The following post contains major SPOILERS for Avengers: Endgame and some minor ones for Spider-Man: Far From Home.

When Thanos snapped his fingers at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, half of the Marvel Cinematic Universe vanished in an instant. Spider-Man: Far From Home confirms that while the Avengers’ reversed that act in Avengers: Endgame, its effects won’t disappear nearly as quickly.

Endgame did address some of what would happen if half the world vanished and then that same half came back exactly as it was five years later to a world that had radically changed in the interim. Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man returned to find his elementary-school-aged daughter had become a teenager. Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye spent five years mourning his family and lashing out at the world’s worst criminals. But Endgame was largely concerned with the mechanics of the Avengers’ mission to restore Thanos’ victims to life, and it didn’t get to fully explore the impact of their decisions.

That’s what happens in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Rather than ignore the aftershocks of a world where half the population has missed out on the last five years of existence, it leans into them. A high-school news report reveals what the citizens of the MCU call Thanos’ snap and the return of everyone five years later: The Blip. And the Blip, rightfully so, has thrown society into a little bit of chaos. Everyone who survived Infinity War is five years older than everyone who didn’t. That leads to strange situations like the one involving Remy Hii’s Brad: He was a shrimpy little kid one minute and, from the perspective of folks like Peter Parker and MJ who missed the last five years, he’s suddenly a major hunk the next. Brad becomes Peter’s main romantic competition for MJ in Far From Home.

20. “I Want to Be Your Boyfriend”
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There are still a lot more unanswered questions out there about how the Blip reshaped (and continues to affect) the MCU. When I interviewed Jon Watts about Far From Home, we even speculated on what it could mean for future films. “It does make you wonder,” he said “what happened to all the prisoners that Blipped? I’m just making this up right now. Think about that: Half of everyone disappeared. So what happened to them? A prisoner being transported from one prison to another could suddenly disappear and then reappear five years later.”

Whether or not the Blip continues to impact the MCU into the future is a question mark that won’t be answered for months or years. But Spider-Man: Far From Home suggests that the bold decision to give the Avengers’ solution to Thanos’ action long-ranging consequences will be a lot more than a blip in the lives of Marvel’s heroes.

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