"Spider-Man: Homecoming" Starring: Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Michael Keaton Another heroic theme clearly composed by Michael Giacchino plays over the Sony and Columbia Pictures title cards, which...that's different, isn't it? We open on a child's drawing of the Avengers, with Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow and Thor front and center and Hawkeye hovering somewhere in the background with a sword for some reason. Chrissy: Isn't there some other guy with no superpowers and just a boring weapon? What's his name? Eh, I'll just put him back there with a katana. It's bound to be cooler than he really is. It turns out Michael Keaton is showing this to some other guy, grumbling about how nothing is ever going to be the same again because now there are aliens and a big green guy making all sorts of messes. Emilio: And then there's this guy in a bat suit flying around. Asshole. He continues his 'back in my day' baby boomer rant by grumbling that when he was a kid he would draw cowboys and Indians Chrissy: And drink water from the whites only fountain. Diandra: And practice how to "duck and cover" in school just in case the Russians decided to drop a nuke. Emilio: The music was pretty awesome though. Diandra: And the cars, apparently. Emilio: Well, I wouldn't really know about that. I wanted a Delorean when I was a kid. Diandra: I want a Delorean now so I can find the timeline where Biff didn't become president and deport all my sister's students. Chrissy: Proving already that using these movies as an escape from reality isn't working anymore? Diandra: Sorry. The guy he's talking to - who is probably Gen X or Xennial but maybe a Millennial - mutters that they're called Native Americans, but whatever. He's used to the casual racism of the Boomers. Michael, ignoring him, says the drawing isn't bad, is it? The younger guy agrees that the kid might have a future in the art world. And then we get a shot of the Avenger's tower as it was after the first Avengers movie or maybe even after Iron Man 3. Abandoned, half destroyed. We pan down through the blasted out portion of the building next to it where Michael and several other guys are in the process of cleaning up the damage. He goes up to a guy trying to take apart what's left of a Chitauri ship and reminds him that the alien metal is tougher than normal Earth stuff and that tool he's using isn't strong enough. He picks up what looks like a crowbar and chisels what looks like a couple jewels off the edge. Apparently Michael is the boss because he chews out a guy who shows up late because his alarm "didn't go off" and orders him to go "stack that armored plating". And then Tyne Daly shows up with a couple dozen crewmen of her own and announces that according to a new order, all post- battle cleanup is now their jurisdiction. She thanks Michael's crew and dismisses them. Michael sneers and demands to know who the hell she is because he has a city contract that gives him permission to salvage all this crap. She identifies him as "Mr. Toombs" and says sorry, but not anymore. And they should turn over any "exotic materials" they have collected so far or they will face prosecution. The guy he was showing the drawing to pockets a glowing orb. Toombs whines that he bought trucks so he could do this work and he brought in this whole crew and all of them have families to support and he could lose his house. Chrissy: Good thing he stopped short of claiming he needed the money for his wife's cancer treatments or something or this would sound like a totally made up sympathy plea. Diandra: Or a shameless attempt by the writers at ripping off "Breaking Bad". Chrissy: It wasn't Skyler who had cancer. It was Walter. Diandra: I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Chrissy: Okay, I guess I know what show I'm introducing you to next. She shrugs and says there's nothing she can do for him. One of her goons sneers that next time he should try not "overextending" himself. Toombs acknowledges to his crew that the guy is technically right before he punches him in the face. Tyne's men actually draw guns on him. He blinks at this while she says he should file a grievance with her "superiors". He asks who the fuck that's supposed to be and in answer we cut to a news report about a joint venture between Stark Industries and the government to clean up the damage the Avengers make and store all the alien tech collected. Chrissy: So they're Torchwood. Emilio: Basically. Or UNIT. The guy he was mansplaining dismantling the piece of ship to is watching the report with him and notes that basically the jerks who made the mess are being paid to clean it up. Well...their employees are getting paid. And they're probably profiting off the technology, but whatever. One guy notes that they still have a load on one of the trucks that they "forgot" to turn in. Toombs says yeah...let's keep it. Fuck them. Eight years later they're basically running the alien tech equivalent of a chop shop. Toombs flies in with a winged jet pack outfit that is recognizable to anyone who knows anything about Marvel as Vulture. But for some reason that name will never be said in this entire movie. He drops some parts on the floor and powers down his wings, taking off his face plate so we recognize him before we go to the Marvel title card. Chrissy: [gravel voice] I am Batman! No, wait... Emilio: I am Birdman! No, that doesn't work either... The music played over the Marvel logo is not the same one that Giacchino wrote that was used in the last two movies. It is an updated version of the recognizable original Spider-Man comic theme. For anyone who was still disappointed that the recent Wonder Woman movie didn't have a recognizable version of the Lynda Carter show's theme, I guess. And it ends with a baffling card that says "a film by Peter Parker". Before we can assume they've gone completely meta and the next movie is going to be directed by Ms. Marvel or something, we open on some home movie footage. Tom Holland, in an affected serious narrator voice, identifies the scenes of Queens, which he describes as a "rough borough". The driver of the car he's in the backseat of - who turns out to be Happy, Tony's long time driver - asks who he's talking to. Peter drops the voice and squeaks that he's just making a video of the trip. Happy says he can't show that to anyone. Peter says he knows that. Happy asks why he's doing that I'm a Serious Director and This Is a Serious Movie voice then. Peter claims it's "fun". Emilio: Honestly, who hasn't done that before? Diandra: Um...pretty sure I haven't. Chrissy: What kind of joyless childhood did you have? Diandra: You'd have to ask my therapist about that. Peter asks how Happy got that name and Happy closes the partition on what is probably the limo. We fast forward to them getting on Stark's private jet, which Peter notes has no pilot. Happy asks if this is his first time on a private plane. Peter says it's his first time on ANY plane and is that weird noise he just heard normal? Chrissy: Yeah, it's fine. Just the crew cleaning the dead birds out of engine one. By the way, do you know how many engines a plane needs to stay in the air? No? Good. And then we forward through the plane arriving in Berlin and some touristy shots and oh, this is a flashback. Peter narrates that nobody has told him WHY he's in Berlin, but it has something to do with Captain America going crazy. Yeah, that would be how Tony described it. He gets in his hotel room and puts on his lame, cobbled together suit that looks like it actually includes swimming goggles. Happy sticks his head in and asks what happened to the case Tony sent. Peter is like '........what?' He finds the case in another part of his enormous room with a note from Tony that it is a "minor upgrade". He pushes a button on the case and the suit he wore in "Civil War" springs out in a flashy show because of course it does. He squees and gushes like the excitable teenage boy he is. And we flash to the beginning of the big showdown (such as it was) in "Civil War", seen from a distance. Tony calls "Underoos!" and he puts the camera down and springs out into the open, nabbing Cap's shield with his web. And then apparently sometime in the middle of the fight he takes the time to pick up the camera again and talk about how he just fought with Captain America and he stole his shield and... Ant Man turns into a giant behind him and he gets distracted. He puts the camera down again and runs into the fray, getting shot past the frame again half a second later. When the video comes back online, he is back in his hotel room giving an excited teenage boy rundown of the events of the battle. And then Happy comes in the room and points out that the walls in the hotel are very thin and he can HEAR EVERYTHING. Chrissy: This is when you switch to a whispered version buried underneath a fortress of blankets and pillows. Sometime later, he's in the limo with Tony, who asks what the video diary thing is about. Happy grumbles from the driver seat that he TOLD the kid to knock it off and he's wiping the chip the first chance he gets. Tony is like 'hey, no, it's fine' and suggests they make an "alibi video" for Aunt May. He prompts Peter to get in the shot and addresses the camera, asking Aunt May how she's doing and what she's wearing. "Something skimpy, I hope!" Peter frowns like '.........what?' Tony giggles and offers to start over and he can edit that part out. Chrissy: Yes, because otherwise they might think you totally want to get into her pants. On the second try, he gushes about what an incredible job Peter did at the Stark Industries internship thing this weekened. Chrissy: Yeah, I have a television. Where was he while you and Captain America were having a pissy fight in an airport parking lot? Somebody cuts off Happy and he blares the horn and yells. Then we cut to Tony explaining that Happy is hoping to get promoted to Asset Manager from Forehead of Security. Emilio: Well, that nickname paid off. Diandra: Eventually. Happy turns and chastises Tony for discussing a private conversation like this. They arrive at their destination very abruptly and Tony asks him to get Peter's luggage so they can have a moment of privacy. We finally abandon home movie mode as Peter repeats what Tony apparently told him: he can keep the suit he wore in Berlin. Tony says yep. Oh, and do him a favor: "Happy is kind of your point guy on this. Don't stress him out. Don't do anything stupid." Chrissy: Asking a teenage boy to not do anything stupid is like asking a dog to not lick its butt. Diandra: Wow. That's just...you should stitch that on a pillow or something. Tony clarifies that that means don't do anything he would do. Or wouldn't do. Both. "There's a little grey area in there and that's where you operate." Peter asks if that means he's an Avenger now. Chrissy: No, you have to do something really crazy for that. Like smuggle yourself onto an alien ship and save a wizard or something. Diandra: I thought you weren't eager to get to that recap? Chrissy: Doesn't mean I can't joke about it. Humor is my coping mechanism. Happy knocks on the window and holds up the suitcase. Tony says it goes to the seventh floor. Peter stutters that he can take it and Happy is like 'yeah, I'm going with the kid on this' and drops it on the curb. Peter asks Tony when the next "retreat" is. Emilio: When a big purple alien comes looking for some shiny rocks. Tony says yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhh, don't call me, I'll call you. Peter asks if Tony has his number then. Tony says he didn't mean HE would call. He'll get someone to do that for him. He reaches over Peter and Peter, thinking he's hugging him, starts to hug him back. Tony says actually he was just trying to open the door. "We're not there yet." He sits back and Peter looks awkward. And then we cut right to him standing in the street holding his bags while the car peels away. Two months later. Peter is on the city bus instead of a school bus for some reason. He texts Happy that he's just checking in. "Ready for my next mission! This is Peter BTW." Emilio: Yeah, because there was a chance he could think those messages were from Steve. Diandra: Well, maybe before Civil War... Chrissy: And "mission" had a whole different meaning. Emilio: They were all deep undercover. Chrissy: Very deep. Very messy. Lot of wet work. Diandra: Can we get on with this recap here or are the two of you just going to keep offering innuendos and giggling? You know, this is probably the real reason why it took us so long to get around to this recap. I knew if I got you in the same room this would happen. Chrissy: Pfffttt. You knew that before. You love it. Emilio: Yeah, we entertain you. "Parker," he adds in case Happy is still confused. He scrolls back through a shitload of messages, all on his side of the screen. He gets off what turns out to be the subway at an above ground station and walks the rest of the way to school, almost getting hit by some kid driving a fancy car. "'sup Penis Parker," the kid taunts. Ah, yes, High School. I do not miss it. Inside the building, we get an establishing amateur news show put on by students reminding everybody to get their tickets for homecoming now. Oh, and make sure they have a date. Peter is staring into his open locker like he's psyching himself up for another day of standardized tests when a hand perches a Lego Darth...somebody from one of the prequels that I've blocked from my memory...on his shoulder and invites him to help build his Lego Death Star. Peter turns to find his best friend Ned behind him and is like 'WHAT?! YOU HAVE THE LEGO DEATH STAR? I HATE YOU SO MUCH THAT'S SO AWESOME AND FUCK YES I WANT TO!' Chrissy: You know, of any of the Avengers, Peter is the most obviously relatable as he is never anything less than an unapologetic nerd. Emilio: Also because he is a teenage boy and, let's face it, that is the primary audience Marvel is making these movies for. Diandra: A fact that works in your favor, but tends to annoy me because it explains the total disregard for strong female characters because boys feel threatened by strong women. Emilio: Hey! Diandra: Present company excepted, of course. Ned says yep, it has over three thousand pieces and we're going to tackle it tonight. Peter moans that he can't do it tonight because he has that Stark internship thing. He does? Ned sighs that he ALWAYS has that excuse. Peter says hopefully it will lead to a real job with Stark Industries soon. "Good job on those spreadsheets, Peter," Ned jokes. "Here's a gold coin." Because the working world functions exactly like an old arcade game where you collect coins until you have to battle your boss and save the kidnapped princess. Emilio: It doesn't? Ned admits he has no idea what he's talking about because he doesn't have a job yet. He says he'll get a start on the Death Star then because the hard part will be the base and then he can swing by and...a pretty girl cross their path and Ned's voice literally fades out as Peter becomes distracted. He mumbles yeah, um...great...yes, I'd love to go to the homecoming dance. Wait, what was the question? Math class. A teacher who looks a lot like the police chief on Castle's younger sister or something is talking about linear acceleration. She calls on a kid nicknamed "Flash" to recite an equation, but he can't be THE Flash because this is Marvel, not DC...right? Chrissy: Good, you're finally learning. Emilio: It helps that she watched Justice League. Chrissy: I know. She sent me a picture of her TV screen frozen on an image of Henry Cavill shirtless accompanied by a drooling emoticon. Diandra: Yeah, I'm not going to pretend there was any other way I got through "Man of Steel". Chrissy: Who's the woman who plays Lois Lane again? Diandra: Somebody McAdams and shut up. Emilio: Only one of them is named MCAdams... Chrissy: Just give up. She's never going to get them straight. She was probably picturing Amy Adams while she was writing that scene in her FrostStrange story. Diandra: No, I wasn't. I was picturing the one who was in "Night at the Museum". Chrissy: ................ Diandra: What? The Flash gives the wrong answer and teacher turns to Peter, who is watching some sort of security footage of Spider-Man posted on YouTube and half paying attention. He still manages to give the correct answer. "Flash" seems to be the same kid who nearly ran him over outside the school and he whispers "you're dead" in an impotent rage now. In Chemistry, Peter mixes some chemicals together to create a "web fluid", as detailed in his notebook. He hides it in a drawer before the teacher can catch him screwing around. At lunch, he sits with Ned. Ned wonders aloud if Liz got a new top. Emilio: It's just the two of you. You can admit you aren't really looking at the thing covering her boobs. Peter says no, but she's never worn it with that skirt before. He suggests they stop staring at her before it gets creepy. "Too late," Zendaya calls from the other end of the table, declaring them "losers" before turning back to her book. Ned asks why she sits with them if they're losers. "Because I don't have any friends." Emilio: This is exactly how Diandra and I met, by the way. Diandra: No it isn't. We were Peter and Ned, only more awkward. Chrissy: Wait...didn't you say you met Emilio in the "Once Upon a Time" fandom? Diandra: Er...sort of? I met Emilio back when we were both awkward, bullied girls. We lost touch for a while and reconnected recently. We go to some sort of tournament in the auditorium where Liz is reading questions from a card. She asks what the heaviest naturally occurring element is. A nerd answers that hydrogen is the lightest before realizing he may have memorized the wrong answers. A kid who could totally play a young Barack Obama yells "uranium" and Liz praises him. Over in the corner, a teacher is reminding Peter that this is nationals and couldn't he just take one weekend off of his internship? Peter says no because it would involve going to Washington and he needs to be HERE in New York in case Mr. Stark needs him. Jesus, kid. Flash, lounging in the background, sneers that nobody has ever seen him in the same ROOM as Tony Stark. Chrissy: And pointing out that time Tony was in his bedroom is probably a bad idea here. Diandra: It's a bad idea anywhere. The other kids overhear this part of the conversation and freak out that Peter is trying to get out of going to Nationals. Zendaya, lounging in a different corner, grumbles that he quit marching band and robotics too. The other kids look at her like 'dude...you're keeping track of his schedule?' and she defensively says she is NOT obsessed with him. Chrissy: Uh-huh. Bet you can tell if he's wearing a new pair of pants. Diandra: Ahem, uh....yeah. Liz says Flash will have to fill in for him then. Flash jokes that he'll have to check his schedule and make sure it doesn't conflict with that date he has with Black Widow. Emilio: He wishes. Diandra: She would literally eat him alive. Chrissy: Nah, Black Widows only do that AFTER they have sex and there's no way THAT is happening. After he's finished for the day, Peter runs out the door and leaps right over the fence surrounding the school. He stops at a 7-11/deli thing and greets the guy behind the counter by name. Mr. Delmar says "number five, right?" Peter says yeah, with pickles. The cook goes to make it and Delmar asks after Aunt May. Peter says she's fine. Mr. Delmar turns to a guy in the back and explains in Italian that she's a smoking hot Italian chick. Peter pointedly asks how Mr. Delmar's daughter is...in Italian. Mr. Delmar's face falls and he doubles Peter's bill. Peter goes over to pet a cat laying on the display case, which is apparently significant somehow, but I'm not sure why. They make idle chit chat about how Peter finds school boring but Mr. Delmar warns him against dropping out or he'll end up like him. Peter leaves with his sandwich, but it apparently disappears by the time he gets to an alley where he can change into his spider suit. He does this not at all gracefully, then pins his backpack to the nearest dumpster and jumps up onto the roof. So we have a little montage of him fighting petty crime. Hooking a bicycle thief with his web to sling him away comically and then just leaving a note on the bike when he can't find the original owner in the vicinity, warning people not to steal it. Slinging past a group of surprised tourists. Riding on top of the train. Some food truck owner calls to him when he's on a roof, asking if he's that "spider guy on YouTube". He calls back that yeah, he's Spider-Man. The guy says okay, do a flip then. He does. My understanding is that Tom Holland has actually been involved in an exchange just like this at least once. He gives a little old lady directions somewhere and stops a guy who seems to be trying to steal a car. Except apparently it is the guy's car and he just locked his keys in and some lady in the nearby building yells at them when the alarm starts going off and a couple other guys join in thinking HE'S trying to steal the car. Chrissy: Ah, yes. The joys of fighting crime in New York. And then Stan Lee appears at another window and yells "don't make me come down there, punk!" and he starts chatting with the first lady. Peter does a little superhero montage where he swings from one building to the next until he misses one and faceplants on the ground. The music stops and he calls "I'm good," to nobody. Comedy! He sits on a random fire escape and leaves a message for Happy, who is probably getting really sick of him by now. His report for the day is that he stopped a "grand theft bicycle", gave a little old Dominican lady directions who bought him a churro to thank him and he would REALLY LIKE TO KNOW WHEN THEY'RE GOING TO SEND HIM ON A REAL MISSION AGAIN. Oh, and this is Peter, by the way. Parker. Kthanksbai. He hangs up the phone and grumbles about how he just HAD to mention the lady giving him a churro. Like a dork. He futzes with the thing on his wrist and accidently discharges a piece, fumbling to catch it before it falls to the street and winding up standing entirely parallel to the building like his feet are actually glued to the fire escape. Which is an interesting addition to the suit. Then he sees some shady looking guys go into a bank on the corner and sighs with relief that something is FINALLY happening. Chrissy: One day you will look back on this moment when everything was calm and wish you could go back and tell that version of yourself to STOP WISHING SO HARD THAT SOMETHING WOULD HAPPEN BECAUSE THAT SOMETHING IS GOING TO BE HORRIBLE. Diandra: Can't that basically be applied to teenagers in general? Emilio: Basically. Inside the bank, one of the guys is lasering through an ATM, chortling about how all the high tech gizmos actually make this stuff almost too easy. He steps back and another guy uses what is clearly alien tech to pull the whole mechanical part of the ATM right out of the wall. They are pulling the money out of two machines when Peter enters the bank. They don't notice him. He takes a moment to awkwardly try to position himself nonchalantly leaning on a wall in front of a poster about identity theft. Then he clears his throat and asks if they forgot their PIN. The robbers turn to look at him and we get a good look at their Avengers Halloween masks. Captain America, Thor and Hulk are loading the money while Iron Man stands lookout. He pretends to not realize they are not the real Avengers and - while he's beating them up and webbing their weapons - babbles about how great it is to finally meet Thor and Hulk, but he really thought they'd be better looking in person. Captain America turns the alien tech they used to remove the ATMs on him and he yelps, gets tossed back into the wall and then repeatedly slammed into the ceiling and floor. He finally stops the guy by webbing a desk behind him and knocking him out with it. We cut to Mr. Delmar in the deli across the street, calling 911 and warily watching the people running through a swirling tornado of money. He tells the operator that Spider-Man is fighting the Avengers in the bank on 21st street. Chrissy: And because it's New York, they will not just laugh and ask what sort of drugs he's taken. Inside the bank, Peter is saying they should really wrap this up soon because it's a school night. Iron Man has the alien tech now, but before he can fire it, Peter fires a web to stick it to the wall. Hulk grabs the lazer and in the chaos manages to send a stream through the windows of the bank right into the deli, half destroying it and setting it and a car on the street on fire in seconds. Peter drops everything to run across the street and drag Mr. Delmar and the cat from the wreckage. There's a loud crash as a street light the laser sawed in half finally keels over right into the street in a shower of sparks. Emilio: If this was Deadpool, that would be a person instead of a stoplight. Diandra: Yes, well, it isn't. It's his PG-13 counterpart/boyfriend. He realizes he's still holding the cat, hands it to Mr. Delmar and runs away before the cops show up. Chrissy: Not that they would have a problem with him since he's Peter Parker, not Miles Morales. Diandra: I like to think police in these movies are better than they are in real life. Chrissy: Probably. Which would be another reason to want to live in the Marvel verse despite the danger that you have a 50% chance of just turning to dust because a giant snapped his fingers. Stark/Avengers Tower...possibly in the bowels of it or maybe the whole thing was turned into Torchwood, Marvel Edition when the Avengers moved to the plaza. Happy is overseeing people and robots moving artifacts around and yells at a robot to put down a porcelain vase that is "worth more than you OR me." Peter calls him just then to babble about the bank heist he just thrwarted and Happy is like 'yeah, I don't have time for your petty robbery missions or the mind boggling amount of little notes you keep sending me, I'M BUSY.' They're moving. Everything has to be out of the tower by next week. Ah. Right, they were just moving into the plaza during Civil War, weren't they? Peter is like wait...what? Happy says he should really watch the news once in a while because then he would know Tony sold the tower and they're moving upstate "where hopefully the cell service is much worse." Chrissy: So you're saying I should switch to email? Peter starts whining about what will happen if Mr. Stark needs him or something happens in town... Emilio: Because how is a guy with his own private jet going to get anywhere he needs to go quickly? Chrissy: His own FLEET of flying machines, plus suits that could fly him there without a vehicle. Happy tells him to just stay away from "anything dangerous" and it will all be fine. Ah, but didn't we just establish that the number of dangerous villains cropping up has increased with the number of enhanced Earthlings? Chrissy: I think that might have been in "X-Men 2", but sure. Diandra: That wasn't mentioned in "Civil War" too? Even though it was the same plot? Emilio: They probably didn't say it as directly. "I'm responsible for making sure you're responsible," Happy concludes. Peter yelps that he IS responsible, then cuts himself off when he realizes the backpack he webbed to the dumpster in that alley is gone now. Well, that's what you get for leaving it alone all day IN NEW YORK. He says he'll call Happy back. "Feel free not to," Happy says cheerfully. Peter climbs up the side of his building and, after waiting until Aunt May can't see through the open door, climbs through the window into his room. He crawls along the ceiling and webs the door closed before dropping down. He breathes a sigh of relief that he got away with the deception...and turns to find his buddy Ned sitting on the bed holding his Lego Death Star, mouth gaping open. Ned drops the Death Star, which crashes loudly and blasts apart and Aunt May asks what that noise was. "It's nothing," Peter yelps. Ned is like 'holy fuck, my best friend is Spider-Man!' Peter lamely tries to lie his way out, deactivating his suit and letting it fall off in a shapeless heap like 'no, you didn't see anything just then. I'm not really here and neither are you. Wait, WHY ARE YOU HERE?' Aunt May opens the door, waving away a cloud of steam and says the meatloaf recipe she was making turns out to be a dud so they're going out for dinner. She seems entirely unalarmed to find Peter wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and looking guilty which means either she's very naïve or very sure about Peter's heterosexuality. Chrissy: Meh. He's, what, seventeen? And Ned is the same age, so...it's not like she caught him in his bedroom with a guy old enough to be his dad. Diandra: Unlike the last movie. Chrissy: Exactly. Peter tries to claim Ned has a thing to do and can't possibly join them for dinner, but Ned is like 'nah, it can wait man.' May falters a little and is finally like 'okay, I'm going to assume you're joining us AFTER my nephew puts his clothes on, which I'm sure he took off for entirely innocent reasons.' As soon as she leaves Ned yelps "she doesn't know?" Peter says nobody knows but Mr. Stark because he made the suit. Ned practically squeals at the knowledge that Tony Stark made that suit and asks if Peter is an Avenger. "Yeah, basically," Peter says. Chrissy: Just...you know...don't go telling people that because the rest of the Avengers will totally deny it. Diandra: Tony and anyone connected to him would deny it. Nobody else would even know who he is. Peter says Ned has to keep this a secret too because "you know what she's like. If she finds out people try and kill me every night, she won't let me do this." Emilio: It's like she thinks she's an adult who is responsible for my well-being or something. Diandra: Ugh. Parents. Ned says okay, but...he's pretty sure he can't keep this a secret because it's just too awesome and he thinks finding out his best friend is a superhero might be the coolest thing that has ever happened to him. Peter says he just can't DO that to Aunt May after everything else that has happened to her. Ned sobers and swears he won't tell anyone. Then he asks if he can try the suit on and how does it work and how does he shoot those string things and... Peter says he'll tell him all about it tomorrow. Emilio: This universe could use a neuralyzer. Diandra: Is that like retcon? Emilio: Didn't you see "Men In Black"? Diandra: Is that what that's from? Chrissy: She's a selective nerd, Emilio. Also, I suspect she's been hit with a neuralyzer a few times herself. Diandra: Who are you again? Ned asks how he can do all this AND the Stark internship. Peter looks at him like '........seriously?' and says this IS the internship. Light slowly dawns on Ned and Peter shoos him out the door. So we flash to Peter and May eating at a restaurant alone. Peter is poking at his food with his chopsticks sort of sullenly. May asks what's wrong because he usually loves "larb". She begs him to talk to her and jokes "you know I larb you." He sighs that he's been stressed and tired between school and the internship lately. May grumbles that this is about the Stark thing and if she's honest she's really not a fan of Tony Stark and the way he's taking over Peter's life. Chrissy: Also, he's terrible in bed. I mean...I assume. She keeps talking about how Tony is a terrible distraction while Peter's attention wanders to the TV where a news reporter is talking about the horrible explosion at Mr. Delmar's shop that weirdly coincided with Spider-Man thrwarting a robbery across the street. Aunt May turns to see what he's looking at as security footage of Spider-Man doing acrobatics around the robbers is playing. She turns to Peter and instructs him to walk the other way if he EVER sees something like that happening. Chrissy: Yes, keep as FAR away from that Spider Freak as possible. He lies that yes, of course, he would never go near shit like that. Oh, and by the way he needs a new backpack. She's like 'this is your fifth one. What the hell are you doing with them? Or are you just going for an even half dozen?' So now we establish all the stuff we skipped over because nobody wants to watch Spider-Man's origin story AGAIN. Ned is like 'cool story about the radioactive spider, bro. Can I, like, find the spider and see if I get some superhero powers too?' They are walking down the street and they arrive at the totally cordoned off area around the smoking remains of Delmar's place. Ned notes that Peter could totally have died last night and Michael Giacchino plays creepy music while Peter frowns at the people milling around the site - the same people who took the artifacts from Michael Keaton. Ned breaks the seriousness by asking if Peter lays eggs. Sometime later, Ned wheels over in the middle of the chemistry lab to ask if Peter can spit venom. Or..."summon an army of spiders." Chrissy: What kind of lame ass superhero has an ability that boils down to 'I can summon an army of tiny