — Mallory Rubin [103:43]

[110:42] Action & Set Pieces: “Web Slings, Fists Fly”

• Mallory and Joanna both love the choreography, noting the film’s action looks like comic-book splash pages and integrates practical effects.
  • “I thought the fight between Spidey and the hand at the end is just, like, some of the best action I’ve ever seen.” — Joanna Robinson [24:24]
• The use of organic web shooters is a highlight: “Again, Spider-Man has always just been about, boy, there’s a lot of sticky white stuff coming out of me. What do I do?” — Mallory Rubin [55:08]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Movie Momentum:
  • “$72 million in previews, that beats Avengers Endgame…” — Joanna Robinson [09:55]
• On Peter’s Isolation:
  • “He’s constantly masked... no one ever sees his face. And that is just like devastating.” — Joanna Robinson [32:12]
• On Spider-Man’s Evolution:
  • “Tom Holland is the best Peter and... this is officially my favorite MCU franchise now.” — Mallory Rubin [14:48]
• On Chemistry:
  • “What else can you say about Florence Pugh? She’s perfect.” — Joanna Robinson [65:40]
• On Franchise Trajectory:
  • “This is the kind of casting and decision that makes me feel confident.” — Mallory Rubin (on Sadie Sink as Jean Grey) [91:36]
• On Emotional Impact:
  • “I marched up to you and said that was great.” — Mallory Rubin [12:54]
• On Marvel Needing a Win:
  • “Boy, we needed this.” — Mallory Rubin [27:31]

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Essential Timestamps by Segment

| Segment | Highlights/Topics | Timestamp | |------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Marvel News & Wonder Man | Marvel’s shifting priorities, Wonder Man cancellation | 01:54–05:23| | Opening Snapshot | Box office, creative team, critical response | 09:11–10:50| | First Impressions | Initial reactions, MCU context, franchise love | 11:04–17:50| | Re-evaluating Past Spidey Films | Nostalgia, on communal Marvel experiences | 17:50–27:31| | Peter’s Isolation & Balancing Acts | Loneliness, theme of self vs. superhero | 31:39–43:38| | Embracing/Repressing Power | Hulk, Jean Grey themes, responsibility, acceptance | 47:05–62:43| | Yelena Belova & Potatoes | The best MCU addition, comedic bathhouse scene | 64:03–68:44| | Hulk & Bruce Banner | Teacher cameo, class jokes, action sequences | 71:00–74:59| | Punisher Collaboration | Best use of Frank, thematic parallels with Peter | 77:14–84:20| | Jean Grey/Mutancy Introduction | X-Men future, Sadie Sink, MCU transition | 84:20–94:40| | MJ’s Arc and Characterization | MJ’s evolution, memory, heartbreak | 94:43–107:03| | Action/Set Piece Review | Web-slinging, practical effects, choreography |110:42–113:32| | Ending & MCU Setup | End credits, future speculation, Doomsday/Secret Wars |123:31–125:40|

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Other Topics & Observations

• Marvel’s Next Steps: The film is contextualized as a much-needed shot of adrenaline for Marvel, sandwiched between two big cons (Comic-Con and D23) and setting the stage for the X-Men era.
• Comparisons to Thunderbolts & X-Men: Both praise the film's final emotional resolutions as a welcome alternative to the MCU’s usual third-act boss fights, even if they echo recent projects.
• Loss & Growth: The May memorial, Peter’s sacrifice, and themes of growing from pain are recurring touchstones.

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Conclusion

Spider-Man: Brand New Day earns high marks from both Mallory and Joanna for its blend of breathless action, heartfelt emotion, and nuanced character study—delivering a Spider-Man who feels both true to his roots and evolved for the MCU’s next act. The introduction of Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, magnetic cameos from Florence Pugh and Jon Bernthal, and dynamic exploration of what it means to be a hero set the stage for Marvel’s mutant era and offer hope for the franchise’s ongoing renewal.

Final Word:
“Movies. Hell yeah.” — Joanna Robinson [126:01]

Transcript

[Mallory Rubin]

Foreign.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hello and welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today, the luminous, the effervescent, the your friendly neighborhood podcaster.

[Mallory Rubin]

If I could do the entire podcast with a spider man mask over my sleep deprived corpse like face, I would. But as always, the only true restorative property for me in this world is being here to pod with you about things that I love and that the Bhad Bhabies are hyped about. I can't wait to talk about this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're gonna take a swing through a little independent film called Brand New Day that I guess just a few people are seeing in the theater. And we're gonna talk about all of that right after this.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Joanna Robinson]

The field is calling.

[Mallory Rubin]

Watch the MLB at Field of Dreams game live on Netflix.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Thursday, August 13th at 7:30pm Eastern, 4:30pm Pacific.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, before we get into Spidey, you know, we, we came back from San Diego Comic Con. We talked about the big Marvel panel that they did there in Hall H. So you can see that on our San Diego Comic Con sort of reaction pod that we did. But news has come out since then that I just wanted to touch on really briefly before we get into Spider man, which is that Wonder Man, a wonderful Marvel Disney plus show.

[Mallory Rubin]

Which we loved.

[Joanna Robinson]

Which we loved. Which got a surprise, I thought a surprising season two renewal. Yeah, not because of quality, but just because of whatever's going on at Marvel these days. Got a season two renewal, got an Emmy nomination, a much deserved Emmy nomination. And then Marvel changed their minds and they said, never mind. And now there is no season two of Wonder Man. And like if there had never been a season two of Wonder man, that would be one thing. The Emmy nomination coming in the, in the middle of all of it is like super odd to be sort of discounted. Did you see yaya's Instagram post which was very. Yeah, very sweet, like incredibly gracious Very gracious. And at the very end, he's like, see you at the Emmys, I guess, you know, so bummer.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is just really. This sucks.

[Joanna Robinson]

It sucks.

[Mallory Rubin]

Season one of Wonder man was wonderful, and we were all looking forward to being back in that world with those characters and with that very specific and assured tone and intention and vision. I was thinking back again, I was like, had an actual what? When this hit the Ringerverse group chat. And then Adam sent it to me, and I was like, in a bunch of meetings. Hadn't. Didn't get to read the full article. I'm like, surely I've misread this headline. This, like, cannot be true, right? And it's just such a shame because this is a wonderful little jewel of a show. And I was thinking back then to our very brief discussion of this on the Comic Con pod. The, like, we're not here to talk about TV moment, which now actually feels a little more keen to me. He did.

[Joanna Robinson]

So he mentioned Vision Quest as the third part of sort of the WandaVision trilogy. But what's coming after that? Yeah, nothing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, that would be upsetting. I mean, there's gotta be a spot between. We have 15 shows a year, and the quality continues to dip. And we don't make season two of

[Joanna Robinson]

Wonder man if the idea is to sort of like, you know, And Brad Winderbaum is certainly hoping this is the case. The guy is in charge of Marvel tv. But if the idea is to temporarily cut all the way back on that in order to pour all of their attention and focus into the movie landscape, which has needed some help, has been quite shaky. We. Spoiler really liked this Spider man movie that we're about to talk about. So that's a good indicator. And they're certainly hoping Doomsday hits as well, if not better. So. But when we talk about what we want from Marvel, we. Me, when I talk about what I want from Marvel, I want sort of weird, strange, different things. And Wonder man felt like a really special, different sort of swing inside of the Marvel Universe. And I'm really devastated. I mean, Dustin Daniel Cretton, who did a great job in this movie, was one of the creative forces, not like the main, but one of the creative forces behind Wonder Man. So I. I wonder if this is a sort of a bittersweet weekend for him. I don't know. So, anyway, we just wanted to honor Wonder Man, a show that we really loved. Program reminders.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Odyssey Mailbag.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

With love and respect, guys, we're full. We're full.

[Mallory Rubin]

I read.

[Joanna Robinson]

I read so many emails. We have C them down. We have picked what we're going to talk about. You can keep sending them. Yeah, but. And I love that for you. But I just have to warn you, we're full. And then House the Dragon final two weeks of coverage is what's coming up. We've got hopefully some exciting stuff coming up around the finale that we won't talk about until it's done and dusted, as is my way. But there we go. How can folks keep track of that? Send me Odyssey emails I may or may not read. What do you think, Mallory Rubin?

[Mallory Rubin]

You'll read them? I will read them. You'll read them.

[Joanna Robinson]

I will.

[Mallory Rubin]

You're commitment to the inbox is just. It's second to none. Here's what I would recommend. Follow the Pod.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

Follow House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You can watch full video episodes of House of R and the Midnight Boys on Spotify. Here's what else we'd recommend. Follow House of Our Pod on Instagram, on TikTok. We're having fun on our new ish social media handles. Obviously the Ringiverse handle is thriving as well. Check that out. And well, Joanna, you know, noted already that we've got a lot of Odyssey emails. Keep the emails about everything else coming. Send us your hot D emails.

[Joanna Robinson]

Get the lanterns emails coming right around the corner.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I mean, are you coming to Baltimore for our Oriole event? Send us emails about that. Hobbits and dragonsmail.com Also, we should maybe

[Joanna Robinson]

formally announce that we are doing a screening of Labyrinth.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

As part of American Cinematex.

[Mallory Rubin]

Friend of the Fest.

[Joanna Robinson]

Friend of the Fest.

[Mallory Rubin]

We're back, baby.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you have that date off the top of your head?

[Mallory Rubin]

I believe it's Monday, August 24th. It's definitely Monday. Is Monday, August 24.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Monday.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let's see, in the mid-20s.

[Mallory Rubin]

Because I will be out of town through Sunday, August 24th. Monday, August 24th, 10 o' clock at night. Let me just say this increasingly, as I age and wither in real time on camera for all of you to see my steady or rapid decline. That is past my bedtime. No, it's.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I will, guys, it's past everyone's bedtime.

[Mallory Rubin]

Past my bedtime. But it is in the hour where I just can kind of like I just.

[Joanna Robinson]

My phone will be brick.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right. It's the bricking hour.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's the bricking hour of my phone.

[Mallory Rubin]

Come and hang out no, come and hang out.

[Joanna Robinson]

Will be delirious probably. Also, I'm just like kind of treat. Even though it's 10 o' clock at night, which when I was younger did not seem that late, I'm treating this like a midnight madness screening is what this feels like on a Monday. Are you kidding me?

[Mallory Rubin]

I quite agree.

[Joanna Robinson]

Listen, break all the rules coming out with us on a school night at 10 o' clock at night to see Labyrinth, a movie that Mallory has never seen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Never.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's never witnessed the. The glory of the David Bowie, the full glory of the David Bowie bulge.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I get to see it on the big screen.

[Joanna Robinson]

On the big screen. I saw Labyrinth on the big screen like, I don't know, like a decade ago. And even though I had already seen it a million times by then, I was just like, it's different seeing the bulge on the big screen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Honestly, do you consider it a formative experience?

[Joanna Robinson]

I think the puppetry of Labyrinth really did make an impression on me. I don't know about the penis, but definitely the puppetry for sure. Great.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exciting.

[Joanna Robinson]

So come join us. It's really just like a beautiful, perfect, wonderful movie that I'm really excited for you to see. Baby Jennifer Connelly.

[Mallory Rubin]

What a treat to get to watch that with you with the Bhad babies on the big screen. Past my bedtime, I think. Diana's mere hours after returning from Baltimore. What? Oh my God, that's exciting.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know. Wow. Forget David Bowie. Diana might be here. Spoiler warning for today.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Brand new day. All of the Spider man movies.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Potentially Spider man comics.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

All of the mcu.

[Mallory Rubin]

I would just say if it's ever happened in a comic book or comic book movie, it could potentially come up today. It's a pretty sweet big spoiler warning.

[Joanna Robinson]

Punisher film starring Tom Jane. Who's to say?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, maybe.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maybe you've been warned. Let's go now to the opening snapshot. This film was directed by Dustin Daniel Creighton, written by Chris McKenna and Eric Summers, who are credit on the other Spider Man Holland movies. Scored by Michael Giacchino. 145 minutes. Yeah. Reception wise.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

As of when I made these notes, which was yesterday. Rotten tomatoes is 91. 98 split.

[Mallory Rubin]

Is that good? That's.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's an unreliable metric. But guess what?

[Mallory Rubin]

Still good. It's very good by the standards of the unreliable metric. That is good, folks.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Metacritic 66 box office tracking. Yeah, it's going really well, folks. We got an update from Arjuna right before we started Recording that they are reporting that as of Entertainment Weekly has a report that Wednesday early access screenings and Thursday night screenings. So we're not even to Friday, Saturday, Sunday yet. $72 million in previews. That beats Avengers Endgame, which was $60 million in the same window.

[Mallory Rubin]

So that is man beats Avengers Endgame is for. For anything. Just quite a sentence.

[Joanna Robinson]

What another butter thing to say. Will it have the same legs as End Game? We'll find out together. But if they get an opening of like 195 million or more, it would be the biggest of the opening of the year and in the top 10 of the history of opening weekends.

[Mallory Rubin]

Pretty good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Listen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Pretty good.

[Joanna Robinson]

$225 million budget. I think they're going to recoup it. It's going to be great. This is going to be a hit. A smash Roo hit. All of the downtrodden feelings we were feeling coming out of Supergirl.

[Mallory Rubin]

Different.

[Joanna Robinson]

Just night and day here with Spiderman. Yeah. Uh, quick overall impressions of Brand New Day. We didn't get to sit next to each other because I wandered into the wrong theater.

[Mallory Rubin]

We were in different theaters. Very, very, very, very strange. Full crowd. One of the more active screening experiences we have. We have ever quite strained. It was an event.

[Joanna Robinson]

We had to funnel the press into two different theaters. And I thought I was following the crowd, our team, but I wandered in the wrong theater. But Sean Fenn is.

[Mallory Rubin]

You were there with Sean?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, and I was sitting there with Sean and I was like, where's everyone else? And he's like, what theater do you have? And I was like, two. He's like, this is 14, dummy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, I got to sit next to Arjuna and I can report and then he can decide if this stays in the pod that you missed. He missed you. Yes. But he wept. Wept.

