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

Episode Date: August 1, 2026

Mal and Jo are here to dive deep into the latest Marvel movie, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day.’ They break down all of the characters that make an appearance, the themes of the movie, and what it sets up for the future of the MCU. (00:00) Intro (08:21) Opening Snapshot (29:09) Deep Dive Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Producers: Carlos Chiriboga, Scott Lee, and Jamie Yukich Studio Production: Jacob Cornett Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

and welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today, the luminous, the effervescent, the your friendly neighborhood podcaster. 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 bad babies are hyped about. I can't wait to talk about this movie. We're going to take a swing through a little independent film called a Spider-Man Brand New Day that I guess just a few people

are seeing in the theater, and we're going to talk about all of that right after this. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19

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Game Sense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connect, Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Okay, before we got, we get into Spidey, you know, we came back from San Diego Comic-Con. We talked about the big Marvel panel that they did there in Hall-A-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, which we loved. 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. Yes. Got an Emmy nomination, a much deserved Emmy nomination. And then Marvel changed their minds. And they said,

never mind. And now there's 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, 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.

Incredibly gracious. Very gracious. And at the very end he's like, see you at the Emmys, I guess. You know, so. Bummer. This is just really, this sucks. It sucks. 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 ringer versus group chat and then Adam sent it to me. And I was like in a bunch of meetings, 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-Cod be like, we're not here to talk about TV moment, which now actually feels a little more keen to me. He did, so you mentioned Vision Quest, you know, is the third part of sort of the Wanda Vision trilogy, but like what's coming after that? Yeah. Nothing. Well, that would be upsetting.

I mean, there's got to be a sweet spot between we have 15 shows a year and the quality continues to dip and we don't make season two of Wonder Man. If the idea is to sort of like, you know, yeah. you know, and Brad Winterbaum is certainly hoping this is the case, the guy is in charge of Marvel TV. But, like, if the idea is to temporarily cut down, 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 the Spider-Man movie that we're about to talk about. So, like, you know, that's a good indicator. And then 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, like, special, different sort of swing inside of the Marvel universe. And I'm really devastated. But, I mean, like, Descan Daniel Cretton, who did a great job in this movie, was one of the creative forces, not like the main, but one of the main. of the creative forces behind Wonder Man. So, like, 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. Yes. Odyssey Mailbag. That's right. With love and respect, guys. We're full. We're full.

I read so many emails. We have called 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 it 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? You'll read them. I will read them. I will.

Your commitment to the inbox is just. It's second to none. Here's what I would recommend. Follow the pod. Sure. 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. Boopoo!

On Spotify. Here's what else we'd recommend. Follow at House of Our pod on Instagram, on TikTok. We're having fun on our new-ish social media handles. Obviously, the Ring ofverse handle is thriving as well. Check that out. And while Joanna, you know, noted already that we've got a lot of Odyssey emails. Keep the emails about everything else coming.

Send us your podcast. Hot D emails, get the lanterns emails coming. Lanturns coming right around the corner. Yeah. I mean, are you coming to Baltimore for our Oriole event? Send us emails about that. Hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. Also, we should maybe formally announce that we are doing a screening of labyrinth.

That's right. As part of American Cinemitex. Friend of the Fest. Friend of the fest. We're back, baby. Do you have that date off the top of your head? I believe it's Monday, August 24th. It's definitely Monday.

It's Monday. It's Monday. It's Monday in the mid-20s. Because I will be out of it. It's down 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, but I will. Guys, it's past everyone's bedtime on Monday. It's not actually past my bedtime, but it is in the hour where I just can kind of like, I just. My phone will be brick. I turn off.

That's right. It's the bricking hour. It's the bricking hour for my phone. So come and hang out. No, come and hang out will be delirious probably. Also, I'm just like kind of true, even though it's 10 o'clock. night, which when I was younger did not see that late. I'm trying this like a midnight madness screening is what this feels like. On a Monday, are you kidding me? I quite agree. So, listen,

break all the rules. Yeah. Coming out with us on a school night at 10 o'clock at night to see Labyrinth the movie that Mallory has never seen. Never. She's never witnessed the glory of the David Bowie, the full glory of the David Bowie bulge. And I get to see it on the big screen. On the big screen. I saw, I saw Labyrinth on the big screen like, I don't know, like a decade ago. And even though I'd already seen it a million times by then, I was just like, it's different seeing the bulge on the big screen, honestly. Do you consider it a formative experience? 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. exciting. So come join us. It's really just like a beautiful, perfect, wonderful, wonderful movie that I'm really excited for you to see. I can't wait. What a treat to get to watch that with you with the bad babies on the big screen past my bedtime. I think Diana's going to be in town too. What? Yeah.

Oh my God. That's exciting. I know. Wow. What a treat. Diana might be here. Spoiler warning for today. That's right.

Spider-Man brand new day. All of the Spider-Man movies. Yeah. Potentially Spider-Man comics. Sure. All of the MCU. 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. The Punisher film starring Tom Jane. Who's to say? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. You've been warned. Let's go now to the opening snapshot. This film was directed by Descent Daniel Cretton, written by Chris McKenna and Eric Summers,

who are credited on the other Spider-Man Holland movies, scored by Michael Jekino, 145 minutes. Yeah. Reception-wise. Yeah. As of when I made these notes, which was yesterday. Rotten Tomatoes is. 91-98 split. Is that good? It's an unreliable metric, but guess what?

Still good. It's very good. By the standards of the unreliable metric, that is good, folks. Very good. 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're reporting that as of Entertainment Weekly has a report that Wednesday early access screening, 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. So that is... Man, Beets Avengers End Game is for anything, just quite a sentence.

What another butter thing to say. Will it have the same legs as Endgame? 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. Pretty good. Listen.

A $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 downtrodded feelings we were feeling coming out of Supergirl, different, just night and day here with Spider-Man. Quick overall impressions of brand-new day. we didn't get to sit next to each other because I wandered into the wrong theater. We were in different theaters. Very, very, very, very strange.

Full crowd. One of the more active screening experiences we have ever witnessed. It was an event, genuinely. They had to funnel the press into two different theaters. And I thought I was following the crowd, our team. But I wanted the wrong theater. But Sean Fenney said there was there with Sean. I was like, where's everyone else?

