Ok so Ms Marvel is now at an end and throughout this video we're gonna be going over the finale,
discussing the easter eggs in it and also discussing what we liked and didn't like about
the season.
Huge apologies for missing last weeks episode, one of my kids had a hospital appointment
on the morning, everythings fine, we're all good but it kinda shifted the schedule a bit
and then I went to see Thor on Thursday morning so it had a big knock on effect.
Still though I really enjoyed the episode even if I was sat there for a good part of
it like, are we the baddies.
Now this told a lot of the backstory for Aisha.
We discovered how she met Kamala's great grandfather who wooed her with poetry.
but im not a rapper
We also saw how she escaped the British Soldier after she leaving the temple.
Really great opening that I think was one of the highpoints of the season.
Unfortunately it came to a tragic end and had Aisha being murdered by Najma at the train
station.
Now due to Kamala travelling back in time she managed to save her Grandmother during
the partitian which we heard about earlier on in the season.
Typically in the Marvel Universe, when you travel back in time this alters something
and it creates a branch that then builds a variant timeline.
In order to keep these to a minimum the TVA would constantly intervene but we don't see
them in the entry.
This is because this is a fixed point in time that's part of a self fullfilling loop.
In theoretical physics this is known as the bootstrap paradox and it basically involves
the past creating an event in the future that then starts its creation in the past.
For example one day a time traveller discovers a book on their doorstep that tells them how
to build a time machine.
They then do this and using the machine they travel back in time and then leave the book
on their doorstep so that their past self can pick it up and use it to build a time
machine.
Everything all plays out in one big loop and this event of Kamala saving her grandmother
was always supposed to happen which is why it didn't cause any issues.
This idea of a partition was of course also reflected in Najma.
The partition itself was a massive refugee crisis that destroyed many homes because the
british empire completely f**ked everything up.
Borders were created across India and this is mirrored in the Clandestines who had their
own crisis with crossing borders that led to a lot of destruction.
Back in the present the portal was opened but it led to the death of Najma.
Early on we were told that you needed two bangles to properly open up everything and
this could explain why the Clandestine ended up Clannon fodder.
Her essence then travelled into Kamran who and we also got the idea that Ms Marvel had
her final identity secured when her mother found her necklace showing her symbol.
Back in Jersey we saw Brya...Bruno and Kamran meeting.
Damage control showed up and didn't exactly control the damage ey.
Now the episode itself is titled No Normal which was the name of the first graphic novel
volume featuring the character.
This is what the full series is based on and we open up in Jersey which is where that comic
was set.
Circle Q has been pretty much destroyed but in the source material Kamala actually did
this when she tried to save Bruno from getting robbed by his brother.
Damage control are inspecting the scene and we get Agent Deever saying this is what happens
when the wrong people get powers.
Think she's meant to basically be a racist...I think as she done a couple of microagressions
in the series and she doesn't take her shoes off in the mosque.
They also have a bit where she assumes that the Sheik is quoting the Quaran when he's
actually doing Abraham Lincoln.
She quickly says she means kids and she wants him taken alive which is when we cut to Kamran
and Bruno on the subway.
Last week his powers manifested when the drone arrived.
Now Kamran in the comics was an inhuman who gained bioluminecant powers after being exposed
to terrigen myst.
Kamran was a genius who's family were friends with the Khans when Kamran was a kid but they
moved away for several years.
When they returned in his teens Kamran ended up being exposed to Terrigen Myst which basically
tranforms certain people into inhumans.
This activated his abilities and he transformed into a pale blue being that was able to emit
powerful energy.
Now though he was a love interest to Kamala he also ended up becoming a villain and he
worked with the bad guy Lineage.
When Najma first showed up I thought that she would be based on this but big L on that
fan theory.
Kamran is obviously still reeling over the death of his mother and it's gonna be interesting
to see where they go down the line.
We then get the title sequence and over the top of this we hear Captain Space by Janoobi
Khargosh.
Cut to the Statue of Liberty which we last saw at the end of No Way Home.
This was brought up by Yelena Belova in Hawkeye as well and it is it's classic green rather
than being the copper that it was after the restoration.
It's difficult to tell exactly when the show is set and there have been a lot of conflicting
things from the creative team about the timeline.