[Joanna Robinson]

He cried.

[Mallory Rubin]

When? We're in spoiler territory now already. Right. Very end. Peter has walked out of in the crowd and about to be a dad.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I have a little kid.

[Joanna Robinson]

The dad stuff's really working on Arjuna right now.

[Mallory Rubin]

It is.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, my God. It's very sweet.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love. I just love it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Love it. This is our first without John Watts as director. And I was just thinking a lot about. I, you know, I rewatched no Way. I. I rewatched all the Holland movies, but I rewatched no Way Home. And I was just thinking about how early in my time at the Ringer that was.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, we were just sort of like tail end of COVID Like sort of just a very different time. But we have now the. The Mallory Joanna administration has. Has survived two Tom Holland Spider man movies.

[Mallory Rubin]

Our five year anniversary. How will we celebrate?

[Joanna Robinson]

I think a really fancy dinner, don't you think?

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that sounds like something we should do no matter what, whether or not it's an anniversary.

[Joanna Robinson]

But yes, definitely brand new day. But we didn't sit next to each other. But I did get to see your beaming face as you walked out of the theater.

[Mallory Rubin]

I marched up to you and I said that was great.

[Joanna Robinson]

You loved it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, you did come first.

[Joanna Robinson]

I saw Amanda. Different reaction. Then I saw you and you loved it. Tell me, tell me more about your big picture sort of thoughts.

[Mallory Rubin]

I. I thought the movie was wonderful. It honestly is like everything I, I wanted it to be. It was so touching and emotional and moving. I found it to be like very sincerely affecting as a study of grief and change and I think as an evolution for this version of Peter and this version of Spider man, but also just more broadly a connection to Spider man as a character who has always been a portal for assessing change and growing up and what it means for something to be different in your life or about your body or about your relationships. It did such an expert job of feeling like it was part of this for movie now inside of the MCU progression for this character in a way that also felt rooted to what is like a day one experience that many people have with the character. I thought that the action was breathtakingly good. I thought that the like in a couple respects the actual choreography and just the feel, the feel of porting you into the pages of the comics. So many of the sequences looked like splash pages and gave you that I have this in my hand and I have fallen into this world feeling. But just the choreography, the movement, the way that like I haven't played the Spider man video games, but my husband Adam, our colleagues, Ben Lindbergh, the Midnight Boys, like everybody we know who loves games. One of the things I know they always talk about with that game is that when you're swinging, you feel like you are swinging. It unlocks something for you about what it would feel like to be, to be Spider man and to watch this on the big screen. Like this movie did the, I think the best job of capturing that yet.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know why? It did a lot of practical.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. Yeah. And it just looked incredible. The other thing that I loved about the action was the calibration, the way that it was dispensed across the film. The fact that we did not, I mean we build toward a very monumental conclusion in the film. But we did not build toward steady drum beat, steady drum beat, steady third act, Just relentless action, nothing else. It was balanced and calibrated throughout with the emotional beats and the thematic resonance and the introspection in the conversation. It felt to me, perhaps on the heels of our mushrooms conversation the other day, like the action was microdosed throughout the film. We always had a little bit. We never went too long without a really cool set piece. But we also were never only in the action for such a stretch that we felt pulled out of the story. And given the length of the movie, I thought it was, like, incredibly propulsive and well paced. I never felt like it was dragging. I also just thought that the visual evolution, in addition to the character evolution was like, very striking. It definitely looked the most. Most akin to the Sony pure. So obviously this is a Sony Disney collab, right? But the fact that we're in just like Manhattan and the glass and the skyscrapers and the taller buildings, like that kind of graduation, literally and figuratively too, out of the smaller scale, like Queens, Brownstone, high school setting into a different element of the city. It just all felt really, really strong. And I thought that the Tom Holland performance was wonderful. I'm on the record, we had a delicate, delightful midnight court about this years ago. I think Andrew Garfield is a sensational Peter, but those movies are obviously leaving something to be desired. I think that Tom Holland is the best Peter and I always loved. This is officially my favorite MCU franchise now. It had been Cap and Spider man was next. In terms of individual character franchises, we have four good movies here, and that is not the case with the Captain America franchise anymore. So this now goes just ahead, which is kind of an interesting thing that I would not have anticipated. Obviously, Winter Soldier is still my favorite MCU movie and that hasn't changed. But I've always loved these movies and I've always thought that Tom Holland was a wonderful Spider man and a wonderful Peter. And for me, the Tony mentorship and like, porting this Spider man into the Avengers always worked quite well in terms of the larger, connected MCU story we were getting. Obviously it was. Didn't work quite as well for certain Spider man fans who wanted Peter to be making his own suit and really working on a street level, friendly neighborhood capacity. And I think this movie feels like now this kind of like just gelling and cohesion of all aspects of the intention of this character in this connected universe in a way that I just find, like, really impressive. So I thought it was great. I love that people are excited about it, and I'm really curious to see what they continue to do with the character and how they deploy him moving forward in the Avengers movie. But, yeah, I thought this was just dynamite. I loved it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can you talk to me a little bit more? Something you had said to me before we saw Brand New Day is that you had watched no Way Home, rewatched no Way Home, and you felt a bit different about it. Can you talk about that?

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, so. When we saw no Way Home, I was trying to remember, like, exactly. I had a slightly false memory of that being my first movie back in theaters, which it wasn't. Eternals was before that, so. And I had seen Shang Chi at a screening, but in, like, a very small screening room. But I was like, what was part of the euphoria around no Way Home? That it was actually my first time back in, like, a full movie theater. It wasn't, but it was still early in the days of returning to that shared experience. Definitely. Yeah. And, like, I remember Charles and Van getting to meet for the first time in person. It was such a moment of celebration for the team. I thought the movie, seeing it in the movie theater for the first time was such a. The balance and the degree of difficulty. Like, I kind of couldn't believe they pulled it off. And I thought it was amazing. And I remember leaving that movie and then potting about it, our pod. Potting about it on Big Pic, nerding out about so many different things. Like, I have such a vivid memory of talking on Big Pic. Like, Sean and I were just, like, talking about Matt Murdock and Amanda basically had to be like, guys, there were three spider men in this movie. Like, get your shit together. And we're like, sorry, this is just like, this is nerd utopia. Right? And so a lot of it was that. And I thought everything with the three Peters was just delightful. Recently, you would have a better memory of when this was, but maybe a couple months ago. Like, as we were nearing the brand new day window, a Ringerverse conversation was burbling. It was bubbling up. Is no Way Home as good as we remember?

[Joanna Robinson]

And I was like, I just wanna say on the record, I was always a little lower than the rest of you on no Way Home.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I was like, I feel like it is impossible that I will return to that movie and not be as high on it as I was in real time. And then just rewatching all of the Holland movies to prep for a brand new day. I was very Astonished to find that that was also my experience with it. And I don't know how much of it is just that it is not quite as rooted in the. Even though there's a little bit of the high school setting, so much of the charm of Homecoming. And even Far From Home, which I think I like, I'm a little higher on than most people. I like Far From Home a lot, is they are, I think, wonderful Spider man movies and wonderful MCU movies, but they are outstanding coming of age movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

High school movies.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. And I just love that about them. And that's not as centered in no Way Home. And so it just kind of can't measure up to the heartbeat that I love about those other two films. But also just all of the villains and the balance of that, like, it just didn't work nearly as well for me. Returning to it with that distance as the, like, holy shit, it's happening.

[Joanna Robinson]

Whoa.

[Mallory Rubin]

Doc Ock did kind of in real time, and so that moved down for sure on my Spidey power rankings. And I think. And could this change again? Will I have a different experience with it? Will I swing back, flip back in the other direction? Maybe. But right now I'm like, Homecoming and Brand New Day are like neck and neck at the top for me. And then Far From Home and then no Way Home last. And I still think no Way Home is like a really solid film, but I didn't have the same connection to it. Revisiting it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think the last hour of no Way Home, which is the 3spidey movie, it's essentially a different movie. And it is, I think, fantastic. Yeah. Rewatching no Way Home, I actually. I actually think I liked it a little bit more just because I. I like that last hour. I was just sort of like, I can just focus on the last hour of this movie, which I think is really solid. I also think the MJ and Ned stuff, like, I just like, love how involved they are throughout. Strange is just a character that has, like, always kind of eluded me. And anyway, so, you know, a lot of what you've just talked about is. Is sort of how the experience of seeing no Way Home in that theater with those people informed your enjoyment. I don't think there's anything wrong with that because I think movies should be like communal experiences. And I actually wonder if my experience with no Way Home would have been different if I had been sitting next to you in that theater, which sounded like a much rowdier, more raucous theater than the one I wound up in, like, loved sitting with our guy Sean Fantasy. I love Sean. And the guy next to me, on the other side of me was having, like, the time of his fucking life. But he was sort of like an outlier. Not that the theater didn't enjoy it, but he was like a vocal outlier. And it wasn't like the theater, you know, that I was seeing it in. And so I don't know if I would have had a different reaction because watching all of you guys walk out of the other theater and almost all of you, except for Amanda, looked like you just saw God. You know what I mean?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. So, you know, that's interesting to me. I really liked this movie, and I liked it. I've grown to like it even more in the last couple days thinking about it than I did the experience of watching it. I do think it's too long. I do think the pacing is a bit off, but I think when it hits. Yeah, there are certain relationships, aspects, I would say the pun. This is. You know, you're a much bigger fan of Frank Castle the Punisher than I am. I thought this is the. By far the most successful Punisher has ever been. I thought this was a fantastic pairing of characters and pairing of actors Tom Holland and Dawn Bernthal, who have known each other for a decade. Like, just playing off each other. I thought it was fantastic. I think the introduction of Jean Grey, the entirety of the Jean Grey thing, didn't, like, work perfectly for me. But I think the spooky introduction of her, how much we get of her before we meet, we actually see her, even though we all know it's Sadie Sink. But, like, all of that, which is torn directly from the Denzel Washington film Fallen this Way, in which the antagonist is just hopping from person to person so you can't track them and you can't run from them. And it's just, like, very scary and very wonderful. Like, I thought that was, like, deployed really well. I think the fight between Spidey and the hand at the end is just, like, some of the best action I've ever seen. Like, I thought that was fantastic. There are other things that don't work quite as well for me. But I think, as with no Way Home, I think there's a fantastic movie in here. I just think there's some. For me, there's some other stuff around it that isn't as successful. And I think in the last few days, as I've been thinking about and preparing to pot about it, I've just been dwelling more and more on the things I like. And maybe that's something I'm just doing more as I grow older and I don't have time to be really cranky about the things that don't work. And I'm just sort of like, you know what? The last hour of no Way Home with Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire. Fantastic. So that movie, great, you know, and. And what works well in this movie works really, really well. And what is undeniably true is that Tom Holland, though I'm still not sure I'm ready to call him, like, my number one, just because I'm such an Andrew Garfield loyalist. But, like, Tom Holland is born to play this character. And I think it's really even more evident coming off of the Odyssey, where I think he's fine in the Odyssey, but then you can see what he can do as Peter Parker. And it's just sort of like it's a different level entirely. I've been watching a bunch of dipping into Friday Night Lights lately, and this is like the Friday Night Lights phenomenon. When you think about Zach Guilford being like, born to play Matt Saracen or Taylor Kitsch being bored to play Tim Riggins. And then you see them in other things and you're like, where is that perfect match of performer and character spark that you found in this one project that you don't have elsewhere? And that is what Tom Holland and Peter Parker and Spider man are, is just like the perfect marriage of, like, person and demeanor and character and evolution. Because, you know, when Tom Holland and Zendaya talk about their experience making these movies, they're like, we were teenagers now we're two of the most famous people in the world. Like, we fell in love making these movies. Like, we grew up making these movies, you know, I mean, so the way in which a lot of this is tailored to their own life experience, I think works incredibly well. So did I like. Is my favorite Tom Holland Spider man movie? No. Will I like it more the next time I see it? Probably. And I'll probably like it even more, like, the more. The more I watch it. And I do think it's a very successful, slightly overwhelming the movie, but very successful introduction of Jean Grey, which is something that they really, I have to imagine, felt that they needed to nail, you know, for sure. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I was curious to see. Cause often media screenings are more like, muted than just going to see the movie with the masses. But it was such a. In a really fun way, like when. When, you know, we get the Jean Grey name on the screen for the first time. Even though. And especially in that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you think. Because there were like 20 people from the Ringerverse in your. In your screening.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think it was across the theater. Like, people screamed. You know, there was a lot of laughter, a lot of cheering, whooping. And that was fun. And I was curious to see when I saw it again yesterday, like, if that would. If I would have the opposite experience. That tends to be the case. Would it be like a quieter crowd? Would it hit as well? And people were just having the time of their lives.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, I have to imagine that it was. So is that public screenings are just.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, people were cracking up at the jokes. They were like. You could feel the collective breath being held in the key Peter MJ moments. It was like. So that was a wonderful experience. And I think you're right. That's difficult in the moment to disentangle from the movie itself. But I do think the film is like. It works for me in three different capacities. Like, it works as a superhero movie, a comic book movie kind of period.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

It works as an MCU movie in a way that feels. This is the thing, I think we'll. We'll want to assess most over time how much of the reaction and the joy is like, this is just a dynamite movie. And I'd feel that way no matter what. And how much is like, boy, we needed this. We needed it because it's like been such a run of varied success. Now we love thunderbolts, which was not that long ago. And there's some delightful thunderbolts connective tissue in this movie, which I decided you to tell discuss. And then I think it just works wonderfully as a Spider man movie specifically. So it's a superhero movie that. That excels an MCU movie and a Spidey movie. Is it Spider verse? Like, will anything ever be spider verse? I mean, no, but I think it is one of the best Spider man

[Joanna Robinson]

movies that we have ever gotten on the MCU front. Part of that is, you know, unfortunately, the failure that Marvel has had to launch a second generation that feels as a list as the first generation. And Tom Holland' Spider man is still, you know, one of the remaining a list from that first generation character actors that we're getting now. We will have Avengers Doomsday and we'll see, you know, and that did. I mean, it didn't work for like Thor in the last Thor movie. You know what I mean? Like, that didn't work out, but like, you know, if the next generation that they have, if Shang Chi a movie I really liked. Or you know, or if Thunderbolts, a movie I really liked had hit this way, Marvel wouldn't be feeling like it's in the place it's feeling. But this is like this. Once again a Sony co production. We have to give Amy Pascal and all of Sony credit for this because they are deeply involved. But this is something Marvel really needed and really wanted heading into and to sandwich it, the release in between the Comic Con panel, which has people excited about the future of Ghost Rider and Black Panther, et cetera, et cetera.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, for sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

And D23, which is the Disney centric event that's coming up in mid August where we have to imagine they're going to roll out a bunch of new X Men characters. This is energy and moment and like let's hope and pray that Vision Quest is a smash Ola, because I'm personally very excited for that Dare to dream that bringing that energy and that excitement into Avengers Doomsday sets them up to be in a better place than literally anyone as has been claiming they've been in for the last, you know, six months to a year to more you

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[Mallory Rubin]

Evening Buys Remorse Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

You what?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no, no, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I guess I'll let myself out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Congratulations. I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply.