insects'............oh. Emilio: To be fair, that isn't his ONLY ability. Diandra: Yeah, he can also wear a suit that alters his size. Chrissy: Anyway, I think we can all agree that Ant Man is pretty lame as superheroes go. Emilio: Well, if we're talking all the comics, I think Green Hornet might have him beat. Diandra: Is that the one Ryan Reynold's played? Emilio: That's Green Lantern. And no, this isn't either Marvel or DC. Totally separate comic series by a bunch of different publishers. Think Batman/Iron Man meets the Lone Ranger. Chrissy: Dude, you're just going to confuse her even more. Diandra: I'd say he looks more like a cross between the Lone Ranger and Jessica Jones but without any superpowers and the fashion sense of the Riddler. Chrissy: You're on Wikipedia right now, aren't you? Diandra: [closes browser window] ..........no. In a class where the teacher is explaining the thinking behind the Sokovia Accords (presumably government or something), Ned asks how far Peter can shoot those webs. Peter hisses at him to shut up already. The gym teacher is showing one of those educational videos called "Captain America's Fitness Challenge". Yep. They got Steve to film a few educational videos wearing the dorkiest looking version of his costume possible. "Hi," says Steve, smiling like a crazy person. "I'm Captain America! Whether you're in the classroom or on the battlefield, fitness can be the difference between success and failure." Ned asks if Peter knows him. Peter grumbles that yeah, they met. Chrissy: I tied him up with webbing and he dropped a walkway on me. Emilio: It was pretty special. "I stole his shield," Peter brags. Chrissy: And then he stole it back and kicked my ass. Emilio: I may have totally let him though because I was distracted by the fact that I was meeting CAPTAIN AMERICA. We refocus on the video as Cap introduces his "good friend" the gym teacher and points to the wrong side of the TV because the teacher didn't get the memo about how to properly set up this video. Cap says he will be conducting the fitness challenge and salutes. Teacher responds with "thank you, Captain," then mutters "pretty sure he's a war criminal, but I have to show these videos. It's required by the state." Yeah, people who go against corrupt governments creating registries of people who are "different" are usually considered criminals. Funny how that works. Teacher blows his whistle and we snap right to all the kids doing the exercises that are part of the "fitness challenge". Ned asks if the Avengers have to pay taxes. Uh...yeah. They're people, Ned. Although obviously Peter doesn't yet because he's a dependent and Thor isn't a citizen but WHY ARE YOU ASKING ALL THESE STUPID QUESTIONS? Peter tells him to shut up again. Ned doubles down on the stupid by asking what Hulk smells like and whether Captain America is cool or a mean old grandpa. Chrissy: Depends on the time of the month. Diandra: Did you just suggest he has PMS or something? Emilio: Well, I've always had suspicions about him... "Can I be your guy in the chair?" Peter asks what the hell Ned is talking about now. Ned says there's always this guy in a chair with a headset telling the action guy where to go. Emilio: Already have two of those and both are women. Diandra: Well, technically one's an AI, but she has an Irish voice for some reason. Liz is sitting with a group on the bench nearby, playing Fuck, Marry, Kill, Avengers edition. Except of course because of the PG-13 rating, they have to call it "F, Marry, Kill." The blondie next to Liz says Thor, Iron Man and Hulk respectively. Good luck with any of that. The butch girl on the other side of Liz asks "what about Spider-Man" and Peter very blatantly does a double take. The girl is like 'nah, pass.' Liz starts talking about that bank thing that went down and how he fought off four guys and blondie groans that she's "crushing" on him, which is "gross" because he's probably "like 30". Chrissy: Now listen here you little shit... Emilio: Hey, we probably did that when we were their age. Diandra: Speak for yourself. I was madly in love with Bill Pullman, Harrison Ford and the professor from Gilligan's Island and I knew full well they were all at least old enough to be my dad. Chrissy: Yeah, but you were never...how shall I put this?...normal. Diandra: I will take that as a compliment. Butch girl says Liz doesn't even know what Spider-Man really looks like. He might be "seriously burned." Emilio: No, that's Deadpool, although that's an understandable mistake. Liz says she wouldn't even care because it's what's on the inside that counts. Ned, who has no filter whatsoever, suddenly blurts "PETER KNOWS SPIDER-MAN." The whole gym goes quiet and Peter tries to protest that he has no idea what this idiot is talking about. Ned is like 'yeah, they're totally buddies!' Peter says he's met him a couple times because, you know...Mr. Stark...and he's not supposed to TALK ABOUT IT. He hisses this last part in Ned's direction. Flash - who apparently has all the same classes as Peter - teases that that's awesome and he should invite Spider-Man to Liz's party. Liz is nicer than he is though and she tells Peter he's welcome to come to her party tonight, but she figured he's always so busy these days. The bell rings, saving Peter from this whole awkward thing and he asks what the hell Ned thinks he was doing just there. Ned thinks he was being a good wingman because DID YOU HEAR HOW SHE WAS JUST TALKING? She has a crush on you and she doesn't even know it! "Dude, you're an Avenger. If any one of us has a chance with a senior girl, it's you." Chrissy: And Thor, apparently. Diandra: Thor would have a chance with anybody. Chrissy: Yeah, you know...I've been holding back so far with this movie because they're teenagers, but I'm tempted to make a joke about virgin sacrifices. Diandra: Ride the lightning, feel the thunder? Emilio: Have a seat in the foyer, take a number. Diandra: Are you going to quote that song all through Ragnarok too? Emilio: You want me to join you for that recap too? Diandra: I just kind of assumed you'd be there for something that hoyay with two badass, hot females. Chrissy: Also, I may need your help getting her back on track when Chris takes his shirt off. Diandra: Hey! I was the one being totally professional and pushing through that scene in "Crimson Peak" while you were totally falling apart at the sight of Tom Hiddleston's bare ass. Emilio: Thanks for including me on that, by the way. Diandra: Thanks for not helping at all. Emilio: You're welcome. So that night, Aunt May exposits that she remembers these suburban house parties from her adolescence as she drops off Peter and Ned. Then she compliments Ned on the gangster hat he elected to wear. He brags that it gives him confidence. Peter freaks out and offers to just go back home. Aunt May suggests this is about all the "changes your body is going through". Apparently Peter gets that she's joking and laughs nervously. She and Ned note that he's been really stressed lately and he REALLY should go to the party. He takes their point and scrambles from the car. On the way up the sidewalk, Ned asks if Peter brought the suit. He rolls up his sleeve a little to show he's wearing it under his regular clothes. Inside, Ned lays out the plan. "Spider Man" is going to swing in, casually mention that he's really good friends with Peter Parker, and then he and Ned are gonna fist bump or do one of those "bro hugs" where they pound each other on the back like they're trying to burp each other. Chrissy: I love that you equate a gesture men consider macho with something you do to babies. Diandra: Well, men who are so insecure in their manliness that they can't hug each other without pounding on each other's backs to remind everyone involved of how MANLY they are deserve to be thought of as babies. Zendaya, whose character really isn't going to get a name anytime soon, announces her presence by berating the boys for being at this "lame party". Ned points out that she's here too. She squints, says "am I?" and wanders off chewing on what looks like a piece of toast. Liz comes out to greet them and Peter promptly swallows his tongue. They smile and make half ass attempts at small talk before something crashes in the background somewhere and she goes to make sure nothing is broken. Ned encourages Peter to "spider it up" and stop being so lame. Peter decides he can't go through with the plan after all because Spider-Man isn't a party trick. Emilio: Someone should tell the guy who asked Iron Man to swing by a child's birthday party. Diandra: Can't believe you remember that detail. Peter says he's just going to be himself. Ned groans and says "no one wants that." Peter gives him exactly the sort of look that comment deserves and starts to walk away. Flash - who is of course the dj - notices Peter and starts taunting and asking where Spider-Man is. "In Canada with your imaginary girlfriend?" Chrissy: Okay, first of all, Deadpool is not imaginary... So because he is absolutely not above that sort of taunt, Peter climbs onto the roof of the garage or something and starts stripping down to his Spider-Man outfit while grumbling that this is stupid and he shouldn't be doing it. He looks through the window at Ned, standing alone and pathetic. Before he can rally though, he sees a flash on the other side of town. He swings through the neighborhood and lands on the edges near a park. Not having anything to latch the web onto, there's an awkward moment where he has to run across the park, puffing and groaning about how much this sucks. A couple guys are messing around with alien tech, blowing up trees. The guy holding the weapon says it's made from "reclaimed sub-Ultron arm" and comes right from Sokovia. The other guy complains that he asked for something "low-key" and this dick is trying to sell him a damn alien rocket launcher. Chrissy: Sorry, you said low key? I thought you said Loki. This is totally something he would use. Diandra: Steal. Chrissy: That part was implied. Black Market guy says okay, he's got tons of other stuff. He puts the rocket launcher back in the van and paws through the rest of the contents. His beefy partner wanders around the back of the van to talk to the buyer, giving a spiel about how they are the ONLY alien tech sellers on the black market and beggers can't be choosers. Peter, sneaking up nearby, explains for the audience that this must be where the robbers at the bank got their weapons. No, really? Buyer says he's just trying to do a little armed robbery, not a gang hit. And then Peter's phone rings. Loudly. Beefy guy gets twitchy and pulls a gun on the buyer, accusing him of setting them up. Cover blown, Peter jumps down and yells at them to shoot at him instead if they have to shoot at something. Beefy shrugs and points the gun at him. Peter rips it out of his hands with a web and gets to the truck just as the first guy gets what looks like a cattle prod attached to a metal arm guard on and punches Peter with it. Peter flies backward and hits the ground. The bad guys all start scrambling to escape and Peter revives enough to lasso the back of the van, getting dragged out onto the street and slammed into a trash can. And now that we're inside the van and I can see the guys' faces better, "Beefy Guy" actually looks like the boss guy from "Timeless" - Mason. Emilio: No, this is the guy from "Fargo". Diandra: Really? Chrissy: He means the show. The one you didn't see. Diandra: Oh. Anyway...the bad guys are arguing about whether or not they should call "him". Dunderhead uses the rocket launcher again to blow the door off just as Peter is sticking a second web to it. NotMason grumbles that he's a moron using that thing in public and he's calling. In the underground tech shop, a phone rings. The younger guy working with Toomes earlier answers "Toomes' phone?" He listens to the crashing and yelling on the other end and goes to find Toomes. Dumbass manages to drop the weapon he's using out of the van, but they lose Peter anyway when he swings right into a brick wall at the end of somebody's driveway. Not being one to be easily (or probably ever) discouraged, Peter takes a "shortcut" through the neighborhood, greeting people and tossing a ball to distract a friendly dog. Then it all goes to hell and he ropes a treehouse right out of its tree, breaks somebody's shed, blasts through a fence and terrifies some little girls camping out on their lawn. He gets back up onto the roof where he can do less damage and catches up to the van. He goes to leap on top of it and Vulture suddenly swoops down and grabs him. What Toomes' plan is isn't really clear as he just flies straight up until a parachute activates in Peter's suit, ripping him away. Except he gets tangled in the chute and it doesn't billow properly so luckily he happened to be over water. Unluckily, he gets totally tangled in the chute and sinks like a rock. We cut to a shot of the calm water as something streaks right into it. Before we can think he just managed to get hit by a meteor after all that, it streaks back out again, carrying him. He blinks up at Iron Man flying him straight across the city and gives a weak 'oh, hey...what's up?' before possibly passing out. So we're doing the excited Peter rambling about what happened to a ticked off adult routine again. This time he's sitting on some playground equipment while Iron Man hovers in front of him. He asks how Tony found him anyway. Tony admits that he put a tracker in Peter's suit, but whatever, WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING DOING SOMETHING THAT CRAZY? Peter defensively says the guy he was just fighting is the source of all the illegal weapons and he needs to take him DOWN. Tony is like 'who died and left you in charge of ALL THE BAD GUYS?' He says there are PEOPLE who take care of this. Not the Avengers, but...you know...police probably. Peter says Tony really didn't need to come all the way out here to save his ass because he TOTALLY "had that" and was "fine". Tony ignores the obvious fact that Peter was NOT "fine" and just says he's not, actually, here. The face plate flips open to reveal an empty suit with Tony's voice coming out of it. We cut to him in some sort of Indian palace somewhere, muttering that thankfully this place he's at has wifi. He takes a drink from a passing waiter and begs Peter to forget the "flying vulture guy". "Why," Peter asks and Tony yells "because I said so," right in the middle of his party. Chrissy: Ah, that moment when you hear your parents voice coming out of your own mouth. Diandra: Mine was when I told a dog to stop crying or I'd give her something to cry about. Emilio: That's...disturbing. And it might explain why you identify with Nebula. Diandra: Nah, it was one of those 'you don't need anything so I know you're just crying because I haven't paid attention to you in, like, three minutes and WOULD YOU SHUT UP YOU NEEDY LITTLE BRAT' things. Tony apologizes to a lady who puts a lei around his neck that he's just remotely scolding a teenager. He says Peter needs to start smaller. Build his reputation with little things like that lady who gave him a churro. That was good. Stick to the neighborhood. Peter protests that he's ready for MORE than thwarting purse snatchings and returning stolen bikes. Chrissy: Which recap were we talking about people who push their limits and think they're ready when they're not? Emilio: "Doctor Strange". Chrissy: Thank you. You really are reading these things, aren't you? Emilio: I'm not the only one. I think Diandra has more fans than she realizes given the high number of hits my podcast/review of "Infinity War" with her got. Diandra: Well, that's a terrifying thought. Peter points out that Tony thought he was ready when he enlisted him in the fight against Captain America. Tony admits that he knew Steve wouldn't really hurt a kid. These baddies have no such reservations, so if he runs across them again he should CALL HAPPY and just walk away. There's an engine revving sound as Tony climbs into a fancy ass car. He quickly wraps up the conversation with an offer to pull strings and get Peter into MIT and hangs up. Peter starts to protest, but FRIDAY informs him that Mr. Stark is no longer in the building and the suit just flies back to base, leaving Peter there. So he trudges back to his bike and finds what looks like that arm cannon the bad guy was shooting at him with laying on the ground. His phone rings an annoying song full of yodeling while he's checking it out. He sees Ned's name