Ned is the hilarious 3rd wheel in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ tease

When it comes to Spider-Man: No Way Home, the chemistry between Zendaya’s MJ and Peter Parker’s Tom Holland is matched as much on-screen as it is off-screen, since the duo are each other’s Hollywood darlings in real life.

The spark between them has been a strong presence in all of the trailers for the upcoming film so far, including the pair sharing a brief but passionate kiss on screen.

Plot-wise, MJ is also a major motivator in terms of Peter’s decisions in the film, for better or for worse. Peter wanting to halt Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange spell to make the world forget he is Spider-Man occurs in part because the web-slinger still wants the intimacy of MJ knowing who he truly is.

As we’ve seen in past trailers, this last minute change of heart for Peter apparently has multiverse consequences, since the botched spell seems to tear a hole in spacetime that allows extra-dimensional Spidey villains to appear in his world, such as Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin.

Considering the sky-high stakes of the upcoming movie, it’s a bit refreshing to see a teaser that puts the humorous tone of the main characters’ dynamics front and center, since the chemistry between Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon’s Ned have arguably been central to all three films.

While the trio started off as “just friends” in the first film, a romance began to bloom between MJ and Peter in the second film. This started out with Peter seeing his admiration for MJ somewhat seemingly unrequited at first, largely due to the superhero-level distractions afoot in Far From Home. For much of that movie, Peter was the third wheel among Ned and his fling with a different classmate abroad. However, the tables have now turned on Ned, making him the third wheel in this latest teaser, shared by Twitter user @SpiderMan3news.

In the clip, just as MJ and Peter are about kiss on a rooftop, they get interrupted by Ned who exclaims, “Finally, some privacy! It is so crazy down there.”

We enjoyed the smaller moment from the film and it’s a good reminder that perhaps the character-driven stories of the trilogy’s previous installments will hopefully prevail amid a huge overflow of various villains for the webslinger to tackle.

Spider-Man: No Way Home swings into theaters Dec. 17.