[Joanna Robinson]

See our 7 day return [e-mail] this

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[Joanna Robinson]

Let's go now to the deep dive. All right, we're starting with section I'm calling who did it better, Peter or Grogu? Grogu All Alone, a stretch of a movie that we did not like, but we really liked the stretch, not the sweet baby Grogu. Peter All Alone is a sizable chunk of the opening of the movie as Peter deals with the consequences of not only choosing to protect his friends from danger, but also deciding to not make any new connections. Bless her blonde girl in the elevator really tried, man.

[Mallory Rubin]

She wanted to fucking dewolf tried.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, you know, in a sort of mom more mommy energy tried. But he is isolate, you know, like it actually gave me real Covid memories. Cause he's just like in massive isolation. The sort of like all my food is delivered by doordash that I don't answer the door for. There's just like a post it there, you know, and no one ever, he's constantly masked. No one ever sees his face. Like no one ever sees his face. And that is just like devastating. And the thing about Peter, you know you mentioned from the beginning from Homecoming, Peter has always struggled with being just Peter. You know, we don't we. Because we didn't get to see this. Peter Parker's classic origin story, right? We didn't spend time with pre Spidey Peter. But what's clear from Homecoming is that, you know, nerdy, dorky Peter Parker is a person that he struggles being outside of the. I'm also Spider Man. Let's go to one of your favorite clips. I think in all of the MCU to underline this.

[Mallory Rubin]

Delightful.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

It's not working out.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm gonna need the suit back.

[Mallory Rubin]

For how long?

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Forever.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, that's.

[Mallory Rubin]

No, no, please, please, please.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let's have it.

[Mallory Rubin]

You don't understand. The thing is this is all I have. I'm nothing without this suit.

[Joanna Robinson]

If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it. Okay. I mean the best rich words from the mouth of a Hightower. Rich words from Tony Stark on that front. A man who has trouble separating himself from his I'm just a man in the can. But what do you think about this? About. About this being part of Peter's eternal struggle of how to. Like we had joked when, when we first saw this trailer, I was like, is this movie about work, life, balance?

[Mallory Rubin]

And like, it kind of is.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, definitely is. But this absolutely absolute erasure of Peter Parker, not just from the memories of people, but just like in his own right, in his own mind. What do you think about this?

[Mallory Rubin]

Boy, I just thought this was wonderful. And one of. I think this was fairly quickly. This concern was fairly quickly erased by just the trailers and the marketing. It was clear this wasn't going to be a thing. But I feel like in the week of no Way Home and the passage of time over the years, this question of, like, all right, so that like, totally, like, makes sense or need to happen or when will they undo it and how and how. And then it's like we see the first trailer and nobody remembers Peter and he's, you know, who among us? Doom scrolling Instagram. Instead of getting a good night's sleep watching other people who he loves be happy without him. Relatable content, really tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, my God.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's like, man, just a lot of pizza delivered to your doorstep. Brain rot on social. Missing people that you don't know how to forge a connection to. And debilitating headaches because all you do is work it. Me, alas, I don't have any superpowers

[Joanna Robinson]

to balance that out. I think you do, actually. I think you do.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that clip. I'm so glad you picked that. I have always loved that moment so much. Not only, I think is like a. A bit of a counterweight to like, did we need this mentorship story to drive so much of the Holland versus Spider man stories? Because I think that speaks to what it provides. Right? But to find Peter in this spot where he had to make this choice, to make this sacrifice. And sacrifice is always a through line of assessing a journey for a hero. Right? What are you willing to give up? What did you have to give up? And then what did it mean? What did it mean for you and the other people? We'll talk about this later when we get to mj. But the fact that the movie not only doesn't undo that decision, but really roots itself in Peter's loneliness and isolation and then also gives us some time to spend thinking about, like, oh, you made that choice for me.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right?

[Mallory Rubin]

Really great. It's, I think, a really considered assessment of what the passage of time would mean if you had done this thing and nobody remembered you. And so the way that, that, that we find Peter, because the college years go by right. He's what we're getting. And that was very deftly edited and structured in the film.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Ned.

[Mallory Rubin]

And these updates and these videos. Hysterical goatee in the sophomore year video. And MJ's like, you look like an assistant coach. Killed me. The way that very quickly we understood that this is every day for Peter. And the beginning of the movie did that in a few respects. We get the rogues gallery. Again, very comic book forward. This is what every day is like. Fighting crime on the streets of New York and trying to keep his neighborhood safe. Friendly neighborhood Spider Man. But also that then he goes home every night and he watches the people who moved on without him. And they didn't do it because they decided they didn't want him in his life anymore. They did it because they don't know who he is.

[Joanna Robinson]

It almost doesn't matter.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because I think this is just like such a universal. It's not just. It's what you're describing, this sort of like, idea of FOMO of like watching people that you care about having fun without you or being unable to connect to them or whatever the case may be. That is just such a. I hope it's a. Actually, I don't hope it's a universal experience, but I think it is a very, undeniably a very common experience, especially in the age of social media, which has just really enhanced that idea, the FOMO idea. But there's also this idea and as you mentioned, there are different stages of coming of age. And there's the high school years and then there's this like, I'm a young adult or when am I an adult? When am I supposed to be an adult? And Peter Parker moves to Manhattan or, you know, becomes an adult, has a job, you know, is an evolution we've seen. Doesn't seem to have a job in this movie. I have some questions.

[Mallory Rubin]

I do have some questions.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have some questions where the pizza money's coming from.

[Mallory Rubin]

But like all those fresh bouquets of flowers. Yeah. Not cheap.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do have some questions about that. But. But he couldn't have a job because then he would have coworkers and then he would have some kind of, you know, Peter Parker life. And he has no Peter Parker life.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

So.

[Joanna Robinson]

But there's also the like, am. You know, years ago when I took. I took longer to graduate college than all my friends did. Like, I was there like another semester after they left, actually, maybe longer. And I had like a lot of anxiety about that. Right. Cause I was just sort of like, they're they're done and moved on, and I'm not, you know, And I had a really good friend to say, like, oh, like. But everyone's path is at a different pace and it doesn't really much matter. And did I always heed that lesson? I'm not sure, but it is something that I've thought about every time I'm like, am I on the right track? Am I doing the things at the speed you're supposed to do them? And so this very distinctive experience of young adulthood of just sort of like, oh, they're doing the thing that maybe people think I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm not doing it. So it's not just like they're living their lives without me or having fun without me. It's like they're ticking off these milestones that I am not and I'm behind or maybe I don't ever get to even have those milestones at all.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And I think that that was conveyed quite effectively for this character, but also just in a larger way, like the question of what you are allowed to maintain and give yourself and experience and what you feel you actually genuinely have to let go either to do the thing that you're supposed to. To do, to focus on the thing you're supposed to do, or to protect other people as we hear Peter voice in this movie. Right. Like, there's the initial, the spell, the make them forget decision. And then there's the, I'm putting the letter back in the pocket.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm going to protect them.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Seeing the cut on the head, etc. So there. There are degrees and waves of that, which I agree the end of. Of no Way Home, even though it didn't overall, as a film, measure up to my. Like, the end is still beautiful. The Peters and the coffee shop donut shop sequence, the idea that in order to be a hero, to be Spider man, to save New York, you can't let anybody love you or love anybody because it endangers them. It pulls your focus. To watch, to find Peter in that place at the beginning felt completely right to me and kind of important, actually, to show him there and to show us what it would mean that he had been there for a long time. And then to watch him work through that, not only because of the experiences with MJ and Ned, you know, something like the LEGO building sequence with Ned. Just the authentic. You can tell yourself every minute of every day that this shouldn't be a thing you have. And then you sit there and those pieces click into Place. And you're quoting Lord of the Rings to each other. You're quoting Fellowship. And, like, how could you not feel the most fully yourself that you had felt in four years? You know, Like, I just thought the movie really reinforced in a way that when Peter gets to the end, he's got the May visions he brings, allows Jean to benefit from that same counsel. And the idea, which I know you want to talk about later, of rooting and orienting in a familiar way.

[Joanna Robinson]

But follow the map of the house. We can talk about it wherever you want.

[Mallory Rubin]

Slightly repositioning the idea of responsibility as, like, responsibility to your community and to your family and your friends, but also to yourself. It's like, really, I just thought very moving. So I was so glad that we spent the beginning looking at this. And again, you had little bits of humor to. The elevator girl stuff was just wonderful. But it was sad. It was sad to find Peter here.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think what's tough for me, you know, and, you know, the way in which they tried to fix it or give us Peter all alone. But what is undeniably true about Tom Holland's Peter Parker is that, like, his relationships are what has always made him a great character. Ned learns who Peter is so early in home, like, earlier than I even remembered in Homecoming, you know what I mean? Like, and so to have Peter all alone is quite challenging. So to give him Punisher, you know, and to give him moments with Yelena, like, you know, the most charismatic person in the entire mcu, like, that is really helpful. I do think, for me, the movie suffered a bit in the opening because, like, I. I do think some of the Montagy stuff was perfectly done. I think the movie suffers in that first hour when we're not getting what is the best thing that Peter Parker can do, which is to be in relationships. And I understand that's the point of the story, but by dint of premise, you're robbing me of something I enjoy best out of this character in this performance. You know what I mean?

[Mallory Rubin]

I definitely. And even, like, thinking back across all of the films, the. While Homecoming, I think, is just like a gem of a movie, and I adore it. Even going back to that, your Ned point is right. I mean, it's very early. The dropping of the Death Star, Lego, et cetera. I'm going to be honest with Peter. I don't know if I could keep this secret. Like, it's just the best.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's the Liz movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's not the MJ movie. MJ is not in that movie nearly as much as I think we remember in our minds the forging of that trio as like, the Holy Trinity.

[Joanna Robinson]

During one of the promo things, they were doing, like, a quiz, you know, one of their endless quizzes or whatever. And it was sort of like, identify your line from this or whatever. And one of them was one of her homecoming lines. And she's like, it's one of three lines I have.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's like, I know it.

[Mallory Rubin]

I did.

[Joanna Robinson]

I only had three lines.

[Mallory Rubin]

The sketchbook connection coming back was nice, but. Yeah. So centering Peter and Ned, Peter and mj, but also the three of them together is the heartbeat of this franchise, undeniably. And Peter and May, too, which, like, even though that type of loss puts Peter in the place he is with the other Peters at the end of no Way Home, and then certainly in a place here where his grief and his loss and mourning allows him to help reach somebody like Jean and work like, guide and actually be in the mentorship position of trying to help somebody else navigate this terrible despair. I. Yeah, I think you're right that there's something like, you can't help but miss because it is so seminal to this franchise. I think for me, it worked so well because it feels true. It feels true that sometimes the thing that we love and the thing that roots us and that we feel is familiar and just, like, right about a relationship or a moment in your life is suddenly gone.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. And what I would just. I would agree with you. And I think this is a conversation we had about House of the Dragon the other day, which is just sort of like, it can be true storytelling and maybe not like, the best storytelling, if that makes sense. I mean, what's so devastating about where we find Peter here? So I rewatched all the Holland movies before we watched Brand New Day, and then I rewatched no Way Home again, just to sort of like, get the freshest, like, that's where we left him moment. And so some of these moments, especially because I'm a Garfield girl, like, some of the Peter three moments in that film hit even harder once you watch what Peter goes through in this movie. The zero work life balance. Let's. Let's see this clip from no Way Home.

[Mallory Rubin]

You have someone?

[Joanna Robinson]

No,

[Mallory Rubin]

I got no time for Peter Parker stuff, you know?

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you?

[Mallory Rubin]

That's a little complicated. No, I understand. I guess it's just not in the cars for guys like us.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, Sad Peter 2's like, don't give up, buddy. And we all Hope that Peter 3 goes home and, like, yeah, figures it out. But, you know, so. So that Peter's like, you know, and this is an eternal superhero struggle, right? Of, like, what do I have to sacrifice to be a hero? What do I have to give up in. In. In my humanity? And. And, you know, this. The Slayer goes through this. Like, you know, there isn't. There isn't a hero out there who hasn't gone through some version of this.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, the entire Infinity saga. You could make the case hinges on that assessment. Gonna go try some of that life. Tony's been telling me to get like that. That is the breakthrough for Cap allowing himself to live a little.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right? And on the flip side, Tony giving

[Mallory Rubin]

up sacrifice play makes sacrifice play. Now, I think, you know, you asked earlier the idea, and it obviously connects to that clip about the balance of Peter and Spidey. And, like, you know, one of the reasons I really love Far From Home is that Peter, who's a teenager and who is at this place in his life of, like, I'm in, like, the Avengers and also, like, my best friend knows.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is that a band?

[Mallory Rubin]

He's like, I want to go to Europe and be a teenager and try to get a girlfriend. I want to be Peter.

