Tear Jerker / Spider-Man: No Way Home

"Tragedy. What else can I call it? What more need be said? The damage, the destruction... You saw it with your own eyes. When will people wake up and realize that everywhere Spider-Man goes, chaos and calamity ensue? Everything Spider-Man touches comes to ruin. And we, the innocents, are left to pick up the pieces. J. Jonah Jameson reporting. Good night... and God help us all."

— J. Jonah Jameson

As his story in the MCU reaches its culmination, Spider-Man: No Way Home continues to pile up more emotional baggage for Peter Parker than we've ever seen before, meaning it has no shortage of sad moments. Let's just say this whole movie is one emotional rollercoaster pretty much from its start to its very, very bittersweet end.

All spoilers are unmarked on moment pages.

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Trailers

• The teaser shows just how hellish life has become for Peter after Quentin Beck exposed his identity in Far From Home. Peter is arrested and falsely accused of several crimes up to murder, most of the public has turned against him, and many of his friends and family (including Ned and Aunt May) are forcibly being interrogated for what they know about him. It's no wonder why Peter turns to Doctor Strange for a way to undo everything, which makes the spell Strange casts even worse for Peter—if everyone forgets his identity, that means he and MJ never get together, he loses a Secret-Keeper in Ned, and even his own aunt will have no idea. The clash between both sides is what causes the Multiverse to unravel in ways he didn't want.
• The trailer reveals that the villains have to be removed because their fates are to die in their own world. Peter refuses to do that, despite the problems they're causing.
• Prior to the final battle, Peter calls in to the Daily Bugle and admits his culpability in bringing the Sinister Syndicate to the MCU before going on to say that he'll stop them, in a tone which implies he knows that his greatest battle is about to begin, and he really isn't ready to fight it.
  Peter: World, wish me luck. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man could really use some...

Film

• While Peter and MJ desperately attempting to close the blinds to prevent May and Happy from finding out about the news media's presence at the apartment is amusing, Peter briefly lets slip that he just wants one more moment of relative normalcy to discuss the relationship between his mother figure and his friend.
• Peter, MJ, and Ned getting rejected from MIT just because of the controversy around Peter being framed for Mysterio's murder. It showcases that Mysterio not only made things hard for Peter and his friends in the present, but also makes things harder for them in the future.
• When Doc Ock has been defeated and the Goblin appears, Otto is confused at first — until he hears the voice laughing. This prompts a genuinely baffled "Osborn?" from him before he and Peter are sent to the Sanctum Sanctorum's dungeon. Later, as Peter and company are beginning the search for the next logical one, the guy he saw flying over the bridge, Otto quietly utters, "It can't be him." But what's telling is his delivery and mannerisms as he talks. He starts turned away from the others in the room, head sunken low, recounting the life of Norman Osborn as a man he initially respected. However, he then drops to a deeply disappointed note — "But he was greedy, misguided." This isn't Doctor Octopus. For the briefest of moments, this is Otto Octavius again. And the delivery here isn't simply in that a man he'd known to be dead is walking around, it's that he has just figured out that Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin — and he's having trouble processing all this at once, which is possibly why he yells at Peter viciously in a tone he never before has when Peter keeps asking questions during this troubling time for him.
• Norman Osborn shows up at F.E.A.S.T. after defying the Goblin persona and is genuinely distressed at having that voice in his head. He goes on to reveal he's discovered the MCU doesn't have a version of him, his company or his son. Norman was often harsh towards Harry in their first outing, but here it's obvious that the thought of not seeing his son is deeply distressing to him.
  • Norman also admits he went to his home only to find someone else living there. The guy's fallen from a wealthy billionaire with a business empire to a homeless, mentally ill vagrant.
  • What makes the scene especially hard-hitting is how realistically Norman's condition is portrayed. At the end of the day, he's a man with a dangerously severe mental illness desperate for help.
    May: He's lost... and I don't mean just in the cosmos, I mean in his mind. Are they all like this...?
• When all the villains have been corralled together, it slowly begins to dawn on them, one by one, that they might've been taken from their respective universes potentially moments before they would've met their ends against Spider-Man. Regardless of what they've done, the existential dread that begins to permeate the room is palpable, and one can understand wholly why Peter decides to try and save them. Beginning with the revelation that Norman and Otto knew one another:
  Norman: Octavius.
  Otto: ...Osborn?
  Norman: What- what happened to you?
  Otto: "What happened to"—? ...You're the walking corpse.
