Heavy Spoilers Breaks Down Every Spider-Man: No Way Home TV Spot Clue About Doctor Octopus, Electro and the Multiverse

Doctor Octopus ends up locked in a cell below the Sanctorum in the second trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home, but nobody watching these clips actually knows how he gets there. After going through every trailer and TV spot released so far, I have a theory about that capture, plus a long list of smaller details worth flagging before the film arrives.

How Doctor Octopus Might Get Captured Beneath the Sanctorum

In the second trailer, Doc Ock wraps Peter up in his tentacles and holds him upside down against a pillar. If you slow the footage down you can see that Peter is running very low on nanotech, and there is not enough of it left to cover his whole body. That reminded me of the fight between Tony and Thanos in Infinity War, where Stark's suit supply kept depleting until he was left with almost no armor.

There is a point where Ock smashes a tentacle into Peter's chest, and Peter only survives because the suit shifts up just in time to protect him. Ock is beating him badly in this moment, and there does not seem to be any way out of it unless Doctor Octopus himself lets Peter go. My theory is that Ock ends the fight by giving up, and that once his AI is shut down he willingly goes with Peter.

I have two ideas for why that might happen. The first is that the nanotech itself takes over the tentacles and saves him. There is a shot of nano machines moving over the tentacles while Ock looks shocked by it. In Spider-Man 2 it was the AI in the tentacles that turned Otto Octavius bad in the first place, so if that AI can be shut down, it might be what calms Ock down and makes him realize this is all one big misunderstanding. His tech is from the early 2000s, while Peter's Iron Spider gear comes from a period when Wakandan technology had opened up to the world, so it makes sense to me that it could override the tentacle AI.

A Second Theory: Doc Ock Realizes He Is Not on His Own Earth

The other possibility is that Ock realizes, as we see hinted in the TV spots, that this is not his Spider-Man. He could discover he is on another Earth entirely, which might be what makes him call off the attack. In the cell scene he seems almost willing to work with Peter, and at one point in the trailer he gets blown out of an apartment block by an Electro blast. I actually think Doc Ock could end up becoming something like an ally in this film once the AI in his tentacles is dealt with, helping Peter against the other villains.

In the second TV spot, Ock talks directly to his tentacles and says "looks like we've got competition," which lines up with him talking to them constantly in Spider-Man 2 and suggests the AI is what is really driving him. That same line doubles as a reference to the Iron Spider suit bringing out all of its extra arms. There is a nice small detail here too: when Peter's nanotech moves up to cover his chest, his tie gets pulled up with it. Later, when we see Peter talking to Strange below the Sanctorum, the bottom of that same tie has been cut off, which suggests that scene happens immediately after the bridge fight, possibly with Strange stepping in to help. Doc Ock also produces a sharp blade at the end of one tentacle in this footage, similar to how he captured Aunt May in Spider-Man 2.

The Bridge Fight: Happy's Call, Sandman's Mud and Lizard's Four Fingers

The third TV spot shows the standoff on the bridge in more detail, with Ock and Peter fighting across it. It is cut together with a call from Happy asking Peter who the new villains are, edited to look like it happens alongside the bridge scene, but that call actually happens at night. My guess is that this is Happy leaving a voicemail, which is a flip on Homecoming, where it was Peter constantly leaving voicemails for Happy. There is also a nighttime explosion outside Happy's car in the trailer, so I think those two moments happen close together.

Happy also says one of the villains is "made of mud," which is clearly Sandman, even though he is not literally mud. I get the feeling Peter might use water on him at some point, making him look muddy the way he did during the subway fight in Spider-Man 3, and that could be what Happy's line is hinting at. Elsewhere in this spot, Lizard growls and J. Jonah Jameson asks if it is a dinosaur. Lizard's hand only has four digits instead of five, which traces back to The Amazing Spider-Man, where Captain Stacy blew off one of his fingers and it regenerated with fewer digits to match the reptile look. This scene happens outside the apartment block, which makes me think the villains swarm that location before the fight breaks out there.

A Theory That Aunt May Dies in the Apartment Block Explosion

The first trailer shows part of this same scene, with Sandman and Electro fighting in the air, a pumpkin bomb being thrown that Peter dives at, and Electro blasting Doc Ock into the sky. I actually think May dies during this scene, which would call back to Green Goblin bombing May's apartment in the first Spider-Man film. In the trailer you can catch Peter running through the lobby right where the explosion goes off, and Happy looking in afterward in a way that suggests someone has just died. The trailer also opens with Tom Holland standing in the rain looking completely devastated, which fits my guess that there is a big fight here that May gets caught in the middle of.

Doctor Strange's Cube and the Guilt Driving Peter to Save the Villains

The fourth TV spot has a shot of Sandman reaching out with his hand that looks very similar to the moment he first gained his powers in Spider-Man 3, with what could be the Sanctum Sanctorum visible behind him. Over the top of this clip, Strange says that all the villains die fighting Spider-Man in their own universes. From what I have heard about the film, Tobey Maguire's Peter ran into Sandman a couple of years later and put dirt in his eyes, and both he and Lizard survived the films they were in, but Strange's line here made me think those rumors might be true.

Strange tells Peter he is sorry, and then Peter grabs the magical cube. According to leaks on the film, that cube is what houses the villains before sending them back to their own realities, where they would die because of Spider-Man. The MCU's Peter feels a lot of guilt over that, and would rather they live than be sent home to die, which puts him in direct opposition to Strange, who would happily send them to their deaths to protect his own reality. Strange has always been something of a dark horse in the MCU, and there was even that line in Infinity War where he said he would sacrifice both Peter and Tony without hesitation.