[Joanna Robinson]

I almost put that Mysterio clip up there. When he and Mysterio are talking on the. On the ledge about sort of, he's like, I had this plan. Yeah. This girl I like. You know, it's just hard. The Mysterio clip is hard. I really like that scene. But it's hard because, like, Mysterio is full of such shit in that moment.

[Mallory Rubin]

But that, I think, actually is like. Frankly, I think it makes the text even richer for Peter because he knows then that part of the way he was worked was by someone saying it's okay to just be Peter for a bit. And it's like, fuck is it? What would it be like for that to have been the thing that somebody tried to press? I just. Man, these movies rule.

[Joanna Robinson]

So an idea that this movie deals with in terms of, like, Peter's calibration being off is the way in which the spider element, the mutation idea, which, of course, links to Jean Grey and links to Bruce Banner as well, he's being overwhelmed by the spider side of him because he's not allowing time for the Peter side of him and the result of the spider thing, which he will eventually, as is the case in all good stories like this, learn to make his advantage, not his disadvantage. Yeah, yeah. Not the thing he's trying to repress. But the thing that he uses to be his most powerful, but it. But initially, it makes him more rageful, more violent, more, you know, gives him these debilitating headaches, all this other stuff, but, like, the violence and the rage. Once again, let's go to my guy, Andrew Garfield.

[Mallory Rubin]

Great. Try to keep going. Try to keep being the friendly neighborhood Spider Man. Cause I know that's what she would have wanted. But at some point, I just. I stopped pulling my punches. I got rageful, I got bitter. I just don't want you to end up like. Like me. They look like babies. Even though that was only a few years ago.

[Joanna Robinson]

When Andrew Garfield cries, I cry.

[Mallory Rubin]

He is just wonderful. He's wonderful.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, so what's devastating about watching no Way Home in retrospect is that, like, you know, Peter 2 and Peter 3 have this moment at the end of a movie where they stop Peter, Our guy Peter1, from Killing the Green Goblin out of vengeance, and they teach him a lesson about. It's not about the rage. It's about, you know, processing the grief and moving on. And then, you know, the end of no Way Home was sad no matter what. It was poignant no matter what. But the idea that, like, the result is the very thing that the other Peters were worried about for this younger Peter, and he just. It happened to him anyway, even despite their best efforts to teach him this lesson and have this, like, spider brotherhood sort of moment. And so that's just devastating on. On Rewatch. But I am curious. I want to ask you. One thing I'm struggling with is,

[Mallory Rubin]

I

[Joanna Robinson]

guess, the clear through line of what the story is trying to tell us as it pertains to Gene, as it pertains to Bruce, and as it pertains to Peter about this idea of this other side of you and repress it or embrace it, you know, because Hulk is. Got his sort of repression routine down pat. But he's also the one who's full of these cautionary. I'm something of a scientist myself, sort of words for Peter, AKA Ned, when he comes to him and talks about this sort of universal inhibitors that way. Yeah. But he's just sort of like, how do you decide what is right to oppress and what is not? But then, like, how do. How do you feel? Like that sort of works as it pertains to the Hulk inside of this. I feel like that messaging got muddy for me in a way that I'm hoping you can sort of clarify. It's not up to you, but I'm just curious.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's an interesting question. So to connect it to the two moving Peter three clips that you just showed, which were lovely, it all feels to me a little bit in the same brew because, like, what you're saying about the devastation of these other Peters who have experienced their loss and their trauma, trying to provide this counsel and like, it doesn't mean that the words didn't reach him, but it means that it's not that easy. Right. It means that it's not enough to just hear from somebody, this is how it should be. Or this is the question you need to ask yourself. You still need to walk the path of your own life.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or it's also possible that lesson could have landed if he had had his community around him, but he had to then give up. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

The fact that Peter 3, that Garfield's Peter is, you know, they have their Uncle Ben and Aunt May shared with Tweek's experience, but he lost Gwen.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's talking about Gwen. Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

And so that is like, you know, the thing that he has not allowed himself. He has not absolved himself of that for a second and he has not been able to move on from that for a second. And so to see the way, I think that there's an interesting commentary there on like, you don't forget loss. You are shaped by it and you carry it with you. But can you forgive yourself enough to allow yourself to live and try to be a full person? And the answer to that is hopefully, and hopefully you can find somebody, whether it's MJ or Ned or the other Peters, to help you do that. Doesn't mean it's going to be easy. So to get to your. To. To take it to your question about the film's kind of study and assessment of the many wolves inside and these elements that you might fear about yourself or just actively despise about yourself and that might truly be dangerous. Like, I don't think the movie wants us to come out at the end saying that there's, oh, there's nothing to fear from the Hulk. Right. Or there's like so. But.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or from Jean.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Or from Jean who does some truly terrible, damaging things in the movie, I

[Joanna Robinson]

believe kills many people.

[Mallory Rubin]

In this movie, the street is littered with Jean Grey's dead.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let's just say it littered. But the Hulk has killed a lot of people and Yelena Belova has killed a lot of people and the Punisher has killed a lot of people. So, you know, she's in good company in this movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly. And so I think the fact, like, if honestly if the movie. I think your question is a very fair one in terms of whether it feels like that worked character to character inside of you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because I feel like the message for Peter is embrace all of you. The Peter side of you, certainly, but also, like, don't fear the spider. You know what I mean? Like, you know, when he goes full spider mode against the hand, it is seen as a moment of, like, triumph and self acceptance.

[Mallory Rubin]

No question.

[Joanna Robinson]

And for Jean, it's supposed to, you know, the message, which is like, slightly muddied off of that, but the message of May for both Peter and Jean, which is just sort of like who you are outside of being, quote, unquote special, is special enough. And people will love you just for you, Jean. Not for the Phoenix or whatever, you know, however you. The X Men, Jean gre, and then Bruce is. This has been an ongoing mess for him, but it's just sort of like. But do you know what I mean?

[Mallory Rubin]

So, yes, totally. And I understand why you're bumping on that. I think for me, it felt like part of the point of asking the questions was to acknowledge that the answer will be something that is eternally just an inch away from grasping in full. And you're always gonna. The important thing is to be able to identify that it's something to take seriously and to ask and to think about and to consider. I think that, like, Hulk is so Hulk and Gene, while the connection of like, and even just. We talked about this with the trailer, but the idea of having a mutant in this movie. Peter, Spider Man's not a mutant. But this idea of mutation and evolution and change, the different cycles, the comedy of Peter, like, turn off that spider stuff. But also the track that we're hearing about adulthood and the idea, like you said earlier, that coming of age doesn't cease. I love that we build toward a

[Joanna Robinson]

moment

[Mallory Rubin]

where Peter can say at the end when he embraces the organic web shooters. Right. Okay. There's a literal plot element of this where it's like, ew. That was just incredible. Just so good, you know, Again, Spider man has always just been about, boy, there's a lot of sticky white stuff coming out of me. What do I do?

[Joanna Robinson]

And it still is great.

[Mallory Rubin]

The idea that there's the reckoning of. Oh, you think you're a friend of damage control. They have a whole task force waiting with special weapons just to stop the thing you do do. And it's like, let me find a way through that. And part of the way through that is embracing who I am. So Peter's not like, I gave over to the spider in full, and I let that consume me. He's not rejecting it. He has to embrace, like you said, the balance and the. The totality of who he is. And so when he says, I'm both, you're like, yeah, let's go. And I think that hits to your point. The Hulk stuff to me is like, okay. Bruce has actually always, despite being positioned as a mentor and a leader and now he's a teacher, always struggled with that. And the idea that Bruce Banner in a Spider man movie where Peter is supposed to absorb that lesson, would suddenly stop being in a place where he's like, actually, it's not her. It's the other guy, would not have felt true to that character to me. And so I think the ability to say, peter makes progress. Peter takes the next step. Peter moves into the next evolution of being Spider man and being Peter, being an adult. And also, there are reminders that he won't have to stop facing those demons or asking those questions of himself.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wheeled out on a Gertie babbling.

[Mallory Rubin]

Maybe we overcorrected one degree on that. That was for some sort of, like, comedic effect front. When Ned is like, oh, so sad. And everyone laughed in the theater, and

[Joanna Robinson]

I was like, this is quite upsetting. Devastating.

[Mallory Rubin]

But, you know, the same character who gives us the that's my secret cap, I'm always angry. Has worked through the tech and the meditation and the training to suppress more than to balance. So he's in some ways a guide, in some ways also a cautionary tale.

[Joanna Robinson]

On the one hand. Yeah. I mean, sure, yeah, it's fine to say two steps forward, one step back for these characters. You know, that's how they make decades of movies about them. You can't just complete your arc, you know? But, like. But Hulk's story was that he had found in smart. Hulk had found balance, and then, you know, he's back in Bruce form here. Where do you find Jean in all of that in this story?

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that Jean, because we're at the beginning of our journey with her in this incarnation, you know, this form and this iteration. I mean, we're huge Sadie Sink fans. We're Stranger Things fans. We were delighted to hear that she was gonna be in this. We, I think, all had one moment of thinking she'd be Gwen, and then every single moment after that of feeling sure she'd be Jean Grey. I thought she was wonderful. I liked that. Again, Peter kind of got the opportunity to dispense some wisdom and guidance and let his experiences help somebody else, while still also being in the position of needing to receive that from other people. You know, I think that's something like Hulk saying the like, well, who decides? Is it good or bad? The other thing that that achieved, and this connects to Jean, obviously, is not just sort of acknowledging that you can't just ask these questions in a vacuum. If you make these choices, there's a potential uncontainable, cataclysmic effect, because so much of this movie with the Bill Metzger character and damage control is like, what do other people try to do with your power, but also the ability to suppress your power? And how do you become a tool for somebody else's agenda? So the fact that Hulk is like, I have gotten to a place I need to. But then Peter is asking all these questions, and Hulk, despite living his life in pursuit of that outcome, says to Peter, what you're saying is pretty dangerous. Right? And so there's a little bit of the Captain Civil War, like, the safest answer, our own.

[Joanna Robinson]

Fine for me, but not for everyone else.

[Mallory Rubin]

There's a little bit of that. But then there's also just, I think the recognition for somebody as seasoned as Bruce Banner, who has been through as many bouts of turmoil and despair, individually and collectively as he literally MCU faces, to know that, like, you can't make decisions like that without consequences and that you have to. You have to be cognizant of something that you make not being yours to control in full, including the thing that you can't control, being yourself. At some point. Gene, what did. What did you think of all of the Peter Jean stuff and just how he reached her and what she.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I mean, I like that. I love him being in a mentor role, as you put it. Like, I have not experienced as much agitation as you were describing around, like, I guess the debate of whether or not Tony, but, like, Peter Parker to me, has always been someone who has a mentor, whether that's Octavius or, you know, et cetera, et cetera. You know, Dr. Connors, like, blah, blah. Like, there's always, like, an older, you know, professional person. And, you know, and then it just wound up being Tony Stark, and then it was Mysterio, and then it was Dr. Strange. You know what I mean? Like, it's always. It's always, you know, and in this movie, it's Bruce Banner, you know, so, like, those always exist. But for him to get to be a version of that for Jean, I think is very satisfying. And then also, what is interesting and we talked about this with no Way Home. This is something my friend Dave Gonzales pointed out years ago, is that the villains of the Tom Holland original trilogy, it's always Stark Tech gone wrong. It's always like, the sins of Tony Stark or the consequences of Tony Stark tech going wrong coming back to haunt, you know, his mentee, Peter. You know, Peter has to clean up the mess of Tony Stark again and again and again.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. Damage Control obviously also connected with Vulture.

[Joanna Robinson]

And at the very beginning of Homecoming is when we get Damage Control's intro into the mcu. But it's Parker Tech. It's Parker Tech coming out of this movie that is. Is no doubt gonna haunt the MCU going forward. You know what I mean? And I think that's really interesting to watch him step into the Tony role of mentor, but also the Tony role of, like, inventor who loses control of their invention. I think is. Is interesting, but in terms of where Jean lands, I mean, I think it's intentionally supposed to be kind of murky because, you know, she has. She's the antagonist of this movie. She gets this redemption. You know, Punisher's like, she's okay. She killed a bunch of people, but she kept you alive, so she's fine. And she's a bus up to upstate New York to, like, you know, find some gifted, enroll in school or something like that.

[Mallory Rubin]

So, yeah, you know, her arc is

[Joanna Robinson]

just beginning, so it's supposed to be messy. And, of course, Jean Grey is, like, one of the messiest X Men there is. But I guess my, like, tidy, puzzled brain was really trying to, like, lock these three arcs, you know, into a clear message. And I don't mind your. I. I'm. I'm. I always benefit from talking to you about these things. And I don't mind your explanation that, like, we're all three of these people are on different parts of their path. And not only that, but the paths don't always go forward. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Try to embrace all aspects of who you are and recognize that it will be hard. It will be hard to do. So I. Peter, another. Another thing that, you know, another value at this moment in time heading into this movie of watching no Way Home Again. Is that the plot of that movie? We're talking a lot about Peter being forgotten? The plot of that movie is, let's help everyone, even people who have done terrible things. And then we get the moment with. We get a couple moments where Peter's bringing me flowers all the time in the gravestone, but we get the inscription on her tombstone. If you help one person, you help her agenda. Everyone. Exactly.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maybe.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know what? I miss her. I miss her. One of the.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm glad she was here. Same. It felt very Nolan y to have a dead woman haunt in this movie, but I'm glad she's here.

[Mallory Rubin]

But it's. Nolan sees it, so it feels like it really did.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're so right.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, Peter, his journey in no way home with, like, what level of forgiveness or help does somebody who has done something really terrible deserve? Is. Feels to me like true to his arc that he would carry that question forward with him.

[Joanna Robinson]

For sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And so I like.

[Joanna Robinson]

And be friends with Frank and be friends with Yelena. You know what I mean? Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, I almost included some of that stuff from no Way Home about sort of, you know, these villains and everyone deserves a redemption. But I often said for two Andrew Garfield clips and I feel great, you

[Mallory Rubin]

can only be who you are. Which, again, is part of the point. They've got red on their ledger. You did receive the message of the movie. There you go.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

The.

