An Original Wonder Woman Movie Character Appears In The Sequel And You Barely Noticed

At long last, Wonder Woman 1984 has arrived both in theaters and streaming on HBO Max. Set several decades after the events of the first Wonder Woman film, but well before the rest of the DC heroes embark on their world-saving endeavors, the movie finds Diana (Gal Gadot) in an era where everyone she knew from her first adventure in the modern world has long since passed away. As a result, the movie is mostly full of new faces, but there was at least one cameo in Wonder Woman 1984 that you may have missed.

One of the most pivotal themes in the latest Wonder Woman movie is Diana's struggle to connect with others. Her loneliness is palpable in the film's early moments, especially as she sits alone in an outdoor cafe watching people go by with no real idea how to reach out to them. Back at her Washington, D.C. apartment, viewers see that she's devoted a large section of her private space to preserving memories of her old friends, and her collection of photos is a symbolic representation of just how long it has been since she's had anyone in her life.

Although most of the photos and news clippings shown feature Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) in some capacity, there's also a photo of Diana with her friend and Steve's former secretary, Etta Candy (Lucy Davis) on a ferry that appears to have been taken many years after the pair first met in World War I.

Although Diana doesn't offer any concrete updates on what happened to Etta after the war, the photo reveals the two women remained close friends presumably until Etta's death. The former secretary is elderly in the picture, while Wonder Woman is unchanged — a reality that drives home just how many people the Amazon has lost since she left Themyscira.

While it would have been a blast to see Davis officially return to the role of Etta in the sequel, it makes sense that we only get an update on her via a photo. In 1984, Diana doesn't really have friends, and even if she did, she couldn't share her World War I adventures with them without also explaining her mythical origins. In many ways, the photo of Etta in her old age is a tangible representation of Wonder Woman's last connection to her old life and Steve.

Whenever Etta passed away, Diana almost certainly lost the last person in the modern world who truly knew her. Since then, she's been moving through life without any real human connections, which sets up the rest of the movie beautifully.

Ultimately, Etta's sneaky cameo is both a fun Easter egg for fans to discover, and a poignant illustration of Diana's longing for the life she had when she first arrived in the world beyond the idyllic shores of her homeland.