{"id":612902,"date":"2026-05-31T00:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/612902\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T00:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:56:15","slug":"spider-noir-finale-nicolas-cage-takes-us-inside-that-explosive-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/612902\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Spider-Noir’ Finale: Nicolas Cage Takes Us Inside That Explosive Episode"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This story contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of \u201cSpider-Noir<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on Prime Video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSpider-Noir\u201d is unlike any superhero saga<\/a> we\u2019ve ever experienced before.<\/p>\n

\n\tA film noir\/superhero hybrid shot in stunning black and white (but also available in color), \u201cSpider-Noir\u201d follows Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage)<\/a>, a grizzled private eye in Depression-era New York City who\u2019s retired his crime-fighting alter ego The Spider following the death of his wife. Joined by journo-pal Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris), Ben is thrust back into action to solve a labyrinthine case involving fetching nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Lee), Irish crime lord Finn Byrne\/Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) and a squad of WWI veterans imbued with special powers. At the center of it all is Cage, one of the most unusual and unpredictable stars in Hollywood, chewing up the \u201cSpider-Noir\u201d scenery like bubble gum. As Cage recently told Variety<\/a>, he was \u201cdoing this thing of channeling old actors and colliding it with Stan Lee\u2019s masterpiece that is \u2018Spider-Man<\/a>\u2019 to create a Roy Lichtenstein pop-art sensation of sorts.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAll eight episodes of the Oren Uziel-produced series dropped May 27 on Prime Video (and earlier on MGM+). Its finale, \u201cThe Man in the Mask,\u201d is a cinema confection combining elements of \u201cStar Wars,\u201d \u201cSpider-Man,\u201d \u201cThe Lady from Shanghai\u201d and even \u201cCasablanca.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWe bear witness to a Mexican standoff in Finn\u2019s nightclub and a little misdirection that sees Robbie pose as The Spider, and then learn that it was Ben who sprung Flint\/Sandman (Jack Huston), Lonnie\/Tombstone (Abraham Popoola), and Dirk\/Megawatt (Andrew Lewis Caldwell) from the WWI prison camp where they were experimented on and given their powers. In a sequence that nods to Orson Welles\u2019 \u201cThe Lady from Shanghai,\u201d Cat enters a hall of mirrors \u2014 where she ultimately gets the best of Silvermane, shooting him dead.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Cage, \u201c\u2018The Lady from Shanghai\u2019 is very apparent. I also love \u2018Enter the Dragon\u2019 and the hall of mirrors sequence at the end, and that\u2019s all borrowing from Welles.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s also a thrilling set piece where Cage\u2019s Spider squares off against both Sandman and Megawatt and is nearly zapped to death (a la \u201cReturn of the Jedi\u201d) before hurling the baddie into an oncoming train. Cage, in his first TV acting foray, found it difficult at first to adjust to the medium\u2019s rhythms and movements, as well as working with a bunch of different directors on a single project.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s different about television, and I\u2019m a student and want to learn things, is that the director of photography sets up the shot with the stand-in, and you don\u2019t have the time to really rehearse it \u2014 they gotta get that shot \u2014 so as an actor, I\u2019ve got to find out a way to get to that shot that makes sense for my character,\u201d he explains. \u201cIn a movie, you bring the actors in and you\u2019re with the DP and you all talk it through, and it\u2019s not quite like that with television because of the time constraints. It was a bit of a learning curve. In the first episode, I was like, \u2018What is going on?\u2019 \u2018What is this?!\u2019 It\u2019s a little more factory, and you have to adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCage continues: \u201cThe other big difference, obviously, is that you get in step with a director and then two episodes later, you have a new director. So, you wonder, \u2018Are we going to gel?\u2019 \u2018This is my rhythm, and what\u2019s your rhythm?\u2019 What they\u2019ll do is they\u2019ll bring in the subsequent director, he or she will watch for a couple of weeks and talk it through, and you get to know them. And I was blessed, because each of the directors had something different to offer, and there was this nice creative coalition going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCat Hardy (Li Jun Li) in \u201cSpider-Noir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Prime Video<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the end, Ben does the selfless thing and walks away from the woman he\u2019s enamored with (Cat), giving Sandman the antidote to cure him of his superpowers so he and Cat can live a happy life together. It\u2019s a Bogie move that makes perfect sense to Cage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think Ben Reilly knows it\u2019s useless. Cat doesn\u2019t love him, it\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d he offers. \u201cAm I gonna be the guy who keeps pursuing someone that\u2019s not interested? No. Is it being selfless or is it just being real and letting her go? He wanted to forget about it and to put it away because he feels he failed the love of his life. Here he is, this person with powers, and he couldn\u2019t save his favorite person, Ruby, so what\u2019s the use? He has great remorse. But he has a higher calling, and he\u2019s owning it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSpider-Noir\u201d ends with Ben and his loyal secretary, Janet Ruiz (Karen Rodriguez), opening their own private eye firm together. So, will there be more mysterious cases for the duo (and Robbie) to solve in future seasons?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI do not know,\u201d says Cage. \u201cBut I would say that whether it happens or not, all of us achieved what we set out to do, and it works on its own. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This story contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of \u201cSpider-Noir,\u201d now streaming on Prime Video. \u201cSpider-Noir\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,38007,11523,22502,122246,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-612902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-nicolas-cage","tag-prime-video","tag-spider-man","tag-spider-noir","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}