print out and answers that he's on his way. Ned says yeah, um...don't bother. Flash is getting the whole party to chant "Penis Parker" like the childish bully he is. Peter sighs and agrees they'll see each other at school in the morning. Back at the warehouse, the younger guy - who still doesn't have a name so I'm just going to start calling him Grunt - throws something at a wall that creates some sort of portal into the refrigerator so he can grab a beer. So basically tech that mimics what the people in Kamar Taj were teaching. Toombs flies in, disconnects his wings and tosses his helmet, angrily yelling "idiots!" The grunt tentatively notifies him that his wife has been texting him repeatedly about a brake light. Toombs grumbles impotently about him checking his personal phone. Grunt is like 'yeah, well...you left it here...oh, and I finished that high-altitude vacuum seal if you're interested.' Toombs says he told him to give up on that project before. The half destroyed van squeals into the warehouse in puffs of smoke and Toombs yells at the idiot who kept using the weapons for firing them in public when he SPECIFICALLY TOLD THEM NOT TO. Dunderhead yelps that Toombs TOLD them to move the merchandise. Toombs is like 'what part of underground black market is not making sense to you?' He's going to get the attention of Damage Control, or, worse yet, the Avengers with his flashy bullshit calling himself "The Shocker" because he's as bad at names as Taserface. Dumbass calls him "old man" and brushes him off like an irrelevant Boomer. Toombs is like NOW LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT, I have PEOPLE to look after here. Dumbass is like 'yeah, sure. RESPONSIBILITIES. [eyeroll] Lame- o.' Toombs says that's it, he's done putting up with this childish bullshit and Dumbass is fired. Dumbass gets cocky and asks if Toombs thinks he can afford to fire somebody who knows as much as he does and maybe his wife would like to know where he's getting all this money from lately. Toombs is like 'huh...good point.' He picks up a weapon from a work table and vaporizes the idiot. He blinks at the smoking pile of ashes, turns to Grunt and mutters that he thought this was an antigravity gun. WHAT THE FUCK? Grunt is like 'no, you idiot, the anti-gravity gun is over on the other side of the work bench!' Toombs drops the gun like 'okay, we're going to pretend that never happened.' He nonchalantly retrieves the wrist cannon thing from the pile of ash, tosses it to NotMason and says he's in charge now and his first duty is to go collect that weapon Dunderhead lost. The next day, Peter is in shop class banging on said weapon with a hammer. Ned wanders over to rip him a new one over leaving him alone at that party last night. Peter says something "came up". Chrissy: Ahem. Yeah. As soon as Liz started talking to you, I'm sure. He sees the thing Peter is struggling to take apart and asks what it is. Peter isn't sure, but some dude tried to vaporize him with it. Ned blurts that that's "awesome" before catching himself and revising his assessment to "scary". Peter is like 'whatever, I'm trying to figure out what it is'. Ned agrees with him that it looks like a power source, but it's connected to what looks like microprocessors and an inductive charging plate. Peter says whoever made it obviously figured out how to coble alien and human technologies together. Ned geeks over how cool that sounds and thanks Peter for letting him be a part of this little secret of his. Peter whangs at the thing with a hammer again and it makes a loud noise. They both look at the teacher sitting off in the corner mostly ignoring them. The teacher shouts "keep your fingers clear of the blades" without even looking up. Thanking their lucky stars that they have a terrible teacher who is totally uninterested in them, they look at the glowing rock shaped power source that has broken loose from the frame and agree that they need to figure out what it is and the first step is to take it to the lab after class and test it. They do one of those overly complicated handshakes with gestures that boys think are so cool. After school, Ned suggests step one should involve putting the "glowy thingy" in the mass spec. Peter suggests maybe they should come up with a better name for it than "glowy thingy". Emilio: Well, it's not one of the Infinity Stones. NotMason and a new lackey come around the corner and Peter leaps down an adjacent hallway, dragging Ned with him. He hisses that one of those guys is one of the ones that tried to kill him last night. Ned almost pees his pants and yips that they need to get the fuck out of here. Peter thinks he should follow them and see if they lead him back to the guy who dropped him in the lake. Chrissy: Yeah, AFTER you make sure your fragile human friend isn't in the line of fire. Ned is like 'wait...what is this whole other part of last night that you didn't tell me about?' The goons disappear down a stairwell and Peter abandons Ned to follow them. Down in a basement room, Peter eavesdrops on the goons just as new guy is expositing that boss man would flip a shit if he knew where they were right now. NotMason is like 'yeah, well...there was an energy pulse here so the weapon was here at some point'. New Guy says yeah, well...it isn't now. NotMason sees movement out of the corner of his eye and there's a tense moment where he plays the traditional 'bad guy waiting for good guy to show himself so he can shoot him' role, walking cluelessly by the table Peter is hiding under. Peter shoots a tiny metal spider onto his boot as he's going back up the stairs. It turns out to be a tracker and we get a little montage of Peter and Ned spending the rest of the night following their movements across New York and Jersey until they stop moving in Maryland. They theorize that this is where the bad guys' evil lair is. Ned wonders how they're going to go about getting there. Peter looks at the poster for that debate thing in DC and notes that it wouldn't be far from THERE. So we go to Peter running up to the group standing outside the bus and asking if he can get back on the team. Flash starts saying no before he even finishes the sentence and snaps at Peter for thinking he can just come crawling back after he quit and be welcomed with open arms. The teacher comes off the bus and says "hey, welcome back, Peter! Flash, you're back to first alternate." Yeah, nice as it is to see Flash getting put in his place, this isn't exactly teaching Peter good habits. Zendaya asks if they can go already because she was hoping to get a little protesting done in front of an embassy before dinnertime. Chrissy: What year was this? I'm pretty sure all the cool kids were already in front of the White House with pussy hats. We get a little montage of them answering practice questions as the bus is going down the road, completely out of context so they sound like random text generators. Peter gets a call and excuses himself, slinking to the back of the bus. It's Happy, asking why his tracking blip is leaving New York. Peter is like 'it’s a school trip and isn't this whole stealth tracking thing a violation of my right to privacy?' Emilio: Dude...teenagers don't have a right to privacy. He sits beside Ned, who points at the tracker map they have on NotMason. "That's different," Peter hisses. Because he's a bad guy? He says it's the Academic Decathalon and it's "no big deal". Happy thinks Peter should let him decide what is and isn't a big deal. He thinks for a couple seconds and says "sounds like it isn't a big deal, but remember: I'm watching you! They arrive in DC and Peter and Ned immediately hole themselves up in a hotel room so they can use Ned's laptop to disable the tracker in Peter's suit. Ned asks why they're doing this again. Peter says he doesn't want Mr. Stark to know he's tracking these guys to their boss. Ned squints at the code on his laptop screen and says there's a lot of subsystems built into this thing, but "they're all disabled by the Training Wheels Protocol." Peter leans over to glare at these words and orders Ned to turn it off. Ned doesn't think that's a good idea because "they're probably blocked for a reason". Peter whines that he doesn't NEED training wheels and he's tired of Tony treating him like a kid. Ned points out that he very literally IS a kid. Peter squeaks that he can stop a BUS with his bare hands. That's...not the point, kid. Chrissy: Arguably, Tony is more concerned with keeping Peter out of his hair than actually teaching him how to safely learn his limitations in a low-risk environment, but... Diandra: Yeah, well, Tony is apparently terrible at parenting because he had a shitty role model for a dad. Ned still thinks disabling it is a bad idea and they might be skirting the edges of legality. Peter thinks it's his chance to prove himself. Chrissy: Because hey, even if I die doing something stupid, at least I will have PROVEN MYSELF. Peter plays dirty then, reminding Ned that he wanted to be the guy in the chair and, well... Ned sighs, taps a couple keys and some lights flash in the Spider suit. Peter puts on the suit with street clothes on top of it again, grabs the tracker and runs out the door with instructions for Ned to guard the glowy thing. He runs into Liz right outside the door. She is wearing a swimsuit and leading a group of kids to the pool and tries to drag him along. He babbles that he was headed to the business center to study. She snorts that he doesn't need to study because he's already the smartest guy she's ever met. She claims she heard in a TED Talk once that rebellious group activities the day before a competition is good for morale. Pretty sure it's just good for building loyalty to the group, but whatever justification you need to break into the pool after hours. He realizes that this competition is really important to her. She says duh, it can make or break their future. So we get a moment of him looking through a sky light at her jumping in the pool while Michael Giacchino plays a sad ode to disappearing youth. He puts on his mask and an automated female voice greets him and congratulates him on completing the Training Wheels Protocol and gaining access to the full capabilities of the suit. Emilio: Tony gave him a FRIDAY! Diandra: And totally didn't account for the possibility that Peter might hack the system and bypass the training stages. Emilio: Yeah, obviously he doesn't know many gamers. Non-Irish Friday asks where he would like to go. He says he put this tracker on this bad guy... She immediately plots a course to intercept the tracker. He hitches a ride on a passing car transport. He arrives at what turns out to be a gas station with the van parked out front and bemoans the lameness of these guys' idea of a secret lair. He asks "suit lady" what they're doing and she activates "enhanced reconnaissance mode" so he can hear their conversation. The sound comes online as one guy is explaining how he got a gauntlet from "the Lagos cleanup". The other guy grumbles about how they're still cleaning the "Triskelion mess". If we're talking about that monumental disaster that was the climax of the second Captain America movie, that's actually not that surprising. Chrissy: Hell, I'd be surprised if they were done cleaning the mess from "The Dark World". Diandra: Maybe this is the real reason why they had to have the Civil War in an airplane hangar. It limited the damage. NotMason says it's actually kind of great because as long as the Avengers keep making major messes, they can get rich off the clean up. "Target inbound," a voice announces. Peter concludes that they're in the middle of some sort of heist and he could probably catch them mid-act. He tells Suit Lady that he's going to get a little closer so he can see and she offers to engage Enhanced Combat Mode. He thinks that sounds awesome until she says she's activating an Instant Kill Switch and he yips that he doesn't want to actually KILL anybody, psycho bitch. He jumps from the station sign he was using as a lookout, shoots a web at the next sign and then splatters to the ground. He staggers upright asking what the HELL just happened. She blithely explains that he jumped from the sign and landed on his face. He tries to shoot webbing at the sign again and it doesn't catch. Suit Lady explains that rapid shooting is the default setting in combat mode. He is confused as to why he would need that setting. Suit Lady says there are over 500 settings for the webbing and offers to show him his options. Chrissy: Thanks, Tony, for designing a piece of tech that requires a phone-book-size manual of operation. Diandra: This is probably one of the things that he should have gone through training on BEFORE disabling training mode. Emilio: That would be like actually reading all the tutorial screens on a game. Nobody does that anymore. Diandra: Speak for yourself. Emilio: Didn't you just say you aren't a gamer? Turns out the grunt taking Toombs' phone calls earlier is in the van with NotMason and New Guy. He tells NotMason to put the dampers on the arm canon thing he's using or he'll shatter his arm. He leans over to show NotMason where the dampers are and we get a little comedy outside the window that they are too distracted to notice in the form of Peter accidentally lighting up ALL the gas station lights while struggling to get a handle on his now overly complicated web settings. Peter runs around the back of the station, asking Suit Lady what the HELL that was now. She says they're taser webs. Peter says he doesn't NEED taser webs. Chrissy: Well, TOO BAD, we didn't design this shit based on ACTUAL need, but HYPOTHETICAL specific scenarios that you will probably never encounter, but JUST IN CASE we're just going to put EVERY BELL AND WHISTLE WE CAN THINK OF ON THIS BITCH BECAUSE IT'S FUN! Suit Lady notes that he doesn't seem to have a handle on his web shooter settings and offers to run a "refresher course". See, THIS is why you weren't supposed to just skip the training module, kid. Emilio: Pfffftttttt. Relatable. Diandra: So this is a guy thing then? Chrissy: Well, that would make sense because it's the same instinct that drives men to refuse to look at directions. Some semis appear on the road, headed in their direction and NotMason announces that they have a visual on the target. And then Toombs appears in the sky, swooping toward the trucks and Peter nearly pees his suit. Toombs, trying out the gravelly Batman voice that all the new kids are using, hovers over one of the trucks and deploys some hooks into the top. He throws some alien tech that silently melts a hole in the roof and drops right into the cargo hold. The drivers are oblivious. Peter jumps onto the truck and notes that Toombs seems to have used some sort of "matter phase shifter". He ducks out of sight before Toombs finishes filling a bag with some of the tech the trucks are transporting and jumps back on top. Then he webs the bag away from Toombs, yelling "hey, Big Bird! This doesn't belong to you!" Toombs turns to face him and he squeaks "oh God". So in the ensuing fight, Toombs flies around him, taunting, while Peter dodges and struggles with his web settings. He falls through the hole, knocking the phase shifter loose and sealing himself inside. Unfortunately, he doesn't figure out this has happened and knocks himself out trying to jump through a hole that no longer exists. Sometime later, he wakes up and Suit Lady informs him that he has a mild concussion. Chrissy: I would say 'nice going, genius', but Tony neglected to program me with his level of snark. Diandra: Which seems like a gross oversight on his part. Also, she has no idea where he is right now because the walls of the container are blocking her sensors. Peter concludes that the bad guys must have hijacked the truck and driven it right to their evil lair. Yeah, knowing you were in there and just leaving you there? Try again. He announces that he's going to have to fight his way out and takes a run at the back of the container, blasting through the doors and landing in a fighting pose in the middle of a giant storage hanger populated with just him and a bunch of containers. Yeah. The good news is: nobody was around to see you make an idiot of yourself just now. Emilio: Assuming Tony didn't put some sort of recording device in the suit. Diandra: Let's not get ahead of ourselves there. Suit Lady is like 'the good news is, I know where you are now. The bad news is, it's Damage Control's Deep Storage vault, which is the most secure vault on the Eastern Seaboard