We know that the show is obviously set after Endgame but beyond that it's estimated that
this takes place in 2024, one year after Endgame with No Way Home being fall and winter of
2024 too.
The shield isn' there either so I imagine it's probably around the time of Far From
Home but let me know below if yuou know different, youre the real heroes.
Now at this point Kamala makes an announcement that she's night light to her family.
(I am weed)
No, I'm night light.
(oh my god)
They already know and we discover that the gossip got around quickly in the house.
because Abbu always has his phone on speaker.
This is similar to the reveal in the comics in which she went to tell her mother but she
already knew.
She said that she didn't actually mind her sneaking out if it was to help people and
it was a nice mother and daughter moment.
They start asking how her powers work and even bring up her almost dropping the kid
which happened at the end of episode 2.
It's very much a coming out for her and her parents are over the moon and so proud of
her.
Clearly they care and I wish my parents had been like that when I told them I broke records
when bringing out breakdowns.
They kicked me out the house and said they wish they'd had a son like Emergency Awesome
and at this point Nakia facetimes Kamala to tell her Bruno is missing.
We then get the title sequence which is back tro being in english after Urdu and Hindi
were used last week.
Amongst the quick flashes we can catch the sloth baby productions video from episode
1 with captain Marvel flying in.
There's also a high school sweater with Ms Marvel Established 2014.
Acckkkuually Ms Marvel appeared in 2013 in a Captain marvel comic but her own series
started in 2014 so we'll let you off.
There's then Circle Q, a school bus, a cast, a nokia 3310 screen, a police car a train
station sign of course reflecting what's going on with Bruno and lastly it appears in the
Noor.
Cut to Kamalas room and we can see amongst the powers of Captain Marvel that her desktop
also has Carols symbol as the background.
Carol ends up appearing at the end of the episode in the psot credits scene which we'll
talk about later on in the video.
Muneeba comes in with a Toffee box whcih was the same thing that the bangle was sent in
by her grandmother.
We saw these boxes littered her home in episode 4 and inside is her costume that's built to
reflect certain things given to her throughout the series.
Waleed gave Kamala the blue Vest, Kareem gave her the red scarf, she got the bangle from
her grandmother and the mask from Bruno.
The final piece was the necklace which Muneeba gives her with her symbol on it after it snapped
last week.
These all come together to form her costume and it's one of my favourite ones in Phase
4.
She runs through the city hopping on platforms similar to the mobile game that Bruno played
earlier in the series.
She then stops at the Grove Street sign.
(ah s**t here we go again)
After the train derailed Bruno decides to go to the mosque which Nakia says is a bad
idea due to all the survellience that the place will be under due to America being suspicious
of the religion.
She's right to as Damage control show up at the Mosque and everyone has their ID's ready
because they'd been through this kind of thing with the government several times before.
They do play some of it tongue and cheek and even have a fakeout where Nakia pretends to
hide her fake boyfriend and this buys Bruno and Kamran time to escape.
They end up wearing Caps which we've seen throughout the MCU in movies like Winter Soldier
and Ant-Man and the Wasp are what people don when trying to go incognito.
Unfortunately Kamran's powers are too much and he starts to overcharge.
They head to the high school and Kamala rings Kareem and he tells her that he can get the
latter out if she makes it to the harbour at midnight.
The friendship group0 reunite and even Zoe comes in to help.Turns out she's been filming
her tik toks in the school and we learned earlier in the season that she'd been posting
a lot about Nightlight which helped them to track them down.
Zoe sort of goes on the same arc that she did in the comics and though she initially
started off as a bit of a bully over the series she ended up siding with Kamala.
They stasrt to plan stuff out which allows the creative team to really flourish and and
I think the design elements like this are what have really elevated the show.
IT really shines when theyre doing stuff like this.
They foreshadow a lot of the battle here including the skeletons and hoodies which are all sketched
out.
The Hoodies are used to make everyone look the same and it's basically a homealone bit.
Now the Skeleton itself gets given a knife and a grey wig and this is clearly riffing
on Psycho, namely how Norman Bates had his mother
We also see Damage Controls guns on the outside which too showed up in the She Hulk trailer
with the main show coming out next month.
As we saw earlier in the series, these sonic weapons can knock people out in a none lethal
way and I'm expecting them to show up again.
Deever is told to evacuate but being the chump she is she ignores this and sends them in.