And he's like, what theater did you have? I was like two. He's like, this is 14, dummy. Well, I got to sit next to Arjuna and I can report and then he can decide if this stays in the pod that he wept. He wept. He cried. When we're in spoiler territory now already, right? Very end, Peter has walked out in the crowd and Arjuna about to be a dad. Oh, yeah. So I have a little kid, swift whipping.

The dad stuff's really working on Arjuna right now. It is. Oh, my God. It's very sweet. I just love it. Love it. So this is our first without John Watts's director. Yeah. And I was just thinking a lot about, you know, I rewatched No Way.

I rewatched No Way Home and I was just thinking about how early in my time at the ringer that was. Yeah. You know, we were just sort of like tail end of COVID. It's like sort of just a very different time. But we have now, the Mallory-Juan administration has survived two Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. We're coming up on our five-year anniversary. How will we celebrate? I think a really fancy dinner, don't you think?

I think that sounds like something we should do no matter what. Whether or not it's an anniversary, 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. I marched up to you and I said, that was great. You loved it. You did come. First 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. I thought the movie was wonderful. It honestly is like everything 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 thought that 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 four 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. I thought that. that the, like, in a couple of 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 Lindberg, 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, I think, the best job of capturing that yet. You know why? It did a lot

of practical. 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 built toward a very monumental conclusion. in the film, but we did not build toward steady drumbeat, 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 and 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 very striking. It definitely looked the most akin to the Sony, pure, 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 two 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. He's, I'm on the record. We had a 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 love, Like, this is officially my favorite MCU franchise now. It has been, 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 MC movie, and that hasn't changed. But I've always loved these movies. And I've always thought that Tom Holland was a one. 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 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 jelling 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 movies and beyond. But yeah, I thought this was just dynamite. I loved it.

Can you talk to me a little bit more, something you had said to me before we saw Brand New Days that you had watched No Way Home and you felt a bit different about it at home? Yes, which was so... 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. And I had seen Shang Chi at a screening, but in, like, a very small screening room. Yeah. But I was like, 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. 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, um, 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, R-Pod, potting about it on Big Pick. Um, nerding out about so many different things.

Like, I have such a vivid memory of talking on Big Pick. Like, Sean and I were just like, talking about Matt Murdoch 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, 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, the brand new day window, a ringerverse conversation was burbling, was bubbling up. Is no way home as good as we remember. And I was like, I just want to say on the record, I was always a little lower than the rest of you on No Way Home.

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 the most people. I like far from a lot. Yeah. Is there, I think, wonderful Spider-Man movies and wonderful MCU movies, but they are outstanding coming-of-age movies. High school movies.

Yes. And I just love that about them. And that's not as centered and 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. Whoa, 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 or 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. I think the last hour of No Way Home, which is the three Spidey movie, it's essentially a different movie, and it is, I think, fantastic. Yeah, rewatching No Way Home, I actually think I liked it a little bit more just because I like that last hour. Yeah, it's great. 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 alluded me. And anyway, so, you know, a lot of what you've just talked about 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 row. or 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.

Yeah. 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? Yeah, yeah, 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, there are certain relationships aspects. I would say, you know, you're a much bigger fan of Frank Castle a Punisher than I am. I thought this is 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 Don Bernthal, who I've 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 Gene Gray thing didn't, like, work perfectly for me.

But I think the spooky introduction of her, like, how much we get of her before we meet, we actually, like, see her, even though we all know at City Sync. 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. I think, 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 it and preparing to like pot about it, I've just been dwelling more and more on the things I like. And maybe that's something I'm just like doing more as I grow older and I don't have time to be like 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 Tom McGuire, fantastic. So that movie? Yeah. You know, and what works well in this movie works really, really well. And what is uneniably 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 mean, 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 bored to play Matt Saracen or Taylor Kitch 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. It's 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. Yeah. 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 what 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 this 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 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. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah, I was curious to see, because 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, you know, we get the Jean Grey name on the screen for the first time, even though, and especially in that room, everyone knows. Do you think it's because there were like 20 people from the ringerverse in your screen? 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. Oh, I have to imagine that. It was so is that. Public screenings are just like, I mean, people were cracking up. But the jokes, they were, like, you could feel the collective breath being held in the key Peter MJ moments. And it was like, so that was a wonderful experience. And I think you're right. That's difficult in the moment to disentant.

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, right? It works as an MCU movie in a way that feels this is the thing I think 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 Thunderbolt. which was not that long ago, and there's some delightful Thunderbolts connective tissue in this movie, which I'm excited to discuss.

My God. And then I think it just works wonderfully as a Spider-Man movie specifically. So it's a superhero movie that excels, an MCU movie and a Spidey movie. Is it Spider-Ver? Like, will anything ever be Spider-Ver? I mean, no, but I think it is one of the best Spider-Man movies that we have ever gotten. On the MCU front, part of that is, you know, unfortunately, the failure that that's the failure that that Marvel has had to launch a second generation that feels as A-List as the first generation.

And Tom Hull and 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 Dooms Day 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 launched. 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. 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 like, this is something Marvel really needed and really wanted heading into. And to sandwich it in the release in between the Comic-Con panel, which has people like, excited about the future of Ghost Rider and Black Panther, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, for sure. 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 smashola because I'm personally very excited for that. Dared and dream.

That, bringing that energy and that excitement into. Avengers Doomsday sets them up to be in a better place than literally anyone has been claiming they've been in for the last, you know, six months to a year to more, you know. From the producers of Super Troopers and Super Troopers 2 comes, you guessed it. Broken Lizard and their rowdy patrol squad returned to the scene of the crime in Super Troopers 3. The mustaches are thicker. syrup, stickier, and the pranks crazier than ever. Buckle up for the funniest comedy

of the summer. Super Troopers 3, only in theaters, August 7. 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. Grougu all alone, a stretch of a movie that we did not like, but we really liked the stretch. Sweet baby, Grogo.

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. And she wanted to fuck. DeWolf tried. Yeah.

You know, and in a sort of more mommy energy tried. But he is, you know, like, it actually gave me real COVID memories because 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. Right. We didn't spend time with pre-spidey Peter. Right. 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. Delightful. Okay, it's not working out. I'm going to need the suit back. For how long? Forever. Yeah. Yeah, let's have.