  Norman: [audibly unnerved] Wha- What do you mean?
  Otto: You died, Norman. Years ago.
  Norman: You're insane.
  Max: God, I love it here.
  Peter: What are you talking about...? He's standing right there; he's—
  Flint: Dead. They both died. Fighting Spider-Man. It was all over the news: the Green Goblin, impaled by the glider you flew around on. And a couple years later? You, Doc Ock. Drowned in the river with your machine.
  Otto: That's nonsense. Spider-Man was trying to stop my fusion reactor—so I stopped him. I had him... by the throat. And then I— ...And then I was here.
  Max: Aw, please. Lemme tell you something: I was whooping Spider-Man's ass. He'll tell you. And then he caused an overload. I was stuck in the grid, absorbing data. I was about to turn into pure energy, and then... And then I... And then... [quietly and fearfully] Oh, shit. I was about to die.
  Curt: [with a note of panic in his voice] Max... Do you know? Do I die? ^note Connors does not, but technically, the Lizard is killed when Andrew Garfield's Peter cures him.
• The scene when Otto is finally cured and regains full control of his arms rather than them controlling him. When he "wakes up" again, he's slightly distressed and very confused at being completely lucid again, but as the weight of everything sets in, he almost bursts into tears as he slowly takes in the fact that he, Otto Octavius, is finally back in the driver's seat and not the rampaging Doctor Octopus.
  "It's so quiet. Those voices... inside my head... I'd almost forgotten."
• Aunt May's death at the hands of the Green Goblin. The emotional and financial support that has kept Peter strong for all these years is gone just like that. Especially sad is how May initially seems to be okay despite being struck pretty hard by the Goblin's glider... only to then collapse on the ground repeatedly saying she needs to "catch [her] breath," and die shortly after, never realizing how truly serious her injuries were.
  • How it happens is perhaps the worst of it in its delivery. Unlike most instances in cinema, where a dying individual somehow knows that their time is up and spend it nobly trying to pass on encouraging last words, only dying when they've said what they need to, this is a tragically realistic portrayal of someone bleeding out. May doesn't know what's wrong with her or what's happening. All she knows is that she's suddenly very, very tired and having trouble catching her breath, because her blood just isn't circulating anymore. Over the course of a minute, she begins stumbling, falling, and losing all ability to speak as her body shuts down. In her last moments, all she thinks is that she just needs a moment to rest and doesn't understand why her nephew is suddenly in such a panic.
  • Before she passes on, May tells Peter how "with great power, there must also come great responsibility". As much of a delight as it is to hear the quote reincorporated into MCU Peter's story, it also denoted that, considering the fate of those who have said it, she truly didn't have much longer.
  • Peter briefly pleads with her to wake up, but it's clearly already too late. One of the things he says to May to make her listen is "It's just me and you," a Call-Back to Spider-Man: Homecoming when May demanded to know why Peter had been missing school and said the same thing before consoling him over losing the "Stark internship".
  • To add insult to injury, Happy stops by the apartment and sees May's corpse, and while brief, is utterly heartbroken. Even if they had broken up, it's clear they still cared about each other, since Happy allowed May and Peter to move into his apartment.
    • Worse, Happy is promptly arrested by a Damage Control team. All he can do is shout for Peter to run as the team fires on him, forcing him to abandon May. One of the bullets even hits Peter on his right shoulder, further adding to his growing pain and misery.
  • To add even further insult to injury, May's death is visually a direct Call-Back to Tony's from Avengers: Endgame, even down to her being in more or less the same position as she passes, with her lying down, her body slumped against some rubble, and her and Peter surrounded by fiery debris. Even worse in that Peter is forced to abandon her corpse in that rubble as Damage Control opens fire at him, all as he profusely sobs and apologizes for doing so.
    • It's hard rewatching Endgame and seeing May at Tony's funeral knowing she'd be the first one among the crowd assembled there to pass on less than a year later.^note Technically per Word of God, T'Challa died first having passed in the summer of 2024, but May would be the first confirmed death on-screen.
  • After this terrible tragedy, Peter can only brood on rooftops, watching J. Jonah Jameson continue to slander Spider-Man on a live television screen. And when MJ and Ned find and hug Peter afterwards, Peter's face completely crumbles, sobbing all the while. Tom Holland really conveys the emotional devastation that Peter is struggling to cope with.