[Joanna Robinson]

They've got red on their ledger. Punisher, Hulk and Yelena. Oh, we should see that. We should say that because we haven't mentioned it yet. Evie, who is Peter's assistant, is voiced by Naomi Watts. I miss Jennifer Connelly, but, you know, it's fun to have Naomi Watts here. So. Yeah. To make sure that it's not just Evie and DeWolf that he's talking to the first hour, we have. We. We check in with a couple allies here.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let's talk about Yelena Belova.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'd love to.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is a real. In terms of, like, I don't know. It's never too late to change who you are or to go through a growth spurt or whatever. My time at the Ringer has dramatically. So when we did no Way Home, I was like, oh, I knew the entire plot of this movie in every single second before we went to go see the movie. And you're like, that's weird. What a weird thing to do. But it was my old way of processing these things, and I've shifted away from that in many respects just because of the way that we cover things and stuff like that. That I knew so little about this movie that I did not know Yolanda Boa was in it. I had.

[Mallory Rubin]

Maybe this makes us sound like we're, like, not online enough for people who will literally work on the Internet. I have no clue. This was.

[Joanna Robinson]

I had no idea. And then I expected it to be this, like, big Thing. And then she was just, like, at the premiere, and I was like, wow. I guess everyone knew that Florence Pugh. I mean, she's just not in the trailer. I don't know. I just, like, miss the Yelena Belova, all the rumors that she was in this movie. So when he's like, I gotta go see someone, and he walks into the bathhouse and it's Yelena Belova, I was like, let's fucking. That's. To me. This was the biggest yay moment in the movie for me. With love and respect to my girl mj, this was great. What the fuck Can't Florence Pugh do as Yelena Belova or Justin in general? Like, she's per. Every single second she's on screen. She's perfect. She's so funny. The running potato gag, just, like, endlessly funny. The, like, New Avengers gag. Her talking about, like, her important New Avengers business. The I've seen your belly button moment

[Mallory Rubin]

and the toe beans.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, just really incredible.

[Mallory Rubin]

It is a good note. Like, Peter, if you're trying to. You know, he refuses to take the mask off. Defeats the whole purpose, as he says. Yeah, A lot of Peter on display there.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm. But. But she kept it Peter Parker friendly. She said, I've seen your belly button.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

She could have said something else, but she said, I've seen your belly button.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Who would.

[Joanna Robinson]

Who does it better from the bath? Ormond Hightower or Yelena Belova? Both icons in their own right. Talk about work, life, balance indeed.

[Mallory Rubin]

I found Ormond's. I'm gonna conduct my business affairs from the bath while I make everybody stand here feeling super uncomfortable. To be a real. This guy's a super big problem.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really. Ormond Hightower's a problem, not an aspirational figure.

[Mallory Rubin]

A way to convey that to us. And when Yelena was, like, coming to the back, and then, of course, we learn later that she does the same with DeWolf. I was just like, goals. Life goals. This is amazing. It looked so relaxing and so soothing. Hysterical when she's on the bench routine.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because I know that, like, the smudgy eyeliner look is part of her whole thing. But, like, if she's. She's got that, like, the black liner but also the blue that she had in Thunderbolts. But if. If she's gonna sit in a steamy bathhouse all day and it's not running down her. I need. Need. I need the setting spray. I need to know the powdering routine. Like, I need to know all of it by the end of a podcast, I've got, like, eyeliner rings or I'm well aware. And so I just need some help from Yelena Belova.

[Mallory Rubin]

Get ready with me.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yelena Belova.

[Mallory Rubin]

Should she become, like, a TikTok influencer, she'd be great.

[Joanna Robinson]

We would all benefit.

[Mallory Rubin]

She'd be great, I believe.

[Joanna Robinson]

What else do you want to say about Yelena?

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought this was great. It just felt like a kind of smartly calibrated way to put other characters into this movie. It's somebody you understand in a very, like, practical, literal way. Right away, she's like, oh, you're here to see if this is mind control. Like, what happened to me? And he's like, yeah, yeah. She's like, no, see it all. It makes sense. You're not like, why would this happen? This feels really forced. But it was like, it actually wasn't introduced too fully into the plot. The ability for her to glean something about who was hacking what system and what did they search for and how can Peter then use that information? Like, it was all beneficial and helpful and then also comedic because she's such a charm. A charisma bomb. You know, the great moment when Peter boots up zoom and checks in from Ned and MJ's apartment and Ned's geeking out, and Yelena's not like, why the fuck can randos hear this conversation? She's like, I'm so glad the sad boy has friends. You know, it's just. It was perfect. It was the perfect deployment information. A little bit of that parallel text that you identified already, and charm and humor. And, like, this movie is upsetting. There's a lot of really, actually dark, heavy shit. We need a little bit of levity, which Yelena provided.

[Joanna Robinson]

I really agree. I think that when I was thinking back at. When we were in Hall H for Comic Con, Marvel panel.

[Mallory Rubin]

That feels like 100 years.

[Joanna Robinson]

It does.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was five days ago. Is that possible? It's not six.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can't be true. Can't be true, right? And I was like, you know, they brought out all these people. And I'm like, does this feel as, like, star packed as it could? And, you know, just in terms of, like, who they had there?

[Mallory Rubin]

You literally were like, where's Pugh?

[Joanna Robinson]

I did, Yeah. I said, where's Florence Pugh? And I was like, where's Sebastian Stan? Like, they're just, like, a few people that I'm just sort of like. But, like, Florence Pugh would have gone a long way to, like, because she is along with Kamala Khan. But actually, I would say at this point, just because they still don't quite know how to use Kamala, I would say, yeah. Yelena is by far the most successful post Endgame addition to the mcu. Like, without question to that point.

[Mallory Rubin]

Having them in a scene together is a great. And you mentioned earlier, like, the kind of carryover characters and more broadly, where we are and what has worked and what doesn't. You know, I think we all collectively. It's very easy to think Endgame ended the Infinity Saga, and it didn't Far From Home did, because it was the coda, and it was about grieving Tony and Cap and Nat and all of these characters we had lost. But it was also about inheriting the mantle and what it meant to be, like, next up, if you didn't want to be. And so to have Peter and Yelena in a scene together amid a lot of other stuff in the MCU's multiverse saga that hasn't worked was a real. Like, we made the right choice a long time ago. Some of the choices we made a long time ago were right and worked. And like, Tom Holland's Peter Parker can carry a lot of this. And also, which choices that we made after that should we build around? You know, like, this was a real. Just kind of soothing balm on the

[Joanna Robinson]

one hand, yes, but. And like, if they're like, we can put Yelena in anything. We can put her in Hawkeye, we can put her in anything, and it works. I agree. It didn't work for the larger audience that Thunderbolts is like, essentially Yelena below the movie. Again, we loved it, and I think it really worked. But, like, maybe she was just too sad girl in that movie, and they just need her in potato bath mode instead. I loved her Hulk.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very minimally used in the film. We've already talked about a lot of the Hulk stuff.

[Mallory Rubin]

I did really enjoy the humor in the classroom. The idea that Bruce Banner, the Hulk teaching at Empire State, that this would happen, that every single time a kid raised their hand in his class, he'd be like, do you want to ask me about quantum mechanics?

[Joanna Robinson]

And they're like, no, I want to talk about Thanos.

[Mallory Rubin]

Why didn't Thanos just make more food?

[Joanna Robinson]

And it's a great question.

[Mallory Rubin]

Played in the theater. Oh, yeah. This is wonderful.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really hit in our theater. In my quieter theater as well.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then the whole smash moment was so funny.

[Joanna Robinson]

Cindy Moon, you know, a Marvel cameo here. But, yeah, like, having her ask the, like, very Reddit question. Of like, why didn't Thanos do this? And then to have the guy in green body paint that like that, like, Bruce is quite familiar. He's just like, let me hand off to this guy.

[Mallory Rubin]

So good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, it was great. I love Mark Ruffalo.

[Mallory Rubin]

Wonderful.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, Marvel has the rights to their. To use this Sony character. They don't have the ability to put. Still don't have the ability to put Bruce Banner's Hulk as the main character in a movie. So he has to show up as a supporting character in various things. And I'm always happy to see him. And he. Here he is. I don't. I don't have much else to say that we've already talked about.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought the conversation that he and Peter had, in addition to the kind of like, thematic stuff we already discussed, just there was real chemistry between the performers. I thought it was lovely. It was like, charming and sweet and had real, like, dad mode energy in a way that I liked.

[Joanna Robinson]

And watching Bruce suss him out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And figure things out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. That was all, like, very satisfying. And then even later, the like the universal word and what that triggers and he's like, oh, right, okay, this is where all the.

[Joanna Robinson]

But when's the last time we had. Oh, nevermind.

[Mallory Rubin]

In.

[Joanna Robinson]

In Ragnarok, I was like, when's the last time we had like, Hulk. Hulk as antagonist? But it wasn't that long because I was like, you know, but yeah, yeah,

[Mallory Rubin]

Ragnarok on the action front. So we had seen at Comic Con a now we realized heavily edited to remove all of the gene stuff. I was like, wow, the magic going.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, my God, like every other word. I was having a really fun time tracking. Yeah, that was.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was really something.

[Joanna Robinson]

They even like overdubbed a different word, like when they were talking about the inhibitor chip.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think they like, get. They. They cut her out of like, in a cutaway.

[Mallory Rubin]

They left not a trace. That. That was really about them going after Jean. That was amazing. But we had seen Frank and Spidey fighting the Hulk and Frank coming in with his machine gun. And then the incredible, like, I'm swinging Frank under. And the little humor of you just trying to get out of fighting the Hulk. Yeah. Yes, him. We had seen all that and we were like, let's fucking go. Even better. In the actual movie, the way that Peter is using when he's fighting. I didn't know you could get that big. The Hulk again, just kind of bursting forth, this uncontainable, undammable surge inside the close up the Zooming and just Hulk. Just Hulk and his eyes taking over the whole screen. There was something euphoric. Hulk is one of my favorite. Spider man is my favorite comic book character, and Hulk is one of my favorite comic book characters. This was incredibly fun. And then I thought, even just again. And this is true in the action throughout the entire movie when the Tank crashes in to the detention center early, and then Peter uses his webbing to swing the guys out of harm's way. The choreography was just, like, balletic and lovely throughout. Using the webbing to connect, you know, it's like a string of balloons. But the concrete of the building pulling Hulk down. Can't get the inhibitor chip in his skin. But we can see the webbing cutting through. Not actually breaching, but just pulling. Really cool and good. And then, yeah, Bruce was wheeled off in a gurney. And that part didn't work as well. But the fight itself, I thought was great. And it's a fun way to show on the Frank Castle front, you know, how completely, as Peter points out, out of his depths he is. But also, you kind of need to understand that.

[Joanna Robinson]

But there's something so charming about the fact that, I mean, at MJ's insistence that he goes barging in there anyway. Yeah. Even though he's outgunned out much.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then when Hulk is about to squish Peter's head like a grape, and he's like, bruce, Bruce, it's me. I'm your friend. The ability, again, to reach, to breach through the monstrous thing that has reared its head and find the humanity within.

[Joanna Robinson]

Interesting track. You know, people are trying to figure out, like, who knew what when. I think very specifically as it pertains to mj, like, because there's, you know, there's the moment at the end of the film when Peter approaches Ned and they do this sort of, like, handshake, and then Ned says, like, peter.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, and there's some debate, which I actually think is incorrect, but that's okay. But there's some debate online about, like, whether or not that's Ned remembering. I think it definitely is the way that Jacob played it and stuff like that. There's some people saying, like, oh, MJ said Peter earlier. So he's putting it together together. Some dot. I was like, I do not think that that's what that is supposed to be. But this idea that, like, the special handshake worked in a way that, like, quote, true love's kiss, you know, was. Was mocked by Jean Grey earlier. You know, a special hand cake, handshake in Lego's like, more powerful than true love's kiss. Love that idea. But when does MJ know? And what does she know? You know, she reads the letter. There's the moment when Jean takes over the mind of like, you know, this, this massive radius, this almost like Wanda esque hex sort of moment. And you see Zendaya, you see MJ crying, you know, and so a lot of people are wondering, like, is that a moment just in the act of sort of taking over? Does that shake loose some more personal memories for MJ in a way that the letter didn't? That's a fine theory. Yeah. But I like this idea that, like, Jean Grey messing with people's minds maybe opens doors, you know, into Strange's spell and allows sort of memories to seep through. And if that's the case, her occupying, like this battle for Hulk's brain, for Bruce's brain inside this fight scene when Peter is able to slightly permeate. Is that because Jean was,

[Mallory Rubin]

you know,

[Joanna Robinson]

the brain for a little while?

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't know.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm just asking questions. Okay, Punisher.

[Mallory Rubin]

And there was just simply nothing about this that wasn't perfect. That's my formal take on the matter.

[Joanna Robinson]

I just love to be allied with you on this because usually I feel like such a stick in the mud about Punisher, and I was just like, you know what? Guess what? They worked. It worked for me so well. The Staten island runner, like, the Staten Island Runner, along with the Potatoes Runner, like, felt like real old school Marvel.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, you know, now we just have this like, Staten island joke that we're just sort of like, we don't need to know what, what it means. It just like, means something. And that's, like, really fun.

[Mallory Rubin]

Move over, Budapest.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Mallory Rubin]

I.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I do think, you know, and we'll talk about Sunday and MJ in a bit in a hot second here. But like, part of the magic of this, of this franchise is watching Tom Holland and Zendaya's people fall in love along with Peter and mj, you know what I mean? It's just like so undeniable and so to have to be able to tap into a similar chemistry between two people in, in Bernthal and Holland who, like, genuinely love each other and will, like, vomit near each other on hot ones or whatever, you know, like, whatever, whatever you need. And, and in retrospect, it's. It's why a lot of that Menelaus Telemachus stuff worked so well in Odyssey, you know what I mean? I think that's the most successful Holland section of the Odyssey, you know, I loved it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, right.

