Ms. Marvel, Season 1, Episode 6: No Normal
And we close off the first season of Ms. Marvel with them trying to mish-mash every ignored plot point together. It's... it's not the worst superhero TV show seasonal ending I've ever seen, but I still maintain that the show's pretty much focused all of its effort on building up Kamala's community in the first two episodes, and then the Khan family's history in episdoes 4-5. That leaves a lot of the rest of the show to be rather... underbaked, and when we go from the heavily dramatic scenes in the previous two episodes and into the glitzy, wacky-youth stuff in Jersey City and Kamala's high school, it kind of feels rather forced. Or jarring, at least. The fact that all the fancy integration of thoughts and instant messaging all but disappeared in the past three episodes and return in this one also feels rather jarring.
But, again, the show is still carried by the strength of its characters and their actors. For all the faults of this episode, Kamala Khan herself and most of her supporting cast are still extremely likable. We get to see Kamala break the news to her family -- and in typical Asian family fashion, that damned smartphone speaker means that ammi told abbu and abbu's speaker told everyone else in the house. That's nice, and the fact that big bro Aamir sticks around for the climax is much appreciated. The callback to the first episode with Muneeba and Yusuf telling Kamala that they trust her -- a stark contrast to their attitude to Kamala sneaking out for AvengerCon -- is nice, too.
We also get this whole episode as essentially Ms. Marvel's first proper superheroing as a superhero, complete with a brand-new costume that Muneeba made for her, and it's pretty triumphantly done. Again, just like what I felt with Daredevil's first season, I'm never a big fan when a superhero TV show stretches out the superhero costume reveal, but at least Ms. Marvel does it well. There really is nothing overly unexpected with the proceedings, it's just nice to see. And we even get Kamala's catchphrase 'embiggen' tossed in there.
It's just that, just like Najma last episode, the antagonists in this episode are very much underwhelming. There's a distinct similarity to Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I think, when most of the story of what they're trying to tell has dried up at the penultimate episode, and what's left is just the big superhero costume and identity debut. And that's okay. Both shows handled it well, but it also leaves the feeling that maybe with a bit of story editing and ironing, it could've been done better.
Agent Deever is just super gung-ho and super racist and just a flat caricature of your typical anti-superhero cop ever, refuses to compromise or respect other cultures, and she leads an army of faceless Damage Control goons on something that her partner Agent Cleary didn't authorize. Between Cleary's constantly being the 'good cop' in this situation, her blatant triggerhappiness and her constant refusal to take off her shoes in a place of worship, she really is written to be as flat as possible and while it's certainly on purpose, it does make her unbelievably dull.
Kamran, meanwhile, is having trouble controling his powers, causing crystals to pop up wherever he touches, and Bruno brings him on the run. We get to visit some of the places and side-characters we've met all throughout the series, including a return to the mosque and the return of characters like Nakia and Sheikh Abdullah. We get a fun scene of the community banding together to help Kamran and Bruno escape, before they meet up with Kamala Khan, decked out in full Ms. Marvel costume and running across the buildings of Jersey City.
Then we lead into the high school scene, and... and it's okay? It's not my type of humour, but I get where they're going for. I do like that they didn't drag out the make-up between Kamala and Nakia. Aamir shows up because he's been shadowing his little sister, and Zoe Zimmer randomly shows up because she's apparently figured out both Kamala's identity and also has been in the empty school to do her TikToks. And then they basically do all Home Alone on the Damage Control agents on a rather extended scene of running around the school and using things like the science lab and a disco ball to bully the highly ineffective Damage Control troops. Again, a bit jarring considering how super-serious the past two episodes have been, and I guess the humour just didn't particularly land for me? Anyway, they slow down the highly ineffective soldiers that are supposed to be good enough to deal with metahumans (SHIELD they ain't) while Zoe uses the power of social media and TikTok to summon the entire community there.
Reality ensues (although not as quickly) as Bruno, Aamir, Nakia and Zoe all eventually get arrested by the Damage Control, but because Kamala keeps dragging out the revelation that Najma's dead, Kamran ends up going ballistic and starts using his yellow crystal Noor powers to attack Damage Control while Kamala uses her own powers to try and combat Kamran's. Unlike Najma last episode, though, Kamala talking to Kamran and managing to calm him down makes sense. We've spent enough time with Kamran to know he's not bad, the fact that he's in grief makes sense, and he's clearly good enough friends with Kamala that their shared bond makes it believable for Kamala to talk him down in under a minute.