No, no, no, please, please. Let's have it. you don't understand. This is all I have. I'm nothing without this suit. If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it. Okay? I mean, rich words from the mouth of a high tower.

Rich words from Tony Stark on that front, a man who has trouble separating himself from his suit. I'm just a man in the can. But what do you think about this? About this being part of Peter's eternal struggle of how to, like, we had joked when we first saw this trailer. I was like, is this movie about work-life balance? Yeah.

And like, it kind of is. It definitely is. But this 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? 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 closed. It 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 and 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. Oh my God. 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 to balance that out. I think you do, actually. I think you do. 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 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 and 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, right? 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 we find Peter, because the college years go by, right? And that was very deftly edited and structured in the film, Ned and these updates and these videos.

hysterical goate 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 Rokes 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. And it almost doesn't matter. Yeah. Because I think this is just like such a universal.

It's not just, it's, 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. I hope that's a, actually I don't hope it's a universal experience. But it, I think it is a very common, a very common experience, especially in the Aza show's media, which is just like really enhanced that idea, the FOMO idea. But there's also this idea, you know, and as you mentioned, there are different stages of coming of age. And, and, you know, there's the high school years. And then there's this like, I'm a young adult or when am I an adult? Right. When am I supposed to be an adult? And Peter Parker moves to the, 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. I have some questions where the pizza money is coming from. But like, all those fresh bouquets of flowers? Yeah. Not cheap. I do have some questions about that.

But he couldn't have a job because then he would have co-workers and then he would have some kind of, you know, Peter Parker life and he has no Peter Parker life. So, but there's also the like, you know, years ago when I took, I took longer to graduate at 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? Because I was just sort of like, 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, like, 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 And so, like, 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 taking off these milestones that I am not and I'm behind and or maybe I don't ever get to even have those milestones at all. 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 an experience and what you feel you actually genuinely have to let go, either to do the thing that you're supposed 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 my pocket.

I'm not going to protect them. Yeah, seeing the cut on the head, etc. So there are degrees and waves of that, which I agree, the end 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 find Peter in that place at the beginning felt completely right to me and like 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 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 allows Gene to benefit from that same counsel and the idea, which I know you want to talk about later, of rooting and orientating in a familiar way, but slightly, we can talk about it wherever you want. Slightly repositioning the idea of responsibility as like responsibility to your community and

to your family and your friends, but also to yourself. Right. 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 get the little bits of humor to the elevator girl stuff was just wonderful. But it was sad. It was sad to find Peter here. 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. Sure, yeah.

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? And so to have Peter all alone is quite challenging. So to give him Punisher 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 do think some of the montage stuff is 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 and this performance. You know what I mean? I definitely. And even like thinking back across all of the films, 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 to Peter, I don't know if I could keep this secret. Like, it's just the best. It's the Liz movie. 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. Zendaya, 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 ahead of the movies. Yeah, exactly.

She's like, I know it. I only in three lives. The sketchbook connection coming back was nice. But yeah, so centering Peter and Dad, 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 in mourning allows him to help reach somebody like Gene and work, like, guide and actually be in the mentorship position of trying to help somebody else navigate this terrible despair. 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. 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, 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 sort of 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 see this clip from No Way Home. You have someone?

Hello. I got no time for Peter Parker's stuff. Do you? That's a little complicated. no i understand i guess it's just not in the cars for guys like us i mean sad peter two's like don't give up buddy and we all hope that peter three 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 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. I mean, the entire Infinity saga, you could make the case hinges on that assessment. I'm going to 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. Right. And on the flip side, Tony giving up. Sacrifice play. Makes sacrifice play. I think, you know, you asked earlier the idea and it obviously connects 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 is a teenager and who is at this place in his life of like,

fuck, I'm in like the Avengers and also like my best friend knows. Is that a band? He's like, I want to go to Europe and be a teenager and try to get a girlfriend. He wants to be Peter. I almost put that Mysterio clip up there when he and Mysterio are talking on the ledge about sort of he's like, I had this plan. Yes. 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. 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, this movie's rule. 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, you know, the mutation idea.

Yeah. Which of course, you know, links to Jean Gray and like. thanks to Bruce Banner as well. He's being overwhelmed by the spider side of him because he's not allowing time for the Peter's 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. Realty armor? Yeah.

Not the thing he's trying to repress, but the thing that he uses to be his most powerful. But initially it makes him more rageful, more violent, more, you know, give some of these debilitating headaches, all this other stuff. But like the violence and the rage, once again, let's go to my guy, Andrew Garfield. Great. Try to keep going. Try to keep being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, because 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 me. They look like babies, even though that was only a few years ago. When Andrew Crow cries, he is just wonderful.

He's wonderful. Okay, so, so what's devastating about watching No Way Home in retrospect is that like, you know, Peter 2 and Peter 3, you know, do this, have this moment at the end of a movie

where they stop Peter Argy, Peter 1, from killing the Green Goblin out of vengeance And they teach him a lesson about, you know, 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 pewters 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 rewatch. But I am curious, I want to ask you, one thing I'm struggling with is, I 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 has 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 inhibitor. Library's that way. Yeah, but he's just sort of like, how do you decide what is right to repress and what is not? But then like 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.

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. 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, the fact that Peter 3, that Garfield's Peter is, you know, they have their Uncle Ben and Aunt May shared with tweaks. experience, but he lost Gwen. Right? 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 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 actually 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 not, like, so, but. Or from Gene.

Yeah, or from Gene who does some truly terrible damaging things in the movie. I believe kills many people in this movie. The street is littered with Jean Grey's dead. Let's just say it. Littered. But the Hulk has killed a lot of people, and Yelina 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.

Exactly. And so I think the fact, like, 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 the ones. Because doesn't it 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. No question. And for Gene, 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 Gene, which is just sort of like, who you are

outside of being quote unquote special. Yeah. Is special enough. And people will love you just for you, Gene, not for the Phoenix or whatever, you know, however you. Yeah. The X, the X men, uh, Jean Gray. Uh, 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? Like, so, yes, totally. And I, 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 and full. And like you're always going to... The important thing is to be able to identify that it's something to take seriously and to ask and to think about it and to consider. I think that like Hulk is... So Hulk and G... 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, or 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... or 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 moment 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, 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?