    • Jameson's broadcast is quite sad in and of itself. He doesn't have any of his usual bombast or venom; he can only somberly report on the devastation left in the wake of the fight. Furthermore, while the end of his speech as seen in the page quote is just more of his usual anti-Spider-Man rhetoric, they completely reflect Peter's feelings in the moment.
• MJ and Ned's desperate plea to Peters 2 and 3 to help them find MCU Peter.
  "Honestly, right now, we're all he really has left."
• In the beginning, MCU Peter was determined to help the villains not only get cured, but hopefully avoid being killed by their Spider-Men. When he meets his variants, after the villains betrayed him and the Goblin killed Aunt May, nearly all of his sympathy vanishes. MCU Peter tells them that he's going to send them all home, and if the Spider-Men end up killing their villains, "that's on them." Even still, he apologizes for allowing all of this to happen in the first place.
  Peter: It's not my problem. I don't care anymore. I'm done.
  • Webb-Verse Peter is visibly tearing up hearing MCU Peter say the above line, clearly seeing bits of himself when he was at his lowest.
• MCU Peter is so broken and weary from the death of May that when he first meets his alternate selves, he, who had previously geeked out at the prospect of the multiverse being real in both this film and the last, doesn't feel wonder or excitement. He feels sadness, pain, anguish and regret. In his eyes, they're just two more people he failed.
  • In the lab scene, as Peter runs through the list of villains they need to cure, he trails off when he gets to Norman and can't even say his name. He's that heartbroken and angry over losing May (and maybe even the regular Norman).
• Raimi-verse and Webb-Verse Peter must've been just as devastated to hear that this universe's Aunt May was killed. May obviously means a lot to the both of them as she's the only family they have left in their respective universes. To know that MCU Peter had lost his whole family at only 17 must've hurt them, too. All they could do when they meet him is empathize with him and share their personal tragedies.
  • Raimi-Verse Peter's reaction to hearing that May said the "with great power" quote before her death. He looks amazed to learn that his uncle's words from 20 years ago were spoken in another universe, and also horrified because a fellow Peter Parker lost someone close to them so soon after they were uttered.
• The Raimi-Verse and Webb-Verse Peters opening up to MCU Peter after the death of his Aunt May about the deaths of the Ben Parker and Gwen Stacy of their respective worlds, similar to the "For me, it was..." scene from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
  • Even worse, several points in the movie hint that Webb-Verse Peter was never really able to let Gwen go. He immediately gets choked up when he starts talking to MCU Peter, hesitating to say Gwen's name at first, and then openly admits that losing her made him begin to lose himself in his rage and bitterness. Elsewhere while speaking to Raimi-Verse Peter about MJ, he claims that since Gwen died, he "never had time to be Peter anymore".
    • This retroactively makes the "Ray of Hope" Ending of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 much worse. What initially appeared as Gwen's memory pushing Peter to return to the fold eventually became Webb-Verse Peter using Spider-Man for channeling his grief and venting his suffering, not returning to heroism.
    • What makes it worse is that Gwen died not by Norman but by his son Harry, who became the Green Goblin of his universe, meaning that Webb-Verse Peter is another victim of the Osborn family's machinations and the only one who truly knows what MCU Peter's going through.
  • Raimi-Verse Peter admits that he wanted the carjacker that he thought killed Ben to die, and phrases it as "I got what I wanted; it didn't make it better." Though he has moved past that dark period of his life, Peter still blames himself for failing to stop the man from falling to his death.
  • While working on the cures for the villains, Webb-Verse Peter has a held stare at MCU Peter and his MJ having a cute moment together, showing his longing for the love he lost.
  • A little later, Ned asks Raimi-Verse Peter about his best friend, to which Raimi-Verse Peter can only tell him that he died in his arms after he tried to kill him. He even says it was "heartbreaking."
    • The mere fact that all these years after Harry's death, Raimi-Verse Peter still considers him his best friend. And the fact that he says he did have a best friend shows he never got as close with anyone else, not even Mary Jane, as he was with Harry. This also proves to be one of the reasons why he stops MCU Peter from killing Norman; he knows all too well about how Norman's death leads to the straining of his friendship with Harry, with the latter becoming the second Green Goblin and later his death.
    • Meanwhile, Webb-Verse Peter is hearing all this with a pained expression in his face. He knows perfectly well what Raimi-Verse Peter is feeling about that, because his version of Harry Osborn also becomes the Green Goblin and tried to kill him.
• Webb-Verse Peter talking to Electro again, with Max lamenting he did everything he did because he was sick of being "a nobody".
