Spider-Man movies have come a long way since the Sam Raimi days.
But maybe you still have a few questions.
Like, what is BARF?
Why was Tony Stark such a bad boss?
And is Mysterio really dead?
We'll get into all this and more as we break down the ending of Spider-Man: Far From Home.
Over the course of five movies, Iron Man has been Peter's mentor and personal role model,
taking over what's traditionally been the Uncle Ben role.
As a result, this is another non-Iron Man MCU movie that sure has a lot of Tony Stark.
"...you miss me?"
This time around, Tony's hogging of the spotlight is even more impressive; since being fried
by the full might of the Infinity Stones, that guy is extremely dead.
And the world loves him for it, with murals on walls honoring the hero from the streets
of Queens to the canals of Venice.
While Tony's left a gigantic legacy behind for Peter to draw from, Peter is having to
learn to get by on his own, sort of.
Through the use of over-the-top technology, Stark is still watching over him.
Instead of building a suit of armor around the world a la Age of Ultron, Tony left gear
behind for Peter, a young man who clearly reminded him of himself.
But where Tony didn't realize his capacity for heroism until well into adulthood, Peter
is putting his life on the line before he's even gone through the trouble of learning
how to drive.
It's an earnest desire to help that the movie's villain, Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio, quickly
learns to use against him.
In another instance of the movie leaning on the established MCU, Far From Home features
the return of Tony Stark's Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing technology, or BARF.
"God, I gotta work on that acronym."
BARF is an absurdly-advanced virtual reality platform that we've previously seen in Captain
America: Civil War.
In its previous appearance, this tech was mostly used to show off Tony's home movies,
much to the frustration of its inventor, Jake Gyllenhaal's Quentin Beck.
BARF isn't the only piece of Stark tech that Beck is using to put one over on the world.
He's also after the surprisingly-important pair of glasses Tony was previously seen wearing
casually during the events of Infinity War, and that he bequeathed to Peter Parker following
his death.
"Either put on these glasses, or start eating that trash can."
Tony being Tony, these are no ordinary glasses.
Beck's primary reason for wanting the glasses has to do with their connection to a powerful
fleet of weaponized drones, capable of projecting a massive illusion in London.
The glasses are also seemingly capable of tapping into every device connected to a computer
more-or-less instantaneously, a kind of terrifying power.
Is this what Tony was doing with those glasses this whole time?
Spying on people's phones?
"I know that it's confusing…"
Tony being Tony, the EDITH name is an acronym for "Even in Death, I'm the Hero."
But by the time EDITH is being used to help Beck attack London with a combined elemental
illusion, it feels like a more fitting name would be "even in death, I think I know best,
and accidentally put millions of people at risk."
No wonder so many of Tony's old employees hate him.
After manipulating Peter into handing over EDITH, Mysterio celebrates with his surprisingly
robust staff.
Hilariously, this squad of disgruntled middle-management types is united by one thing: a lousy working
relationship with Anthony Edward Stark.
One character, William Riva, is revealed to have turned to the dark side under Mysterio
because Jeff Bridges yelled at him during a tense moment in 2008's Iron Man.
"Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave!"
He stayed mad about that encounter for more than ten years.
While helping out Mysterio during his staged encounter with the molten fire elemental,
Peter notices a little bit of strangeness regarding the physics of the fight, with his
webs bouncing off what appear to be some invisible objects near the under-attack Ferris wheel.
Peter sort of shrugs off the strangeness, at least initially.
What really sells Peter on Mysterio's villainy is MJ's recovery of a projector drone in the
aftermath of the battle, which displays pre-rendered footage of one of the elementals in action.
Seeing this footage, Peter realizes that the elementals aren't real, and that Mysterio
is not to be trusted.
After being beaten by Mysterio in his first confrontation, Peter returns for a second
round, after designing himself a new suit in very Iron Mannish fashion.
Peter's goal during the final London encounter is to take out the many drones Beck's deployed
to make his grand, Avengers-level illusion, shutting him down before he can hurt any innocent
civilians, or kill Peter and his friends.
