WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 3 of After Life, now streaming on Netflix.
Following the bombastic events in Spider-Man: No Way Home, many fans have voiced their love for the wall-crawler repeatedly, whether it be Tom Holland’s version or the ones played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in the past. However, there has been one scathing bit of hate levied towards the web-head recently, and it came from Netflix’s After Life, with Ricky Gervais’ Tony making it clear he’s not a fan of any version of Peter Parker at all.
It occurred in the first episode of Season 3 when Tony and his photographer, Lenny, left a woman’s house after a story they were covering for their newspaper. Sadly, as they were on the zebra crossing, a driver dangerously cut them off and sped past, leading to another profane rant from Tony.
He wished he had a brick to chuck at the blue car, before going on a spiel about how he wouldn’t mind being a vigilante. He’d only go after bad people, though, talking about Batman and Dexter, whom he thinks did a civil service by ridding society of selfish fiends.
Of course, Lenny called it all “mental” as he felt these folks, much like Tony, had anger issues, with even Tony admitting maybe he was a jerk who just enjoyed punishing people for the hell of it. He then referenced Spider-Man, revealing how annoying it was for a tiny teen to get bitten by a radioactive spider and suit up in “tight kids pajamas” to fight crime.
He admitted he did enjoy how Pete was “sorting out bad people” after his uncle was killed but then he waded into Spider-Man’s “poncy little outfit.” Lenny was in disbelief as he found Tony’s duality a bit too extreme and dramatic, made even worse with Tony exclaiming that he would “batter” Spider-Man. It’s a really vulgar exchange from the foul-mouthed Tony but nonetheless, it’s pretty funny.
He never clarified fully, however, why he hated Spidey yet embraced the Dark Knight as they were both driven by grief. Tony’s the same kind of guy after losing his wife, Lisa, to cancer, and his father with dementia to old age in Season 2, so this was a channel for him to vent his anger as he compared himself to them. It also summed up their dynamic as Tony educated a bewildered and naïve Lenny on comics, as all Lenny was interested in was food and getting home to his girl.
He often listened to Tony’s rants and even let him bully him so it’d comfort Tony, yet this one was pretty incomprehensible. And ultimately, all the episode confirmed was Gervais really had it out for Spidey as he confessed he would like to stomp and squash him for some mysterious reason.
All three seasons of Ricky Gervais’ After Life are streaming on Netflix.
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