• It's not given time for reflection considering the fight going on, but while Ock is trying to stop Goblin in the climax, Goblin manages to sever the claw of the mechanical arm his glider is grappling with. Keep in mind, the arms have an advanced AI system that allows them to think as a character in their own right as well as be maneuvered by Ock as extra appendages, so this isn't unlike a character losing their limb, if not being beheaded.
• Webb-Verse Spider-Man catching MJ after MCU Peter fails to is awesome, but the moment quickly turns emotional when he asks if she is okay when he's very clearly not okay himself, with his face quickly crumpling into tears as he realizes that he saved her. MJ, having overheard what he previously said, realizes what's going on and is clearly also affected. For this Spider-Man, who failed to save his own girlfriend in his own universe, it's a powerful, cathartic moment. It's wonderful acting from both Garfield and Zendaya.
• By the end, after everything that's happened, Peter is so worn down emotionally that he's fully prepared to impale the Green Goblin on his own glider. Raimi-Verse Spider-Man has to step in and grab the blades, staring his MCU self down and wordlessly communicating that there's no way he'll let him go down that road.
  • Before that, when Peter begins to beat up the Green Goblin with pure anger, MJ, Ned, and the other Spider-Men are equally horrified by what they see. Not only is this the first time they're seeing Peter so enraged, but they are also scared at seeing the once kind-hearted Peter being slowly driven to murder. One can imagine what Tony, Uncle Ben, and Aunt May would say if they were still alive and saw how murderous he has become.
  • This also sadly shows just how important Harry Osborn is to Peter's life. In the comics as well as the previous Spider-Man mediums, Harry was Peter's best friend and Norman's son. And as shown in the Raimi trilogy, Norman's death caused Harry to become the second Goblin and his friendship with Peter to fall apart. Without Harry around in the MCU to be his friend, MCU Peter just sees Norman as some man he needs to kill. Thus the reason why Raimi Peter stops MCU Peter from killing Norman with the glider.
  • Consider that just beforehand, Peter jumped after MJ to save her from falling, only to get shoved away by the Goblin mid-attempt. There's no indication that he saw Andrew's Spider-Man save her, so it's entirely possible that his last horrified thoughts in that moment were that she died while he could do nothing (just like Aunt May), all because of the Goblin. Peter had already been struggling with the urge to kill him, and his fellow Spider-men were helping him back from that edge, but this just drove him over the line... and even when he sees that MJ and Ned are okay shortly afterward, it doesn't change his anger one bit.
• When Norman is cured by MCU Peter and no longer has the Goblin persona in him, the first thing he realizes is Raimi-Verse Peter stabbed by his hands and possibly what he has done beforehand, like being responsible for the death of Aunt May, the woman who had shown him so much kindness when he was lost in this unfamiliar universe. All he can do is say, "What have I done?", and he will probably live with that guilt for the rest of his life. Norman spends the rest of his time in this universe until Strange sends him back quietly hanging his head in shame.
• In order to seal the rift that would bring forth more threats from other universes, Peter agrees to a spell that will make everyone forget that he ever existed, but this means MJ forgets about her relationship with Peter, and Ned forgets his best friend.
  • Before Strange casts the spell, he initially refuses, even though this is the pragmatic solution to instantly fix the problem completely that he would normally be all-in on. As he explains to Peter why he's refusing, it's because, "Everyone who knows and loves you, we'd... We'd have no memory of you." He counts himself among that number. He regards Peter as someone near and dear to him, and he doesn't want to go through with it, to effectively erase Peter from existence even if it means saving the world.
  • It isn't until he sees firsthand Peter's conviction to the decision that he respectfully goes through with it. As Strange begins casting the spell, he's breaking down in tears as he realizes that even he will forget Peter. His last request is to have Peter call him "Stephen," a reference to how he was previously so angry at what Peter unleashed that he demanded to be called "sir".
    • Imagine being Strange in this scenario; forced to resign an innocent, good-hearted teenager to a life where he's forgotten by everyone and has to figure out all by himself. He made it clear in Infinity War that he would do whatever it takes to keep the universe safe, no matter who he would sacrifice along the way. While he still has that conviction, it's made even harder for him if those people were the ones he grew close to and fond of.
    • Strange had to sacrifice Tony to save everyone against Thanos, and now he has to sacrifice Peter too, by Peter's own request. Remember when he told Tony he'd sacrifice both of them if it meant protecting the Time Stone? With or without the stone, he sadly fulfilled that promise.
