Ms Marvel - Episode 5 - Review

With Kamala transported back to the Night of Partition, the 5th and penultimate episode of the first season really had to deliver. The first three episodes were more about Kamala and her discovery of her powers, while the fourth episode pivoted entirely to a secret society of warriors against the Clandestines, so there was no telling how this episode would play out. However, I couldn't have predicted a near episode length flashback was in the cards.

It was a bold choice for the showrunners to not only dedicate more time to the Night of Partition, but to instead follow Aisha and her escape from the British and her becoming a mother. The problem with a flashback, is that it needs to provide more context to a character that we are dealing with today, however this was not the case here. There is nothing wrong with the story that they were using the flashback to tell, however it taking up half of the episodes runtime was far to much for it. The fact that the episode was also quite short, didn’t help matters either, but my interest in the change of Aisha from a lone wolf to that of a mother, never grew past the stages of ‘oh, that happened’. Don’t misunderstand me, they did a fantastic job in showing her new life, the resurgence of her past and the attempted escape on the last train out, it just didn’t need to be that long.

The other side of the episode was that of Kamala and her battle with the Clandestines, if you can call what happened a battle. Before that of course, she was stuck in 1947, though it moved at such a pace there, there is no telling what she actually did. In the last episode we saw her approach a train, climb up and look around lost, but in this one, she walks with the crowd, visibly upset at her new situation, before she stumbles onto Aisha, who is just dying at the side of a walkway. Getting an item, then rescuing her grandmother, before then being whisked back to the present, it all happens within the space of a few minutes and yet again proves that the show writers are being lazy across the board. The veil between the worlds being open is fine, a by-product of her bangle getting stabbed perhaps, though its lack of explanation is again another lazy aspect. Characters dying the moment they touch the light seems about right, but again no explanation on why, is it because they are banished and the light knows or will it do it to everyone it touches.

After a touching, yet selfish moment from Najma, which cuts back to Kamran, the threat has ended, which begs the question, what exactly was their grand plan. We knew the Clandestines wanted to return home, but they clearly had no idea how they were going to get around to it, which does seem right for the show. The final moments of Kamran meeting up with Bruno for some aide is nice and while we are meant to think that the ending is a cliff-hanger, it is likely to be more of an implied threat than anything bad.

There was barely any action in this episode, it was more about Aisha and then her daughter, grand-daughter and Kamala, her great grand-daughter and again, while the flashback was nice, it was far to long. Ms Marvel has been one mess after another for me, from a main character that is hard to like, to a threat that just seems to appear using tv logic, ie whatever is most convenient, nothing has felt right. The world that the show has built and the characters that make it come to life are the saving grace, with Zenobia Shroff and Samina Ahmed having another spectacular moment in this episode as well.

Before this episode aired, the season final of Loki was the worst episode from Marvel Studios for me, but this easily beats it. From a runtime that was anaemic at best, half of it dedicated to a character that didn’t need that much screen time and an ending that is predictable, if not pointless, I have to wonder why this episode existed at all.

The Score

3.0

The Pros

+It was great to finally see Kamala finally get outed to her mother

The Cons

-The runtime was way to short and then filled with a side story that was far too long

-The Clandestines went out with such a whimper, it begs the question why they were even there