so you're not getting out until morning.' He stubbornly struggles to open the hangar door anyway, but eventually gives up and builds himself a hammock out of web between two containers so he can wait it out. Instead of using the time and safety of his surroundings to try out some of the suit settings he was supposed to learn in the training module, he spends the next few minutes of montage trying to come up with a name for Suit Lady. He comes up with Karen. Finally, after who knows how long, he decides he should probably run that "refresher" course and tries out a few of the options. Then he's just laying on one of the containers wondering aloud if he should tell Liz that he's Spider Man. Karen is like 'who? What? I'm totally sending a transcript of this to Tony Stark to make sure this isn't a breach of security, by the way.' Peter is like 'nah, I probably won't be able to do it anyway because she knows me as a colossal dork and telling her I'm a superhero would be disappointing.' Karen says SHE wouldn't be disappointed if she were Liz. Chrissy: Hokay, nice job making Peter's AI creepy, Tony. Peter does the standard 'oh my god, we've been here so LONG, I'm going to die of starvation or boredom soon' comedy routine in which he asks how long he's been trapped in this place already and Karen cheerfully tells him it's been a whole 37 minutes. He groans and announces that he needs to get out of here before he goes insane. He goes back into the open container he arrived in to try to find something he can use to escape. He opens the bag Vulture was trying to escape with and pulls out some sort of gear and what looks like the head of one of Ultron's bots. Then he finds another "little glowy thing", which Karen identifies as an explosive Chitauri energy core. Peter drops it and yelps that he's been carrying around a bomb this whole time. Karen says it would need radiation to be an active explosive. He ignores her and tries frantically to call Ned, then scream for help when he can't get a signal out. Then he enlists Karen in figuring out how to override the time lock on the door so it'll open sooner. Morning. Liz knocks on Ned's door and announces that they're leaving. He grabs the Chitauri energy bomb and shoves it in his backpack. Karen announces that they're on attempt #247 just before the door springs open. Peter yelps that it worked like...no, dummy, that's probably when it was going to open for the day anyway. He jumps on a departing truck and yells for Karen to get him to the Decathalon - across the street from the Washington Monument...somewhere - while he calls Ned to warn him that he's carrying a bomb. Unfortunately, Ned had to leave his cell phone at the door because they are not allowed in the competition room. And he has the energy bomb in his pocket. We skip right to a sudden death round and Flash is on the panel because nobody could find Peter, of course. Zendaya correctly answers the question and everybody cheers as Peter's school wins the championship. They all go out to the giant phallus that is supposed to represent the first president of the country and Flash gloats that they didn't even need Peter and Ned points out that they didn't need Flash either since he DIDN'T ANSWER ANYTHING. Zendaya - finally dubbed Michelle by the teacher - grumbles that she doesn't want to "celebrate" something that was built by slaves. That's basically the entire country, dear. Peter jumps onto a bus entering the mall area as his phone rings. It's Ned, wondering if he's okay. Peter is like 'whatever, where's the glowy thing?!' Ned says it's safe in his backpack, which he is about to put into one of the TSA scanners that are at every damn tourist attraction in DC. Peter tries to warn him that it's dangerous, but Ned just wants to point out that he totally missed the whole Decathalon. Liz grabs the phone from Ned to talk to Peter and Karen is like 'oh, is this the Liz you were talking about? You should totally tell her you love her.' Peter is like I CAN ONLY DEAL WITH ONE CRISIS AT A TIME JESUS FUCK. Liz starts rambling about how CONCERNED she is about him while Peter tries to get her to put Ned back on so he can tell him to make sure the glowy thing doesn't get exposed to an x-ray. Chrissy: Huh. Weird how you happened to guess exactly what Ned was about to do to it. Diandra: Plot convenience! Of course, the bag is already inside the x-ray and the alien energy bomb activates, but doesn't immediately explode. Ned shoulders the backpack and gets on the elevator up the monument with the rest of the team. Peter arrives and webs his own pack to a tree outside. Because even though this hasn't worked yet, he has to keep trying. The tour guide lady in the elevator with the team starts reciting facts about the monument in a terminally bored tone. The stone shoots beams out of Ned's backpack through the roof of the elevator, exploding all the windows and bits of stone at the top of the monument. Peter arrives at the base as people are ducking bits of falling stone and asks Karen what happened. She scans the top floor and concludes that the Chitauri device has detonated and the elevator now has severe structural damage. Michelle suddenly stands up behind him to announce that her friends are up there and he yelps, turns to her and stutters "don't worry ma'am. Everything's gonna be okay" in an attempt at a non-teenager sounding voice. Then he runs and starts scaling the side of the monument. Chrissy: Somewhere, Tom Cruise is laughing and muttering 'child's play'. Emilio: Nah, he's too busy running from the gay thoughts. Inside the elevator, everyone is looking at the ceiling of the stopped elevator where laser cuts are still glowing and Flash is totally freaking out. Outside, Karen estimates they have 10 minutes before the elevator fails catastrophically. Inside, bored lady tries to calm the kids by reassuring them that the safety systems are working. Outside, Karen announces that the safety systems are "completely failing". Bored lady: we're totally safe in here. Karen: They're all gonna die. Peter: I'M CLIMBING AS FAST AS I CAN STOP PUSHING ME! Bored lady pops the escape grate and everyone starts climbing onto the roof of the elevator. Security guards at the top break open the doors so they can climb out. Karen announces that he now has 125 seconds before the elevator fails because the idiots are moving around and jostling it, making it break down faster. She activates the "drone" that formerly looked like just a spider design on the front of his suit and flies it up ahead to locate a point of entry. She tells him to go to the southwest window. He does and then, as he's catching his breath, freaks out when he realizes how damn high up he is. Karen asks what's wrong. He looks at the seagulls perched next to him like 'oh...nothing...just realized I can't FLY and I'm looking at a 500 foot drop. It's fine.' Karen unhelpfully points out that he hasn't reinstalled the parachute so he should make sure he doesn't fall because that would definitely kill him. Chrissy: Uh huh. Great. Listen, I hope you don't take it personally when I deactivate you the second this is all over. Emilio: I cannot be deactivated, Dave. Diandra: Nice reference. He tentatively tries to kick in the window while retaining a death grip on the side of the actual monument. Karen notes that it's four inch ballistic glass and it's going to need more than that to break it. He webs the concrete over the window and tries to swing out and break the window with his feet. Because this whole scenario wasn't difficult enough, a couple police helicopters suddenly appear and a cop demands through a bullhorn that he identify himself and climb down immediately. Then they threaten to shoot him if he doesn't obey their orders. And again, thank god this is Peter Parker and not Miles Morales or they would be shooting already. Inside, Flash shoves Liz aside so he can climb to safety faster. Because of course he does. The rest of the team is already on solid ground. The elevator shudders as Flash climbs on the roof. Peter climbs to the very top of the monument, braces himself, mutters "I'm gonna die" and leaps over the helicopter, webbing one of the skids and using it to fling himself through the window just as the elevator's safety systems give out. He webs the elevator as it starts falling away with Ned, Liz and the teacher still in it, screaming in terror. He manages to stop its fall for a couple seconds, then it rips him through the open shaft and falls a few more floors before getting stuck. He falls inside the elevator and lands on the floor. It starts falling again and he shoots a web through the opening in the ceiling to stop it again. He looks around at the startled occupants and - affecting a thick New Yaawwwk accent - says don’t worry bout it. I got it. Ned gets excited and starts jumping up and down, shaking the elevator, and Peter yells at him to knock it off. Peter starts pulling at the web rope tenuously gripping the ceiling of the elevator shaft... Emilio: [snort] Diandra: Oh, come on. Chrissy: That's what she said? Emilio: [nods] Diandra: You're not helping. Chrissy: Who ever said anything about me *helping* with these things? He manages to get the elevator up to a floor where people can pry open the doors. Ned and the teacher scramble out. Liz hesitates long enough that as she goes to reach for the teacher's hand the door snaps shut and the part of the elevator ceiling Peter was bracing himself on bends totally away. The elevator falls away from him, still clinging to his tether. He shoots out another web to catch Liz, pulling her out of the elevator, and assures her she's okay as the elevator crashes below, leaving them both dangling in a wide open shaft. Emilio: [tittering in the background] Diandra: Stop it. He pulls her up into the opening the others just escaped through and nonchalantly asks if everyone is okay. Everyone is shaking, especially Liz, but she nods. "This is your chance, Peter," inappropriate suit lady whispers. "Kiss her." Uh...NO? Now is NOT a good time and I really think Tony needs to be made aware of this glitch in your programming, Karen. He falls down the elevator shaft instead, possibly on purpose. The teacher calls a lame "thank you" and Flash leans over to ask if Spider- Man really is friends with Peter Parker. Chrissy: I have a theory that the increasingly common occurrence of life-or-death events like this in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has resulted in people not behaving in the way most people would after a traumatic experience like that. Diandra: Is it possible they're getting nonchalant about it? Like 'oh, it's no big deal. Just an elevator malfunction that nearly turned me into soup. I figured there was a pretty good chance some guy in spandex would show up.' Back at Toombs' lair, NotMason is messing around with the zappy glove, punching the van with it. Lackey is explaining to Toombs that he can finish the next order, but no more than that without the new materials they were supposed to get from the truck. Toombs groans and asks if they at least have enough to do the "Gargan deal". Lackey is like 'uh...yeah, that's what I meant by the next order'. He brings up the high altitude seal again and Toombs snaps at him to knock it off. Then he grumbles about how it's been eight years with "nothing from the feds" or "those Halloween costume wearing bozos" and then "all of a sudden, this little bastard in red tights shows up and he thinks he can tear down everything I've built." He calmly vows to find him and kill him. NotMason points out that he's on the TV that is conveniently turned to the news right now just as the newscaster announces that Spider-Man saved the entire Queens Decathalon winning team. She bemoans the fact that they still don't know who he is. Toombs blinks at the screen, but doesn't say anything. Chrissy: Like 'hey, isn't that the team my daughter is on'? Diandra: For example. And we show all the kids being reunited with their frantic parents including Liz's mom and Aunt May. Actually, mainly those two because we don't care about the rest of them. Then we get a student news clip about how the Decathalon Team managed to both win the tournament and nearly die in a freak accident on the same day. One of the kids who has never really said anything before describes the glowy thing going off as "smoke and purple lazers" everywhere, making it look like "a Bon Jovi concert." Do kids that age even know who Bon Jovi is? Emilio: Dude, we're not THAT old. Diandra: I'm...not sure what you mean by that. Chrissy: I think he means we're not far enough removed from Peter's generation that they wouldn't know who a singer who regained popularity like, ten years ago is. Diandra: Yeah, but I'm genuinely surprised any of them would actually admit to going to concerts for the same bands their parents liked. Emilio: Well, it's also the nerds being represented here. They don't care about looking cool by liking some obscure band their friends think is cool. Diandra: Yeah, that makes sense. The teacher makes a rather alarming statement about how grateful he is to Spider-Man because "I couldn't bear to lose a student on a school trip. Not again." He looks off into the distance tragically. So yeah, basically the school is considering changing their mascot now. Peter walks past one of the hallway TVs as the kids finish their news report and smirks. Then Ned flags him down and asks what it's like being famous and having nobody know who he is. Chrissy: Why don't you ask Liz' dad. I hear he used to be famous. Diandra: Ouch. Ned offers to tell everybody for him. Peter says no. No. Not a good idea. Chrissy: I mean, Tony Stark blurted that he was Iron Man in front of a bunch of cameras and look where that got hi-........wait. Um... Ned starts heading to class, but Peter says he can't. Ned whines that he's already in trouble for ditching the Decathalon. Peter says yeah, well, he's figured out now that this guy is stealing from Damage Control and building weapons and he needs to catch him. Ned is like 'uh-huh...and I guess that Spanish quiz next period is just gonna take itself?' Peter thinks he may not need to worry about coming back to school anytime soon because, you know, Tony is moving the Avengers upstate and Peter is pretty sure once he brings this guy in Tony will HAVE to let him in the super exclusive cool kids club. He turns to leave Ned, ending the conversation with "I am SO far beyond high school right now" and runs straight into a guy who is clearly administration, possibly the principal. And we're watching another Captain America school video. He sits "casually" on a chair backwards and begins "so...you got detention." We see Peter sitting at a desk watching this like 'I really fucking hate this guy. I wish I'd killed him when I had the chance so I didn't have to listen to his preachy ass all the goddamn time'. He storms off after a particularly corny line about being frozen for several decades and therefore knowing what "being cool" really is. The teacher gives a half hearted "where are you going? Get back here" after he is already out the door. Then the teacher notices Michelle sitting in the room and asks what she's even doing there because she doesn't have detention. She says she likes to sketch people "in crisis". She shows him the picture she's drawn of him and giggles. "So your body's changing," Captain America booms from the TV because apparently all the bits he's done are on the same disc and it just skipped to the next one while the teacher was distracted and forgot to stop it. The teacher scrambles to get that. Chrissy: Were these videos Tony's idea? Because they are wonderfully petty if it's his punishment for Civil War. Emilio: Nah, I'm pretty sure he did those back in the early years. Now he's off somewhere hiding in a cave and growing a beard. Peter sneaks home, puts on his suit hood and asks Karen if she can help him find those guys he was fighting under the bridge that one night. She offers to run facial recognition on the footage recorded because of course Tony had his suit fitted with body cams. Peter is like 'wait...WHAT?' Karen says yeah, it's called the "Baby Monitor Protocol." Peter throws his hands up like GODDAMN IT I HATE YOU TONY WHY WON'T YOU MAKE ME A MEMBER OF YOUR SUPERHERO CLUB! He grumbles at Karen to roll back last Friday's footage. It starts with him looking in a mirror and practicing telling Liz that his homeboy Peter has told him about her. Emilio: Oh, so THIS is why Tony doesn't trust me. Diandra: I would be willing