      Strange: [Trying Not to Cry] So long, kid.
  • Ned becoming emotional isn't unexpected, as he's always been a guy who's worn his heart on his sleeve. But seeing MJ, who was always so snarky and reserved, breaking down crying learning she's going to lose the boy she loves? That hurts even more. She sounds almost frantic when she begs for another way to be found, and makes Peter promise to find her and reconnect with her again. MJ then tells Peter she loves him and asks him to say it back when they reconnect, before going for one hell of a final kiss. The poor girl already went through what was implied to be years of pining after Peter, got her wish when he finally reciprocated, but now, after only a few short months, she's losing him.
  • And before the spell is cast, Peter and Ned hug and do their signature handshake one last time, ending with a tearful embrace.
  • Earlier in the movie, after being introduced to the alternate Spider-Men, MJ somberly commented that she and Ned were all Peter had left. And now Peter is going to lose them, too.
• Peter goes to the pastry shop where MJ works, and briefly considers re-introducing himself to her and Ned... but then he notices a bandaged cut on MJ's face from the previous battle. Knowing that coming back into their lives would likely just endanger them all over again, he chooses to leave them alone. You can feel his heartbreak, knowing he could easily reconnect with them, but instead taking a harder path for their safety.
  • Worse, Ned and MJ didn’t care about the risks of being close to Peter - they chose to stand by him through thick and thin, and lay down their lives to help him. And they demanded Peter reconnect with them, unwilling to let go of him. They made their choice as his best friend and his girlfriend, respectively - and Peter took it away from them, due to thinking they’re better off without him.
    • What makes it even more worse is that the Raimi-Verse MJ called out her Peter for not letting her make the choice about standing by him or not. It's probably safe to say that, given the opportunity, she would've told MCU-Peter to not go through with it.
    • On the other hand, this leads to Fridge Tearjerker territory of what Raimi-Verse Peter might have done if he knew a Dr. Strange in his universe who could've performed the same spell.
  • It's not called attention to, but throughout the movie, MJ is wearing the Black Dahlia necklace Peter bought her in Italy in the previous film. She's still wearing it in her final scene, despite not remembering Peter or the necklace's significance.
  • The whole conversation in the pastry shop between Peter and MJ is a protracted tearjerker. At the last moment, Peter decides not to give the speech he had prepared, probably after seeing how happy she is and not wanting to traumatize her or ruin her life by forcing her to remember him. After they discuss MJ's acceptance to MIT (which was supposed to be for the two of them to enjoy together), MJ says she's not expecting disappointment because it "feels different this time" and for a second, it almost looks like she's on the verge of tears. Peter notices her bandage and asks if she's alright, to which she responds, "it doesn't really hurt anymore". Yes, on the surface she's just talking about the cut on her face, but JESUS.
  • When Ned enters the pastry shop, he greets MJ but walks right past Peter without saying a word or even looking at him, because to him, Peter is a complete stranger now, not the best friend that he's had for years.
  • MJ and Ned "meeting" and discussing their MIT acceptance is also a gut punch because the friendship that has grown between the two of them over one and a half films is now gone. Although, unlike MJ and Peter, at least there is a chance they'll rekindle their friendship at MIT. Still, they have no memory of all the experiences they have shared together.
• By the end of the movie, Peter has lost literally everyone he has ever cared for: his mentor Tony and Aunt May are dead, and Happy, his girlfriend MJ, and his best friend Ned no longer remember he exists. This not only pretty much places him up top on the list of most tragic Spider-Men among the three cinematic versions, but among the most tragic versions of the character period.
  • Most heartbreakingly, Peter chose to isolate himself from his friends, allies, and fellow superheroes in order to protect them, thinking he is too dangerous to be around. Having taken Strange harsh words after botching the first spell to heart, Peter fears that his desire to live two different lives is a risk not only to himself, but also to those he cares about.
  • On top of that, Peter's shown to be studying for his GED, having been forced to drop out of high school and get a job to support himself. Given how academically gifted the audience knows Peter is (with multiple scenes in the movie, such as him using his knowledge of math and geometry to understand the Mirror Dimension's structure, emphasizing him using his wits to defeat his enemies), it's a deeper gut-punch that even though Mysterio was technically defeated, he got the last laugh in the worst way possible.
