Major spoilers follow for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Don't say I didn't warn you. Because I just did. And still am doing. Okay? Okay.
One of the unexpected delights of Spider-Man: No Way Home was the way in which it offered genuine character development and redemption to Andrew Garfield's version of the character.
Garfield, who played Spider-Man in the ill-fated Amazing Spider-Man franchise, appeared once again in No Way Home alongside Tobey Maguire's Spidey to assist Tom Holland's webhead.
Given that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was ultimately cancelled to make way for Holland's MCU-focused Spider-Man, it's fair to say that Garfield is the Spidey with the most unfinished business. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 left our hero in a bleak place, blaming himself for the death Gwen Stacey after she fell to her doom.
In No Way Home, we see that Garfield's Spider-Man is older, but still not over the events of his last movie. He explains that he got bitter, and "stopped pulling punches". Clearly, the ghost of Gwen looms over him.
All of this results in what I truly believe to be the movie's most surprising - and gut-wrenching - highlight. During the final fight between the villains and the Spider-Men, MJ falls from the Statue Of Liberty, ostensibly to her death. But Garfield's Spider-Man intervenes! He leaps to her aid in place of Holland, saving her from a grisly demise.
The look of anguish on his face as he holds MJ safe in his arms says it all, really: He managed to do for MJ what he failed to do for Gwen, all those years ago. I'm honest to god welling up just thinking about it.
Garfield himself has now shared his thoughts on that pivotal scene, explaining that it played a large part in convincing him to come back for No Way Home.
"There was so many unanswered questions for my Peter, where we left it. I got to step back in and get some healing for him," the actor told Variety in a recent interview.
"My Spider-Man got to save his younger brother's romantic relationship, potentially. And to heal the most traumatic moment of his own life through doing it for his younger brother. Making sure that [Holland's Spider-Man] didn't have the same fate, there's something cosmically beautiful about that. It meant getting a second chance at saving Gwen."
Garfield's appearance in No Way Home has widely been considered one of the best things about the movie, with many loudly campaigning for the actor to don the webs again in future projects. While he's admitted he'd be up for it, the story would have to be right. In other words, maybe don't do The Amazing Spider-Man 3 exactly the way Sony wanted to do it back in 2012.
Featured Image Credit: SonyTopics: Spider Man, Marvel, Sony