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Thor: Love And Thunder
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Chris Hemsworth Says He Became A "Parody" Of Himself In 'Thor: Love And Thunder': "I Didn't Stick The Landing"
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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Marvels’ on Disney+, an Uber-Goofy MCU Outing That's Not As Bad As You Have Probably Heard
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Taika Waititi Admits He Directed ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Because He Was “Poor” And Thought “This Would Be A Great Opportunity To Feed These Children”
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The Marvel Cinematic Universe Needs a 'Barbie' — and 'Fantastic Four' Can Deliver It
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a rich tapestry, and every new movie and episode weaves even more colorful… fabric into… the… rug? Okay, clueless metaphor aside, the point still stands: we’re 14 years into the MCU and it has grown into a weird and wonderful place. It’s populated with all sorts of characters, including delightful rock pals and vengeful butchers of gods. Good ol’ Korg and ghastly Gorr are but two characters in the new film Thor: Love and Thunder — but I’m not here to talk about them. There’s another character that director Taika Waititi dropped into Love and Thunder that will make a subset of very online Marvel fans cackle with delight. Who is that character?
SPOILERS ahead!
As established in Avengers: Endgame, the surviving Asgardians have made a home on Earth in a quaint Norwegian village that they’ve dubbed New Asgard. There the Asgardians and other cosmic refugees live in peace under the watchful eye of King Valkyrie. Thor: Love and Thunder spends a bit of time in New Asgard, clueing us in on the local way of life and revealing how the decidedly otherworldly town fits in on Earth. That includes a booming tourism industry! And who better to guide those tours than a guy who actually lived with Thor? That’s right: Thor’s roommate Darryl is in Thor: Love and Thunder! He pops up as a tour guide, and then later works with Valkyrie on trying to regain order after Gorr’s attack on New Asgard. It’s a real quick cameo, but it’s great seeing Darryl on the big screen.
Who’s Darryl? He’s the mild-mannered Australian (played by Daley Pearson) who posted an ad for a roommate and ended up with a Thor. He first appeared in a series of shorts directed by Taika Waititi back during the production of Thor: Ragnarok.
The first two, Team Thor Part 1 and Part 2, were a comical, mockumentary style look at what Thor was up to during the events of Captain America: Civil War. They detail Darryl and Thor’s uneventful yet chaotic time together as roommates. Turns out it’s very hard living with someone whose job is “saving the world” and who measures time in centuries rather than weeks.
After Ragnarok, a third short — Team Darryl — was released, this time pairing Darryl with an even more worrying roommate: the Grandmaster.
Mind you, these shorts were never really taken seriously as canon. Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok even contradicts the shorts by showing that Thor was very much not on Earth during Civil War, but was instead crusading across the cosmos and battling on Sakaar. Thor: Love and Thunder, however, marks Darryl’s proper MCU debut. He’s in a movie! It doesn’t get more canonical than that! Does that mean that Team Thor and Team Darryl are canon? Or does it mean that those shorts star variants of Darryl, Thor, Grandmaster, and Bruce Banner? Or is this when we all need to repeat to ourselves “it’s just a sprawling multimedia franchise, we should really just relax”?
Yeah, we should probably just relax.
Thor: Love and Thunder is now in theaters, and you can stream all of the Darryl shorts on Disney+ in the Thor collection.
