For the 33rd movie in the MCU, "The Marvels" is a surprisingly light and wacky cosmic adventure.
But the ending still has massive ramifications for the future of Marvel on the big screen.
At the start of "The Marvels," our three leads are in very different places — both emotionally and physically.
Kamala is riding high off of her heroic ascent at the end of "Ms. Marvel," drawing fresh
fan art of herself and Captain Marvel in her Jersey City bedroom.
Monica is investigating a strange energy phenomenon aboard the S.A.B.E.R.
space station orbiting Earth, and Carol is, as usual, alone — riding through the empty
blackness of the cosmos with no one but Goose at her side.
After the Kree warrior Dar-Benn locates a powerful bangle just like Kamala's, she begins
tearing holes in space-time to restore the Kree homeworld of Hala to glory.
This causes the three heroes' abilities to become entangled, meaning that whenever two
of them power up at the same time, they swap places.
"What is happening to me?"
The ensuing chaos brings Kamala face-to-face with her idol and Monica face-to-face with
the aunt who abandoned her.
Together, they try to stop Dar-Benn from stealing various planets' resources, with mixed results.
They do manage to confront some of their own demons, however, preparing them for a showdown
with Dar-Benn on Earth.
As her crowning move, she aims to steal Kamala's bangle and use the amplified power to take our sun.
But she has to get through the Marvels first.
"We're a team?"
"Oh no no no no.
We're not a team."
As Dar-Benn begins her attack over Earth, the S.A.B.E.R.
station starts to destabilize.
But with many core systems already knocked out, there aren't enough escape pods to get
everyone to safety.
Thankfully, Goose comes in clutch by birthing a horde of Flerken kittens about the station.
"Oh my god!"
When the Marvels arrive, they help Nick Fury chase down all the S.A.B.E.R.
folks so that the Flerkens can gobble them up.
This stores them in the kitties' void-like tummies, effectively shrinking the population
of the station and allowing them to fit (inside the cats) in the remaining pods.
It's a bizarre and hilarious sequence aptly set to "Memory" from the musical, "Cats,"
but rest assured, everyone is regurgitated safely on the ground.
"I can't.
Can you?"
"I got it."
Meanwhile, Kamala, Carol, and Monica face off against Dar-Benn.
They defeat her, and Carol agrees to a tentative peace.
She promises to use her powers to restore Hala's sun, undoing the damage unintentionally
wrought by her destruction of the Supreme Intelligence in "Captain Marvel."
Of course, Dar-Benn double-crosses them, steals Kamala's bangle, and launches herself into the void.
With both "quantum bands," Dar-Benn rips a hole in space-time clean through to an alternate
reality, vaporizing herself in the process.
Carol retrieves the bangles, gives them both to Kamala and together, they power up Monica
enough that she can fly to the other side of the hole and close it.
Tragically, though, she's trapped there, as Carol can't save her in time.
With Earth saved, Dar-Benn defeated, and Monica lost in some strange unknown, Carol decides
to finally settle her battle with the Kree.
She returns to Hala, where the dying sun barely lights the sky anymore.
Then, in a staggering display of her power, she flies straight through the star, energizing
its core reactions with her energy and reviving it to its bright, glowing glory.
The Annihilator, as the Kree calls her throughout the movie, becomes the savior of the entire race.
For Captain Marvel, this is a big deal.
She reveals throughout the film that her conflict with the Kree still largely defines her life.
The violence they committed against her alienated her from everyone she once knew as family.
At the same time, her vengeance against them only led to more violence, as the entire world
of Hala fell into a quick decline.
By repairing Hala's sun, Carol shows that she can be a force for creation as well as destruction.
This closure, combined with her experiences with Kamala and Monica, finally allows her
to move on and return home to Earth.
This could also finally mark the end of the longstanding Kree-Skrull conflict.
The movie suggests that both species are finally ready to invest in peace, and the healing
of Hala might be all the Kree needed to give up on their evil crusade at last.
With her Kree chapter finally closed, Carol goes home.
Or, rather, she goes to a new home, but one that's very familiar.
We see the Kahn family help her move into Maria and Monica Rambeau's old house in Louisiana
from the first "Captain Marvel" movie.
Dressed in regular Earth attire, Carol finally seems ready to stop moving around for a little bit.
Throughout the movie, we learn how much guilt she carries from her time with and fighting the Kree.
But now that she's made peace with that part of her past, she decides to stop running.
Of course, she has an ulterior motive in moving into the old Rambeau house.
As she tells Kamala, she's just taking care of it while she waits for Monica to "get back."
She has no idea where Monica could be or whether she'll ever return, but that doesn't dissuade
her from staying.
Even with Monica gone, she's not going to abandon her again.
In another scene on the S.A.B.E.R.
station, we see that Fury misses her too.
The final scene of "The Marvels" takes place in New York City, where Kamala confronts none
other than Kate Bishop.
"Hawkeye sent me here on official Avengers business.
I'm his partner-slash-best friend, Kate."
The whole thing plays like a spoof of the Nick Fury post-credit scene from "Iron Man,"
as Kate comes home to find Kamala sitting in an armchair, cloaked in darkness.
