Marvel StudiosIf Spider-Man: Brand New Day understands anything about its titular hero, it’s that a Spidey-centric adventure doesn’t work unless the man behind the mask is miserable. After three solo films and 10 years of other team-ups, director Destin Daniel Cretton delivers exactly what fans have been waiting for from Tom Holland’s webslinger. His Peter Parker is appropriately depressed, and for good reason: he’s living in a world that now has no memory of his existence, and he’s made no effort to reestablish the connections that were severed by a spell. When we catch up with Peter again, four years after No Way Home, he’s become more “spider” than “man” in more ways than one. Not only has he retreated into solitude, all but building a nest for his superhero activities, but he’s also in the throes of a second metamorphosis. The arachnid hormones that first altered his body when he was bitten by a radioactive spider are flaring once more, overloading his senses, supercharging his powers, and making him one cranky crimefighter. The stress of this transition is also the least of Peter’s worries: there’s also the matter of a telepathic villain (Sadie Sink) possessing the bodies and minds of unassuming New Yorkers. The true identity of this antagonist is one of Brand New Day’s most fiercely protected plot points, but it’s less a twist than it is an integral part of Peter’s development — and, ironically, his very status as Spider-Man.Spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Brand New Day!Brand New Day’s ending, explainedPeter’s loneliness has massive consequences in Brand New Day. | Marvel StudiosSeriously, the plot of Brand New Day can’t be explored without revealing the identity of Sadie Sink’s villain, so here’s your very last chance to turn back before we dive into spoilers.Peter spends the better half of Brand New Day trying to protect the Department of Damage Control from attacks by Sink’s telepath, but it’s not until she begins to target him directly — putting his former flame, MJ (Zendaya), in abject peril — that our hero uncovers her identity. Peter’s AI assistant E.V. (voiced by Naomi Watts) determines that this mysterious girl is, in fact, Jean Grey. She’s a long way from her comic book origins as a founding member of the X-Men: here, she’s searching for her missing sister, Sarah, another powerful telepath who the DODC captured for experimentation. Damage Control boss Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) is trying to replicate the effects of their telepathy, weaponizing their powers of possession for practical use.Our hero may be older, but he’s not much wiser: Peter once again sides with the obvious villain of the piece, and that naïveté leads to Jean’s capture as well. She’s a lot stronger than Sarah, who perished during Metzger’s brutal testing process, and that’s good for her, but it’s not so great for the city of New York. She unleashes a psychic blast that traps half the city in stasis. Peter’s Spidey Sense effectively saves him from a similar fate — and when he stops suppressing his arachnid powers and learns to embrace the “good” and the “bad,” he’s finally able to confront Jean head-on.Sink’s mysterious telepath is just one incarnation of Peter’s internal struggles. | Marvel StudiosJean is mostly here to personify the issue that Peter spends most of Brand New Day running from: his loneliness. The absence of the X-Men in this universe means that Jean is also totally alone in the world. That’s manifested in a nihilism that makes her extremely dangerous; she honestly sounds a little bit more like an anti-human villain like Magneto than the Jean Grey most know and love. She tells Peter that, because of their powers, they will always be hunted, and she’s not entirely wrong. The DODC wields weapons created specifically to counter Peter’s synthetic webs. They’ve been preparing contingencies if Spider-Man ever steps out of line — and his Dark Spider form effectively gives them a reason to put him down. Per Jean, Peter will eventually have to choose which identity he wants to protect: his humanity and the connections that come with it, or his super-powered alter ego. Fortunately, our hero finally knows better. Peter allows Jean to get into his head, if only to share a memory between his younger self and his dearly departed Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). Her message tells Peter that it’s his responsibility to reconcile both identities. His power is nothing without the empathy he feels for humanity. It means he’ll never truly be alone, even if he loses the people he loves, and the same goes for Jean.Peter’s literal “brand new day”A stray bullet from the Punisher nearly takes Peter out, but Jean Grey saves the day. | Marvel StudiosPeter and Jean share a surprisingly sweet moment within his subconscious, but it doesn’t last. Frank Castle, aka the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), launches an attack against Jean in order to save the city. Peter detects it with his restored Spider Sense, but he barely has time to push Jean out of the way of Frank’s sniper shot. He takes the bullet instead, and without Jean’s powers, he would have breathed his last.Now that Jean is able to get into Peter’s head, she’s also able to possess his body, effectively keeping him alive while Frank rushes him to the hospital and doctors work to save his life. Jean “stays” until Peter wakes up on his own — after which she immediately heads out of the city. Metzger is also MIA when Peter comes to, but there’s a sense that our troubles with Damage Control are far from over.Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene, explainedSpider-Man is once again leaving his friendly neighborhood. | Marvel StudiosThere is one credits scene in Brand New Day, but one has to stay till the very, very end of the film to get a sense of when (and where) Spider-Man will return next. The film’s post-credits scene features a Spider-Man tracking app, developed by Peter’s high school bestie, Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon), to record sightings of the hero. Spider-Man is “not found” in New York, prompting the app to search the city, the country, and eventually the whole planet for his whereabouts. Ned’s app eventually picks up Spidey’s “signal,” but it’s somewhere in the far reaches of space. That either confirms that Peter’s next adventure will take him to new realms — like another timeline, as we might see in Avengers: Doomsday — or teases the arrival of a Spidey variant, coming into Earth-616 via incursion. Either way, Brand New Day probably won’t be the last word on Spider-Man this year. At the very least, he’s returning in one of the two Avengers movies on the horizon, which is great for fans who were wondering about his status in the team-up films.Spider-Man: Brand New Day is playing in theaters.