And it still is. Great. 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. 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 totality of who he is. And so when he says, I'm both, you're like, fuck. 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's 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. Because Ruth gets wheeled out on a gurney, babbling.

Maybe we over-corrected 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 I was like, this is quite upsetting. 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 and some ways also a cautionary tale. On the one hand, I mean, sure, yeah, it's fine to say two steps four or 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's form here. Where do you find Gene in all of that in this story? 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 going to 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 whole, to the whole saying, well, who decides is a good or bad? The other thing that that achieved, and this connects to Gene, 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 uncontatable 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 be. But then Peter is asking all these questions, and Hulk, despite living his life, 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 America Civil War, like the safest answer,

our own element to it. It's fine for me, but not for everyone else. 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 in the jury and collectively, actually MCU phases, to know that, like, you can't make decisions like that without consequence. and that 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. I, yeah. What did you think of all of the Peter Jean stuff and just how he reached her and what she's...

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, Sure. Octavius or, you know, um, et cetera,

et cetera. You know, Dr. Connor's like, well, like there's always like an older, yes. 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 Gene, I think is, is very satisfying.

And then also what is interesting, and we talked about this, was No Way Home. This is something my friend Dave Gonzalez 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 again.

Yes. Damage control, obviously. also connected with Vulture and taking the tech at how that's parking. At the very beginning of Homecoming is when we get damaged controls in terms of the MCU. But it's Parker Tech. It's Parker Tech coming out of this movie that is no doubt going to haunt the MCU going forward. You know what I mean? And I think that's really interesting.

So to watch them step into the Tony role of mentor, but also the Tony role of like inventor who loses control of their invention, I think is interesting. Interesting. But in terms of where Gene lands, I mean, I think it's intentionally supposed to be kind of murky because, you know, she has, she's the antagonist in 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 off on a bus up to upstate New York. That's right. Find some gifted youngsters. Inroll and roll in school or something like that. So, you know, her arc is 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 into a clear message.

And I don't mind your 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. 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. Oh, yeah. And then we get the moment with, we got a couple moments where Peter's bringing me a flower, all the time in the gravesome, but we get the inscription on her tombstone. You help one person, you help. Her agenda. Everyone exactly may. You know what?

I miss her. I miss her. One of the all-time. It felt very Nolan-y to have a dead woman haunted this movie, but I'm glad she's here. But it's no one sees her. It is no one season. It feels like it really did. You're so right.

You know, Peter, his journey in No Way Home with like what level of forgiveness or to somebody who has done something really terrible, deserves. is, feels to me like true to his arc, that he would carry that question forward with him. Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah. And so I like the... And be friends with Frank and be friends with Elena. You know what I mean? Right, exactly. 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 opted to instead for two Andrew Garfield clips and I feel great about it. You can only be who you are, which again is part of the point. They got right on their ledger. Maybe you did receive the message of the movie. There you go.

The, 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 Connolly, 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 check in with a couple allies here. Yes. Let's talk about Yelanda Bolova.

I love to. This is so great. 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, like, 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 like 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.

I knew so little about this movie that I did not know you later below. What was it? Maybe this makes it sound like we're like not online enough for people who will literally work on the internet. I had no clue this was in the movie. I had no idea. And then I expected it to be this big thing. And then she was just like at the premiere. And I was like, wow, I guess everyone knew that floor is people.

I mean, she's just not on the trailer. I don't know. I just, like, miss the Yelina Bilova, all the rumors that she was in this movie. So when he's like, I got to go see someone and he walks into the bathhouse and it's fucking Yelina Bolova. I was like, let's fuck. That's, to me, this was the biggest yay moment in the movie for me of love and respect to my girl, MJ. This was great. What the fuck can't Florence Pugh do as Yelena Bolova or just 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. I've seen your belly button moment. And the toe beans. I mean, just really incredible.

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. But she kept it Peter Parker friendly. She said, I've seen your belly button. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. She could have said something else, but she said, I've seen your belly button. Yeah. Who does it better from the bath? Ormond High Tower or Yelina Belova? Both icons in their own right. Boy. Talk about work-life balance.

Indeed. I found Ormans. I'm going to 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. Really? Ormond High Town. the problem?

Not an aspirational figure? A way to convey that to us? And when Elena was like coming to the bath and then of course we learned later that she does the same with Duolfe, I was just like goals. Life goals. This is amazing. It looked so relaxing and so soothing. Also, drop the eyeliner routine because I know that like the smudgy eyeliner look

is part of her whole thing. But like if she's got that like the black liner but also the blue that she had in Thunderbolts. if she's going to sit in a steamy bathhouse all day and it's not running down her, 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 under my, I'm well aware. And so I just need some help from Elena Bolova. Get ready with me, Yelena Bluva.

Should she become like a TikTok influencer? She'd be great. We would all benefit. She'd be great. I believe. What else do you want to say about Yelena? 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 mean? He's like, yeah, yeah. She's like, no. So it all, it makes sense. You're not like, why would this happen? This feels really forced. But it what, 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. I really agree. I think that when I was thinking back at when we were in Hall Age for Comic-Con, Marvel panel, that feels like a hundred years ago. It does. That was five days ago. Is that possible? It's not safe. Can't be true. Can't be true. Christ.

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. You literally were like, where's Pew? I did. Yeah. I said, where's Florence Pew? And I was like, where's Sebastian Stanton? Like, there are 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 Yelena is by far the most successful post-endgame edition to the MCU, like without question. To that point, having them in a scene together is a great, and you mentioned earlier, like the kind of carryover characters more broadly where we are and what has worked and what doesn't. You know, it's, 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 that 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 one hand, yes, but, and, like, if they're like, we can put Yelina 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 Elena Bluva 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 bag. mode instead. I loved her. Hulk. Yeah. Very minimally used in the film. Um, we've already talked about a lot of the Hulk stuff. 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? And they're like, no, I want to talk about Thanos. Why didn't Thanos just make more food? And it's a great question. Which slayed in the theater. Oh, yeah. This is wonderful.

really hit in our theater, in my quieter theater as well. And then the whole smash moment was so funny. Cindy Moon. Yeah. You know, a Marvel cameo here. But yeah, like having her asked 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.

So good. Yeah, it was, it was great. I, you know, I love Mark Ruffalo. Wonderful. 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's, here he is. I don't have much else to say. He was great. I thought, 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. And watching Bruce Suss him out.

