‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Mid-Credits Scene Ties up That Weird ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ End Credits Scene

Back when Venom: Let There Be Carnage debuted in theaters on October 1, fans were treated to a game-changing — but also extremely confusing — end credits sequence that seemed to thrust Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom (also Hardy) into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). And now, thanks to Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s mid-credits sequence, we finally have an explanation of what was going on there, as well as a (mostly) tidy wrap-up that still leaves things open for the future.

Spoilers past this point, but in Let There Be Carnage, Eddie is relaxing on a bed in a dumpy hotel in Mexico, after finishing his epic/really weird battle with Carnage (Woody Harrelson). The Venom symbiote explains to Eddie that he’s connected to a hive mind, with a vast array of knowledge that includes the multiverse; and if he gave Eddie full access, it would melt his brain. So instead, he offers to give him a glimpse of that knowledge…

…Only instead, they got zapped into another universe. Same position, different hotel room, with the Venom symbiote insisting he didn’t do this. And on the TV is the footage of J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) revealing Spider-Man (Tom Holland) as Peter Parker to the entire world, from the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home. Eddie Venoms up, and the symbiote licks the TV screen, saying, “That guy.”

There’s a little bit more to the scene where Eddie finds out he’s in someone else’s hotel room, but beyond seemingly throwing Venom into the MCU, there’s that confusing bit about accessing the hive mind which implied that perhaps this was a vision Eddie was having, even if Venom said it wasn’t. Turns out, it wasn’t a vision at all… In fact, Eddie did bloop into the MCU, albeit briefly.

In the Spider-Man: No Way Home mid-credits scene, we cut in on Eddie, drunk at the hotel bar. He’s harassing a poor bartender to try to explain the MCU to him, because he comes from a universe where there are no superheroes. Confusing, right? The simple, real world explanation of that is while the Venom movies are produced by Sony, Spider-Man: No Way Home is produced by Marvel and Sony, so they’re two different universes. Spider-Man, the character, has been shared with Marvel and Disney since Captain America: Civil War, and potentially will continue past No Way Home. Meaning Holland’s Spidey will continue to be in the MCU. As for Venom? We’ll get to that in a second.

After asking about the big purple alien who likes stones (that would be Thanos, by the way), Eddie clarifies that aliens don’t like stones, “aliens love eating brains.”

The bartender, angrily, explains to Eddie that Thanos made his family disappear for five years, referring to the event in the MCU that’s been called “The Blip,” which seems to sober Eddie up slightly. And it also helps him set up a big showdown, when he says, “Maybe I should go to New York and speak to this… Spider-Man.”

It’s not meant to be, though. Just as the Venom symbiote is trying to convince Eddie to go skinny-dipping instead, a glowing light surrounds him and sends him back to his own universe. This very simply explains how Venom got there in the first place… Sort of. In No Way Home, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) casts a spell that accidentally sucks villains from the previous Spider-Man movies into the MCU. The condition is, they need to know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, which means we got an array of baddies from both the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield movies.

Faithful fans of the comics might have noted, though, that only five of them were in the bulk of the movie: Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Electro (Jamie Foxx), Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church). In the books, they’re five/sixths of a group called The Sinister Six. Turns out there was a sixth villain sucked through, and that was Venom… He just didn’t make it to New York in time to tangle with the wall-crawler.

As to how Venom knew who Peter Parker was, you can probably wiggle room that in by saying that the symbiote had knowledge of the multiverse, so had that info from his hive mind. And in particular, there’s the fact that Spider-Man 3 included Venom (Topher Grace), which gets dropped in casually during the movie proper by Tobey Maguire’s Peter. So if that symbiote was part of the multiversal hive mind, and knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man, then so does Tom Hardy’s version of the Venom symbiote.

Anyway, Eddie/Venom are gone from the MCU and back to, I don’t know, tangle with Morbius (Jared Leto) or whatever. But he does leave something behind: a little bit of the symbiote on the bar, which extends one tiny tentacle before the screen cuts to black. What does that mean? TBD, but short version is the Venom symbiote is now officially in the MCU, meaning that Sony can have their Venom movies, and the MCU can have a little Venom too, as a treat. Whether that symbiote will attach to Holland’s Spider-Man, or if Tom Hardy will pick up the role in the MCU, or if someone else will get their own goop suit remains to be seen.

At the very least, we now know what that nonsense at the end of Let There Be Carnage was about. Now if someone could explain the nonsense that happened in the preceding 90 minutes of Let There Be Carnage, that would be great.

Where to watch Venom: Let There Be Carnage