Movies

Did You Spot This Blink-And-You'll-Miss-It 'Wonder Woman 1984' Easter Egg?

wonder woman 1984 easter egg
By Ben Pearson

Wonder Woman 1984 is now available on HBO Max, and the film has reportedly broken records for the streaming service since its release on Christmas Day. Whether you liked the movie or not, it certainly took some big swings, and I suspect we'll be debating about how many of those swings actually connected for some time – especially since we're all starved for big-budget blockbusters in this pandemic era. But as that debate rages on, let's take a second to look at one of the movie's small touches that you might have missed.

Did you spot the blink-and-you'll-miss-it Wonder Woman 1984 Easter egg that provides a small narrative link back to the first movie? Find out what it is below.

Wonder Woman 1984 jumps forward in time several decades beyond the original film's 1918 setting, which makes the return of Chris Pine's Steve Trevor one of the most fascinating decisions in the entire movie. I'll leave it up to you as to whether the execution of that "resurrection" was successful or not, but the sequel's time jump made it impossible to incorporate other human characters from the first film in the main action of this story.

But one of the supporting characters from the original film does make a small appearance in a photo in Diana Prince (Gal Gadot)'s apartment. There's a moment when the camera lingers on a photo of Diana with an older woman on a boat with a city in the background, and it turns out we've seen that woman before: it's Steve Trevor's former secretary and Diana's pal Etta Candy, with Lucy Davis reprising her role.

I think the makeup job here may have been a little too good, because I did not recognize this character in real time as I was watching the movie. Weirdly, I assumed it was a family member of Steve Trevor's. The other photos in Diana's apartment were all focusing on Steve in some way or another, and there's even a picture of her at a place called Trevor Farms that is never explained or paid off. In order to try to make sense of that, I think I unconsciously invented a backstory in which this woman was a relative of Steve.

But there's a bittersweetness to knowing it was Etta. It suggests backstory of the two characters hanging out for years, it also underlines the melancholy that Diana's character feels in this sequel. It's clear that her connection with Kristen Wiig's Barbara is the first friendship she's had in many years, likely because it's too painful to befriend someone only to watch them grow old and die while Diana herself essentially doesn't age. It would have been nice to make that connection during the movie itself – maybe the film could have made Etta's identity a bit clearer in that photo. But better late than never, I guess!

Wonder Woman 1984 is streaming on HBO Max and is playing in some theaters right now.

Recommended