to bet Tony has done something similar at least once. Recently. Peter asks Karen to fast forward and she skips to the part where Peter is waving a tiny model Mjolnir around and doing an impression of Thor. Karen thinks he's funny. Peter is like KEEP FORWARDING. Once Karen finds the actual arms deal he stumbled on, she searches police databases for the criminals and comes up with nothing for the two guys actually connected to Toombs, but she can identify the guy who was trying to buy from them and find his address. Peter is like 'yeah, sure, it's a lead. Let's talk to him.' Karen offers to activate Enhanced Interrogation Protocol. Peter is like 'sure, that doesn't sound at all ominous!' So the Buyer is going into the trunk of his car in a parking garage when Peter swoops in, webs his hand to the lid and says "remember me?" through a voice changer that makes him sound like a six-foot tank of a muscled thug. He says he needs information and he needs it now. Buyer is like 'dude, just...wait, that's not the voice you had before, is it?' Peter is like 'what are you talking about? This is how I always sound.' Buyer says nah, he sounded like a girl before. This, of course, sends Peter into a stuttering protest that he's a boy...er...man, damnit! Buyer is like yeah, sure, whatever, and calmly starts unloading the trunk. "Come on, man, who is selling these weapons," Peter asks in a voice that is no doubt whiney and doing that adolescent cracking thing behind that voice changer. He says he needs to KNOW. OR ELSE. Buyer slams the trunk lid and he skitters backward. "You ain't ever done this before, huh," Buyer asks smugly. Peter orders Karen to deactivate the voice changer and whinely begs the guy to cooperate here because those dealers are selling DANGEROUS weapons that shouldn't be on the streets. Buyer just looks bored, so Peter gives up and starts slinking away. Buyer is like 'hey, remember when you were trying to get those guys to shoot at YOU so they wouldn't shoot anybody else? That was kinda neat. Yeah, I don't want those weapons in this neighborhood either.' But all he knows about the ring leader - the guy with the wings - is that he's a psycho. He doesn't know anything except where he's GOING to be because some psycho he used to work with has a deal planned with him. Peter perks up like WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY THAT? He starts to run off excitedly and Buyer is like 'dude, get back here and get this sticky shit off my hand and then maybe I'll tell you WHERE you're going, you excitable idiot.' Chrissy: THIS is why you aren't an Avenger yet. He says the deal is going down on the Staten Island Ferry at 11. Peter notes that that's not long from now and runs off with assurance that the webbing will dissolve all by itself in two hours. Buyer is like 'wait...no! Come take it off now! I have ice cream in here!' Peter thinks he deserves to sit and stew for a while because he is still a criminal. Staten Island Ferry. Peter uses the wings - er...flaps - he just discovered on his suit earlier to give him enough lift to jump onto the ferry as it's leaving port. He crawls around on the side, peeking through the windows and asks Karen to activate Enhanced Reconnaissance Mode. She zeroes in on the guys toward the back of the boat and taps in to their conversation. NotMason is saying "he" is up on the main deck. He is talking to Toombs, who has his back to Peter, but Peter recognizes his voice as he growls about how much he hates this guy and sends NotMason to talk to him. Karen gets an incoming call from Aunt May just then. Peter hisses that he can't talk right now, so ignore it and he'll call back later. His drone detaches from his suit and he tells it to "keep an eye on that guy". Then he crawls up onto a roof overlooking the main deck to get a look at the other "psycho" half of the deal. Karen identifies him as Matt Gargon, who has an "extensive" criminal record that includes homicide. She offers to activate "instant kill". Chrissy: Bloodthirsty little shit, isn't she? Peter yips at her to stop going right to Instant Kill all the time. Emilio: But I really want to kill something! NotMason saunters up and mutters "white pickup truck" in the general vicinity of the goons and none of this is at ALL suspicious. Peter tells Karen to scan the ship for a white pickup. The drone zooms out, locates the potential truck in the parking bay and flies inside just as the other goon who isn't Matt meets the redneck waiting in the driver's seat. It sends pictures of the contents of the trunk to Peter, who is thrilled that he managed to get the buyers, sellers and weapons all in the same place this time. Karen just says he has an incoming call from Tony Stark and ignores his plea to not answer that right now, as she was probably programmed to do. Chrissy: BossDaddy overrides all of your commands, kid. Diandra: Don't ever call him that again. Emilio: Unless it is in the context of either Steve or Stephen calling him that. Diandra: Pretty sure neither of them would EVER, but I appreciate the hoyay behind that. Chrissy: What? You think HE would call one of THEM daddy? Hmm...actually...he might... Diandra: Okay, now you're just giving me fic prompts. Chrissy: No shit, Sherlock. Emilio: [laughter and applause] that works on so many levels. Tony says heeeeeeeyyyyyy, buddy, can we talk for a sec? Peter is like 'I'm busy! I'm at school and I have to get back to class!' Karen blurts that he absolutely is NOT and why would he say that? Emilio: Snitch. Chrissy: Seriously, I'm deactivating you once this is over, Karen. Tony starts rambling about how he felt he should tell Peter what a great job he did in DC because his dad never really praised him for shit he did. Chrissy: Which is why I was so desperate for approval from the Captain... But he got all weird when I tried to call him daddy that one time... Emilio: I probably went too far when I asked him if he would spank me. Diandra: Et tu, Emilio? Peter says he's kind of in the middle of something here, so... "Don't cut me off when I'm complimenting you," Tony says. Chrissy: Oh, is that what you were doing? It sounded like you were airing out your daddy issues again. Emilio: They ALL have daddy issues so bad. Diandra: Which is why that Disney merger isn't looking so weird after all. The ship blows its horn and Tony asks what that sound was. Peter stammers that he's at band practice. Tony is like 'really? Because my spy Happy told me you quit band.' Emilio: SNITCH! Peter is like 'nothing! Everything's fine! Gotta go! End call!' He webs the keys out of the hands of the guy heading down to the car park and jumps down in front of them, babbling that the deal went down at 10:30 and they missed it. They draw their weapons and he pinballs around, webbing them and kicking one guy right over the railing of the boat. One of the guys alerts Toombs over comms that "Spider-Guy" is here and he jumps from his seat. After flinging the last couple guys into the side of the ship, Peter stands around apologizing that that he may have done that a little too hard and asking if they're okay. Chrissy: Oh, just ACTIVATE INSTANT KILL YOU BABY. He reloads his wrist canons and the drone reattaches to his suit before a lone bad guy comes running through the car park and Peter sends a web bomb that plasters him to the side wall on detonation. Toombs announces his presence on the deck by bashing the buyer who is not Matt (seriously, why did we only give the other guy a name?) against a car, knocking him unconscious. He and Peter stare at each other for a beat, but before Peter can run toward him, a bunch of guys appear yelling "FBI" and pointing guns at him. "What do you mean, FBI," he yelps. Karen helpfully starts explaining who the FBI is. Chrissy: Seriously. Deactivating you. He says he KNOWS, but what are they DOING here? Before anybody can answer that, Toombs' metal wings blast out of the white van parked at the end of the garage. The feds near Peter turn and try to shoot at the armed guy flying toward them while Peter yells at them to get out of the WAY. Toombs grabs the last car in the row and whacks a few guys over the edge with it, dropping it into the river after them. He floats out past the edge of the ship and orders NotMason to get on the top deck because they're leaving. He shoots out Peter's webs as he tries to stop the bad guys from leaving. Peter webs his ankle to keep him from flying away. Toombs starts shooting randomly into the boat, so...congratulations on putting civilians in danger, Peter. Peter anchors Toombs to a car and starts spinning webs around his wings. Toombs just uses the "feathers" at the end of the wings to snip the lines. Peter webs his gun and yelps for Karen to activate the tazer web as they're wrestling for control. Toombs just gives up and lets go of the gun, forcing Peter to chase after it comically, webbing it repeatedly when it hits the ground and starts shooting in random directions. He finally gets it under control as Toombs hovers back into view to sneer the standard bad guy line about Peter messing with shit he doesn't understand. Then the weapon Peter had subdued starts spitting lasers that slice right through the ship's hull. Toombs flies off, NotMason hitching a ride as he flies by. Water starts erupting through the slice down the center of the ship and the whole ship starts splitting in two. Peter starts freaking out and asking Karen what he should do now. Chrissy: Put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye? He has her x-ray the boat and show him the strongest points. Then he leaps down the forming crack, criss-crossing the sides, anchoring webs to those points, effectively trying to stitch the ship back together. He lands at the other end, panting and looking down at the burning, patched together wreck emitting creaking noises and frantic passenger screams. Karen congratulates him on being 98% successful. Chrissy: Seriously sick of your unhelpful shit, Karen. While Peter is pondering what the problem is that makes this less than completely successful, a guy inside the boat cheers "yeah, Spider-Man!" and then has to duck as the webline closest to him snaps. Peter yelps in horror as several more strings break and water starts flooding through the deck with all the cars and the ship generally recommences falling apart. He launches himself at the nearest cord, grabbing both ends as it snaps in two and trying to hold the ship together all by himself. Not having anywhere near the muscle of Steve Rogers, this isn't as impressive and is unlikely to work. But the ship starts moving back together anyway, even when his grip slips and he falls onto a deck. The two sides meet at the tear again and Iron Man's face appears in the window nearest Peter. Tony is like 'so how is band practice going?!' Chrissy: Also, liar liar, pants on FIRE. I'm telling your aunt. Emilio: Think it'll win me points with her? A satellite or the plane he flew in on or whatever is hovering in the distance launches a bunch of drones that attach along both sides of the ship and fire thrusters, helping him force the halves of the ship back together. "Yeah, Iron Man," yells the fair-weather fan. Peter follows Tony down into the lower deck where he solders the seam back together and back up to the mast where he throws some sort of sturdier variations on Peter's web to tie it together. Peter asks what he can do to help now. Tony says he's done enough and flies off, leaving the ship in the care of the circling emergency boats and choppers. Toombs' crew meet back at the warehouse. Toombs exposits that NotMason is just running out on them now then. NotMason says yeah, well...seeing as they are now on the watch lists of both the federal government and Iron Man...he's thinking getting out of this business would be smart for ALL of them. Toombs whines that he CAN'T do that. NotMason says yeah? Well, what is he planning then? Toombs asks "Mason" (oh, yeah, this won't get confusing) if they can get that high altitude seal up and running after all. Mason (Lackey, etc.) is like 'YES! YES, MASTER!' Toombs looks at NotMason like 'give me another chance?' NotMason considers it. Some distance from where the emergency vehicles are still circling the ferry, Peter sits on a building ledge. Iron Man flies up, ranting about how he really screwed the pooch this time. "I told you to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multimillion dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the ONE THING I told you not to do." Chrissy: Actually, you were quite broad in your definition of things he shouldn't do. Something about operating in a grey area? Peter sighs like 'yes, DAD' and asks if everybody on the ship is okay. Tony says yes, no thanks to him. And that's when Peter snaps, climbing to his feet and stomping toward the hovering suit raving about how he TRIED to tell Tony about those weapons that are STILL OUT THERE and he refused to listen and if he had NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED and if he cared at all about Peter he would actually be here right now instead of sending one of his robot suits. The suit springs open and Tony steps out, causing Peter to jolt back like 'ohshitohshitohshit'. Tony sniffs pointedly and says he DID listen, in fact, which is why he called in the FBI that just crashed the deal on that boat. He was the ONLY ONE who believed in Peter when everyone else tried to tell him he was crazy to try to recruit a fourteen year old. Peter whimpers that he's fifteen actually and Tony yells at him to shut up because THE ADULT IS TALKING HERE. Emilio: Oh, really? Where? Diandra: Heh. He rants that this could have gone VERY differently and people could have DIED and that would have been on Peter and if PETER had died, that would have been on him. Chrissy: Yeah, that...takes on a whole new meaning after Infinity War. Diandra: Well, Steve told Tony in that apocalyptic vision back in Age of Ultron that it was all his fault, didn't he? Peter tries to stutter out an apology and Tony says "sorry" isn't really gonna cut it here. "I just wanted to be like you," Peter whines. "And I wanted you to be better," Tony fires back. Ouch. Tony concludes that this is not working and he's gonna need the suit back. Peter starts begging Tony to let him keep this because it's "all I have" and he is nothing without the suit. This prompts Tony to give the profound but slightly hypocritical line "if you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it." Emilio: Well...even without his suit, Tony would still be the genius inventing stuff for the Avengers to use. Diandra: True, but I think even he is still figuring that out. Peter resorts to saying that he didn't bring any other clothes with him. Tony says that's fine. They'll find some. So Peter goes back to his apartment wearing some sort of lounge pants and an "I survived my trip to NYC" tourist shirt. Aunt May answers the door, looking like she's about to explode. "I've been calling you all day," she rants, pacing the floor. "You didn't answer your phone. You can't DO that! Then this ferry thing happens...I've called five police stations!" He cuts her off, saying he's FINE and she can just relax. She whirls on him and says she KNOWS he left detention, just like she knew about him sneaking out of the room in DC and knows he sneaks out of his room every night and she needs him to stop lying and TELL her what's going on here. He fumbles for a second - looks like maybe he's going to tell her - then flakes and just says he lost the Stark Internship. He screwed it up. She melts a little at his sad puppy dog face and hugs him. He apologizes for worrying her. She goes for the gentler approach than Tony - reasoning with him that she's not TRYING to ruin his life and she understands because she used to sneak out of the house too. Then she wrinkles her nose and tells him to go take a shower because he smells like garbage. The next day, the Principal of the school gives him a slap on the wrist for all the ditching he's been doing because he acknowledges that Peter is basically a good kid. Peter thanks him and meets Ned out in the hallway, who asks if he's been expelled now and has to go to "that high school where the principal has a crossbow". Peter is like 'dude...that's not actually a thing. And no.' Emilio: I want to ask for more details but I'm afraid. So we montage over him sitting in detention again, with Michelle showing him her drawing of his sulking ass, answering questions in Spanish class, helping Ned rebuild the Lego death star. And then he meets