[Joanna Robinson]

So, like, what other Tom Holland friends can we put.

[Mallory Rubin]

I know. Let's just get Bernthal on everything. Maybe it's that simple.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love Jon Bernthal. I love his Frank Castle. I have many of the same notes on the story around that Frank Castle as you do. Though, obviously I've loved, loved, loved him in Daredevil. This was not only incredibly entertaining and to see the, you know, like, even like a great little moment that captured their chemistry, I thought was when we can't hear them, we just. We're watching. Jean is watching. We're watching, like, through the security cameras and you just see them like.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And you can. You can hear it even though you can't because you know by then exactly how they're talking to each other.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Tom said that they improvised a lot of the stuff on the. On the set.

[Mallory Rubin]

It felt that way. It really felt like authentically existing inside of their relationship. So that was great. We've talked a lot already about Hulk and Jean and what they unlock for Peter and what Peter unlocks for what those three characters are unlocking in terms of this idea of like. Like evolution and repression and suppression. And what do you fear about yourself? Frank, to me, is an incredibly necessary additional element in the story because that's not his story. Frank's Frank. Not only doesn't. I mean, does Frank have demons? Yes, we'll talk about those in a second. He has great. Also great moment in the movie when she's like, whoa, yeah, this guy's got issues. I was back out of real laugh. That was funny,

[Joanna Robinson]

Frank.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is part of why I love watching him interact with Matt Murdock. Red got a real, like, red energy with the blush and daffodil.

[Joanna Robinson]

That made me think the blush and daffodil of Matt and Frank for sure is really good. And like, the way in which they, like, sort of cleaned up the Frank Castle. I mean, they. They lampshaded it. But like you. You blush and Daffodil is a real Peter Parker friendly way of saying something. He might say a little like, get

[Mallory Rubin]

out of here with that soft serve bullshit is like, like for. For a Spidey MCU movie, like on the Edge. And for Frank, like, positively G rated.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mallory Rubin]

But so Frank, who has these. Has this terrible trauma and history in.

[Joanna Robinson]

In. Wait, what happened?

[Mallory Rubin]

There's some. There's some helpful photos here in this location cabinet, but you're not allowed to look.

[Joanna Robinson]

Did he lose his family? He.

[Mallory Rubin]

So this is what I loved about this, genuinely. He. Frank actually always thinks he's right. And we get a lot of that energy too. He's not like, is this horrible darkness inside of me something I need to stifle? He's like, everyone else is gonna live in the world that I blaze for them with my bullets.

[Joanna Robinson]

Goes on everything.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then, you know, more recently in the mcu, has to confront, like, well, what does it mean if people you don't agree with put your sigil on their chest and on their bullets and stuff like that? Right, right. But Frank is not, in terms of his own worst impulses, trying to quiet those. He's leaning it in full and then dealing with the consequences.

[Joanna Robinson]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The lesson that he is there to show Peter, is if you let loss and grief consume you in full, this is where you find yourself.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, and I think, you know, what's good for me is not good for you. This energy coming off of Frank of like, I will be a reclusive loner and. And a freighter, you know, that's booby trapped and I will cut myself off from the world and stuff like that, but I don't want that for you, Peter. The way in which Frank can lean into sort of his dad Persona and rather than like, swallowing pills and sobbing in a graveyard at his ghost daughter, he can like, you know, actually like, do something with. With this. Yeah, I hate it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Very recent reference from an hour of Marvel you loved.

[Joanna Robinson]

I hated it. You know, and to see Frank even in, like, goofy mode when he's like, playing the decoy for Peter, like, this is. This is great shit. And it doesn't soften or. You know what I mean? Like, that's still recognizably to me, at least for sure. Punisher. Diehards might disagree, but that's still recognizably the Punisher to me, I think.

[Mallory Rubin]

So. Sitting by Peter, pursuing the tank. You're going to take my one gun, I've got another. Like, we're gonna do it my way.

[Joanna Robinson]

When the truck crashes and just like a million guns fall out into the road. Classic. Really funny.

[Mallory Rubin]

Classic Frank. But then, like, to your dad, energy point. They have this friendship, they have this like, who's in debt to whom and, you know, what do we owe to each other kind of element, which is always a thing we love in stories. Shout out the good place. The fact that Frank, who's who, you know, the loss of his kids, the loss of his wife. His wife, their Murder is the defining. They died bullet in his brain as well. But one of the divining things in his life. Right. And when he's sitting at Peter's bedside and he's not only like, oh, my God, I fired that bullet and I meant it for someone else, but it hit you. And I have to think about that, that when I pull the trigger, something like that could happen. Is that happening in his mind? Maybe a little bit. I think it is. He's sorry, he's apologetic. But the thing that is really undeniable and at the fore is you look exactly like I thought you were gonna. Like, he's like, like you're like, I'm just talking to him. Like, he's a nice kid. Yeah. So the dad energy there and the thing that he lost and then wanting to send Peter back out into the world. Even the way when he, When Peter brings MJ to the freighter. Cool. Really cool set. Like, I loved that.

[Joanna Robinson]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

Who, who is she? Who is she to you? He's Frank's not like, don't get that girl out of your life. Don't let yourself fall in love. You're just going to lose that person. You're just going to be, like, full of regret.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yelena and Frank are real. Yes. And who's Ned?

[Mallory Rubin]

Let me tell you something that we deserve this. Frank Castle and Yelena.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, in the same scene.

[Mallory Rubin]

Give it to me now.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

Give it to me now.

[Joanna Robinson]

Comic book references aplenty, including Frank shooting Peter. And then separately, you know, the shot of him carrying Peter into the hospital is sort of ripped from the pages of Civil War. The Civil War comic. A lot of comic book visual references here. A lot of comic book covers in that montage at the beginning and stuff like that. They did a lot of that, of that work here. All right. Sadie Sink as Jean Grey. We've already talked about a lot of this. I do want to talk about Sarah, Sarah Gray and this flashback and where it comes in the movie and how much time we spend in it and stuff like that. That.

[Mallory Rubin]

Where are you with it?

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm not, like, negative about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, you love a scrunchie.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do not. I'm traumatized by the 80s and 90s. I'm anti scrunchie, personally, but I think this scrunchie was pretty cool. And the, and the color palette of it nodding to the extent. Yeah, very cool. I, I don't know. I, I, I would not have minded like, like some flashes of this before we got to. I will say I think there were a few like, oh my God. Moments that were so heavily telegraphed. Like, I thought the Jean Gray possession of MJ was extremely telegraphed. Which is fine. Yeah. But it was just like a lot of people in my theater were like. And I was like, here's what. Here's my experience in real time. Watching the possession sequence, I was like, like, either she's being possessed by Jean Grey right now, or this is the worst written shit I've ever seen. When she's like, surely we know each other. And I was like, is this movie this bad?

[Mallory Rubin]

Right?

[Joanna Robinson]

Or is she being possessed and she's being. A huge sigh of relief. I was like, okay. It's supposed to sound like bad theater. That's great. Okay, fine. And then I think the Sarah stuff was like. I mean, because we know.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

That like, even though Jean is the antagonist of this movie, she's not going to be like a hardcore villain for in the future of the mcu.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's gonna be Big Bill.

[Joanna Robinson]

So a complete failure of a character, I think, anyway. So there has to be like, she's searching for, you know, she's wronged in some way. We have to believe that. So the Sarah stuff and then like Metzger's whole like, lie about Sarah and stuff like that, like, it was so clearly a lie. And we were just like. We're just like way ahead of Peter on that and stuff like that. That. So I. I wouldn't have mind some like, Sarah. Some of this like, piece throughout the movie rather than just sort of like one long flashback here. But yeah, you know, I. I'm not. I don't like, hate it. I just. I just have a question about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I. I think in terms of placement and what's dispensed when that I. Yeah, when. Especially when we shift to like the park scene. Full on flashback, it is just a different feel in the movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

We just press pause for a second in a way that I'm just sort of like, could we have par to make?

[Mallory Rubin]

You want mint chip and chocolate ice cream?

[Joanna Robinson]

Same.

[Mallory Rubin]

I agree.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love mint chip.

[Mallory Rubin]

My favorite. My favorite. Could go for some now. I'm pretty hungry. Actually. I do have an uncrustable with me. Thank God we've got another pot after this. I brought some pretzels too. Planned ahead today. Adam packed it for me. What an angel. He's just like, try to make it

[Joanna Robinson]

home to me today.

[Mallory Rubin]

You should. A fucking mess.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's a lunch bag.

[Mallory Rubin]

In terms of the. So the part of it that's more successful, the Parallel for Gene and Peter in a couple respects. One where it does loss lead you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Especially if you're alone. And then can you be pulled out of that abyss? Like Peter saying, you have me. Right. That worked for me. Peter crashing the party, seeing, you know, he's been watching the reels and, like, little things like, oh, you know, who can forget these seminal moments to swim in the river with these guys. You don't know. Cause they're not a part of your life, and you're not a part of this. That's mounting, mounting, mounting, mounting steadily.

[Joanna Robinson]

Ezra Bridger.

[Mallory Rubin]

You go to the party and Ezra Bridger is kissing your girl. Yeah. And you're like, the spider has taken over.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

My pupils. My whole eye is my pupil. I'm swinging through the rain. It got real emo real fast. So the idea that Jean's power scaling, the leveling up of her power, we go from like, 6, 7% on the computer monitor. We're watching like, 267%. It's uncontainable. They can't even map it. What is happening? Oh, my God. The fact that something is rising inside of Jean as she looks up and sees Vmax and realizes that her sister is gone. Those things felt much like the brainwaves mapped onto each other in an effective. In an effective way. And in general, I know this was something you wanted to talk about with Jean. Like, I think finding her in this place with her powers where we're like, they have. They're emerging, they're manifesting baby power.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, like, she's already deeply scary.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, Well, I mean, again, Legions, Legion's

[Joanna Robinson]

dead when we meet her in this. And then she scales up. And she scales up even inside of this movie. So, yeah, very scary, very fun. Incredible introduction of. So a lot of caveats here. I found.

[Mallory Rubin]

I.

[Joanna Robinson]

It feels like when people write headlines about box office and they're like, here are the caveats. So this is our first introduction to a 616 MCU version of the classic X Men, seven years after Disney acquired Fox. Right, right. We've met other mutants.

[Mallory Rubin]

We have, yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Malakan Neymar. We've seen the multiversal versions of, like, Beast, Professor X, Gambit, others in Inside of Deadpool, and Wolverine, a mutant story in its own right, etc. Etc. But this is, you know, the first.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is our version of this thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Unless Channing sticks around as Gambit, which I am not. I really enjoyed him, so I'm not wholly opposed, but I don't think that's the direction they're going to go in. But like they could.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I wouldn't be a supposed. I really liked his horrible accent. I enjoyed all of it. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is definitely the first. Like we're. You're going to be watching movies with this person in this crucial key Central

[Joanna Robinson]

role for 12 years and it's really fun because like so this is a young James Gray and you know, Funka Johnson meets. Means something very important to a lot of us who watch goldeneye and also like lived through those original X Men movies. Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure. Of course.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sophie Turner. Love and bless. Was a massive failure of casting for Jean Grey.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know has. We have a lot of affection for Massive whiff. So to come through with Sadie Sink.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Who just like who I think is the most talented young actor to come out of Stranger Things. Like without question. And we're so lucky to have her here. I just think this is like hugely positive for the forward looking.

[Mallory Rubin]

I agree. I mean I'm just. I'm very excited to enter more fully. And finally at last this stretch of extra story. The Mutant storytelling, the Mutant saga in the mcu I'm hyped about. This is the kind of casting and decision that makes me feel confident. Confident.

[Joanna Robinson]

And we should say Samara Weaving. It was just announced that Samara Weaving,

[Mallory Rubin]

as we sat down in the studio

[Joanna Robinson]

today has been cast as Emma Frost. So we anticipate we're gonna hear a lot more of this. But Samara Weaving I love.

[Mallory Rubin]

Really fun.

[Joanna Robinson]

So that's a really fun. With love and respect to January Jones. Actually not in that role. You know what I mean? Just sort of like, yeah, let's just do better and better and better and it's very exciting. We're doing a lot of like original, you know, so.

[Mallory Rubin]

And how much. How much will we get on this front in the next like few weeks, few months. It's very. It's. That's an exciting thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

There could be more announcement before we even drop this podcast.

[Mallory Rubin]

Guys. Voice of goddess. If somebody else has been cast.

[Joanna Robinson]

If we get the new gambit while we're talking, let me know.

[Mallory Rubin]

But yeah. And then especially for Jean to be introduced in this capacity where there's the Sarah history. The powers are emerging but rapidly evolving and changing. Peter is there mut. You might say mutating. You might.

[Joanna Robinson]

I might.

[Mallory Rubin]

Peter is. But like the movie did. The movie didn't say mutants, they said special. Yeah. So we're like easing in.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know if that's a rights thing or not.

[Mallory Rubin]

Might be.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

This Might be. I definitely got the. At the. The Stinger. No mid credits. We have a thought. This movie was dynamite. Pretty lame post credit Stinger. And I was like, oh, they just don't want to give me.

[Joanna Robinson]

Was like. Like this guy behind me is like, here we go. And then he's like, oh.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yeah. That was definitely. There was a real air out of the balloon at the very end with. But I kind of was like, I. I mean. And who knows? They don't want to give any more X Men stuff in this part. Sony movie maybe. I don't know. But the.

[Joanna Robinson]

What if they had just had Jean get off the bus and you saw the like.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's what I thought.

[Joanna Robinson]

Leaves of upstate New York.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's what I thought we were gonna do.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not even like the Mansion. Not even. But. But. And then they did a. You know what I mean? Like again, rights.