Oh, and we get Kamala embiggenning, tossing cars and giant sci-fi cannons around, and creating a forcefield and stuff. It's... it's not super impressive as far as MCU standards go, admittedly, but it's still superhero fun. We get the harrowing moment when Deever actually orders her agents to shoot a teenager and damn, it must be terrifying to be Muneeba and Yusuf in the crowd at that moment. Thankfully, Ms. Marvel has embiggening powers. Anyway, Kamala stalls enough to get Kamran out to safety to where Red Dagger is waiting for him in the harbour, while the community (including the local police and even Agent Cleary in Damage Control's office) all block the way of Deever's goons and protect Kamala. Pretty cheesy, but pretty sweet and fits the tone of the show.
And then we get a couple of wrap-ups, which I felt was, again, handled much, much better than the action climax because at the end of the day, Ms. Marvel was a show that's much more about the characters. We get a TikTok montage of the Jersey City community appreciating their new local hero, which is nice. We get the nice scene of Yusuf hanging out with Kamala on the rooftop of their house, where we get the payoff to one of Muneeba's friends in Karachi remarking that 'Kamala' is not a typical Pakistani name -- as with the genesis of the character's name in real life, Yusuf says that 'kamal' means wonder in Urdu... or 'marvel'. And then he name drops that Kamala Khan is always their little 'Ms. Marvel'. There we have a superhero name!
After a recreation of one of Ms. Marvel's most iconic comic-book covers, we get Kamala, Nakia and Bruno meeting each other, and in a massive swerve to comic-book fans, Bruno tells Kamala that her Noor-controlling powers isn't just because of her djinn heritage (since Aamir and the rest of her family can't do it) or the bangle... and that there's something unique about Kamala Khan. Something like... a mutation.
We even get the fucking 90's X-Men cartoon theme playing.
So yeah. I guess this is MCU finally admitting that, yeah, mutants are the real profitable way here. I guess their attempts to shoehorn the Inhumans down the fandom's throat has finally led them to shrugging and turn Ms. Marvel -- a.k.a. the most and arguably only notable Inhuman outside the original royal family -- into a mutant.
We don't take too much time to dwell on it because Kamala just waves it aside as 'another label', but is that why there has been no hints of Lockjaw or any of the Inhuman stuff? It was an interesting swerve to make her seemingly fully-magical, powered by a bangle or her djinn heritage, but it is a very, very interesting direction they're taking by making Kamala Khan a mutant in the MCU.
But her mutant heritage isn't probably going to be anywhere on the radar anytime soon, because the mid-credits scene seems to be a scene from The Marvels, with Kamala Khan randomly switching places with a very confused Captain Marvel.
Anyway, that has been a ride. It's a real shame that Ms. Marvel does remain the least well-performing among the Disney+ shows. It does have some glaring flaws, but honestly? Honestly, I really do enjoy my time through it. It's just kind of a shame -- I think maybe with one extra episode or maybe some cut characters (like the extra Clandestines or the Red Dagger mentor) and some time to develop the side-characters and antagonists, the show could've been much better. But it's definitely fun!
- The post-credits scene, seemingly taken from The Marvels, shows Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel switching places? Or something? Carol Danvers sure shows up in Kamala's room for sure.
- Kamala says her comic-book catchphrase 'Embiggen', which she usually says when she goes ham on stretching and expanding her body parts.
- 'No Normal', the title of this episode, is the title of Kamala Khan's first trade paperback.
- In stark contrast to her Inhuman heritage in the comics, Bruno identifies Kamala's ability to use the bangle as being part of a "mutation", which, of course, means that MCU Kamala Khan is a mutant instead of an Inhuman... something that probably raises a lot of waves in the community considering Kamala is widely considered to be one of the only few well-written Inhuman characters during the period of time when Marvel Comics was trying to push Mutants out with Inhumans.
- When Bruno says that Kamala's powers are due to a 'mutation', a riff of the theme song of the 90's X-Men: The Animated Series (complete with 90's guitar!) plays.
- Kamala Khan's co-creator G. Willow Wilson appears among the TikTok montage at the tail end of the episode.
- One of the final scenes of the episode is Ms. Marvel sitting on top of a street light overlooking Jersey City, recreating the now-iconic cover for Ms. Marvel #5.
- Nakia yells out that they're going off to get some Shawarma, a cuisine that has become iconic thanks to its usage as a joke in The Avengers.
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