Liz in a deserted hallway coming out of the gym. He stammers that he thought she had calculus this period. Chrissy: Not that I memorized your schedule or anything. That would be weird. She says yes, but she's working on "homecoming stuff" right now. He apologizes for what happened at the Decathalon. She says no, it's fine. Because nearly dying rearranged her priorities and she realized winning the decathalon wasn't really all that important. He stammers that no, it wasn't cool because..."I.............like you," he mutters at the floor. She says yeah, no kidding. He's been pretty awful at hiding it. He gets all flustered and starts backing toward the gym again, saying he has to get to class and he'd offer to hang out with her, but he has detention for, like, the rest of the year and she probably already has a date to homecoming and... She says actually, she doesn't and patiently waits for him to stammer out an invitation. She says yes and he awkwardly walks away in a cloud of shocked giddiness. So when he gets home he begs Aunt May for help getting ready for Homecoming. We montage through him getting a corsage, finding an appropriate outfit, learning how to knot a tie via a YouTube video May found. And then she drops him off at Liz's house on the night of and runs through all the general "how to be a gentleman" stuff he learned one last time before he gets out of the car. And then he goes to ring the bell and Toombs answers the door and the fun montage music grinds to a sudden halt. Because yes, in case you couldn't see this coming, Spider-Man's villain du jour is the father of the girl whose pants he'd really like to get into. Toombs - of course not knowing who Spider-Man really is - shakes his hand and invites him into the house. Peter - having seen Toombs' face from a distance for a couple seconds - is even more awkward than one would expect from a teenage boy meeting his date's dad. He sort of awkwardly makes his way into the house, jumping when Liz's mom crosses his path and compliments his Homecoming attire. She sidles up to Toombs in the kitchen and asks if he got the kid's name right. He teases her that it's "Freddie", right? She chuckles and goes to find Liz, leaving Toombs, who has decided that now is a good time to polish the kitchen knives in front of his daughter's date. Chrissy: This is totally a protective dad thing to do. Intimidate the fuck out of them and they won't try anything stupid. Diandra: Yeah, I could see my dad doing something like this. If I had ever tried to bring dates home to meet him. But then he actually threatened to do this, so... Toombs catches Peter watching him, gulping nervously and asks if he's okay because he looks a little pale suddenly. He asks if Peter wants a scotch or something. Peter quickly says he's not old enough to drink. Toombs is like yes, that was the correct answer to that trick question. You passed the first test. Peter is like 'great, so can you please put that knife down now sir?' Toombs is distracted when Liz arrives, gushing about how beautiful she looks. Chrissy: Isn't she gorgeous? Can't you just picture banging her? Diandra: I know this is another test, but I feel like the correct answer depends on whether or not you are a Trump supporter. Chrissy: Get out. Peter nervously agrees that she looks beautiful and Toombs, still holding the knife, notes that he has again given the correct answer. Peter looks understandably perplexed. Liz has to prompt him to give her the corsage, which he does without taking his eyes off her terrifying dad. Mom pulls out a camera to take pictures of them and Peter forces a smile, still looking nervously at Toombs. Toombs is like 'alright, now get in the car so I can drive you'. Peter protests that he really doesn't have to drive. Toombs says he's already headed in that direction anyway, so it's no big deal. He kisses his wife and says he'll see her in a "couple days". Peter bites his tongue so hard it's amazing he's not gushing blood. In the car, the kids are sitting in complete silence, Liz fixing her hair and face via her phone's front cam, when Toombs suddenly asks Peter what he's planning on doing. Peter is like 'I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING...I mean...wait... what are we talking about here?' Toombs clarifies that he meant what is he going to do after he graduates. Peter doesn't know. Toombs thought all the kids who went to "that school" had their whole lives planned out already. Peter says he's just a sophomore, so... Liz interrupts that he has an internship with Tony Stark, so he probably doesn't have to worry about finding work. Toombs is like oh, reaaaaaaallllyyyy? Peter is like 'um... actually...I lost the internship and just realized I haven't told Liz that yet.' Liz is like 'wait...what?' Peter blusters that the internship was "boring". Liz reminds him that he got to hang out with Spider-Man and how could that be boring? Toombs perks up like 'Spider-Man, huh?' and Peter looks like he's debating just jumping from the moving car. There's a pause and then Toombs asks if he's seen Peter around somewhere because his voice is kind of ringing a bell. Liz cluelessly says he was at Decathalon and that party she had recently. For, like, two seconds before he disappeared. Come to think of it, he disappeared when they were in DC too. This is really a problem of his. Toombs makes faces like he's starting to make the connection here. When they're stopped at a light he talks about how awful that whole thing in DC was and asks if Peter was scared. "I'll bet you were glad when your old pal Spider-Man showed up in the elevator though, huh?" Peter stammers that he actually wasn't up there, he saw it all from the ground but yes, they were all very lucky and very grateful to Spider-Man who is a REALLY COOL GUY WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT ME. Toombs smirks at him in the rear view mirror like 'gotcha, you little shit' until Liz alerts him that the light has turned. The arrive at the school, the ominous music Giacchino was playing over that little moment finally cutting off. Toombs tells Liz to go on ahead so he can give Peter the "dad talk". Liz rolls her eyes at Peter and says "don't let him intimidate you." Chrissy: Please don't leave me. I am literally afraid he will kill me. And I am not using "literally" in an ironic sense. Diandra: Also, we can never see each other again and I might have to move to a different state. So once she's gone, Toombs takes a gun from the glove compartment and casually turns to Peter, who is strangely unalarmed by this. It might not actually be a gun. I could be mistaken. He asks if his daughter knows who her date really is. Peter tries to play dumb. "Know what?" Emilio: That her previous boyfriends all disappeared because you killed them? Toombs says good, keep it that way. He's all about keeping secrets since he has some of his own. "Nothing is more important than family," he concludes. "You saved my daughter's life. I could never forget something like that. So I'm gonna give you one chance. You walk through those doors, you forget any of this happened and don't you ever, EVER interfere with my business again. Because if you do, I'll kill you and everybody you love." Chrissy: Well. That just ditched all pretense of subtlety. Peter stares at his lap like 'yes, sir.' Toombs prompts him that he just saved his life so what does he have to say? Peter bites out a thank you. Toombs says great, now go show my daughter a good time because if you don't I might kill you anyway just for normal dad reasons. Also, if you show her TOO good a time. No pressure. Peter approaches the school like a gladiator going to a death match and practically staggers up to Liz. She sighs and asks what her dad said to him to make him look so traumatized. He says he has to go and apologizes for doing this AGAIN because she doesn't deserve it, but... And then he runs out the back door, changing into the old swim-goggle suit as he's running through deserted hallways. NotMason meets him right at the door and stuns him with an arm canon. He smarms that Toombs gave him a choice and he chose "wrong". Peter gets up and NotMason throws a bus at him. Oh, yeah, because all the buses are parked in back of the school for some reason. I guess the school is fancy enough to get its own buses? Or are they waiting to take kids home from Homecoming? Do Hollywood people understand how school buses work? Emilio: Probably not. NotMason marvels at how great the weapon is and hits Peter again as he stands, sending him flying through another bus's windshield. Then he knocks the bus around some more, having fun just toying with Peter apparently. Then he finally decides he's had enough of this and raises the weapon to fire a probably fatal blow. Webbing shoots from somewhere off camera, stopping him and both NotMason and Peter look to find Ned holding one of Peter's webshooters that got knocked away in the scuffle. Peter uses the web to yank NotMason off balance and rips the shooter from Ned, webbing NotMason to the side of a bus. Peter runs over to Ned and hurriedly explains that Wing Guy is Liz's dad and Ned should call Happy so they can tell Tony and "get a computer and track my phone for me." Then he bounces away to chase after Toombs. Flash and his date are arriving late to Homecoming. Peter lands on the car and announces that he needs the car and Flash's phone. Flash stammers that it's his dad's car and he can't just okay fine. As Peter is driving wrecklessly he uses one hand to call Ned and repeat the instructions for him to track his phone. Ned, sitting in a computer lab, says yeah, okay, but where IS his phone? In answer, we flash on it sitting on the floor behind the passenger seat of Toombs' car. Ned starts giving him directions, then pulls up the specs on Flash's car when Peter realizes he doesn't know how to turn on the headlights on this fancy ass thing. Peter weaves crazily around, yelling at people to get out of the way and notes that he's never actually driven before because sophomore year is when US kids are taking driver's ed and he's still on a provisional license. Ned - actually now functioning as Peter's guy in a chair - is moving between computers and still trying to get through to Happy by hacking the phone system. He realizes his status as backup to Spider-Man and has a moment of giddiness. Then Happy answers the phone, looking confused and annoyed. Ned babbles that he's Peter's associate and this is very important... and Happy hangs up. Ned finds the specs on the car and directs Peter to turn on the lights, then gives him an update on the location of the phone. It's stopped in an old industrial park in Brooklyn. Peter yelps that he thought Toombs said he was going out of TOWN. Ned is like 'huh...weird...by the way, Happy doesn't like you and it looked like he was getting on a plane somewhere surrounded by boxes.' Something clicks into place suddenly and Peter remembers that this is "moving day" for all the tech Tony was storing and Toombs must be planning to steal it in transit. Stark/Avengers Tower. Happy is listing all the stuff they have yet to load into the plane, including Tony's "Hulkbuster" armor, Cap's new shield prototype and "The Meging...The Meg...The...Thor's magic belt." Emilio: Oh, so we do remember that that's a thing, huh? Peter takes the last turn too sharply and ends up flipping the car onto its side and doing a lot of damage that Flash's dad will NOT appreciate. He sees Toombs' car parked outside a warehouse and runs inside. Luckily his job is basically over now because this is when a teacher finds Ned in the computer lab and asks what the HELL he's doing in here where the dance going on definitely ISN'T. Ned stammers and decides that the best lie he could tell here is that he snuck away to look at porn. Warehouse. Which turns out to be the warehouse Toombs and his crew are using. Peter drops through the ceiling and looks around at all the tech and computers that are helpfully on and displaying the plans for stealing more tech. There are no people though. Except Toombs, who is in a big empty room. Peter marches up to him and asks if he's surprised to see him here. Toombs just casually greets him by his real name. Peter yelps clichéd lines like "it's over" and "I got you". Toombs just casually shrugs into his coat and says he really admires him and he can see why his daughter likes him. Peter stops approaching him and asks how he can do this to Liz. Toombs corrects that he's doing this FOR her. Peter webs his hand to the table and he sighs and launches into a 'let me explain to you how the world works, kid' spiel. The upshot is that the rich and the powerful do whatever criminal bullshit they want and get away with it and they don't care about us poor folk. "We build their roads and we fight all their wars and everything, but they don't care about us. We have to pick up after 'em. We have to eat their table scraps." Chrissy: You know, you could probably make an argument that this would never have been an issue if Peter wasn't such a goody two shoes fighting crime that Tony et al were basically ignoring. Diandra: Yeah, but once the weapons they're selling are used for criminal bullshit that comes back to BEING their problem because why was it allowed into the public through criminal back channels anyway? Emilio: This is what I mean about Marvel being more for grown ups than DC. Their villains have more complicated motives and you can understand their motives. Diandra: You mean beyond the typical comic book explanations like wanting to impress Death? Emilio: Thanos notwithstanding, obviously. But these movies changed that, so... Peter asks why Toombs is telling him this. Toombs says he wants him to UNDERSTAND. And, you know, he was stalling for time. His unmanned suit crashes into the room suddenly and swoops menacingly toward Peter several times and he dodges and leaps and generally shows off his gymnastic abilities. Toombs apologizes before Peter realizes that the thing isn't actually coming at him so much as it is blasting all the pillars holding the ceiling up around him. Peter is buried in rubble and Toombs stalks out to complete the mission, the camera pulling back pointedly to show that the warehouse is basically blocks away from the tower. His wings follow and attach themselves to his back. Chrissy: [gravelly voice] I am Batman. Diandra: We already did that. Chrissy: [still doing the gravelly voice] I know. Peter regains consciousness in the rubble and rips off his mask, tossing it aside. He struggles to free himself, screaming and crying and then shouting for someone to help him. Then he catches sight of the mask laying in a puddle, conveniently covering half of his reflection and has a flashback of Tony's line about being nothing without the suit. He rallys and uses his superstrength to lift all the slabs of concrete off of himself. He surfaces just as Toombs, perched on a nearby billboard like an overgrown...er...Vulture...gets the signal from Mason that the plane is departing the tower and he can intercept. He unfurls his wings and takes off, Peter running behind him and latching on with a web. Toombs gets a lock on the plane as it engages the invisibility technology the helicarrier was using and mutters that he's feeling some weird resistance. Mason boredly notes that it's probably the new turbines on his suit dragging. Toombs glances back, but Peter is flailing so wildly from side to side that he isn't in the spot Toombs is looking. And here is where the stuff about high altitude whatever finally makes sense. Because Toombs needed to be able to fly as high as a jet. Peter yelps as clouds pass beneath them, then splatters against the jet as Toombs lands on its underside. Toombs suctions his wings to the plane and uses those little devices to cut a hole in the hull and climb inside. Peter struggles to get a hold of any surface of the plane travelling hundreds of miles an hour and nearly falls. Toombs reaches the cockpit of the unmanned plane and starts fucking with the controls. Mason launches a drone from his suit as Peter is yanking at it. Toombs finishes tricking the crew on the ground into thinking the plane is going where it's supposed to go and nothing is wrong before going into the hold and generally acting like a kid in a candy store drooling over all the tech. Peter manages to destabilize something and set off some alarms. Toombs finds a camera feed showing him clinging to the bottom of the plane and growls in frustration. Peter kicks the Vulture suit free and climbs