Ms Marvel - Finale Episode - Review

With the 5th episode of miss marvel I was honestly disappointed in how the show had progressed to that point, there was a threat that popped up outta nowhere that sold itself without Kamala’s intervention, she essentially Indiana Jones herself. the problem is how the 5th episode ended didn't leave any room for the 6th episode to go anywhere other than the route it did, thankfully though it proved to be more entertaining than the past two episodes combined.

***Spoilers Ahead***

After venturing off to Karachi and discovering the origins of her abilities, at least somewhat, it was nice to see Kamala back in Jersey City, amongst the people that we spent the first few episodes getting to know. The issue though is that the focus was on Kamran and his newly acquired abilities; that wouldn't have been an issue except they paired it up with the typical overzealous government agent, who refused to back down when told to. While the overarching story wasn't that entertaining, it was the moment between the noise that was and while there were some weird moments it was still far better than I thought it was going to be. The reason why it started being better, was when it wasn't focusing on Kamran, that it allowed the characters that the show focused on to become the highlights again and that is where everything shined early on, in the world that it was building and the people that inhabited it.

Seeing Kamala finally come clean to her entire family about her, alter ego, was a nice moment and something that should have happened a few episodes ago, but even though they knew thanks to conversations between family members, the open acceptance of her powers is something we've not really seen in the MCU before. The fact that everything takes place in the high school at the end is entertaining, but only because it evoked similarities to Home Alone, just without the massive head trauma. Having Kamala, Bruno, Kamran and more come together to fight back against Damage Control, was interesting, and while I do appreciate their attempt at stalling them, given that Kamala had all this time to draw an elaborate diagram on the blackboard, one would have hoped that they also came up with an actual exit strategy as part of it.

I've said in past reviews that Kamala’s mother who is played by Zenobia Shroff, has been the real anchor for the show and that's true here as well, her knowing that her daughter is about to rush off into essentially a battle and still having the fortitude to provide a new outfit, it was touching. The moment at the end of the episode with her father, describing how unexpected but much sought after she was and the origins of her name, was poignant and helped highlight the fact that to be a superhero doesn't mean you have to have dead parents. The show obviously did leave some open ends for another season or connective threads to The Marvels movie, but there wasn't really an ending per say. We know Bruno is heading off to Caltech, but that's it, there's no consequences, no information about what Damage Control is doing, the whole TikTok/Instagram video montage, fit the vibe of the show, but didn't offer any actual information to help round things out.

Of course there were two moments in the show that are going to be lead to big things, the second one comes after the main credits roll and shows Captain Marvel, played by Bree Larson, swapping places with Ms Marvel, her reaction of confusion and maybe a little bit of being scared, was entertaining. Obviously we knew Kamala Khan was going to be in Captain Marvel 2, or as it is now known The Marvels, and this moment gives us an idea of how the two cross paths, it has potential but given we're still a year or so away from that movie releasing, we will just have to speculate. The first one however that is the game changer, earlier on when Bruno examined Kamala’s DNA, which apparently a high school student can do, he got the results wrong and upon doing it again, discovered a mutation. What is interesting about that is after he says that word, a small section of the score that plays, is from the X-Men theme, making this the first appearance of the X-Men, in any form in the mainline MCU. Of course, we already saw Charles Xavier in Doctor Strange 2, but that was in another dimension. What this means for the X-Men and the various shows or movies that it may create, who knows but the fact that Marvel are now thinking about it, is a step in the right direction.

The final episode of Ms Marvel did land solidly and while the entire plot of Kamran losing control, being angry and vengeful and then realising he was wrong, felt cheap, it was still miles above the whole ‘rogue government agent’ plot line. Seeing Kamala make larger use of her powers was interesting, even if the execution was not that great visually, that being said, it could simply be due to the constraints of a tv budget. As a whole, the season was slow and really didn’t do much, when the shadowy group of interdimensional beings can take themselves out, it really deflates their earlier threat and given that they were the main thing that Kamala had to deal with, that is saying something. With the two end pieces of information, the show did justify its existence, however I don’t believe that the show needed to be around for those elements, it was just nice that they were in there.

The Score

7.5

The Pros

+The end teases have big potential on the MCU

+Kamala finally getting to use her powers in a big way was welcome

The Cons

-Kamran being said and angry, then being sorry in the space of 5 minutes

-Pointless government agent overstepping their mandate