[Mallory Rubin]

That would have been great. The questions that Peter and Jean are asking, you know that the damage control Metzger plot is asking that Hulk is asking. This is not an X Men movie. But it sets us up for a lot of big questions about what to do with your powers and how to exist in the world as a mu. It sets up Magneto and I feel like like savior.

[Joanna Robinson]

It comes with a lot of responsibility.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, I would say that I would. And I might write it and put it on my little board. Responsibility.

[Joanna Robinson]

We will have an X Men clip coming in a second. But I will say I. I had to restrain myself to not make it a Fassbender Magneto clip. I almost did.

[Mallory Rubin]

Let me say this right now, Double Garfield. Never restrain yourself from putting a Magneto clip on this podcast ever.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm calling this next section MJ Wigged Out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

Zendaya is wearing a pretty strong wig in this movie. And by strong, I mean I actually didn't really like it.

[Mallory Rubin]

I defer to you on Wig Watch Matters. Always. I've the thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, like, who am I to tell a woman how to wear her hair? But like, I've always loved how like what MJ's hair has looked like in the first three movies. And yet, like, people should be allowed to grow up and go to college and figure out how to use a flat iron. All of that is fine. You know, like, that's. That's great. It's just like. So here's. Here's this quote from Zendaya in Entertainment Weekly. She said, I remember reading a draft of Of Brand New Day. We wanted to mature the characters, obviously. But I remember when I read It. I was like, she's too, for lack of a better term, normal. I was like, where did all her weirdness go? We gotta do, like, an MJ pass of the script to weird it up a little bit, to bring back some of those quirks. So, like, some of those quirks, I. I would say some emerged, but this is an MJ I really. And MJ is one of my favorite parts of the trilogy. If not my favorite, like, one of my, like, I think maybe the best comic book quote unquote love interest. The way in which she's just sort of, like, smart, actively involved, like, her a very distinctive person. Just like. And. And in terms of, like, Zendaya performances, it's like MJ and Rue are tied for, like, my favorite, like, thing that Zendaya can and has done this. MJ is four years older, has gone to mit, has dated Ezra Bridger, has done a lot of things. So, like, is she allowed to change? She is. Are we all allowed to mature? We are. But there are many ways in which she shows up as a much more conventional, like, character. Despite Zendaya's claim that they did a weird pass on her that was, like, slightly disappointing to me. And, like, they. I still think she's very incredibly strong performance inside of this movie. But I was almost wondering, like, if that was partially the point. If part of the point of MJ and. And I'm struggling with this argument because I. I'm worried that if I don't make it correctly, it will sound like she needs a man to be like,

[Mallory Rubin]

who she is, Quirky woman that she. Independent woman that she loves.

[Joanna Robinson]

But is there a version of the story where, like, mj, who. Who sort of relishes in her. Her weirdness, finds an adoring fan in Peter Parker at a young age, doesn't have that going forward, and sort of smooths out the edges of her personality to sort of, like, better assimilate into the world because she doesn't have a person being like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, the weird way you are, weirder the better.

[Joanna Robinson]

I got you this Black Dahlia because

[Mallory Rubin]

you love the murder.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because you love murder. And I love that about you. And you are so fucking weird, and I love that about you. And it. Without that person, does she become a more conventional person now? Again, yeah, I hesitate to make that argument because I do not like. But, you know, they have talked in interviews about sort of, like, what, you know, Zendaya's talked about as an acting exercise. How do I pretend like I don't know who Peter is? Who Tom is and who is MJ without this person in her life. And so by that argument, I can kind of accept that this MJ is slightly unrecognizable to me. But I didn't, like, love that because I really, like. There are ways in which she's still there when. When, you know, but. But when she talks about the letter. Yeah. And she refers to that person as her.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Different person is a different person entirely. And I can see how she. You loved her, and she could love you, but I'm not her.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know what I mean? That's like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Got it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. You know when he says. When he finally says I love you, the thing that she said, wait and tell me when you find me. And he says it to her and she's like, I don't love you. I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

You are devastating.

[Joanna Robinson]

And there's so much about this. This, like, yearning Peter stuff and his heartbreak that absolutely works on me. But there are ways in which we see MJ once again get fucking tossed off a roof, even though it's Jean Grey jumping her. But, like, yeah, she went several movies without being a love interest thrown off a roof, which is a classic Spider man love interest thing to do, and here she is once again being thrown off a roof. And it's just sort of like, I just. I miss that original flavor, mj. And perhaps we will get more of her, you know, in the coming movies. But the way in which she was presented here, I think was a real missing element of something that I have loved about these movies.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, yeah, it's interesting. I didn't feel that way about it, but I. I don't really have, like, a counter argument to anything you're saying. And I. I not surprised. I won't be surprised if other people feel that way about it. I think that you're very carefully and well stated.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know that.

[Mallory Rubin]

I know. I think you. I do. I think I. Because you're presenting it intentionally as a kind of like a slightly complicated argument to make, but something that feels like it's maybe there in the text. I agree. And I think there's like, you know, there's the element of it where broadly people change, and that's obviously part of the movie is what is. What is what, what. What is just like the change that. And who are we present in your life as you age anyway, from 18 to 20? Yeah, exactly. Like, is there a. A period in your life where more things every day feel like they're like, who am I now who do I want to be? So I think there's just broadly, this is a period of change and maturation and evolution for all of the characters for sure. And then it's probably, to me, it feels important actually to show us that with a non super powered character, on one hand, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But on the other hand, doesn't Ned just feel exactly like Ned?

[Mallory Rubin]

Ned is, I mean, some of it is, I guess that Ned is in the movie less. Right. So there's more. There are more scenes to kind of assess. Is this our mj? I think some of it is maybe undeniable there with MJ in a way where we're like, we got a few great moments with Ned Sharkfire energy. Seems like our guy's got a problem. So I'm concerned. That's really funny. It's just hysterical. And that did, to your point, feel like our Ned, because while we had not previously seen Ned addicted to energy drinks, Ned was like, let's go to a fucking party. And also like, we're young American men in Europe. Like, Ned wanted to fuck, Ned wanted to party.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, you know that that feels great with hats.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, Wants to experiment with hats.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Ned is ready after a couple days of like his first girlfriend time with his first girlfriend to be like Peter, when adults are in love, you know, impeccable. But you know, also frankly, like a young man having matured less than a

[Joanna Robinson]

young woman doesn't feel totally off to me either. Deeply fair. But also, aren't they having. I don't know what you were like when you. When you left college and got your first apartment in the city, but first of all, my apartment did not look like that. Second, that's some like friends level. Where did the money come from for this apartment? And secondly, a very mature party for like we just got out of college sort of energy anyway.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's fine. Not the first time that young Ned had purchased a mini keg. You could tell.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I got, I think the. We need to do a weird pass. Like when I saw that quote in the dot after having seen the movie, I was like, oh yeah, I see that. And you could almost feel the couple moments that maybe were introduced to account for that. And they were, I think without them, I would have maybe felt more of what you're saying, but because there was just enough in there for me, I think, to fend off maybe that sense of like a lack of familiarity. I loved, for example, the, like, There are like 50 people in our apartment. But so statistically speaking, at least two of Them are sociopaths. I'm like, mj, you know, the, like, you know, yo, you taught me about brain control. Well, you're lucky I believe in this stuff because it does happen. Mostly with the French.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mj.

[Mallory Rubin]

There's just enough, I guess, of that for it to feel like the weird, quirky conspiracy theorist character who we know and love is there, but has just grown up and also has done it without this central aspect. And I think to your very carefully and well stated point, it's not even. I don't even think it has to just be. And so who are you if, like, this dude and this, like, boyfriend you loved wasn't there to tell you it was okay to be, like, a weird chick? It's also just like, what if a part of your brain was zapped out of your head? You know, these are formative, seminal experiences in a young person's life, and they're gone. She doesn't remember that they happened to her. And there's the disorienting aspect of that, the fact that they do mention. And this was an interesting bit of clarity. Like, we knew coming out of no Way Home that it was like, Spider man is a thing, but Peter is blasted out of people's minds.

[Joanna Robinson]

But they have all these memories of, like.

[Mallory Rubin]

Of Spider man rescuing them.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Being on the European trip with us, which is why they have a few prime suspects for who Spidey might be.

[Mallory Rubin]

Incredible moment. Just hysterical.

[Joanna Robinson]

I missed you in this movie, Martin Starr, but I'm glad your face was in this movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was so funny. So it's not even to me, I'm like, I don't know what would even be more disorienting if all of those memories completely were gone or if you.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was edited over.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, exactly. Like, wouldn't something about who you were and how you conducted yourself be different?

[Joanna Robinson]

Edited like a San Diego Comic Con clip. You know, one word pulled, slice spliced out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Um, I will say I thought both of. I thought all of the, like, more emotionally raw moments between the characters worked really well for me. And I thought the two. The kind of mega scenes in particular,

[Joanna Robinson]

them on the other side of the curtain.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, that was just wonderful.

[Joanna Robinson]

Incredibly good.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was great. Also was interested to learn about MJ's major and, you know, what she switched into and out of. That was fascinating. So to your point from earlier. About. About. Okay, we, like, can probably suss out that Jean grey is in MJ's mind. Are we supposed to be surprised?

[Joanna Robinson]

My theater was. There was like a gasp.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. So my experience, and I think what I felt more around me in the theater both times was less. There was. There was a.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was more like a. Oh, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like the devastation of it. Yeah. And so whether or not it was supposed to. To be a surprise or whether or not, more importantly, landed as a surprise, if that is the intention, I think it still hits because Peter is surprised. Peter is like, I have taken the mask off and you have kissed me, and I have sobbed in your arms, and I have told you that I love you and miss you and that this is the thing I needed. And then you say, hold her, Peter. Touch her. And it's like, yeah, it is so cruel.

[Joanna Robinson]

Shingri killed a lot of people, but

[Mallory Rubin]

she killed Peter's soul.

[Joanna Robinson]

Was that the worst thing?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And so that was just like. I thought that hit so hard as, like, a gene moment, but also just when Peter was like, what you're doing is cruel and wrong and evil. Like, I. That all really worked. And to also kind of reinforce what it means to have your mind taken over, that was all I thought. Effective.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right. But then to underline MJ's betrayal of, like, you made a decision for me.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, how different is this? This decision you made for me? Not just like, yes, you had to do this spell, but you. You did not keep your promise to come find me and, like, tell me

[Mallory Rubin]

like that, and you want to keep me safe, but is that what I want? I don't feel safe. I've almost been killed five times in the last 24 hours. That was great.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do feel like Peter Parker learned a tiny lesson about consent, though, when he later admitted, he's like, I kissed you when you were. You know, he's like, I. I did not honor the consent that. That you made about getting your mind erased, but I did kiss you when you were. And I just thought you should know.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then she's like, well, I don't remember that. And he's like, wait, what? Oh, Sarah. Oh, Bill. Billy. Billy boy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wow.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought that the letter moment, though.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really sad.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, really sad.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't. I don't have that in my mind. The single most important thing to you in your life, other than Ned and the handshake.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm really proud of the restraint of this movie. Well, I actually think the real killer, that was that tough.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, that killed me when Jean Gray

[Joanna Robinson]

said, no thoughts of you in there at all.

[Mallory Rubin]

Brutal.

[Joanna Robinson]

Nowhere in there. I thought that was really tough.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, that was great.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, so when she Comes out with the letter. I'm like, jean already told us. There's, like, nothing of him in there. I do admire the restraint of this movie to not have them get back together inside of this movie. You know what I mean?

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

She's.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's on the roof.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's. She's holding the necklace. She's thinking about him. Yearning tendrils. It's happening. I think it's gonna end up there, depending on how many movies Zendaya wants to do. Yes, but. But we didn't get there right away. And it shouldn't be easy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly. This is like the bold but I think. Right. And more potent choice.

[Joanna Robinson]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The. The challenge of working back to that place. Not just kind of undoing this thing that should be monumental, but it also. It's just kind of dagger after dagger. It made for such an emotional, emotionally devastating ride inside of the film for both of them. And I don't know, I'm like. I was impressed by that choice as well, because I think we. It makes us a little bit complicit in our desire and expectation. Like, we're being gently. In a way, I appreciated mocked with the love's true kiss line, you know? But then to not actually make us feel like assholes for wanting that with the Ned thing, because he. The handshake does feel like it's just that muscle memory and something. Maybe there are things that just simply cannot be suppressed. And maybe it takes time or maybe there's a rhythm.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maybe it's bros before hoes, I guess.

[Mallory Rubin]

Maybe it. Maybe it's just bros before hose. It could be that. So, yeah, I just. I don't know. I. I thought the restraint is a great word. I really admired that choice. Yeah, I really did.

[Joanna Robinson]

I loved it. I also want, like. So I want to go into the next section to talk about the action a little bit. We've already touched on a lot of this, so we don't have to dwell too long here. But to transition into this section that I'm calling web slinging, I do want to say that, like, the various times we saw MJ and Peter sling through the city, like the first time when it's. When it's Jean, and so she's quite calm, which is not something that MJ would be. And I was just like, what's going on here? But then I think the really sad. Can you give me a ride home? 1.

[Mallory Rubin]

I don't have my phone.

[Joanna Robinson]

But, like, just the somber and the way that the film stayed with him anyway, so something that Kevin Feige said at Comic Con about this clip that he showed us was like, he never thought he'd see this. And, you know, some people interpreted that as the Hulk Punisher Spidey clip. Some people interpreted that as like, Feige, the comic book fanboy. Never thought he would get to see these three characters together. But the fun fact about Kevin Feige is he's not a Lifetime comic book fanboy. He came to this late in life as a sort of like way forward in the film industry. Wrote a book about it, but. But from a business point of view, Spidey is a Sony character, Hulk is a Universal character. Punisher who was at Lionsgate for a while, and Jean Grey, who is a Fox character. All come home. All the chickens have come home to roost.

[Mallory Rubin]

And now there's no rooster.

[Joanna Robinson]

You tough.

[Mallory Rubin]

We're not here to talk about tv. Did you have.