Yeah. You know, figure things out. Yeah. That was all, like, very satisfying. And then even later, the, like, the universal word. And what that triggers, and it was like, oh, right. Okay, this is world. But when's the last time we had, oh, never mind, 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, Voltron. You know. But, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ragnerock. On the action front, so we had seen at Comic-Con a now we realize, heavily edited to remove all of the gene stuff. I was like, wow, the magic of movies. Oh, my God.

Like, every other word. Wow. I was having a really fun time tracking. Yeah. Yeah. That was really something. They even, like, overdubbed a different word, like, when they were talking about the inhibitor chip. Yes.

I think they, like, get, they cut her out of, like, in a cutaway. They left not a trace. That was really about them going after Gene. 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, I guess I'm. We had seen all that.

We were like, let's fucking go. Even better in the actual movie. The way that Peter is using when he's fighting. I don't know you could get that big. The Hulk, again, just kind of bursting forth, this uncontainable. undamable surge inside, the close-up, the zooming into 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 is 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 like 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 that's pulling a hole 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. But there's something so charming about the fact that, I mean, at MJ's insistence, that he goes to herging in there anyway. Yeah, that was great. Even though he's out, outgunned out much. And then when Hulk is about to like squish Peter's head like a grape and he's like, Bruce, Bruce, it's me.

Like, I'm your friend. The ability, again, to breach through the monstrous thing. that has reared its head and find the like humanity within. There's a for a second. An 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. Yeah.

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 together some dots. 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 mocked by Gene Gray earlier.

You know, a special handhake in Legos, like, more powerful than true love's kids. 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 massive radius this almost like Wanda-esque hex

sort of moment and you see Zenday 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 but I like this. this idea that like Jean Gray messing with people's minds maybe opens doors, you know, into Stranger's spell and allows sort of memories to see 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 Gene was occupying, you know, the brain for a little while?

I don't know. I'm just asking questions. Okay, Punisher. And there was just simply nothing about this that wasn't perfect. That's my formal take on the matter. 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? It worked for me so well. That was great. The Staten Island runner, like the Staten Island runner, along with the Potatoes Runner, like, felt like real old school Marvel. Yeah, sure. 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 it means. It just like means something. And that's like really fun. Move over Budapest.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I 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 as people fall in love along with Peter and MJ you know what I mean and 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 you need. And in retrospect, 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 what I loved it. Right. So like, what are there Tom Holland friends can we put in movies? I know. Let's just get Berenthal and capture all of this. I don't know. I love John Bernthal. I love his friend Castle. I love his friend Castle. have many of the same notes on the story around that Frank Castle, as you do, though, obviously

I've 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 were watching, Gene is watching, we're watching like through the security cameras. And you just see them like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can hear it even though you can't because you know by then exactly how they're talking to each other. And Tom said that they improvised a lot of the stuff on the on the set. 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 Gene and what they unlock for Peter and what Peter unlocks for what those three characters are unlocking in terms of this idea of 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 not only doesn't, I mean, does Frank have demons? Yes, we'll talk about those in a second. He has a great, also great moment in the movie when she's like, whoa. Yeah. This guy's got issues. That was back out of real laugh.

That was funny. Frank, this is part of why I love watching him interact with Matt Murdoch. Red. Got a real, like, red energy with the blush and daffodil. made me think of mad and Frank for sure. It is really good. And like the way in which they like sort of cleaned up the Frank Castle, like, I mean, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, shated it.

But like, you, you blush and daffodil is a real, uh, Peter Parker friendly way of saying something he might say a little, like, get out of here with that soft serve bullshit is like, for a spide emcee movie, like, on the edge and for Frank, like, positively generated. Yeah, exactly. But so Frank, who has these, has this terrible trauma. and history. Wait, what happened? There's some helpful photos here in this little kitchen cabinet, but you're not allowed to look.

Did he lose his family? He, 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 going to live in the world that I blaze for them. I'm going to put skulls on every. Everything. Yeah. 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?

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. 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. 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 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 hated that. Very recent reference from the hour of Marvel you loved. 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 diehires might disagree. But that's still recognizably the punisher to me. I think so. Sitting by Peter, pursuing the tank, you're going to take my one gun.

I've got another. Like, we're going to do it my way. When the truck crashes and just, like, a million guns fall out into the road. Classic. Classic. 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 Alamo, which is always a thing we love and story.

Shout out at the good place. The fact that Frank, who, you know, the loss of his kids, loss of his wife, his wife, their murder is the defining. They died? Bullet in his brain as well. One of the defining 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 four is you look exactly like I thought you were going to like. He's like, you're like, I'm talking to him like he's a nice kid. Yeah. So the dad energy there and the thing that he loves. lost and then wanting to send Peter back out into the world. Even the way when Peter brings MJ to the freighter, really cool set. I love that. The, who is she? Who is she to you?

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. Yeah. Yelena and Frank are real yes and. Who's Ned? Let me tell you something that we deserve. This Frank Castle and Yelina. Oh, in the same scene. Give it to me now. Okay.

Give it to me now. Comic book references a plenty, 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 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 Gene Gray.

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. Where are you with it? I'm not like negative about it. Well, you love a scrunchy. I do not.

I'm traumatized by the end. 80s and 90s. I'm anti-scrunchy personally. But I think this scrunchy was pretty cool and the color palette of it nodding to the X-Men. I'm just like, yeah, very cool. I don't know. I would not have minded 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 Grey possession of MJ was. 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 my experience in real time watching the possession sequence. I was 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? Right.

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 that like, even though Gina's the antagonist of this movie, she's not going to be like a hardcore villain for in the future of the MCU.

It's going to be Big Bill. 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. Yeah. We have to believe that. So the Sarah stuff and then like, my. That's girl, like, lie about Sarah and stuff like that. Like, it was so clearly a lie.

And we're just, like, we're just, like, way ahead of Peter on that and stuff like that. Yeah. So 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, you know, I'm not, I don't, like, hate it. I just, I just have a question about it. Yeah. I think in terms of placement and, um, 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.

Yeah. We just press pause for a second in a way that I'm just sort of like, could we have parsed to make you want mint chip and chocolate ice cream. Same. I agree. I love mint chip. My favorite. I 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. Planda had today, at impact it for me. What an angel. He's just like, try to make it home to me today. You should have a fucking mess. He lost your life. In terms of the...