The Mirror Dimension Footage and a Theory That Sony Is Hiding the Statue of Liberty Reveal

The TV spots include more footage from the train ride through the mirror universe, where rock formations and the city start merging together as the dimension folds in on itself. Honestly, this CGI looks a bit unfinished to me, and I really hope more work gets added to it, because right now it looks unpolished, a bit like the forged Spider-Man photos Eddie Brock created in Spider-Man 3.

There is a moment where Peter is gripping the cube and says "there has to be another way," and Strange replies that there isn't, shown from the side against the void of the mirror dimension. Later in the same spot, when Strange says he couldn't stop them, it looks like the exact same shot but flipped, with a different background added in. That makes me think the shot is being reused to mislead the audience about what is actually happening in that scene.

According to Daniel RPK, Tobey and Andrew come into the film around the hour and a half mark and get a lot of screen time, meaning audiences are being led to believe their arrival happens at the Statue of Liberty when it actually does not. I really hope that is true, since it would explain why those two shots are identical and why the Statue of Liberty shot at the end of the trailer looks so unfinished, like Benedict Cumberbatch shot against a green screen purely for the trailer.

Electro's New Arc Reactor Powers and MJ's Damaged Necklace

The fifth TV spot is very Electro focused, which I am glad about after Spider-Man forgot both his name and his birthday. We also get MJ telling Peter he needs to warn her and Ned before he tries to change the universe again, which to me confirms the spell did not actually work and instead just broke the multiverse open, even though Peter had asked for people who already knew his identity to keep remembering. I do not think Strange actually finished the spell, and I think the film ends with the villains being sent back before Strange casts it again to finally make everyone forget.

MJ is wearing the Black Dahlia necklace Peter gave her in Far From Home, but it is missing pieces, suggesting it gets damaged by the end of the film. This spot also gives a much better look at Electro, who now clearly has a Stark arc reactor powering him, visible as a triangle similar to the one Tony created in Iron Man 2, which could be giving him access to new kinds of energy. His electricity is gold here instead of the blue it was in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and the design change looks great, especially the way the electricity spreads over his face to resemble his mask from the comics. Sandman is shown wrapping his hand around Peter and forming a giant fist, which is straight out of the comics, and his sand looks noticeably darker than it did in Spider-Man 3, which might tie into the earlier leak about him aging and possibly starting to rot, which could also explain Happy's "made of mud" comment.

MJ and Peter's Rooftop Swing Debunks the Nick Fury Theory

A newer TV spot shows more of MJ and Peter swinging through the city together, with Peter asking if they should hide out at MJ's house. She says her dad will kill her, and when Peter says he thought her dad liked him, she replies not anymore, which is funny given he is now being accused of murder. It had long been theorized that Nick Fury was actually MJ's father, but this exchange pretty much debunks that, since Peter has already met Fury and would recognize him.

Doctor Octopus in His Sanctorum Cell and the Tentacle Light Clue

Another spot shows Doctor Octopus in his cell below the Sanctorum, with Strange asking if he recognizes this version of Peter Parker. Ock says no. I think this is part of the conversation where Strange explains the multiverse is real. Peter first heard about the multiverse from Mysterio in Far From Home, but that was written off as fake given everything else Mysterio faked, so this scene looks like Strange showing Peter that other versions of him exist across different realities.

This cell scene clearly happens right after the bridge fight, since Peter is wearing the same suit with the same severed tie from that confrontation. Throughout these shots, Doc Ock's tentacle heads are closed. In Spider-Man 2, the tentacles had a red light and open heads when they were in control, while during the bridge fight when Ock delivers the "competition" line, the tentacles have red lights showing. The fact that the heads are closed in the cell makes me think Ock has regained control over them by that point.

Betty Brant Joins the Daily Bugle's TikTok and New Posters Reveal the Villain Lineup

A Daily Bugle TikTok account has also gone up, promising updates from J. Jonah Jameson and his staff. Betty Brant is now working there too, and posted an introduction video that included the line, "I'm super excited to announce I am the newest intern for the Daily Bugle and I'm going to be running our official TikTok account... I can't believe my first real job is, this is a real job right, like I'm getting paid for this."

A new poster shows Peter and Strange with the city above their heads and what looks like the mirror dimension, and it was pointed out on Twitter that this image was pulled from a stock photo. A separate, better poster shows Peter, MJ, Doc Ock, Lizard, Electro and Sandman together, and includes a look at Green Goblin's updated design with his hoodie and goggles.

The New York Post's Hypnosis Headline and Green Goblin's Purple Glider

The final TV spot gives a better look at MJ reading a New York Post front page that shows an image of Peter appearing to puppet both her and Ned. The first trailer already touched on this, with MJ mentioning an article claiming Peter might have the power to hypnotize women, and the tagline on the page talks about hypnosis and seduction techniques.

My guess is that MJ, Happy, Ned and possibly Flash are the only people outside Peter's family who stuck by him after his identity was revealed, which is why the headline frames it as him hypnotizing his friends while everyone else turns against him. Mysterio clearly did a thorough job of ruining his reputation, which adds another reason Peter would go to Strange for help. It is also worth noting that it is the New York Post trashing his name here rather than the Daily Bugle, which handles that role in the comics, though the end of Far From Home already reframed the Bugle as more of an Infowars style show. This spot also gives a couple more frames of the Goblin's glider, which carries the purple coloring from the Raimi films. In the comics his costume is green and purple, but since Raimi's design did not carry that combination over, the purple got carried through on the glider instead.

How do you think Doctor Octopus actually ends up captured beneath the Sanctorum?