Why Doctor Strange's Fridge In Spider-Man: No Way Home Means More Than You Think
Contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Reader beware!
When the credits rolled on 2019's "Spider-Man: Far From Home," buzz around the Tom Holland-led Marvel Cinematic Universe series certainly picked up. Not only did Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) end up dead shortly after his franchise debut, but Spider-Man's (Holland) true identity went public thanks to The Daily Bugle's own J. Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons). That gave the next Spidey-centric film a lot to cover, and suffice to say, the recently released "Spider-Man: No Way Home" did a great job of doing so and then some.
With the world now aware that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, the wall-crawler, as well as his friends and family, are in a tough spot. They can't go outside lest they risk a verbal or physical attack, their homes have become ground-zero for protests, and it's virtually impossible for Peter, Ned (Jacob Batalon), and MJ (Zendaya) to get into college. In a last-ditch effort to set things right, Peter turns to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) with hopes of using magic to sweep this mess under the rug. They attempt to do so, but not without causing some serious damage to the multiverse.
As a result of Strange's botched spell, "No Way Home" is very much on the magical side of things. Therefore, we learn a lot about the former Sorcerer Supreme in this film, including the unexpectedly noteworthy contents of his refrigerator.
Strange's fridge points to his increasingly magical diet
While Spider-Man goes off to track down the likes of Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Electro (Jamie Fox), who have entered the MCU reality via Doctor Strange's messed up spell, Ned and MJ help him out from afar. They set up a station in the bowels of the Sanctum Sanctorum to track down these villainous multiverse anomalies while simultaneously looking over those Peter has already caught. As one could imagine, this kind of job can work up an appetite, so Ned decided to take a look at Strange's fridge — only for various items within it to look back at him.
On the surface, Strange's odd assortment of alien delicacies doesn't mean much outside of providing a comedic moment when Ned saw them. However, as Screen Rant points out, there's actually a deeper reason for their presence, as established on the pages of Marvel Comics. Due to Strange's many jaunts throughout time and space coupled with his interactions with mystical beings from across the multiverse, his physiology has changed. He can no longer support a traditional human diet, so he has to resort to eating magical creatures that clearly don't reside in our world.
With only one solo movie and a handful of minor MCU appearances under his belt, there's much yet to be told about Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange. Hopefully, we'll learn more about him — including the specifics of his cosmic meal prep — in 2022's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" and beyond.