Ms. Marvel Ep. 2 grounds cosmic story in teen comedy.
It manages to include Pakistan's painful colonial history too.
The Short Take:
The show has doubled down on the “this is about teenagers” bit, and it’s working. Prepare for Iman Vellani’s charm offensive!
[This review gets spoilery about as fast as Kamala probably drives. Rejoin us once you’ve seen the episode!]
The Long Take:
Last week I compared Ms. Marvel to the Tom Holland Spider-Man films in their embrace of everyday teenager problems alongside superhero work. More than anything, Episode 2, “Crushed,” confirms that this show will not only have some serious YA vibes, but that Kamala Khan’s teenaged life may actually be the primary focus of the series. This episode alone features an illicit popular kid party, a hot new student to crush on, an awkward meet cute, a first date, and a jealous best friend. We’re in full-on high school dramedy mode here.
I suspect that even those who do not include the trials and tribulations of a high schooler is in their usual viewing will still find this appealing because lead actress Iman Vellani is just that charismatic. Her comedic timing is excellent. Kamala’s swagger when she’s feeling confident is adorable. Vellani seems to excel at expressing unadulterated joy, especially as she dances as if no one’s watching.
She’s incredibly expressive full stop. She arches her eyebrows and twinkles her eyes when she says, “So what, am I like Asgardian or something?” Almost immediately after this she, in a revelation, widens her eyes, her mouth agape as she asks Bruno, “Dude, am I related to Thor?” I get the sense that she really is a huge nerd here, one who perhaps doesn’t comprehend the magnitude of what’s happening to her because she’s so dazzled by her proximity to other Marvel superheroes.
I know I just used an example that has a superhero connection, but Vellani’s acting charms are just as strong when she’s having a heart-to-heart with Nakia in the school bathroom or gazing into Kamran’s eyes as he tries to convince her older brother that they’re cousins. Those eyes are full of irresistible mischief and hope. No matter how big or small, cosmic or earthly, I want Kamala to be happy because she’s so good at it.
At no point was I antsy to get to the “real superhero stuff” because I very quickly, in these first two episodes, became invested in and attached to Kamala, Nakia, and Bruno. (Not Kamran. Because he’s bad news. More on that later.) This is a testament to the grounded approach to writing these characters. When the guidance counselor gives Bruno the good news that he got into a CalTech immersion program, I immediately knew his mixed reaction was because he doesn’t want to leave Kamala, long before he says out loud that California is so far away. I’m rooting for Nakia to win her seat on the Mosque board. I love how she’s an assertive, vocal, and savvy leader who wants better for her community.
It’s so smart for the show to take its time and build out these characters and their lives, independently of the Ms. Marvel origin story. So many critics of the six-episode Disney+ series format have complained that the plot feels rushed and empty because we haven’t spent enough time with all the characters. While I have often understood where that critique comes from in the context of other shows — even when I myself don’t mind it — I would be suspicious of anyone trying to make that claim with this series thus far.
All that is not to say that we don’t get enough about Kamala’s new powers in this episode — what they are, why she has them, etc. While the high school antics grounded the episode, the interspersed superhero origin developments were enough to keep me on the hook for more. Bruno says the bangle itself doesn’t have power, but, rather, it unlocked something within Kamala when she put it on. After a delightfully unglamorous (and therefore relatable) training montage, Kamala realizes that she might be able to use the light she can generate like stepping stones. We even get to see her use her “hard light” to save a young boy dangling from a window.
But several moments throughout the episode imply that there’s something involuntary and dangerous about Kamala’s newfound powers, as her eyes flash with purple light, her arm activates with her powers, or she appears to dip into what appears to be another dimension with visions of a mysterious woman reaching out to her — all at inopportune times.
Last week, I wasn’t ready to speculate about Kamala having a super-powered family, even though several podcasts I listened to after I wrote my Episode 1 review posited this based on the fact that a.) the bangle seemed like a family heirloom and b.) Kamala’s mother, Muneeba, seemed too fixated on Kamala indulging in “fantasy.” For me, it felt too soon and the clues weren’t solid enough.
Now that this second episode has spent more time establishing that there are in fact secrets in Kamala’s family, it seems a lot clearer that we’re heading in that direction. Her mother’s worry now seems more specific, like she’s aware that Kamala could have inherited some kind of supernatural “curse,” as some of the other women in the community call it, and wants to protect her from it.