Over the top of this we can hear the song Anthem by the Swet Shop Boys and it's a bloody
banger.
These actually got mentioned earlier in the series in a covnersation with Kamala and Kamran
and this itself pulled directly from the comics.
I love how everyone kinda uses the powers that they have in order to beat them and Zoe
being a tik tok star sends this out to draw people in.
Long as she stays off Youtube we won't have a problem.
As they run through the school we see a mural that includes Ruth Baber Ginsberg, Mother
Theresa and Ghandi.
There's also what I think is Michelle Obama and Muhammad Rafiq Tarar but let me know if
I'm wrong on it as it's a bit difficult to make them out from this shot.
Kamala and Kamran see that their powers can combine and Bruno interrupts them almost kissing.
Should've done what I would've done and snitched on Kamran cos I'm king Cock Block.
It's quite a fun chase scene but Kamala is obviously hiding from Kamran that his mother
is brown bread and looking like that Skeleton with the wig on.
Kamran isn't too happy that his mother is dead and this makes Kamran going full supervillain
which pits him against Kamala.
She does a giant hand similar to how she does in the comics and they slowly start to line
her powers up more with the comics.
One of the big complaints throughout the series is how they've changed these up from the source
material but by the end she's pretty comic accurate and even says Embiggen.
Though there is the hardlight still being used her body and hands all shape shift and
at moments it feels like its ripped right out of the comics and The Avengers game.
Kamran runs outside and after Damage control start to fire on him Kamala jumps in and saves
the day.
They bring out one of the conic canons and I believe that this is similar to the devices
used in The Incredible Hulk.
This leads to a big fight with a one shot take of Kamran tearing through Damage control.
He's going wild whereas Kamala is finessed and using her powers to stop people being
hurt.
Eventually he goes into full meltdown mode and Kamala has to close in on him.
She says that Najma sent everything she had to protect Kamran but yeah, I dunno if Najma's
plan makes all that much sense in the end.
The inside of the structure they form also looks like the Noor.
She gives him a route to the harbour and I'm guessing that he'll pop up with her again
soon.
We see him heading into the restaurant that the Red Daggers operate out of and this will
likely lead to his training.
There are theories that he might get recruited by Val as part of the thunderbolts but I think
he's more likely gonna end up siding with the Red Daggers even though they were enemies
with the Clandestine.
Anyway Kamala is blowing up on Tik Tok and we even get G Willow Wilson dropping one.
This character was named after the author of the same name who wrote the No Normal graphic
novel.
We also get one that I think might be star wars kid, is that, a star wars kid reference.
Anyway she's a viral hit, everyone loves her even the kid who she saved at the end of Episode
2.
She's a superhero for the Muslim community and ey, nice to have this moment where she
finally finds her own identity and form of acceptance.
Her father tells her that if she saves one life she saves the entire world.
This is somewhat playing on the quote by Oskar Schindler that was then altered into Aunt
Mays saying in No Way Home and the Spider-man Ps4 game.
Abu tells her Kamala means perfect which is the literal meaning for it but he also brings
up how Kamal means Marvel.
He calls her their own little Ms Marvel and ey, they said it.
Cut to Kamala sitting on a lampost which is based on a comic cover from her solo series.
Jump to one week later and we see Bruno wearing the Gigawatt T-Shirt that he also wore in
the comics.
He's now driving Brunos car and just need to steal his girl and you've got it mate.
Now here comes one of the big oh s**t moments in the episode.
He's scanned her genetic makeup and he's discovered that she's a mutant.
We even get the X-men musical sting that too appeared in Multiverse Of Madness.
-
Now in the comics, Kamala was an Inhuman but they've definitely changed this up here along
with her powers.
Inhumans were basically what Marvel tried to push instead of the mutants in the comics
because they didn't own the movie rights at the time.
Now whether they will explore this more remains to be seen but I'm guessing that this is the
ushering in of Mutants and that they'll be shifting a lot of the Inhuman characters over
to being them instead.
Black Bolt just took a mindblowing L again and potentially they will shift towards this.
Now this could also allow them to introduce Professor X and potentially Kamala could even
end up going to him for training.
I'd love it if they revealed that Mutants had existed the entire time much like how
they did with Kamala.
We just didn't know about them and the school had been operating unbeknownst to most of
the world.
