Part of Peter Parker’s internal struggle during Spider-Man: Brand New Day is that he has essentially lost himself in being a superhero. He has forsaken friendship and any connection with others for over four years, ever since the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home erased him from everyone’s memory. While he may not be close with his best friend Ned or his ex-girlfriend MJ, he still checks in on them through social media and even crashed a house party they were hosting. As events unfold, the two of them are put in danger and he meets them as Spider-Man, his first step toward rebuilding a connection with the pair. However, the final scene of the movie has fans wondering if somehow Doctor Strange’s spell removing Peter from everyone’s memory has been broken.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day ends the way most MCU movies do, in that Spider-Man has saved the day and is settling back into his daily routine of heroism. Jean Grey, who essentially held part of the city mentally hostage after learning that the Department of Damage Control killed her sister, has left the city to places unknown, but Ned and MJ were also caught in Jean’s psychic, mind-hijacking blast, and were once again saved by Spider-Man. After things have calmed down, Peter sees Ned at a store and goes to introduce himself, and the two, without missing a beat, do their signature elaborate handshake seen in previous movies. Ned is clearly confused as to why he knows how to do this with a guy he has no recollection of meeting beyond a brief appearance at his house party, but when it’s done, he looks up and says Peter’s name, and it’s left ambiguous as to whether he remembers his old friend or he’s just putting some things together, having heard earlier in the film that Spider-Man’s name was also Peter.
There’s a lot to unpack in this scene. My initial reading was that Ned’s muscle memory had kicked in and he was able to do the handshake because he’d done it hundreds of times before. If you’re reading Kotaku, you’re probably very familiar with the concept because you use it to play video games all the time. Your body gradually learns the rhythms of something and reacts accordingly. It’s a habit that has embedded itself into your neural pathways. Musicians are also very familiar with it, as it’s how they learn to play songs without having to stop and think about every chord change. So if you’ve done a weirdly elaborate handshake numerous times over the years, that sequence probably sticks with you, even if your memory of the person you did it with has been erased.
So on its own, Ned remembering the handshake isn’t enough to tell us whether he remembers Peter, but it’s certainly got Spidey fans debating what it all means. One prevalent theory is that Jean may have unintentionally resurfaced these memories when she telepathically mindfucked millions of people in the city. After the climax, MJ is seen sitting on a rooftop where she and Peter used to hang out while holding onto a necklace he gave her in Far From Home, implying that she might remember Peter fully, or at least be reflecting on her newfound knowledge that there was a version of her that did love Spider-Man and that she forgot a major part of her life.
However, earlier in the film, when Jean was controlling MJ as a way of manipulating Peter, she makes it clear that his ex has no memories of him whatsoever in her mind. Doctor Strange’s spell worked, and it was thorough. Jean is shown to be an exceptionally powerful telepath, so I doubt she overlooked a space in these characters’ minds where memories of Peter were locked away. Could the power of friendship and a psychic rattling be enough to undo a magic spell? It’s unclear, but it’s the theory a lot of fans are running with right now.
Another wrinkle in this is that Ned seems to have some level of latent magical capability. As illustrated in No Way Home, he’s able to open portals similar to Strange, which allows him to locate Tobey Macguire and Andrew Garfield’s versions of Peter as the multiverse starts to converge on the MCU’s New York City. Some theorize that this might have made it possible for him to protect his memories of Peter subconsciously, but that’s all speculation, without much to pull from in Brand New Day itself.
Right now, Spider-Man isn’t confirmed to be in any upcoming MCU projects, though Brand New Day’s post-credits scene heavily implies he’ll show up in Avengers: Secret Wars next year. So there’s a strong possibility it will be years before we get a definitive answer about whether or not Ned remembers Peter. Some fans are content with that open-ended question, because it invites discussion and gives the MCU a little wiggle room to decide what it wants to do in the future.
“I don’t think even the director/writers know, which is why they left it so open ended,” a fan writes on Reddit. “If they wanted it to be conclusive, they would have shot the scene with a more clear answer. They chose to make it ambiguous so I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer… yet.”
That does mean that over the next few years, we’re likely going to see a lot of explainers, debates, and definitive statements from fans about what this final scene means. Though, given the events of Secret Wars in the comics, there’s a possibility that the next two movies will end up sweeping this whole thing under the rug. I sure hope not, though. It would be a shame if the emotional arc of Peter’s movies got undone because of some elaborate multiverse shenanigans.