Peter smashes up the Stark drones in a variety of ways, one of the more exciting of which
is his stylish deployment of electrically-charged taser webbing to cause them to explode.
While this tech might seem like a new addition to Peter's upgraded suit, they're actually
a holdover from the first suit that Tony Stark designed, the one that sported way more ways
to kill people than Peter would realistically need.
All in all, this final act shows Peter learning to trust his gut, especially his "Peter tingle,"
which comes into play in his final showdown with Mysterio.
It also shows him fully embracing the trust that Tony had placed in him.
After realizing that Tony Stark made plenty of mistakes throughout his Iron Man career,
Spider-Man stops beating himself up for giving Beck control of EDITH and goes to work on
saving the day.
And if diving headfirst into danger to fix horrible, world-threatening mistakes you've
made isn't living up to the legacy of Tony Stark, what is?
"Not bad."
Mysterio meets his end thanks to Spider-Man's sheer persistence, with the hero fighting
while physically outnumbered and under psychological attack.
By midway through the battle, it's obvious that Peter is going to win.
Instead of despairing or running away, Mysterio keeps his cool, and begins to make reference
to an enigmatic contingency plan.
Peter makes his way closer to Beck, wrecking his drones and using his Spider-Sense to blast
through the illusions that BARF tech throws up.
He also defends himself against a hail of bullets that Mysterio fires at him, one of
which strikes Mysterio himself, apparently fatally.
But of course, considering the scale of Beck's illusions, it's impossible not to wonder if
he's actually a goner.
There's plenty of evidence from the comics​ to make this a legitimate question.
Not only has Quentin Beck faked his own death before, but several other criminals have taken
on the identity of Mysterio in Beck's place.
In short, there's plenty of room for the Master of Illusion to make a return one way or another.
And either way, unbeknownst to Peter, Mysterio's backup plan is now in motion.
After Spidey halts the attack, one of the people on Mysterio's payroll can be seen downloading
data onto a portable drive before walking away with unknown intentions.
It's implied that what's been copied is data related to the fight, specifically camera
footage from the drones.
It ends up coming back in a big way during the mid-credits scene, but for all anyone
knows in the hours after the battle, Mysterio has been defeated, and the threat he poses
is over.
Unfortunately, poor Peter Parker is far from done with this fight.
Suffice to say, it looks like this Peter can't even get through high school with his secret
identity intact.
If only he had gone into the battle dressed as Night Monkey, this probably wouldn't have
been such a big deal.
The comics once again offer some precedent for these plot points.
Back in Mysterio's first appearance in ​Amazing Spider-Man ​#13​, he poses as a crimefighter
and strikes a deal with J. Jonah Jameson​ to expose Spidey's identity to the world in
the pages of ​The Daily Bugle​.
What we see in the mid-credits scene is a clear reference to Mysterio's debut.
Before all of that goes down, Peter returns to New York, having finally established a
romantic relationship with MJ.
That's not the only relationship on Peter's mind, though.
He also has questions for Happy Hogan and Aunt May regarding their relationship status
in the new, post-Blip world order.
After interrogating his guardian about her love life, Peter rolls his eyes and sets off
for a triumphant session of swinging around the buildings of Manhattan, a well-earned
victory lap.
It's a way different feel from Peter's first adventures in Homecoming, which mostly stayed
across the East River in the slightly-less-vertical borough of Queens.
More than any of Peter's other adventures in the MCU so far, this sequence feels like
a throwback to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, which featured no shortage of exhilarating
Manhattan-based web-slinging.
Charmingly, Peter doesn't go it alone, taking MJ up into the skies to swing downtown for
a few blocks.
Judging by her excitedly panicked reaction, it's something she'll have to get used to,
but despite the danger, she still looks happy to give it a whirl.
If the movie ended here, it'd be a happy note.
Unfortunately for Peter, the movie's post-credit scenes have a major change in store for him,
one that looks primed to permanently shake up Spider-Man's place in the MCU.
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