**Spoilers for Spider-Man: Far From Home.**
Peter Parker and MJ being together isn’t a new thing. It’s an iconic comic duo, and one that we’ve all loved for years. Now, before you say, “But she isn’t Mary Jane Watson,” she’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s “MJ,” so that’s that. Anyway, in Spider-Man: Far From Home, we see the dawning of their high school crush on one another, and for the first time in live-action Spider-Man movie history, it actually felt like two high schoolers trying to admit their feelings.
Throughout the movie, Peter Parker kept trying to find ways to get MJ to like him back. From planning on buying her a black dahlia necklace in Italy to giving it to her in a place where people died, he knew that MJ liked murder and wanted to show that he pays attention to her, which brings me to probably the most relatable part of the entire movie: MJ loves to learn about murder, and how many of us aren’t the same way?
I don’t know about you and your interests, but documentaries about serial killers are pretty much my favorite things to learn about. It’s a wild world out there, and it is fascinating when you see what man is capable of—a fact that I think MJ also finds interesting, as she loves the black dahlia flower because of … well, the Black Dahlia murder. MJ is truly the most interesting character in the film. Deadpan and sarcastic, she hides her fear of letting people get close to her with her comebacks and uses books to escape the world. Somehow, Peter got in and got close, and it resulted in the cutest moments throughout the film.
Whenever Peter wanted to get close to her, he was afraid she wouldn’t like him, and then MJ would mess with him and have to admit to it so he wouldn’t panic that he screwed up. And it went on like this until, finally, they both managed to admit their feelings for one another and start to date.
Honestly, my favorite part of this movie is when Peter and MJ are at the opera. He tries to tell her that she’s pretty, and MJ, without missing a beat, throws back at him that her beauty shouldn’t make her worthy, and Peter, in his innocent way, takes her seriously and starts to panic. When she tells him that she thinks he looks pretty, too, it isn’t a bit about how he’s not “pretty” or anything through a macho lens. It’s just Peter saying thank you, and their little crush on each other just gets deeper.
It’s one of the first times in a Spider-Man film that I find myself rooting for MJ and Peter. In the original trilogy, I liked them, but I didn’t believe that they were high school kids falling in love. In The Amazing Spider-Man, I didn’t like the idea of adding MJ, because it meant that they were just killing off Gwen for her addition.
Now though, with MJ being this amazing character who would much rather read about fascinating true crime, I found myself loving every moment the two spent together, especially when she straight up told Peter that she would never swing through the city with him again.
It isn’t going to be easy for them, especially with what lies ahead for Peter Parker now that the world knows that he’s Spider-Man, but still, watching as MJ grew as a character and managed to represent all the things we love about the iconic Mary Jane Watson, with a new twist, made it a delight to watch as Peter and MJ started to let their relationship form.
(image: Marvel Entertainment)
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