We all knew that Doctor Strange 2 was going to be a cameo-fest, but Thor: Love and Thunder’s massive number of cameos came as a surprise. We got Darcy and Erik Selvig! Dionysus! Loki, Frigga, and Odin in flashbacks from the previous Thor movies! Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth, and Melissa McCarthy as the Asgardian thespians! Even Heimdall came back to welcome Jane to Valhalla.
But the weirdest cameo by far was probably the New Asgard tour guide, Darryl.
When Jane goes to New Asgard to see if Mjolnir can help her fight the cancer that’s killing her, she joins a tour group that’s looking at the Mjolnir fragments that are still lying where they fell in Thor: Ragnarok. And explaining those fragments is a tour guide who’s … Australian? Wait, isn’t New Asgard in Norway? What is a random Australian guy doing in Norway?
To answer that question, you have to go down the rabbit hole of the Marvel One-Shots.
Team Thor
The Marvel One-Shots are a series of non-canon short films that floated around YouTube for years before finally landing on Disney+ a few months ago. Two films, “Team Thor” parts 1 and 2, take place between Avengers: Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok. In “Team Thor,” Thor has decided to take a break from the superhero life and get an apartment in Australia. His roommate? Mild-mannered Darryl, a schlubby office worker who doesn’t seem to enjoy the God of Thunder’s company. Thor leaves Mjolnir in inconvenient places, bothers Darryl at work, and refuses to pay his rent in Australian dollars, instead giving Darryl a bunch of Asgardian coins and goblets that can’t actually be exchanged for money. All in all, Thor is the roommate from hell, but Darryl is too polite to say anything about it.
But that’s not even the weirdest those one-shots get. In the third film, “Team Darryl,” Darryl gets a new roommate: Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster, who has inexplicably left Sakaar to live in Darryl’s apartment and be annoying. (Annoying to Darryl, that is. To us, he’s an amazing magical delight.)
What is Darryl doing in New Asgard?
The shorts aren’t canon, which means that Darryl’s presence in New Asgard is an inside joke about events that never actually happened, so it’s just a fun Easter egg for fans. Still, maybe hardcore Darryl boosters can imagine that he moved to New Asgard to be a little closer to his beloved old roommate.
Whatever’s going on, Daley Pearson, the actor who plays Darryl, is happy about Darryl’s glowup:
Nice going, Darryl! I hope your new gig makes up for that ill-fated Connect Four game.
(featured image: Marvel)
