Thor: Love and Thunder has finally hit theaters, and what a ride it is! After a being named Gorr has to watch his daughter die while the gods do nothing to help, he decides he’s going to take his revenge by killing every god in the universe. He plans to do so by using the Bifrost to open a gateway to Eternity, a mystical point at the center of the universe that can grant any wish. To get the Bifrost, he lures Thor into a trap by kidnapping Asgardian children. When Thor tries to stop him, he discovers that Dr. Jane Foster has used Mjolnir to become the Mighty Thor, and together with Valkyrie, Korg, and two screaming goats, they try to stop Gorr.
There are so many threads in this movie that the ending might need a little untangling. Here’s what you need to know!
Obviously this post contains major spoilers. You’ve been warned!
Gorr’s Redemption
Gorr’s villainy comes from grief: grief at losing his daughter and the rest of his people, and grief at the collapse of his entire worldview when he finds out that the god he revered is actually a pompous, self-absorbed jerk. At the climax of the movie, Gorr finally comes to the end of his quest: he reaches Eternity, and he prepares to use his one wish to annihilate every god in the universe.
But is that really what Gorr wants? We find out that no, it’s not. Like so many other great villains, Gorr just wants the pain to go away. When Thor realizes that he’s lost the fight and he’s probably about to die, he tells Gorr that he’s choosing love instead of hate (more on that in a sec) by spending his last moments with Jane instead of fighting. Thor points out that, if Gorr can have any wish granted, he can bring his daughter back. Gorr realizes that that’s what he truly wants, and it’s done: his daughter reappears, healthy and hale. Gorr, dying, asks Thor to take care of her, and Thor agrees.
In the end, the battle against Gorr is won through compassion, not violence, and everyone is better off for it.
Choosing to Feel Shitty
At the beginning of the movie, Peter Quill tells Thor that it’s worth feeling shitty about losing love if that love was real. He tells Thor not to hold people at arms’ length.
If anyone in the MCU is justified in protecting their heart, it’s Thor. Thor has lost his entire family and almost all his friends one by one: his father, his mother, his brother, Heimdall, the Warriors 3, and half of Asgard. After reconnecting with Jane, though, Thor realizes that Peter was right. It’s worth it to be close to people, even if you lose them. Maybe Thor realizes his quest to find out who he was was actually just an excuse to close himself off from other people. Or maybe that quest just brought him full circle, back to his people with an adopted child to raise and love. At the end of the movie, we see Thor in the next chapter of his life, making his kid breakfast and teaching her how to fight alien hordes.
Jane Foster, Goddess
Jane’s story parallels her journey in the original Mighty Thor comics: whenever she transforms into Mighty Thor, she loses the ability to fight off the cancer that’s killing her. When she comes close to death after the fight with Gorr in the Shadow Realm, Thor tells her to leave Mjolnir alone so she can focus on recovering. Jane knows there’s no hope of recovery, though, and she doesn’t want to spend her remaining time suffering through chemo in a hospital bed. Against Thor’s wishes, she transforms one last time to help him try to defeat Gorr. As she lies dying in his arms, she tells him she has no regrets about spending her last days as Mighty Thor. “It was magical,” she says, smiling. Jane dies happy.
Then something amazing happens: even though Jane is human, her body turns into sparkling golden light like the bodies of the gods. Jane Foster has become a full-fledged goddess.
Which brings us to…
The Mid- and End-Credit Scenes
In the mid-credit scene, we see that Zeus, whom Thor impaled with his own lightning bolt in Omnipotent City, didn’t die after all. In fact, Zeus wants revenge on that little punk ass God of Thunder. After Zeus is finished seething and plotting, he turns to someone off camera and says, “Do you understand?”
The next moment made audiences in theaters literally scream out loud. Zeus’s son Hercules stands up, ready to go kick Thor’s ass, and it’s none other than Brett Goldstein, AKA Roy Kent from Ted Lasso. Can Roy Kent really defeat Thor? Shit, maybe he can. I honestly don’t know who to put my money on. In any case, it looks like Hercules has made his MCU debut, and he’s out for blood.
The end-credit scene is more touching. We see Jane materialize on a bridge of some sort, wearing a nice dress. After she gets her bearings, Heimdall (yay!) approaches her. He thanks her for saving his son Axl (yes, Heimdall had a wife and kid this whole time, apparently) and then, gesturing to a large hall in the distance, he says, “Welcome to Valhalla.” Jane died in battle as an Asgardian warrior, so she gets to drink and feast with the gods into eternity.
A Happy Ending for Everyone Else
At the end of the movie, we see what happens to all the other characters. Valkyrie continues to rule New Asgard, training the kiddos to be warriors. Korg grows his body back and finds love in another Kronin, Dwayne, and the two decide to make a baby together by singing over a pit of lava. Sif recovers from her injury, proving that she’s still a formidable warrior even with only one arm. New Asgard is thriving, and Thor’s friends are living their best lives.
Will Thor Return?
There was a lot of speculation that this would be Chris Hemsworth’s last appearance as Thor: that maybe he would pass the torch to Natalie Portman’s Mighty Thor, or even that Thor would die at the end of the movie. (I mean, a Thor died, so that’s technically true.) However, fans cheered in the theaters when, after the end-credit scene, a title card appeared saying “Thor will return.” We don’t know what exactly Marvel has in store for Thor yet—Thor 5? Secret Wars?—but we now officially know we haven’t seen the last of him. Thank the gods for that!
(image: Marvel)