Kamala puts on her best Fury impression, but it quickly gives way to her own fast-talking, quirky persona.
She tells Kate that she's putting together a team, which, at the moment, is just the
two of them — provided Kate accepts.
She assures her, though, that she has "feelers" out there, mentioning Ant-Man's daughter Cassie
Lang specifically.
Despite the somewhat clumsy proposal, Kate smiles, suggesting that she's down for the team-up.
This seems like an obvious setup for the oft-theorized "Young Avengers" movie.
The MCU has introduced a ton of new heroes in Phase 4 and Phase 5.
Any combination of these characters and others could form a new superhero team, and the ending
of "The Marvels" seems to set that up perfectly.
There's only one credits scene in "The Marvels," positioned between the first round of main
credits and the standard credits that come after.
In it, we see Monica awaken in some kind of medical facility, groggy but alive after her
cosmic outing.
She turns and sees none other than her own mother sitting at her bedside — albeit a
pretty young version of her.
When Monica calls Maria "Mom," the older woman looks at her strangely, suggesting that she's
never seen Monica before.
Then, everything gets turned on its head when Kelsey Grammer's Hank McCoy, aka Beast, walks
into frame -- fully blue, furry, and dressed in a lab coat.
Outside the glass walls of the medical room, we can see the iconic round "X" doorway from
the X-Men movies.
This and Grammer's presence both suggest that we are in some version of the Fox X-Men universe,
as Grammer played Beast all the way back in 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand."
"Strong theory!"
He mentions that "Charles" will want an update on their guest, and in the last shot, we see
Maria's new superhero costume: a red jumpsuit that evokes the comic book character Binary.
Binary has a strange and powerful connection to Carol Danvers in the Marvel comics, as
they're one in the same (it's complicated).
It should be interesting to see how this new version of the character plays into the MCU's
X-Men storyline.
The ending of "The Marvels" is more about the action beats and future setups than it
is about larger themes or ideas.
But that's not to say that the film is devoid of meaning — quite the contrary.
By the end, the biggest resounding theme — as it is in so many modern blockbusters — is
the importance of family, be it born or found.
All three main characters have arcs relating to family.
At the beginning of the movie, Carol has cut herself off from all forms of family.
She carries so much shame and guilt that she believes she deserves to be lonely, and she's
scared of getting close to anyone again because of the fear that she'll lose them.
Of course, in the end, it's her reunion with Monica and her new relationship with Kamala
that allows her to heal.
Monica, likewise, has built a wall of professionalism around herself, resentful of Carol and scared
to get close to anyone after the death of her mother.
In the end, she saves the entire world (and possibly the universe?) because she trusts
the other two Marvels.
Kamala is the only one of the three who already has a strong family, and we see just how much
that empowers her.
Though her mother is always scared for her, she ultimately accepts that Kamala is destined
for "something greater."
She encourages her daughter to be a hero but also reminds her that she'll never "let her go."
"The Marvels" isn't really "Captain Marvel 2," but it does give more closure to Carol's
story than it does to Kamala's or Monica's.
The latter is now stuck in a whole new reality, and the former is just beginning what's hopefully
a long and successful superhero career.
Carol doesn't retire by any means at the end of the movie, but she does wrap up the arc
that began back in the first "Captain Marvel."
For decades, Carol tried to repair her memories and reclaim her life, but she did so alone
in the cold vacuum of space.
It's clear she viewed this as penance, but she can't heal properly until she lets people
back into her life.
At one point Kamala tells Carol that she made a tough call because that's what Carol would have done.
"You shouldn't try to be like me," Carol says in response, full of self-loathing.
Maybe it's reconciling with Monica that gets her over that hump, or it's Kamala's unabashed
reverence for her.
Perhaps it's the realization that she can use her powers to heal.
Really, it's a combination of all those things that allows Carol to finally forgive herself.
As fun as "The Marvels" is on its own merits, many fans will likely be even more excited
by the future projects it may be setting up.
The biggest of those is the long-awaited MCU version of the X-Men.
Most likely, Marvel Studios will want to make its own X-Men movies, but the story could
also take place (at least in part) on Disney+.
The slow rollout of these new X-Men has confused things a bit as well.
We got Patrick Stewart back as Charles Xavier in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,"
Kelsey Grammer's Beast appears in "The Marvels," and Hugh Jackman is set to return as Wolverine
in "Deadpool 3."
"You have questions!"
But as long as the multiverse era of the MCU continues, there's no way to know how important
those actors will remain.
Disney would probably want to fully recast the X-Men for a new generation.
For now, fans will have to keep waiting.
The other big thing set up in "The Marvels" is the potential "Young Avengers" project,
or whatever the team that Kamala Khan and Kate Bishop are forming will be called.
Embracing the franchise's younger heroes could be a great way to softly reset the MCU, but
that's also a big risk.
The one thing that "The Marvels" doesn't clearly set up is a "Captain Marvel 3."
But that doesn't mean that it won't happen.
Carol Danvers is back on Earth now, so she could be pulled into any number of upcoming stories.
Her new Louisiana home places her in close proximity to Sam Wilson and his family, who
also reside in the state.
Perhaps we'll get a Captain Marvel cameo in "Captain America: Brave New World."