In terms of the... So the part of it that's more successful. It's a parallel for Jean and Peter in a couple respects. One, where does loss lead you? Right. Especially if you're alone. And then can you be pulled out of that abyss?

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 because they're not a part of your life and you're not a part of this. That's mounting, mounting, mounting, mounting steadily. Ezra Bridger. But you go to the party and Ezra Bridger is kissing your girl.

Yeah. And you're like, the spider has taken over. Yeah. Right. My pupils, my whole eye is my pupil. I'm swinging through the rain. It got really, real real fast. So the idea that Gene's power scaling, the leveling up of her power, we go from like 6, 7 percent on the computer monitor. We're watching it's like 267 percent. It's uncontainable. They can't even map it. What is happening? Oh, my God. The fact that something is rising inside of Gene as she looks up and sees VMAX and realizes that her sister is gone, those things felt much like the brainwaves mapped on. to each other in an effective and in an effective way. Yeah, absolutely.

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 are emerging. Yeah. They're manifesting. I mean, like, she's already deeply scary.

Yeah. Well, I mean, again, legion's dead. When we meet her in this, and then she scales up and she scales up even inside of this movie. Yeah. So, yeah. Very scary, very fun.

incredible introduction of, so a lot of caveats here. I found, 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? We've met other mutants. We have, yes. Malikon, Namor.

We've seen the multiversal versions of like Beasts, Professor X, Gambit, and others inside of Deadpool and Wolverine. It's a mutant story in its own right, et cetera, et cetera. But this is, you know, the first. This is our version of this thing. Unless Channing sticks around his 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.

Yeah. I wouldn't be a supposed. I really liked his horrible accent. I enjoyed all of it. Yeah. This is definitely the first, like, we're... You're going to be watching movies with this person in this crucial key central role for the next 12 years. And it's really fun because, like, so this is a young Jean Grey.

And, you know, Fumka Johnson means something very important to a lot of us who watch Golden Eye and also, like, lived through those original X-Men movies, right? Sure. Of course. Sophie Turner, love and bless. Was a massive failure of casting for Jean Grey. Yeah. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Has, we have a lot of affection for massive whiff. So to come through with Sadie Sank. Yeah. Who we 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,

I just think this is like, I'm thrilled. Hugely positive for the forward looking. I agree. I mean, I'm just, I'm very excited to enter. more fully and finally at last this stretch of X-Men's Starotelling, the Mutant Saga in the MCU. I'm hyped about it.

This is the kind of casting and decision that makes me feel confident. Confident. And we should say, Samara Weaving, it was just announced that Samara Weaving has been cast. Yeah. It has been cast as Emma Frost. So we anticipate we're going to hear a lot more of this, but Samara Weaving I love. Really fun. So that's a really fun.

Yeah. With love and respect to January Jones. Actually, not in that role. You know what I mean? Just sort of like, let's just do better and better and better. It's very exciting. We're doing a lot of like original, you know. And how much news will we get on this front in the next like few weeks, few months?

It's very, that's an exciting thing. There could be more announced before we even drop this podcast. Guys, voice of God us. If somebody else has been cast while we're potting. If we get the new gambit while we're talking, let me know. But yeah, and then especially for Gene to be introduced in this capacity where there's the Sarah history, the powers are emerging but rapidly evolving

and changing. You might say mutating. You might. I might. Peter is, but like the movie didn't say mutants. They said special. Yeah, so we're like easing in.

I don't know if that's a rights thing or not. Might be. Yeah. Might be. I definitely got the, at the Stinger, no mid credits. We have a, I thought this movie was dynamite.

Pretty lame post-credit Stinger. And I was like, like, oh, they just don't want to give them. This guy behind me was like, here we go. And then he was like, oh. Yeah, that was definitely, there was a real air out of the balloon at the very end. But I kind of was like, I guess, 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, what if they had just had Gene get off the bus and you saw the like a tunnel leaves of upstate New York? That's what I thought we were going to do. like the mansion, not even, but, but, and then they did a little like, da-da-da, you know what I mean? Like, again, rights, that would have been great. The questions that Peter and Gene are asking, you know, that the, 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 is a mute. It sets up Magneto and to Xavier. It comes with a lot of responsibility. You know, I would say that. I would. And I might write it and put it on my little board. Responsibility. We will have an X-Men clip coming in a second.

But I will say I had to restrain myself to not make it a fast-bender Magneto clip. I almost did. Let me say this right now. Double Garfield. Never restrain yourself from putting a Magneto clip on this podcast, ever. I'm calling

this next section, MJ wigged out. Okay. Zendaya is wearing a pretty strong wig in this movie. And by strong, I mean, I actually didn't really like it. I defer to you on wig watch matters always. I've... The thing, 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 yes, like, people should be allowed to grow up and go to college and figure out how to use a flat iron and 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 two, for lack of a better term, normal. I was like, where did all her weirdness go? We got to 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 would say some emerged. But this is an MJ. I, 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, are 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 as her Bridger, has done a lot of things. So 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 a very incredibly strong performance inside of this movie.

Yeah. But I was almost wondering if that was partially the point. If part of the point of MJ, and I'm struggling with this argument because I'm worried that if I don't make it correctly, it will sound like she needs a man to be like who she is. Quarky woman that she has. Terrible. Hate that. But is there a version of the story where, like, MJ who sort of relishes in her weirdness, finds a. 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 the weird way you are. I got you this black Dahlia necklace because you love the murder. Because you love murder and I love that about you. And you are so fucking weird and I love that. about you. And 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. Oh my God. Peter is who Tom is. Yeah. 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 when she's still there.

But when she talks about the letter. Yeah. And she refers to that person as her. Yeah, a different person. It's a different person entirely. And I can see how she, you loved her and she could love you, but I'm not her. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's like, gut it.

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 who you are. Yeah. Devastating. And there's so much about this, like, yearning Peter's stuff and his heartbreak that absolutely works on me.

Yeah. But there are ways in which we see MJ once again get fucking tossed off a roof, even though it's Gene Gray 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 her 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.

