Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Episode 5 SPOILER Recap/Review: Villains Rise Again

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Manreaches the halfway point of the season with the fifth episode. What is Otto Octavius’ grand plan? How will things change now that Harry knows Peter is Spider-Man? What does any of this have to do with Lonnie’s story? And will Nico Minoru be allowed to be relevant again. Join me in finding the answers to all of these questions in our full spoiler discussion (Final warning for those who haven’t seen it yet).

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What happens inYour Friendly Neighborhood Spider-ManEpisode 5?

The episode begins right where the previous episode left off, with Mila Masaryk meeting up withOtto Octaviusfor a business deal. A brilliant scientist with an ego problem, Otto has consistently dealt with financial struggles and being belittled by his peers; so he’s been selling high-tech enhancements to criminals on the black market. In this case, Mila buys a powerful helmet off him that enhances her overall strength and speed and shoots a powerful laser from the forehead.

Later, Peter meets with Harry andNorman Osbornin Norman’s office; with Norman believing that the best course of action after Harry learned Peter’s secret identity is for Harry to join Team Spider-Man. While Peter is hesitant, Harry is enthusiastic to become Spidey’s “dude in the desk” (a not-so-subtle riff on the “guy in the chair” bit from the MCU Spider-Man films) and Peter is forced to head to school before he can argue any further.

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At school, Lonnie is confronted by his football coach over his recent absences; with Lonnie pledging to do better and deliberately ignoring calls from Big Donovan. His renewed commitment to the team is celebrated by both Pearl and the football team; but at practice, he’s swiftly drawn back into gang life by one of Donovan’s enforcers. In the middle of all this, Peter has quickly become the talk of the school due to being dropped off that morning by Harry, who as it turns out is not simply Norman Osborn’s son, but a social media superstar.

After school, Peter and Nico walk home while discussing the ongoing superhuman civil war. Or rather, Nico discusses the ongoing superhuman civil war, specifically how neitherCaptainAmericanor Iron Man are fully in the right; while Peter is mostly spaced out, only tensing up when Nico mentions how weird it would be if one or both of them were running around with superpowers. Peter promises to catch a movie with Nico that night to make up for how often he’s bailed on her recently before swinging off for patrol duty as Spider-Man.

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Over his suit’s communicator, Peter and Harry start bonding over their shared love of Captain America (confirming that this universe’s Peter is a Cap devotee rather than an Iron Man one), while Harry shares his own struggles over not having many real friends due to his upbringing. Spidey stops a bike thief (jokingly asking if he should leave a note in a shout-out toSpider-Man:Homecoming) before a bigger problem sends the hero swinging away.

Said bigger problem is Mila Masaryk, whose used her new helmet to break her associates from the last episode (Dmitri, Roxana, and Mikhail) out of prison. Mila, now calling herself Unicorn, dukes it out with Spidey while Roxana and Dmitri escape in the ensuing chaos; though Mikhail chooses to stay behind out of loyalty. However, that loyalty is quickly betrayed when Mila shoots her laser at Mikhail; with Spidey jumping in to take the metaphorical bullet as police arrive to apprehend the two criminals.

Unicorn from Marvel Comics

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After the fight, Peter just barely arrives on time to catch the movie with Nico, inviting Harry along as well; a decision that Nico wants to be fine with but is clearly conflicted about. Meanwhile, Lonnie has been drawn into an all-out gang war between the 110th Street Gang and the Scorpions. The Scorpions’ leader, Mac Gargan, nearly takes out Big Donovan, but Lonnie tackles him just in time and the two gangs quickly disperse as police arrive. Back at headquarters, Donovan expresses his gratitude by giving Lonnie a new nickname to replace the “superstar” one that Lonnie despises: Tombstone.

Who are the main villains? (Mila/Unicorn, Mikhail/Rhino)

Before we wrap, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the comic book origins of our antagonists, starting with the villains of the main plot. As I mentioned last time, Mila Masaryk is meant to be a gender-swapped version of Milos Masaryk, the Unicorn. What I didn’t mention was that out of all the Otto-enhanced villains we’ve seen so far, her origin is the least altered. Milos Masaryk also gains his power from a high-tech, laser-shooting helmet; but his was developed by Soviet scientist Anton Vanko, also known as Crimson Dynamo, rather than Otto Octavius.