And, before I continue, here is a flow chart to follow the relevant branch of Kamala’s family tree:
Aisha (great-grandmother)
—>
Sana (grandmother/Nani)
—>
Muneeba (mother)
—>
Kamala
Muneeba doesn’t want to talk about Kamala’s great-grandmother, Aisha, and tells Kamala she’s better off if she forgets all about her. The other women at the Eid celebration say that Aisha brought great shame upon her family, one saying she had many affairs while another says she heard Aisha killed a man. My theory at this point is that none of these accusations are actually true. Rather, Aisha, in having to hide her powers from others, led a double life not unlike the one Kamala has already started to lead in this series. So everyone just filled in the blanks with their own gossip for why she was cagey, evasive, or going off and, perhaps, saving other people all the time?
Thankfully, Kamala’s father, Yusuf, does not hold his wife’s family history so close to the chest. During a family dinner he tells an almost folkloric story about “Muneeba’s family during the Partition.” He says that in trying to catch the last train, “Muneeba’s mother, Sana, who was just a toddler then,” got lost, but then miraculously found her way back to her father on the train. When Kamala’s soon-to-be sister in-law, Tyesha, asks how, Yusuf says, “Well, Sana always said that she followed a trail of stars…She followed a trail of stars right back to her father.” It’s hard not to immediately think that the trail of stars as the glittery stepping stones of hard light that Kamala tries to make throughout the episode.
Hopefully we find out more and more in the coming weeks about what exactly happened that night, where Aisha actually went, and what led to the hushed stigma. Over a FaceTime call, Kamala’s Nani says that the bangle that initiated Kamala’s powers belonged to Aisha. So it stands to reason that uncovering this buried family history will be the key to Kamala unlocking and controlling Ms. Marvel’s powers, which seem to be very unpredictable at the moment. Kamala at first succeeds when she saves the young boy from falling, but then the sudden vision of the mystery woman, presumably Aisha, almost causes them both to fall to their deaths.
I know I often turn to postcolonial theory as a lens through which to read a lot of these series and films (sorry, I studied it a lot in grad school and want to put all those hours of reading to use!), but I cannot ignore that Ms. Marvel’s origin story — that Kamala’s intriguing family history — is wrapped up in a traumatic post-colonial event: the dissolution of British rule in India in 1947, which led to the partition of British India into what we now know as India and Pakistan. Aisha’s bangle travels to America, and brings with it a painful history of colonial rule, as well as the fallout of trying to futilely disentangle the colonized from that rule. During the dinner in which Yusuf tells the legend of Sana, Kamala’s brother, Aamir, says that “every Pakistani family has a Partition story. None of them are good.” This line leaves no ambiguity that British colonialism has had a lasting impact on Pakistani families.
The conversation begins earlier with Yusuf explaining that his family had been in Karachi for years, but Muneeba’s family only moved there after the Partition. He starts to say, “After the British just…” but then Muneeba interjects with, “The British left us with a mess. It was very hard for many people. And then there was a civil war.” I appreciated the subtly and elegance with which head writer Bisha K. Ali, who is a British-Pakistani screenwriter and stand-up comedian (ah, that’s why this show is so funny and charming!), wove the history of Empire into the conversation, not trying to gloss over or hide it. This scene could have easily not mentioned the British at all, mentioned the Partition only in passing, or even written a version of Sana’s story that made no mention of the historical event at all. Instead, the British Empire looms large and the series shows how damage inflicted stays with the colonized even 75 years later. For me, adding this context into the scene enriches Kamala’s story that much more.
On a much lighter and completely fictional note, the fact that Kamala and Kamran discuss a made-up Bollywood star who is actually an Eternal, Kingo, made me chuckle. This has to be the most subtle tie-in to the larger MCU a series has had so far. I especially enjoyed that Kamran said that his ammi still has a crush on Kingo Senior, not realizing that Kingo Senior and Kingo Junior are actually the same centuries-old celestial being. I can just see Kumail Nanjiani’s face grinning because Kingo would eat up the fact that two teenagers on a date were talking about their moms having crushes on him.
While Kingo is a fun crush, Kamran, on the other hand, is, as I mentioned earlier, a bad crush. The final scene in which he picks up Kamala like he’s a getaway car, only for his mother to very creepily say she’s been waiting a long time to meet her, throws into question whether or not Kamran had any romantic interest in Kamala at all, or if the driving lessons were just a ploy to kidnap her for his ammi. In the comics (which I haven’t read, so this is majorly second-hand), Kamala has to fight against Kamran. His comic book character’s description implies he’s got some Magneto-esque anti-non-superhuman villain philosophy going on. But, please, if you have actually read the comics, fill us in by leaving a comment! In the meantime, I’m left wondering what kind of peril Kamala has actually gotten herself into by crushing on Kamran, and how “crushed” she will actually be in the end.