I mean, yeah, it's interesting. I didn't feel that way about it, but I don't really have, like, a counterargument to anything you're saying. And I, I'm 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. I don't know that I know that. I think you're, I do. I think, 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, what is just like the change that is present in your life as you age anyway. From 18 to 20. Yeah, exactly. Like, is there 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-superpowered character. On the one and, yeah, but on the other hand, doesn't Ned just feel exactly like Ned? Ned is

I mean some of it is I guess that Ned isn't a movie less right so there's more there are more scenes to kind of assess is this R.M.J. I think some of it is maybe undeniable

there with MJ in a way where we're like we've got a few great moments with Ned. Sharkfire energy seems like our guys got a problem so I'm concerned.

That's really funny. It's like it's 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 were young American men in Europe? Like, Ned wanted to fuck. Ned wanted to party. Like, you know, that feels right. He wants to experiment with hats. Yeah, because Ned wants to experiment with hats. Exactly. Ned is ready after a couple days of, like, his first girlfriend, time with his first girlfriend, to be like, Peter, one adult.

School in love. You know. Impeccable. But, you know, also, frankly, like, a young man, having matured less than a 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. And second, that's some like friends level. Where do 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, that's fine. No, not the first time that young Ned had purchased a mini-cag, you could tell. Correct. I, so I got, I think we need to do a weird past. Like when I, when I saw that quote in the doc 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 it 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, there are like 50 people in our apartment, statistically speaking, at least two of them or sociopaths. I'm like, MJ.

You know, the, like, you know, yo, you tell me about brain control. Well, you're lucky I believe in this stuff because it does happen mostly with the French. MJ. 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 fucking 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 there. Right. And there's the disorienting aspect of that, the fact that they do mention. 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. But they have all these memories of like, of Spider-Man rescuing them. Yeah, being on the European trip with us. Yeah. Which is why they have a few prime suspects for who Spidey might be. Incredible moment. Just hysterical. I missed you in this movie Martin Star, but I'm glad your face was in the movie. 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... It was edited over. Yeah. Exactly. Like, wouldn't something about who you were and how you conducted yourself be different unless you were dead? Like a Sandyo Comic-Con clip. You know?

One word. Yeah. Slice. Spliced out. 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,

Them on the other side of the curtain. Oh, that was just wonderful. Incredibly good. That was great. Also, I was interested to learn about MJ's major and what she switched into and out of. That was fascinating. So to your point from earlier about,

okay, we can probably suss out that Jean Grey is in MJ's mind. Are we supposed to be surprised? My theater was. There was like a gasp. Yeah. So my experience, and I think what I felt more around me

in the theater both times was less. There was a, it was more like a, oh yeah. Like the devastation of it. Yeah. And so whether or not it was supposed 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. She killed a lot of people, but she killed Peter's soul. Was that the worst thing she did? 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,

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. Right. But then to underline the, MJ's betrayal of like you made a decision for me. Yes. Yeah. Like how different is this, this decision you made for me? Not just like, yes, you had to do this spell, but you did not keep your promise to come find me and like tell me. Yeah.

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. 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 did not honor the consent that you made about getting your mind to raise. But I did kiss you when you were wrong. And I just thought you should know.

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

I thought that the letter moment, though. Really sad. I don't know. Like. Really sad. I don't have that in my mind. The single most important thing to you in your life other than Ned and the I'm really proud of the restraint of this movie.

Well, I actually think the real killer, that was tough. Oh, that killed. When Jean Gray said, no thoughts of you in there at all. Brutal. No where in there. I thought that was really tough. Yeah. That was great.

You know, so when she comes out with the letter, I'm like, Gene 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? Yeah. She's on the roof. Yeah. She's holding the necklace.

She's thinking about him, yearning tendrils. It's happening. I think it's going to end up there. depending on how many movies Zendaya wants to do. Yes. But we didn't get there right away, and it shouldn't be easy. Exactly. This is like the bold, but I think right and more potent choice.

The challenge of working back to that place, not just kind of undoing this thing that should be monumental, but it also is just kind of dagger after dagger. It made for such an 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 appreciate it 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 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.

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

I really did. I loved it. I also want to like, so I want to go into the next section to talk about the action a little bit. We've already touched a lot of this, so we don't have to dwell too long here. But to, to transition into this section that I'm calling web slinging. Yeah. 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 a gene 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 one but like just the somber

and the way that the film stayed with him anyway so something that Kevin Feigy 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 whole Punisher, Spidey clip. Some people interpreted that as like, Faggy, the comic book fanboy,

never thought he would get to see these three characters together. But the fun fact about it, Kim Figey is he's not a lifetime comic book fan boy. He came to this late in life as a sort of like way forward in the film industry or a book about it. But from a business point of view, Right. Spidey is a Sony character. Hulk is a universal character.

Punisher who was at Lionsgate for a while. And Gene Gray, who is a Fox character. Yeah. All come home. All the chickens have come home to roost. And now there's no room for TV. Tough. We're not here to talk about TV.

Did you have... We've already talked about these fight scenes. Is there anything else you want to say? I mean, I really thought the mind-controlled hands up. A lot of people have... Yeah, those. 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. 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 there were, like, cameras everywhere. Like, there's some of that. Great point. A member of my household who shall remain names was who fucking loved the movie, thought it was wonderful.

Let's ask that question. You know, it's a great question we're asking Adam. But, you know, Desil Daniel Kretton, the director of Shang-she, like, really showing off his adept work with martial arts and this. And 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. It was really cool. Yeah, I mean, I think we've hit a lot of the particulars already, but just in that big picture sense, 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 going to do what he's going to do. The, you know, iconic, like maybe can't be topped by any movie ever. Like, that's why we call it a leap of faith. Miles Peter B moment. You know, it's scary to do this thing. And so to put Peter in a spot of. 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... He loves a beam. He loves a beam to operate at the height of like his capacity and craft. And then to re...

So we feel that evolution, but then to reset us because... Of the organic webs was just like 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 the organic. Not going to be compatible, right? Like, that was all great. Great Naomi Watts impression. Thank you. I do. I'll be here literally all day.

