The intern with the taser
Darcy is a political science student who signs up to intern with astrophysicist Jane Foster in New Mexico mostly because nobody else applied. In Thor she is the audience's voice: unimpressed, blunt and perfectly happy to taser a confused god of thunder when he gets too loud. Her deadpan lines make the Earth scenes of the first Thor feel looser and funnier.
She is not a scientist at first and does not pretend to be. That makes her later career turn one of the MCU's quietly satisfying surprises.
Her appearances in order
- Thor (film, recommended)
- Thor: The Dark World (film, recommended)
- What If...? (series, optional, voice role)
- WandaVision (series, essential)
- Thor: Love and Thunder (film, optional, brief appearance)
WandaVision is the only title where she is essential to the story. The rest are about Thor and Jane, and Darcy is the comic sidekick who keeps them grounded.
How she grows
Thor: The Dark World moves the action to London, and Darcy now has an intern of her own, Ian, which she clearly enjoys. She helps Jane track a strange gravity event and ends up in the middle of the final battle, still cracking jokes.
Then comes the leap. In WandaVision, Darcy is Dr. Darcy Lewis, an astrophysicist called in to study the strange signal coming from the town of Westview. She watches the sitcom inside the anomaly like a binge-watcher and becomes one of the investigators trying to understand what is happening. It is the same Darcy, still sarcastic, but now she is the expert in the room.
What If...? gives her a voice role in an alternate world where Thor grew up without a brother. In Thor: Love and Thunder she has a short appearance tied to Jane's story.
The Asgard connection
Jane Foster is her boss and friend, and their easy rapport is the heart of Darcy's early scenes. Thor is the god she once electrocuted and later treats like a slightly annoying co-worker. Sif and Heimdall belong to the Asgardian side of the same films; Sif even comes to Earth in the first Thor during the fight in New Mexico, while Heimdall watches the realms from his post.
Kat Dennings as Darcy
Kat Dennings has a gift for dry delivery, and she uses it to make Darcy the person who says what everyone is thinking. She keeps the character likable even when Darcy is being rude, and in WandaVision she shows she can carry plot-heavy scenes too.
Outside the MCU, Dennings starred in the sitcom 2 Broke Girls and in the comedy series Dollface. Movie fans also remember her from the romantic comedy Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.
Which order to watch her titles
Start with Thor, then The Dark World. Skip ahead to WandaVision next, since it is the one essential title and shows how far she has come. What If...? and Love and Thunder are optional extras that you can watch whenever you reach them in the timeline. If you only have time for one, choose WandaVision: you will still understand Darcy, and it is her best role in the franchise.