As for Rhino, the version seen here, Mikhail Systevich, is traditionally Rhino’s father. In the comics, Mikhail’s son, Alexei Systevich, is a Russian thug subjected to experiments that gave him superhuman strength due to an unremovable artificial skin. Whether anything like that will happen to Mikhail or Alexei in the show, or if they’ll go for robotic armor akin toThe Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s incarnation of the character, remains to be seen.

Rhino from Marvel Comics

Who are the secondary villains? (Mac Gargan & Carmilla Black/Scorpion, Lonnie/Tombstone, Vincent/Leap-Frog)

Now, let’s look at the villains from the B-plot as well as one obscure entry seen in the Otto Octavius opening (Doctor Octopus is pretty well known at this point and there’s also not much we know specifically about this version yet, so we’ll save a version of this on him for a later date). Firstly, we have two different incarnations of the Scorpion, Mac Gargan and Carmilla Black.

Here, Mac Gargan is the leader of the Scorpions gang, sporting a signature scorpion tattoo and a pair of curved daggers meant to resemble scorpion claws. In the comics, Mac Gargan was a private investigator turned deadly Spider-Man adversary thanks to J. Jonah Jameson; who funded the experiment that trapped Gargan in a powerful scorpion-themed armor complete with claws and a tail, in addition to enhanced speed and strength and a “Scorpion sense” similar to Peter Parker’s Spider-Sense.

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Meanwhile, Carmilla Black, Gargan’s second-in-command in the show, was given her powers in the comics via genetic experiments by her parents; with her abilities including enhanced speed, strength, and agility, as well as the power to release filtered toxins from her left arm. Though she has no relation to Mac Gargan, she did eventually give herself a tail similar to his using techno-organic nanites.

Let’s move on to Lonnie’s villain debut as Tombstone. If you didn’t see this twist coming, I don’t blame you; especially given that when Tombstone’s civilian identity comes up at all, it’s usually Alonzo Thompson Lincoln rather than Lonnie Lincoln as seen here. Traditionally depicted as a large albino man, Tombstone possesses superhuman strength and is one of many recurring “mob boss” characters in the Spider-Man mythos, with others including Silvio Mannfreddi, Hammerhead, and of course, Kingpin.

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Finally, let’s talk about Otto’s assistant Vincent, confirmed in the credits to be Vincent Patilio. While here depicted as a sycophantic disciple of Otto’s genius, in the comics Vincent was an inventor in his own right, though he was rather bad at it. Frustrated by his failures to create successful novelty toys, he developed a frog-themed supersuit capable of jumping great heights and distances in order to become a supervillain named Leap Frog…. and quickly failed at that too. And yes, as the image above implies, Leap Frog has previously appeared in the main MCU as Matt Murdock’s client inShe-Hulk: Attorney At Law.

IsYour Friendly Neighborhood Spider-ManEpisode 5 worth watching?

I feel like the pacing/story cohesion issues I’ve had with the last two episodes have largely dissipated here, especially now that it’s clear that Lonnie is becoming Tombstone. Which I’m sure will put him in conflict with Spider-Man soon enough. The action continues to be stellar, the bond between Peter and Harry is a lot of fun, the full debut of Otto Octavius sets up some intriguing possibilities, and surprisingly, the villains are afforded just as much character depth as the heroes.

The one thing that worries me is that Nico’s worries about Peter feel like they could be bubbling into romantic tension. Peter and Nico getting together wouldn’t ruin the show for me or anything like that, but male/female platonic friendships are incredibly hard to come by in media and I think their relationship works better that way. Plus, it would be nice to see Nico get a girlfriend considering she is bi. Beyond that though, this series continues to be great and I can’t wait to see what the second half brings to the table.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Manis now streaming on Disney+.