At the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker had to make a heartbreaking decision. In order to save the multiverse, Peter has to be erased from everyone’s memory — including MJ’s. While he promises MJ that he will find her and remind her of who he is, when we get to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, MJ still doesn’t remember Peter. It’s a sad reality for the hero that informs much of the newest film, but there’s a detail at the end that has fans wondering if there’s hope for MJ and Peter — and it all comes down to one specific moment.
Warning: Spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day beyond this point.
In Brand New Day, MJ ends up finding out that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, but not because she remembers him. Instead, she discovers his identity when she finds the letter he’d written explaining things but had never sent. It’s a hopeful moment for Peter that is quickly dashed when MJ explains that she has no memory of him at all. However, at the end of the movie we see MJ sitting on the roof where she and Peter used to sit, smiling slightly and holding the necklace Peter gave her in Spider-Man: Far From Home. It’s a moment that is left up to interpretation and fans are certainly trying to figure out exactly what’s going on and if Jean Grey is responsible.
Does MJ Remember Peter — And Is It Because of Jean?
The biggest fan theory about that scene at the end of Brand New Day is that MJ has started to remember Peter and many think that it has something to do with Jean Grey. Most fans seem to think that MJ smiling on the roof with the necklace is proof that her memories have returned and that the recovery of her memories is because of Jean’s interference. While earlier in the film we see Jean jump into MJ’s body and make it clear that there are no memories of Peter there — something that MJ herself verifies when she tells Peter she doesn’t remember him at all — it’s after Jean has control of her (and a lot of other people in New York) near the end of the movie that we see MJ seemingly remembering. The assumption is that either Jean deliberately unlocked memories or that somehow her using her powers to hijack everyone somehow knocked something loose, for lack of a better term.
Given Jean’s powers, I’d have to say it’s not impossible that her involvement did lead to MJ starting to regain memories, even if unintentionally. But that in turn comes down to the details of Doctor Strange’s spell. In No Way Home, Strange tells Peter the spell would make it so that anyone who knows and loves you would have no memory of him and it would be as though he never existed to them. One could argue that means that there are no memories to restore, at least not directly. If MJ really has no memories at all to unlock, it is possible that when she was in Peter’s head, Jean saw his memories of MJ and potentially shared those with her, kicking off a chain reaction of memory.
Ned Seems to Remember, Too — And Maybe That’s the Real Key
Of course, MJ potentially remembering isn’t the only revelatory moment at the end of the film. When Peter approaches him in the bodega to introduce himself and carries out their complicated handshake, Ned lights up with recognition. This suggests that there may well have been latent memories that were simply blocked by the spell rather than erased but it could be much more than that. One of the things that has stuck with me from No Way Home was that in that film we discover that Ned has some magic ability. If you recall, Ned is shown to be almost a natural at using the Sling Ring. With Ned having some magical ability of his own, it is entirely possible that he may have been able to inadvertently reverse the memory spell in a limited form and, as he and MJ are the closest two people to Peter, his latent magic may have worked to unlock MJ’s memories as well.
I think what is interesting to note is that we don’t actually to know to what extent either MJ or Ned have potentially regained their memories. Maybe they’re remembering pieces of things or simply impressions rather than fully remembering Peter. It is also possible that, while we saw the spell cast to erase Peter in No Way Home, there were multiverse-related shenanigans in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which came out after No Way Home. It is possible that the events of that movie may have also impacted the spell in ways we haven’t yet explored opening the door for memories of Peter Parker to return to those who would have fought to hold onto them — like Ned and MJ.
No matter what is actually going on at the end of Brand New Day be it remembering or not, it makes for a very hopeful note for the film to end on. It gives everyone in the Spidey corner of the MCU a fresh start, making the movie genuinely a “brand new day”.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now.