It’s the second week of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and this time we get three episodes. So let’s see if the secret to making this show better and more enjoyable for me is more episodes. I think you may once more be kind of surprised by what I have to say.

The new set is Episode 3, “Secret Identity Crisis,” Episode 4, “Hitting the Big Time,” and Episode 5, “The Unicorn Unleashed.” There’s a through line running under all three: you’re beginning to find out where the superpowered villains are coming from. Or at the very least the people souped up on technology, the tech criminals. They’re all very raw.

So there’s more going on here than an intro origin story for Spider-Man. This is the MCU-adjacent version, an alternate universe that isn’t Tom Holland’s but still has the history of Tom Holland in it. The Avengers exist. They’re out there. The Sokovia Accords exist. And apparently in this universe Tony Stark did not recruit Peter.

Norman Osborn and the Other Shoe

“Secret Identity Crisis” brings Peter full circle to dinner with Norman Osborn, who rents out the entire restaurant. It’s the most cliche “rich guy wants to talk to you in private” setup you could possibly have. You can call it a cliche, and it is one, but it’s a trope and I’m not losing much sleep over it.

Norman makes a very compelling argument to Peter: what kind of hero are you going to be? And apparently he just wants to help. He shows Peter footage of Spider-Man saving his son from the bullies, and then rescuing him from almost being hit by a bus. He just wants to say thank you.

“That boy you saved is my son, Harry. From that day I vowed I would find Spider-Man and repay him for saving Harry’s life.”

Which to me sounds okay. Right on.

Peter at first is like, look, it’s okay. His immediate instinct is to take care of his aunt and the people around him. He’s not for himself, and Norman has to deal with how selfless Peter is in that regard.

I’m not seeing the other shoe. I feel like I’m waiting for it, or at the very least looking for it a little more consciously than I should. Either way, I’m still here for it, and I have a feeling this story isn’t going to play out the way we think it does.

At one point Spider-Man is in trouble with two criminals who’ve gotten their gear from an unknown person. Norman sees he’s struggling and hacks into his earpiece to talk him through it. Peter realizes he needs the help, so he agrees to take it. Meanwhile the groundwork is laid: somebody is supplying the criminals of New York with high-end tech, and why they’re doing it is going to be revealed very soon.

A Closet Full of Future Villains

“Hitting the Big Time” is about the costume. Norman has all these outfits, and it’s funny, because they’re basically the looks of people who will eventually be Spider-Man villains. If you know the lore and the comics, it’s all Easter eggs. Not that I think they’re going to stick to the comics. It could very well be that these costumes are just being dropped in as Easter eggs and nothing more. But one of them looks like a hornet, and that’s a character who later on faces him, a precursor to the Beetle.

He tries each one, he goes out, and he fails. At one point he’s wearing this dark flying spider outfit and it scares a little girl.

By the very end Peter gets a brand new costume that is exactly what he needs. It’s what we call the Future Foundation costume, the white and blue Spider-Man costume, though he doesn’t necessarily love it. He says as much later to Harry, who, by the way, discovers at the end of the episode that Peter is Spider-Man.

Doc Ock Looks Like Doc Ock

“The Unicorn Unleashed.” What a fun villain. This is the episode where we find out firsthand who the problem is. One of the Russian crew got away last time, and she’s the one who has to go get more tech from Otto Octavius.

Doc Ock exists, and Doc Ock looks exactly like Doc Ock should look. I feel like amidst all the gender bending and race bending, they got to Doc Ock and said, with this guy, you know what, just leave him alone.

One of the Russian guys is clearly the Rhino, and what gives him away is the face. This is one of the times they did it drop-dead perfect. Eventually the Rhino will be a guy encased in a suit where all you see is his face, and this is that face. The one Steve Ditko drew. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind.

Norman also tells Peter that he isn’t going to be available all the time. He has a company to run, he has an investors’ meeting to get to. So he brings in Harry to help. You find out Harry is a homeschooled social media personality, and they really do paint a solid picture of him.

The story comes together much better in this second week. Has the animation style gotten any better? Not really. Is it growing on me? Yeah.

Lonnie Earns a Name

The one thing I’ve skipped is an entire storyline about Lonnie, the football player Peter’s been helping since the very beginning.

Lonnie gets sucked into some drama. His brother gets brought home by the police after messing with a local gang, so Lonnie goes to the gang to get him out of it. The guy tells him tough, figure it out. So Lonnie says fine, I’ll take his place, you leave him alone, I’ll join. And the dude’s like, all right, whatever, let’s go.

Then he sends Lonnie on a loyalty mission to a Mexican place controlled by a new group coming in, the Scorpions, led by none other than Mac Gargan, the Scorpion.

I’m kind of impressed by the way they’re weaving these characters and their secret origins together. I feel like they’re doing a slightly better job telling us the sympathetic stories of these villain characters than Sony ever did.

Lonnie’s trying to go to school, but he’s missing school and he’s missing football practice. Finally the gang leader says he needs all hands, the Scorpions are on our territory, what are you going to do? So Lonnie goes back and he’s part of a big gang fight, and all of it crosses paths with Spider-Man’s story.

I’m bringing it up by itself because of how it ends. Lonnie takes a knife from Scorpion for the leader of the gang, just as the police arrive. Scorpion doesn’t have time to finish it and he leaves, and clearly now they know Lonnie’s face. The gang leader says, Superstar, you saved my life. Lonnie has earned his place, and the first thing he asks is, can you stop calling me Superstar? So the leader thinks about the way this kid tackled Gargan and says, we’re going to call you Tombstone.

Okay. Clearly I get it. I see where they’re going with this.

The Verdict

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Episodes 3, 4 and 5 land at a 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.

These were solid episodes on their own merit. I’m excited for what they’re showing us. I think it’s interesting, and it’s got enough of a pull that you can sit here and say, okay, I’m pulled in more. I really do look forward to seeing where all of this goes, and to reviewing the rest of these.

They’ve pulled me in. Let’s see if they can hold on to it.

Are you a big enough fan of the Spider-Man lore to catch everything that’s going on here, and are they representing it well enough for you? Tell me in the comments on the video above. I’d love to talk more about it.