    • Unless there's a major shift to the Spider-Man status quo, there's also the fact that despite MJ and Ned getting into MIT in this altered reality, Peter's New Yorker origins and constant super-heroing mean he'll probably never quite be able to go to Boston like them. So even if he could find a way to make them remember, he'd have to risk the potential that they would stay in the Big Apple to stick with him and forsake their own futures. And considering his cold feet on admitting his identity to MJ to protect her from harm, he probably realized this too — for now, he has to give up his potential friendship with them as well as his own future so they can keep theirs.
  • Peter keeps his Lego figure of Palpatine and the cup that MJ sold him on his desk, two keepsakes of the friends he had to give up.
• Peter stands at May's grave to leave flowers and say goodbye, and is joined briefly by Happy. The two stand quietly together for a moment, and Happy asks Peter how he knew her. Given how their relationship had developed over the past two movies, with Happy having gone from being annoyed with Peter to being a supportive friend, it's devastating for both Peter and the audience that all of that is gone. Happy speaks of May as a hero due to her work at the shelter... and how, because of that, her death is bringing back memories of losing Tony. It's a surprisingly devastating moment from someone whose presence had been relatively minor since then.
  • Given the fact that the people Peter was close to forgot him in both his identities, and Peter and May appeared to not have any other family in the city, it's entirely possible that Happy was the one to put together her funeral.
    • On that note, this is yet MORE tragedy piled onto Happy. He just lost Tony, and now he lost May too, as well as forgotten about Peter. The only people close to him he has left are Pepper, Morgan, and Rhodey.
  • In their conversation at the gravesite, Peter can't even bring himself to reintroduce himself as May's nephew to Happy.
    Happy: How did you know her?
    Peter: ...Through Spider-Man.
• Over the course of six movies, Peter became a hero that could stand toe-to-toe with the Avengers - the kind of hero he always desperately wanted to be - and just like Thanos' mad goal in Infinity War, it cost him everything.
  • This is also a big Be Careful What You Wish For for fans. One of the biggest complaints from fans was the over-reliance on Stark to the point where one of his derogatory names was "Iron Boy, Jr." Now, not only is MCU Peter cut off from Stark, he's cut off from literally everyone else. Even in the comics and other media, Peter usually had someone to bolster him up at his lowest, but not this one.
    • Also in the sense that fans often complained that MCU Peter had it relatively easy compared to other versions of Spider-Man, with his stories remaining mostly Lighter and Softer, and lacking a lot of the darkness, trauma, and working-class hardships the character often goes through. To say this film made up for that in spades is a massive understatement.
  • Peter's ending also retroactively adds to the tragedy of Tony's death during Endgame. Tony re-joined the Avengers and sacrificed his life to ensure Peter, May, and all the others Thanos killed could be brought back to life. He succeeded, but with the cost of a chain of events that destroyed Peter's professional and personal lives and his future.
    • This also adds even more tragedy to Strange having to cast the final spell to erase all memory of Peter Parker in the climax. While he technically didn't kill Tony in Endgame, Strange still orchestrated the chain of events to ensure the one future where the Avengers defeated Thanos came to pass. As was implied in Endgame (and confirmed in the extended, deleted version of Tony's death), Strange took no joy in violating his Hippocratic Oath again. He knows how much Peter meant to Tony—and now he's having to essentially "kill" Tony's protege and betray his memory to avert a multiversal catastrophe.
  • It's easy to miss at first, but when taking the setting into consideration as well, Peter is spending Christmas, one of the holidays in which friends and families are known for coming together the most, completely alone with no one to love or care for him. All he has to lean on is Spider-Man.
• Adding to all of the above, it's easy to forget that everything Peter goes through in this movie happened immediately after the entire Mysterio fiasco he went through in Far From Home. Peter went through two movies' worth of brutal Trauma Conga Line continuously. And all this is on top of him having recently died and returned to life as well as losing his father figure Tony Stark during the war with Thanos. Talk about "Parker Luck" being taken to the extreme.
• As the script put it, "Peter Parker is no more, but Spider-Man lives on." It's a statement that hammers in that sometimes, being a true hero and being human are two irreconcilable things, and thus you have to give up one over the other.
• The "More Fun Stuff" edition has a new post-credits scene with Betty Brant bidding goodbye to the students of Midtown High as they go off to graduation but, in a heart-wrenching turn, Peter has been edited out of every frame of footage, either via selective cropping, having something block his face, or just being completely erased from the photograph. It really sets in the weight of Peter's sacrifice.
  Betty Brant: And as we look out onto an exciting and uncertain future, just remember: the memories we've made here at Midtown High are the ones that we will cherish forever.

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