To your MJ point and how we, we have 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 time he's smashing into buildings, the webs are jizzing out of him and then exploding, you know. They are. 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 he was, 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. A critique I have seen of this movie, uh, is that people

felt the ending, the sort of de-escalation with Gene was too similar to the de-escalation ending of Thunderbolts. Uh, let's remind ourselves by watching that, uh, moment in Thunderbolts. And you know what? I, I don't disagree. But also, we love to 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 shows that I really liked. You know, a critique of MC movies in general and certainly like Homecoming specifically is like how boring, you mentioned this earlierly, 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 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. 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, like 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 like the Marvel has a third act problem reached such a fever pitch that it's like, let's take that seriously. You know, not every... Guess what, guys? Like, 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 two.

Two films having a bit of a shared strand of DNA, if you will, in them. And I thought the Thunderbolt ending was wonderful. I, you know, I don't know, these also feel like appropriate films to... Were you watched Thunderbolts if you didn't give it a... chance. It was a great movie. It's so good. Great movie. It was just great to see Bob there. It was wonderful to see Bob. Lewis Pullman had quite the San Diego Comic Con with both of baseballs and showing up for the

Marvel panel. We already talked about what is this a Nolan movie, the Ant May stuff. It's great to have her here. But I did pull a clip. This is the aforementioned promised X-Men clip and just sort of about fighting your powers versus embracing your powers. So let's watch this clip. All those voices. So much... Pain. It's not that pain you're afraid of.

It's yours, Charles. And as frightening as it may be, that pain will make you stronger. If you allow yourself to feel it, embrace it. That will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. Another one of my guys, James McAvoy's here. Also a fan.

Big fan. Xavier, talking to Xavier, days of future past. But, you know, obviously Charles and Gene 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 Gene unlock this power set, which comes from a place of pain. Right. But how can it be channeled? And the message that May gives to. to both Jean and Peter

inside of this theater of the mind memory sort of moment of you yourself are enough but also like what can you gain by embracing

the harder parts of your power set and we're at like armor. We're like armor baby. Yeah, I love this. I thought, you know, again, just welcome to have

Marisote d'Ae's Mae 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 raised for he's going to be the one who can push her out. Like, even Bruce couldn't do that. Even Holt 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 noted. 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. She can get quick greed. Yeah. Speed reader.

For Peter, it's this one thing. It's this one thing. And that felt really keen too. And it's May right after she finds out that he's Spider-Man based on. You think you don't have to listen to me just because I've got power sound. Delightful. Yeah. And, you know, what is, again, scary and new about change, I love 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 Ed 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. can benefit from the thing that he knows may gave him was like so lovely.

You got me. You're not alone. You've got me. You've got me. And especially because Peter is in such a dark place in this movie because of loss and grief. Do you think he should have said it in the Elena Belova answer? You're not alone. And then he could add.

I've seen your belly button even though you hadn't yet. 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. Yeah. I loved Chamele Tumman, but I thought this character sucked and was not well used. Yeah, I mean, it's just sort of kind of cookie cutter, like, you know, I think it is worth, especially with like, Gene 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 era of moviemaking.

This might be someone's first superhero movie. And so that, I'm nuts. That would be, boy, what a way to begin your journey. This is what Marvel hopes that you can enter anywhere. Yeah, I do think particularly on the dawn of this new X-Fan era, that's purposeful. It is a Spider-Man movie, not an X-Man movie, but that is going to be such a persistent thing for the X-Man. 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. I did miss Happy. I did miss Happy. 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 cradic. Because we got the great moment with Happy and Peter at the Grey site 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's 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.

Do you want Happy Hogan in Doomsday to see Victor von Doom or 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. Good question. I still am more interested in the Peter or Steve version of that. I'm interested in Morgan. I mean, that's going to make me fucking. sob. Will a cheeseburger be involved? I hope so. Um, no daredevil. Yeah. Something we speculate about. No daredevil. And then, like,

reportedly Rosario Dawson filmed a Claire Temple scene. This is, it's funny, because one of the first things Adam and I talked about when we left, given the hospital setting of the closing, was like, where was Claire? Yeah. So that I would have liked. I actually would have liked Claire. If 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 or stuff like that, you know? Yeah. Claire would have fit. I didn't mind Matt not being here. Me either. It's just something we heavily speculated. Yeah. And it was absolutely delightful to have him in No Way Home, obviously. He's just a very good lawyer. Just a very good lawyer. All right. We talked about the Ned stuff already. Let's talk about the end credits. Not the end credits. Not the end credits. Spidey in space question mark. So grumbling my theater

Spider-Man will not appear in Doomsday We're pretty sure Probably in Secret Wars Sadie Sink is in Secret Wars How sure are we that Spider-Man is not going to be in Doomsday? How sure are we that Tom Holland is not going to be in Doomsday But maybe a different Spider-Man could be in Doomsday I feel like Spider-Man will be in Doomsday

They can't help themselves, right? I think he's not But maybe they're lying They like to lie They especially like to lie about what Spider-Man is in. So on the tracker, we see the dot in Queens. Yeah.

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. Is this has, 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 Toby McGuire is going to be. My read was Incursion, Doomsday Multiverse set up. And I think just the stingers in general recently have been Doomsday set up. Like, you know, the end of Thunderbolts is fantastic for, certainly the end of Thunderbolts is.

Yeah. Here's the Fantastic Four. Like it just feels like it's always like something. and space is suddenly here now because incursions. Okay. Because doomsday. But who knows? If we...

Marvel, look at me. I like Tommy McGuire. If we get Toby and No. Andrew, I won't be happy. Okay. That's all. I like Tommy. I completely agree. I think Toby's really great in No Way Home.

Yeah. Yeah. I demand Andrew Garfield. I demand Andrew Garfield. I need to know if Peter III is okay. Did he go home and find some work-life balance? I need to know. I'm with you.

Anything else you want to talk about before we go? 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.

It's great. Movies, hell yeah. It's great. I'm excited. Movies, hell yeah. Put it on the quote card. See you at the movie. See the movie. Thank you. Thank you to our pals. Thank you. Carlis Sherboga. 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. Arjuna Runga Powell, Jomi and Dinneron.

Squad. Thank you to you, Mallory Rubin. Thank you to you. For making it through this pod. Not our last one today. And delighted to talk to you about this film. I really wish I had sat next to you and watch this song. Same. I had nerve clusters, as you know. We'll never sit apart again, maybe. Perhaps, possibly. See you soon for House of the Dragon Stuff. Bye. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if?

Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca.cair, every style, every home.