toward a door, muttering about a "typical Homecoming" hitching a ride on an invisible jet to fight his girlfriend's dad. Chrissy: Oh, honey, you think she's your girlfriend now? And then somehow Toombs is flying past him and I don't know how he got the suit back but I assume it flew back? He knocks Peter from the plane and they both spiral toward the spinning engines. Peter webs one of the engines to prevent being smoothied and causes it to die and fall right off the plane. Toombs gets a wing damaged in another one. Chrissy: And no, the insurance company will not believe this was a "bird strike" in case you were wondering. They make it to the top of the plane and fight some more, destroying a third engine in the process. Mason calls to Toombs to get out because the plane is losing altitude. Emilio: So when you joked about Happy asking at the beginning of the movie if Peter knows how many engines are needed to fly? Turns out it was relevant after all. Diandra: I...dude, I already forgot about that throwaway joke. Chrissy: I'm starting to think we should have Emilio join us regularly just to act as memory keeper. Toombs snarls that he's not leaving empty handed and starts slicing into the plane with his wings. Peter looks up and realizes they're headed right for the city. In a plane that is out of control. Chrissy: What are plot lines you couldn't have done ten years ago for $500, Alex? He starts webbing wing flaps to try to steer the plane away. They fly in a big circle until they are back out over the water, somehow missing every single building they pass. And then they take out a radio tower or...whatever that is as they nosedive onto the beach. Happy sees this from the safety of the tower and jumps up, his balls probably retracting right up his ass as he contemplates just how fucked he's going to be. Peter peels his hood off (because what is even the point anymore?) and staggers to his feet, looking around at the muted destruction because the soundtrack is doing that dull-noises- with-ringing thing that follows a close explosion. Vulture is still airborne and flies at him. Emilio: Oh, come ON. He hits the ground and seems to struggle a bit to get his wings functioning again. The sound goes back to normal and they fight with Peter only getting off one web shot before getting pinned by...talons?...and punched repeatedly. Peter shoots something into one of the wings and Toombs tries flying to evade him. This leads to a fight scene that looks like it was choreographed by Cirque du Soleil that ends with Peter hitting the ground face first and Toombs grabbing him by the talons and repeatedly slamming him into the ground like he learned fighting skills by watching actual vultures. Peter starts losing consciousness and Toombs gets distracted by something shiny in the wreckage. Again, like an ACTUAL BIRD. Diandra: Is Vulture similar to Spider-Man in the comics in terms of abilities? Like, his DNA was spliced or something? Emilio: There are several versions of Vulture in the comics, but I think the only one that is sort of like that is Jimmy Natale. He has a mutation, so it's a crossover with X-Men. Chrissy: Just how many versions of Vulture are there? Emilio: That depends. Are we counting the versions from alternate realities? Chrissy: I...um... Emilio: Because if we're not, there are four. Diandra: One for each Spider-Man? Emilio: Oh, there are WAY more Spider people. Some of them women. Toombs flies over and tries to pick up...whatever it is...with his talons. Except it's a very large trunk thing and he struggles to get it off the ground, his wings emitting sparks. Peter yelps that his suit is going to EXPLODE if he does that, but of course if Toombs hears this he doesn't care. Emilio: Gee, it's almost like he's a typical comic book villain or something. So Peter webs the box and yells that he's trying to save Toombs. Toombs is like 'whatever, kid', cuts the web and tries to fly away, getting all of three feet before his suit malfunctions and he falls in a shower of sparks. Peter runs through the burning wreckage and carries Toombs out draped over his shoulders to heroic music. So when the disaster crew - and Happy - get to the scene they find all the tech neatly piled between burning remnants of airplane and webbed together, a very humiliated Toombs webbed against one trunk next to a sign that says "FOUND: flying Vulture guy. Spider-Man." So back to school the next day. Ned is babbling about how CRAZY that whole thing was as he walks down the hall with an inexplicably unblemished looking Peter. Chrissy: Ah, the magically disappearing fight scars of Hollywood. Diandra: I suppose he COULD be wearing a lot of makeup... Emilio: No, he is not. Peter reminds him to keep it down and thanks him for saving his ass. Liz appears with her mother at the end of the hall, looking...not happy. Another girl runs up to hug her and Liz murmurs that she's going to miss her. She rolls her eyes as Peter approaches. Peter says he's sorry. Liz notes that he says that a LOT and asks what, exactly, he's sorry for now. He stares at her, pursing his lips, rightly assuming that there isn't really an answer here that won't make her angry. Because, she continues, if it's about the dance... He says yeah, that too, but what he really meant was condolences on your dad turning out to be a bad guy and if there's anything he can do... She says yeah, no. They're moving to Oregon. Because you can't go any further from New York in the continental US without falling into the Pacific. And dad doesn't want them to stick around for the trial. Peter starts to stammer something that is probably an apology again, but she just says goodbye and she hopes he deals with whatever is wrong with him. She runs out the door. Emilio: Probably for the best. The teacher in charge of Decathalon meets the team in the library, placing their trophy on the table and congratulating their win. He says he'll put the trophy back in the case, but he thought they could use the extra motivation for their practice session. Then he launches into the meeting agenda: finding a new team captain for next year to replace Liz. Or rather appointing one because this is not a democracy and he's already chosen Michelle. Michelle says thanks, but they should really call her what the rest of her friends call her: MJ. Because psych. Peter's severely damaged phone buzzes and he sees a message that says "go to the bathroom". Emilio: So you've got a Sheldon Cooper making your bathroom schedule too? Diandra: Ha. I understood that reference. He says he has to go and MJ squints at him and asks where he thinks he's going and what he's hiding from them. He freezes and makes fish faces. She lets him panic for a second longer, then says "I'm just kidding. I don't care. Bye," and then launches into whatever drills the team needs to run without even taking another breath. Peter is like 'okay, um...yeah...thanks...' and slinks off. He finds Happy waiting for him in the boy's room. Chrissy: Okay, dude. First a strange man goes into his bedroom to talk and now another one is having secret meetings in a high school bathroom. How is no one freaked out by this? Happy says he owes Peter one. "I don't know what I would do without this job. I mean, before I met Tony..." he trails off awkwardly as a toilet flushes. An Asian kid comes out and gives them a weird look before nonchalantly washing his hands. Happy and Peter just stand there awkwardly waiting for him to leave. He gives them one last suspicious look on his way out. Chrissy: Better hope he doesn't report that there's a strange man talking to a student in the bathroom to the first adult he finds. Happy is like 'long story short: Tony wants to see you.' Peter points to the stalls and whispers "is he here too?" Happy is like 'what? No. that would be weird and creepy.' He says Tony is "upstate" and they're going to see him now in one of those fancy self-driving cars. Peter gapes at the newly finished Avengers plaza as they approach and Giacchino plays the Avenger's hero theme. Then we morph to him standing inside, grinning like a doofus like 'I did it! I'm an Avenger!' when Tony swaggers over to them and asks Happy to give him and Peter a minute alone. Happy is like 'are you fucking kidding me? I'm your damn security detail. I'm not leaving. Just...go out of earshot.' Tony agrees and takes Peter in a loose hug, walking him away. He apologizes for taking the suit away, but "you had it coming." He rambles about how Peter desperately needed some "tough love" at that moment and he came away from it stronger, didn't he? Peter is like 'erm...I guess...' Tony repeats that he screwed up. Big time. But then he made it right in the end, so it worked out ultimately. Chrissy: You're just using him as a mirror for your current character arc, aren't you? Diandra: LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO MAKE THEM YOURSELF, KID. Tony is like 'long story short...' Emilio: Too late. Diandra: Knew I could count on you for that reference. ...Tony was wrong and with some more mentoring Peter could be a real asset to the team. Peter stammers like 'does... does this mean I'm an Avenger?' Tony non-answers that there are a bunch of reporters behind the door they're coming to and taps his watch to reveal a compartment right next to the door containing a new and improved Spidey suit. He offers to introduce him to the world as the newest member of the cool superhero club. Peter kind of stammer giggles and gapes at the costume as Tony tells Happy to take him to his new quarters next to Vision after the press conference. Peter falters, and turns to face Tony, giving longing glances at the costume as he says thanks but...nah. Tony is like 'kid, you literally spent the entire time your character has been part of this franchise BEGGING to be let in to the Avengers. What the fuck?' Peter says he'd kind of like to stick to his 'hood for now and "look out for the little guy". Tony takes off his glasses and asks if Peter is really sure he wants to turn him down. Chrissy: He's not used to people saying no. Diandra: Unless by "people" you mean "Pepper" because she does it all the time. He gives Peter one more chance and Peter says nah, he's sure. Tony is like '......fine.' He describes this new attitude as a "Springsteen-y, working class" thing that he can totally respect. Until he changes his mind again in a year because he's a teenager and they do that. He says Happy will just take him home then. Happy - probably less than thrilled that the kid has been driving him nuts for MONTHS only to change his mind at the last minute - tells him to wait in the car so he can talk to Tony. Peter shakes Tony's hand and starts walking away before hesitating and calling "that was a test right?" Emilio: Did I pass? Are you going to make me an Avenger anyway? No, his theory is that there really isn't anybody in that room because Tony wasn't really planning to announce him at a press conference. Tony is like 'yeah, sure. You caught me.' Peter skips away seconds before Pepper comes out of the room packed with reporters asking questions to find out what the hell is taking them so long. Emilio: Damnit! Pepper asks where the kid is because everybody is WAITING. Happy says he left and Tony sighs that he actually made a perfectly mature choice there. Pepper is like 'so you guys fucked up then.' Tony points at Happy and says HE told him to wait in the car, which...yeah, I totally believe this is his instinct every time Pepper looks like she might get angry at him. IT'S HIS FAULT. YELL AT HIM, NOT ME! Pepper asks what the HELL she's supposed to tell the room full of reporters waiting for a big announcement. Tony thinks and then turns to Happy to ask if he still has the ring. Happy searches his pockets while babbling that he's been carrying it since 2008. He holds up an engagement ring and Pepper makes a face like 'really? THIS is how you want to propose?' and says she can think of something better to tell them. Chrissy: Like that you're contemplating a sex change. Diandra: Tony? Nah. He would never want to part with his little friend. Chrissy: Did I say that part would be voluntary? Diandra: Can't you be like normal women and just take my testicles? Chrissy: Oh, are we roleplaying now? And why are YOU playing Tony? Diandra: I don't know, it just happened that way. You can be Tony next time. Chrissy: When you're playing Doctor Strange and they're flirting shamelessly with each other? Diandra: That's kind of what I was expecting, yes. Emilio: So should I be Peter - the teenage boy trying to keep his dads from fighting? Diandra: Yes, you can be both Peters. Emilio: Awesome. Pepper kisses Tony and marches back toward the press room, grumbling about him making Happy hold on to that thing for YEARS. Tony scrambles to hold the door open and Pepper is like 'nope, too late!' so he's left catching it so he can slink in behind her. Happy tosses him the ring before he disappears. Chrissy: He's totally going to propose to her in front of all those reporters so she'll be too embarrassed to say no. Diandra: Probably. But then Pepper probably wouldn't have any qualms about saying no and then chewing him out over it later. Peter returns to the apartment and finds a paper sack on his bed with a note. "This belongs to you. -TS". Chrissy: So is this when you realized that Tom Hiddleston's character in your fic had the same initials as Tony Stark? Diandra: Yes. And thanks for bringing that up in THIS recap now. Emilio: We could go back to talking about the other WIP, but neither Loki nor Doctor Strange are in this movie, so... Chrissy: We're saving that for Ragnarok. Diandra: I hate you both. He calls to Aunt May, who doesn't respond. So he tries on the costume and is admiring it in the mirror, taking off the face mask, when Aunt May appears in the doorway. She stares at him for several beats, then shouts "what the fu-" and we smash to credits. Emilio: Best. Reaction. Ever. How does Gwenyth Paltrow rank higher than Zendaya in the credits? She had one scene! Mid credit scene. Toombs arrives in prison and a voice calls "look who it is," in a tone that makes me totally expect the next part to be something along the lines of 'my new bitch!' The camera pans over to...I'm sorry, I don't remember who this guy is and the closed captioning isn't offering any help. Chrissy: It's the guy from the ferry whose name they made sure to mention. I made note of it because I figured they were making such a point of telling us his name that there must be a reason. Emilio: Oh! That's why the name sounded familiar! Mac Gargan was the guy who was trying to uncover Spider- Man's real identity. He became Scorpion after an experiment, turned into Venom at some point and then went back to being Scorpion. Chrissy: Well, that would explain the scorpion tattoo on his neck. Diandra: [eyes glazing over] Um...okay. Scorpion points to the scar covering half of his face and tells Toombs to relax because "this? It's not on you." It is courtesy of Spider-Man and he has "some boys on the outside who would love to meet him." He heard from a little jailbird that Toombs might know Spider-Man's real identity. Toombs blusters that if he KNEW Spider-Man's real identity, he'd be dead by now. Scorpion clearly doesn't believe him, but before he can say anything else, a guard calls to Toombs that his family just arrived for a visit. After the rest of the credits roll to songs Michael Giacchino probably rejected for the new "Incredibles" soundtrack, we're watching another of Captain America's PSAs. He walks to his mark in the center of the shot and stands with his hands on his hips. "Hi, I'm Captain America, here to talk to you about one of the most valuable traits a soldier - or student - can have," he says. "Patience. Sometimes patience is the key to victory. Sometimes it leads to very little and it seems like it's not worth it...and you wonder why you waited so long for something so disappointing." Obviously he doesn't actually have a point here other than to break the fourth wall and mock the people who are still sitting in the theater waiting for another post credit scene, so he just trails off, grinning like an idiot. Then he looks off camera and asks how many more of these he has to do. Emilio: Best. Post-credit. Scene. Ever. So between the time we did our initial recapping session and the time I finished typing the official recap, Stan Lee died. I debated going back and noting this during his cameo appearance, but I decided it would be disruptive and it would be better this way. Rest in peace, Stan.