[Joanna Robinson]

We've already talked about these fight scenes. Is there anything else you want to say? I mean, I just. I really thought the mind controlled hands up. A lot of people have. Are not loving that section because it feels it is very odd that the hand is like working for damage control and stuff like that. I don't disagree. And it does. I think to some people feel like it doesn't belong in this movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

But like there's also though, like they may be in their mind controlled. So you're not going to remember anything stage. But Peter still took his mask off when they're cameras everywhere. Like there's some of that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great point.

[Mallory Rubin]

A member of my household who shall remain nameless, who fucking loved the movie, thought it was wonderful. Let's ask that question. It's a. It's a.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, it's a great question we're asking Adam, but you know, Daniel Cretton, the. The. The director of Shang Chi, like really showing off his adept work with. With martial arts in this. And I, I just thought this, like, you know, we saw shots of it in the trailer, but I just thought this was like so beautifully done.

[Mallory Rubin]

It was gorgeous. Yeah. I mean, I think we've hit a lot of the particulars already, but just in that big P. You know, One of the things I really love about early Spider man movies is that even though Peter or Miles has these powers, it's still fucking terrifying to jump off a building for the first time. You know, there's like the Washington Monument moment in Homecoming. Like, Peter's like, whoa, I'm really high. And has to be like coached into how he's gonna do what he's gonna do the, you know, iconic, like maybe can't be topped by any movie ever. Like, that's why we. That's why call it a leap of faith.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Miles Peter B moment. You know, it's scary to do this thing. And so to put Peter in a spot at the beginning of this movie, we always love like an upside down, you know, cityscape shot. But just the height and the speed and the ability to.

[Joanna Robinson]

He loves a beam.

[Mallory Rubin]

Loves a beam. To operate at the height of like his capacity and craft and then to re. So we. We feel that evolution but then to reset us because the organic webs was just like so, so, so smart. Because then he's not comfortable with them. He doesn't know how they work. He's trying to suppress his own. What his body is telling him, you know, oh, well, those aren't going to be. You can't use those. It's not going to be compatible. Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, that was all great impression.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thank you. I do not be here literally all day. The to your MJ point and how we. We have the. The gene clue, the mind control clue by how MJ is behaving. There's also the Peter behavior part of it where he is like so unfamiliar and uncomfortable with what is happening to him. The only. The time he find he's smashing into buildings, the webs are jizzing out of him and then exploding. You know, again they are. The time he gets it under control is to take care of mj. Like the action. We talk about this probably most of all with Star wars, but it applies across the board. The action really told us something consistently about Peter in those moments, how he'd been spending his time. But also what was top of mind for him then. And I just thought it was great. And also it just fucking looked awesome. It looked awesome.

[Joanna Robinson]

A critique I have seen of this movie is that people felt the ending, the sort of de escalation with Jean was too similar to the de escalation ending of Thunderbolts. Let's remind ourselves by watching that moment in Thunderbolts.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm here, you're not alone.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you know what? I. I don't disagree. But also we love Thunderbolt. So I'm not mad about it. I'm also just not. I think it's interesting. Let's think about this moment, this era of Marvel storytelling. Like, you know, again, thinking about like Wanda and Agatha, these, these shows that I really liked. The, you know, a critique of MC movies in general and certainly like Homecoming specifically is like how boring you mentioned this earlier how boring sometimes those final boss fights can be and how it's just sort of like who can punch the hardest is how we like sort of end these movies. So for it to be sort of like theater of the mind and a sort of, you know, reaching your hand out. I do think that people right now in Hollywood, they're not a monolith, but I do think there is an interest in telling stories about how to reach people rather than how to defeat people. And I think that's a really beautiful message to sort of dig into.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that. It certainly feels like a necessary and cherished and prized thing to center in mass culture and blockbusters that are going to make a billion plus dollars right now. I think also we talk a lot about how Marvel at its best. One of the things that Marvel can do that the Marvel machine has done is correct. And so, yeah, I agree. I like the idea that the Marvel has a third act problem. Reached such a fever pitch that it's like, let's take that seriously. Not every. Guess what, guys? Doomsday is probably going to have a lot of punching at the end of it. We're not done with that. No. But also we got, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of movies that ended similarly. So, like, with love and respect. I don't mind to two films having a. A bit of a shared strand of DNA, if you will, in them. And I thought the Thunderbolts ending was wonderful. I, you know, I don't know. These also feel like appropriate films to

[Joanna Robinson]

rewatch Thunderbolts if you didn't give it a chance.

[Mallory Rubin]

A great movie. So good movie, great double story. Just great to see Bob there.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was wonderful. Lucy Pullman had quite the San Diego Comic Con with both baseballs and showing up for the Marvel panel. We already talked about what is this, a Nolan movie, The Aunt May stuff.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's great to have her here.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I did pull a clip. This is the aforementioned Promise X Men clip and just sort of about fighting your powers versus embracing your powers. So let's watch this clip.

[Mallory Rubin]

All those voices. So much pain.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's not that pain you're afraid of.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's yours, Charles. And as frightening as it may be,

[Joanna Robinson]

that pain will make you stronger.

[Mallory Rubin]

If you allow yourself to feel it,

[Joanna Robinson]

embrace it, that will make you more

[Mallory Rubin]

powerful than you ever imagined.

[Joanna Robinson]

Another one of my guys, James McAvoy,

[Mallory Rubin]

is here, also a fan, big fan.

[Joanna Robinson]

Xavier talking to Xavier. Days of future Past. But, you know, obviously Charles and Jean share a lot in common in terms of their skill set. And, you know, there before the grace sort of ideas, and, I don't know, just this idea of, like, watching Jean unlock this power set which comes from a place of pain, but how can it be channeled? And the message that Mae gives to both Gene and Peter inside of this theater of the mind, memory sort of moment of, you know, you yourself are enough, but also, like, what can you gain by embracing the harder parts of your power system? And wear it like armor.

[Mallory Rubin]

Wear it like armor, baby. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I loved this.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought, you know, again, just welcome to have Marisa Tomesmei here. I think the idea that for Peter, like, there's the, you know, even just the, oh, you can see me, no one else, there's the okay, we're braced for, he's gonna be the one who can push her out. Like, even Bruce couldn't do that. Even Hulk couldn't do that. Right the instant kind of. I see everything. There's nothing. Oh, boy. There's no trace of you in here, MJ thing that you notice the boy, this guy's got issues. Frank thing. This, like, idea that you. The gene is sensing the totality of somebody's existence kind of instantaneously. Yeah. Speed reader for Peter, it's this one thing. It's this one thing. And that felt really.

[Joanna Robinson]

And it's May Keen too, and it's Mae. Right after she finds out that he's Spider man, basically.

[Mallory Rubin]

There you go. You think you don't have to listen to me just cause I've got power. Sound delightful.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And you know what is, again, scary and new about change? I loved that, like, it's already pretty scary moment reminding us. I don't know. Peter just felt, like, so young to me in that moment in a way that I appreciated. Like, yeah, MJ and Ned went off to college, and everybody thinks they're an adult. And they are. They're in this next phase of their life, but they're still so young, you know, and they really were very young very recently and have gone through so much. Allowing Gene to enter the memory that is like, he's carrying, like, this little bead of light, this thing that tells him who he is and who he was and who he can be. Allowing her to gain access to that so that she can benefit from the thing that he knows May gave him was, like, so lovely.

[Joanna Robinson]

You got me. You're not alone. You've got me.

[Mallory Rubin]

You've got me. You've got me. And especially because Peter is in a such a dark place in this movie because of long do you think you

[Joanna Robinson]

should agree in the Elena Belova, you're not alone.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then he could add, I've seen your belly button, even though you hadn't yet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maybe these are big potato problems and you should think about them. All right. Department of Damage Control. I thought this was the weakest part of the film.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I loved Tramal Tillman, but I thought, yeah, same. This character sucked and. And was not well used.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I mean, it was. It's just sort of kind of cookie cutter like, you know, I think it is worth, especially with like, Jean entering the story here, reminding us not that we need to be reminded, but reminding us that the people in position of power will tell you they're trying to help. And really they just want to use you and wield you until they use you up completely. We probably get that at this point in the MCU and in the superhero

[Joanna Robinson]

era movie making, this might be someone's first superhero. Exactly.

[Mallory Rubin]

And so that's.

[Joanna Robinson]

That would be.

[Mallory Rubin]

Boy, what a way to begin your journey.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is what Marvel hopes that you can enter anywhere.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Yeah. I do think, particularly on the dawn of this new X Men era, that's purposeful. You know, it is a Spider man movie, not an X Men movie. But that is gonna be such a persistent, consistent thing for that.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm sure it's a thread going forward. I just don't think it was well used in this movie or that. Tremendously interesting. All right. What's not here? It doesn't matter, but just sort of like love and respect. The teachers are gone. Our classmates are gone. You know, and Gory Rice is not getting paid for this movie. No. Happy Hogan, who was a huge part of.

[Mallory Rubin]

Of the trilogy, I missed Happy. But that would have felt like maybe. I don't know. It's interesting. On the one hand, I'm like, maybe he's just trying to figure out some Star wars stuff. On the other hand, a lot to work through there. I don't know. We already had. I wonder if that would have felt crowded. Cause we got the great moment with Happy and Peter at the gravesite at the end of no Way Home. And so we've sort of done that thing already with the character of, like, the impact that May had on both of them remains. But he doesn't remember Peter because the spell did work. I wonder if it would have felt like one too many, given the MJ and Ned centrality in this one too many. Like, I have to figure out how to feel about this person being back in my life when they don't remember who I am.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you want Happy Hogan in Doomsday to see Victor Von Doom? Or in. In a future movie, see Victor Von Doom that looks like Tony Stark? Or you're like, you know what? I can be done with Happy Hogan?

[Mallory Rubin]

Good question. I still am more interested in the Peter or Steve version of that.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm interested in Morgan.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, that. That's gonna make me fucking sob. Will a cheeseburger be involved?

[Joanna Robinson]

I hope so. No Daredevil.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Something we speculate about. No Daredevil. And then, like, reportedly, Rosario Dawson filmed a Claire Temple scene. This is.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's funny because one of the first things Adam and I about talked when we left, given the hospital setting of the closing, was like, where was Claire?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

So that I would have liked. I actually would have liked Claire if

[Joanna Robinson]

he had in his. Sort of, like. I don't see anyone, but, like, we saw how bruised and battered he was. If he, like, occasionally got some, like, night nurse help. Yeah. Or stuff like that, you know. So, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Claire would have fit. I didn't mind Matt not being here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Me neither. Um, it's just something we heavily speculated.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And it was absolutely delightful to have him in no Way Home, obviously. Obviously.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's just a very good lawyer.

[Mallory Rubin]

Just a very good lawyer.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right, we talked about the Ned stuff already. Let's talk about the end credits.

[Mallory Rubin]

The best. Not. Sorry. The Ned stuff was the best. Not the end credit. The end credits suck.

[Joanna Robinson]

Spidey, question mark? So grumbling in my theater, Spider man will not appear in Doomsday. We're pretty sure. Probably in Secret Wars. City Sink is in Secret Wars.

[Mallory Rubin]

How sure are we that Spider Man's not going to be in Doomsday?

[Joanna Robinson]

How sure are we that Tom Holland is not going to be in Doomsday? But maybe a different Spider man could be in Doomsday.

[Mallory Rubin]

I feel like Spider man will be in Doomsday. They can't help themselves. Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think he's not. But maybe they're lying. They like to lie.

[Mallory Rubin]

They especially like to lie about what

[Joanna Robinson]

Spider man is in. So on the tracker, we see the dot in Queens.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then we see another dot in space. So is this Spider man, like, has traveled from Queens to space? That's one idea. Sure. I don't think it's a good one. Does this have something to do with beyond the Spider verse? The animated. You know, is Sony using this as a sort of. Like, this is about our animated movie that's coming out next? Is that what they're like? It's our end credits. We're going to use it to tease our stuff. Not your stuff. Maybe Battleworld or another Peter and Incursion. There's a very strong theory that Tobey Maguire is going to be my read.

[Mallory Rubin]

Was Incursion. Doomsday Multiverse setup. That feel and I think just the Stingers in general recently have. Have been Doomsday set up like, you know, the end of Thunderbolts is Fantastic Four. Certainly the end of Thunderbolts is. Yeah, here's the Fantastic Four. Like it just feels like it's always like something in space is suddenly here now. Because Incursions.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

Because Doomsday.

[Joanna Robinson]

But who knows if we marvel. Look at me. I like Toby McGuire. If we get Toby and no Andrew, I won't be happy. Okay? That's all. I like Toby. I think Toby's really great. In no Way Home.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I demand Andrew Garfield.

[Mallory Rubin]

Youth pastor joke. Very good.

[Joanna Robinson]

I demand Andrew Garfield. I need to know if Peter 3 is okay. Did he go home and find some work? Life balance. I need to know.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm with you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Anything else you want to talk about before we go?

[Mallory Rubin]

No, I don't think so. I'm glad that the movie seems to be, you know, bringing people to the theaters. What a time to be a fan of movies. What a July. The Odyssey and Spider Man. Brand new day. Movies. Hell yeah. Great movies. It's great. I'm excited.

[Joanna Robinson]

Movies. Hell yeah. Put it on the quote card. See you at the movies. Me. Thank you. Thank you to our pals.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thank you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Carlos Shoga. Scott Lee. Jacob Cornett. I don't know if Jamie's here. I copied this over from the Odyssey notes so it's possibly that was left over from that. Or maybe Jamie's here somewhere and I didn't see him. Our Jun. Our junior wrinkle pal Jomy. And dinner on squad. Thank you to you, Mallory Rubin. Thank you to you for making it through this pod. Not our last one today. And delight.

[Mallory Rubin]

Delighted to talk to you about this film.

[Joanna Robinson]

I really wish I had sat next to you and watched this film. Same.

[Mallory Rubin]

Same. I had nerd clusters. As you know, we'll never.

[Joanna Robinson]

We'll never sit apart again. Maybe. Perhaps, possibly. See you soon for House of the Dragon stuff by.