Even Bruno scanning her didn't pick this up the first time and Kamala could be used as
a gateway to the X-men.
We do have San Diego comic-con coming up next week where we're rumoured to be getting more
of the plan going forward.
However Kamala has to star in the Marvels first and we get a hint towards this with
the appearance of Captain Marvel in the post credits scene.
Her bangle lights up and sstarts to glow.
She then swaps places with Carol.
This to me confirms that they are indeed the Nega bands and this has a lot of basis in
the comics.
The Nega Bands were basically Kree artificats that delved into the negative zone or as it's
known here, The Noor.
Rick Jones and Captain Mar-vell also used them as gateways to swap back and forth between
each other.
For example, they would appear in place of the other and switch places much like what
we see here.
Now it's gonna be interesting to see how they interact and where Kamala actually is now.
She's across the cosmos somewhere whilst Carol is stuck here.
I have no idea how this triggered but they're clearly leaning into the comics and setting
things up to match that where the bands swap places with other people.
Who knows Kamala might be with her right now on the opposite side of this in the negative
zone instead of being across space.
Carol however doesnt have the other bangle and I was kinda hoping they'd reveal she found
the opposite one.
Either way we know the Marvels is coming soon and that it's gonna star her, Kamala and Photon
who was last seen in Wandavision.
There's been lots of warps in realities that the three have had to deal with and I'm guessing
that this will bring them together.
Great way to end the episode anyway with a lot of questions for the future.
In her room we can also catch an Iron Man helmet so ey, maybe they'll pull Riri Williams
into this too somehow.
iron man helmet
Now as for my thoughts on the season, I kinda have mixed feelings on it but I dunno if it's
just how I'm feeling about Phase 4 in general.
Everything feels kinda directionless and when you look back at phase 1, phase 2 and phase
3, they all felt like they were building towards something.
I think phase 4 could have been heading towards more multiversal things but it doesn't really
feel that way over all.
I also think the show has been limited by the Marvel Disney Plus formula quite a lot.
They keep sticking to six episodes and it just makes the shows suffer so much in my
opinion.
The first two episodes tend to be really badly paced in a lot of these shows and I think
in the case of Hawkeye, Loki, Moon Knight and This that you could've combined elements
from both, put them together in one entry and not really missed anything.
The final episode always feels like a bit of a rush and I wish that they'd pace the
series out a bit more so we're not spending ages in act one and trying to get to the big
stuff.
Saying all that though I did enjoy Ms Marvel.
I think that all the cast did a stellar job and that they really handled the material
well.
Lots of clear love and appreciation for the rich culture here and even the side characters
like Kamala's parents got really well developed arcs and character moments.
I do feel like the villain plot was pretty weak overall and that they kinda shoehorned
in a lot of stuff for the end but I didn't mind too much because the main characters
were so well handled.
I really hope that going forward that Marvel look at shows like Umbrella Academy, The Boys
and Stranger things and that they decide to start making their shows a lot longer.
8 Episodes would be the sweet spot and we've seen in things like The Mandalorian that it
works really well.
Just that bit of extra time would mean that the ending isn't so tacked on and I think
it would really help these shows knock it out of the park instead of just being servicable.
Now obviously the elephant in the room is that I'm a 33 year old white guy complaining
about a tv show made for teenagers that can relate a lot more to the cultural aspects
than I can.
That's kinda why I've tried to focus my criticisms on things about the MCU shows that I have
the most rather than going after the actual story here which I do think was good.
The bangle plot, time travel thing and just Kamala in general worked really well, I just
wish that the entire thing was structured better.
There's also the new power changes which I didn't mind too much.
I love Ms Marvel in the comics and though I think that the shapeshifting and embiggen
stuff that she does is probably better than what we got, there is still a lot that worked
here and filled the show with a lot of wide eyed wonder.
I do think its one of the stronger Disney Plus entries but I also think theres problems
with it because of the format they seem to be sticking too.
After Wandavision did 9 episodes and had much more eyes on it than most of the other entries
have I hope they see that and decide to shift gears.
Overall though Ms Marvel was a fun time and I am excited to see Kamala's return in The
Marvels.
I'd of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me know.
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If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect
scene in Spider-Man Homecoming.
We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll
see you next time.
Take care, Peace