Spider-Man: Far From Home brings Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a close with a joyous teen adventure and returns to the grand tradition of postcredit scenes after Avengers: Endgame, which just has an audio Easter egg of Tony Stark forging his armor in the first Iron Man.
We get two scenes here — the mid-credits scene is absolutely essential viewing and the second is fun, but will make you rethink the entire movie.
If you haven’t seen Far From Home yet, be warned that you’re about to get caught in a web of spoilers.
Scene 1: Mysterio’s revenge and a glorious return
Spider-Man (Tom Holland) swings a flustered MJ (Zendaya) through the Manhattan skyline and drops her off at 8th Avenue and 33rd Street, where a massive screen on the side of Madison Square Garden shows a report from TheDailyBugle.net.
A doctored video makes it look like Spidey killed Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) during the climactic battle in London — the illusionist’s recorded testimony says Spidey is a villain from another universe who was controlling the drones wreaking havoc on the UK capital.
hen Daily Bugle host J. Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons) appears on screen to hail Mysterio as “the greatest superhero of all time” and prepares us for more.
“But that’s not all, folks. Here’s the real blockbuster — brace yourselves, you might wanna sit down,” he says.
Mysterio’s final testimony reveals to the world Peter Parker’s secret identity as Spider-Man, leaving Spidey and MJ understandably shocked.
What it means
Spidey’s been outed to the world and framed for murder, meaning his entire life is turned upside down as we head into Phase 4. It’s a dark, stunning contrast to the end of Iron Man, where Tony Stark revealed his own superhero identity to the press and a nice reference to the comics’ Civil War storyline (which saw Peter outing himself at Tony’s urging).
The general public’s also been fed Mysterio’s lies about the multiverse — we’ll see how they react to that.
Even more importantly, this scene marks the glorious return of Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. He played the cigar-chomping Daily Bugle boss in all three Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, but those aren’t part of the MCU and this isn’t the same character — note the lack of a buzzcut.
From this glimpse, the MCU’s Jameson appears quite different to the Raimi-verse’s traditional angry newspaperman. Here, he’s more of an Alex Jones-type conspiracy theorist (mirroring his role as an angry podcaster in last year’s PS4 game) — one who was willing to paint a bullseye on a teenage boy based on a choppy video.
As for where he got the video, it was probably from Mysterio’s assistant William Ginter Riva (Peter Billingsley), who escaped with a hard drive after Spidey foiled his boss’ plan in London. We saw earlier in the movie that Riva worked for Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) way back in the first Iron Man, so he’s had two villain employers.
It’s also hard to know if Mysterio is really dead — he could’ve used his special-effects wizardry to fake that too.
Scene 2: Nick Fury’s vacation
We discover that this movie’s SHIELD Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) weren’t the Fury and Hill we know and love.
Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and his wife Soren (Sharon Blynn), a pair of shapeshifting Skrulls, pretended to be Fury and Hill. You might remember this couple being reunited during Captain Marvel, which takes place years prior to Far From Home in the MCU timeline.
They were working for the real Fury, who ordered them to get the EDITH glasses to Peter. Talos apparently fell for Beck’s ruse too.
The real Fury was chilling on a beach … that turns out to be a virtual reality (VR) simulation on a Skrull vessel somewhere in outer space. Perhaps he needed a vacation after being restored to life in Avengers: Endgame. We don’t see the real Hill. Hopefully she’s enjoying a little leisure time too.
What it means
Fury and Hill were actually disguised Skrulls for the whole movie, echoing the Secret Invasion comic storyline where Skrulls secretly replaced humans. This is like a benign version of that sinister takeover, but it could foreshadow a future MCU storyline.
There are a few hints about that the SHIELD agents aren’t all they seem during the movie too. Fury has an unusual reaction when Peter mentions Captain Marvel.
“Don’t invoke her name,” he says.
This reverential tone would be out of character for Fury, but is absolutely in character for Talos — she reunited him with his family back in the ’90s. Performances by Jackson and Smulders are a little flat during the movie too; this revelation makes their acting even more impressive.
Maybe Talos was responsible for that Fury poster goof too.
It does raise the question of what the Skrulls have been doing since the events of Captain Marvel, when they left Earth to search for a habitable planet where their race could live. Maybe even more people have been replaced by the shapeshifters.
