“Ms. Marvel” Episode 3 R&R: The Rhythm and Djinn are Gonna Get You
It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well…
by Rob LoAlbo
All photos courtesy Marvel Studios and Disney Plus
Nakia would agree: even a colorful well-worn hijab starts to get threadbare after enough use.
What was a really promising first two episodes has started to take some missteps in plotting as the Marvel formula is pressing its clichéd thumbprint into Kamala’s super-happy-funtime-animated-fangirl world. Just how detrimental that is, or how much of a hit the show will take remains to be seen, but its shift in focus towards a more formidable threat is taking away from the show’s and Kamala’s smaller-scale charm.
Avoid the Djinns and spoilers if you're not ready, cause here they come!
“I don’t attack people. I just glare until they can’t stand it any more.”
It’s not all bad; I should get that out there first. I love that we spend a majority in a traditional Pakistani Muslim wedding, replete with Bollywood dancing and henna ink. I just hate that the adults had to come in and ruin everything with their grownup boring problems. (See? This is why I stuck to teaching high school. Adults suck.)
We start back in 1942 with Kamran’s mom (Kam-mom?) and Kamala’s great-grandmother Aisha digging through some tomb’s rubble five years pre-Partition. (Easter egg - on the floor of the tomb is a 10-Rings symbol!) Stuck in this world, they’re trying to find the bangle which will transport them home. When found, it’s attached to a blue severed arm, which might be Kree. (Remember Ronan the Accuser? Fiege and Co. have been dropping hints lately about Phase 5. so maybe we’re looking at a Kree/Skrulls invasion storyline?) The problem with the single bangle is that it’s not enough power to get them back to their dimension, so they needed to find a second one and reunite the bangles.
Bangles reunion tour 2022?
But when Aisha put the bangle on in 1942, she had a similar reaction to Kamala, disappeared, and hasn’t been seen since. Poof! So, no reunion. Kamala now somehow possesses that same bangle, and when she put it on the group felt all Noor-y, leading them to her. (Think Star Wars’ the force, with Kamala and all as Jedis.) The difference for her is that Kamala has enough power inside her to send them all home, so they recruit her in what sounds like a really dangerous operation, or at least Bruno this so.
Kam-mom then explains that they are exiled multidimensional beings who look great for their age and are up to much less good than they first let on. They play all nice with Kamala despite their nefarious wants, but Kamala’s biggest take from this situation is that she’s not of this world. From the Noor dimension, they’re known as Clandestines. History Lesson!: In 1994 Marvel comics, the ClanDestines were a group of supervillains headed by Adam of Destine, an English knight. They were family-based and all had individual superpowers, which is very similar to The Inhumans.
How do you solve a problem like The Inhumans? Cave their heads in, apparently.
If you remember, The Inhumans was a failed MCU property from 2017 that you can now check out on Disney+. (Please don’t. I’m begging you.) Boring beyond all capacity for human thought, the show seriously tanked despite that it was positioned to be a foundational premise for many other MCU properties. Given it’s extreme lack of quality, audience, creativity, interest (the list goes on), it looks like the MCU is circumnavigating them by bringing in the Clandestines, and the show THEN connects them to being Djinn, the stuff of Kamala’s nightmares. (You’re your own worst nightmare, Kamala! IRONY!!!)
Bruno takes the news better than we think, and he’s going to help her with the math behind inter-dimensional travel (he name drops Erik Selvig - more Easter eggs!), while Sheikh Abdullah and newly-elected board member Nakia fend off the DODC (a government interaction that is slathered in post 9/11 ick). They’re a tight-knit superhero team in the making! And with the Sheikh taking on an Uncle Ben-type role to Kamala, she’s now got her superhero mantra. (All without having to cruelly kill anyone!) “Good is not a thing you are. It is a thing you do.” - Great responsibility, Batman!
“Uncle Ben? No, I prefer basmati rice.”
And Ammi is turning out to be much more supportive than first revealed. Actress Zenobia Shroff steals every scene she’s in (which is not easy given the talent of this cast) and her tender moment as she Bactines Kamala’s drone-addled knee is sweet and revealing, showing just how many lonely struggles immigrant families have in America. Her maternal love at Kamala’s unspoken mountainous issues made me tear up at just how tender her love is for her daughter and just how much of a child Kamala still is with her needs, mindset, and view of the world.
But it’s off to the mehndi! (A word I didn’t know until now!) There are so many cultural traditions thrown our way without explanation, and it’s great to just get immersed in it instead of being pandered to. We don’t always know what’s going on, but through context we can figure it out—a sign of intelligent screenwriting. The dances, the colors, the outfits, the practices: I am so jealous and am now actively taking applications for a Pakistani best friend.
Warning: this episode contains bright colors that may affect photosensitive viewers.
And that wedding, what a blast! The dances! The outfits! Filled with joonoon (Urdu word for passion, which now that I think about it, would be a badass superhero yell as Kamala jumps into a fight: jooooo-nooon!), it's all about family, the episode’s major theme. Finding our worth and value in those closest to us is what Kamala needs to do, leaning on them for support. She can’t go this alone, which is what she’s been unsuccessfully doing. My biggest hope for this episode, and this series, is that those who have trouble seeing past skin color, language, musical tastes, or cultural traditions realize that we are all not as different as we think we are. There are many universal truths to our lives with wonderful, and really FUN, things to offer those beyond our small groups.
So it’s about here that the episode starts to fall apart, when Kam-mom and the Djinn descend on the ceremony. The threat level goes from 2 to about 97 (on a scale of 1-10) and everyone’s life is suddenly in danger, something that seems tonally out of sorts for this show because the threat level has always been NOT cosmic. We prefer Caltech crises and boy crushes, not DEATH. Kamala pulls the fire alarm, successfully evacuating the place, and she’s then left to awkwardly fight off these expert assassins, which is all just stretching a bit much. (At least it’s to the strains of Jon Bon Jovi, New Jersey’s 2nd favorite son.) The fighting is weirdly choreographed with the one-person-at-a-time trope, and the scene transitions are strange, with Kamala suddenly able to hide like a ninja. It was all better when it was anchored in teenage angst.
“So angsty about my work/academic life balance!”
I like that she’s coming into her own with learning her powers: just dial back the cat-like reflexes a little. The stretchy punches are handled well, but overall this is not this type of show. The Djinn stand around menacingly, surrounding Bruno and Kamala (cause that’s what bad guys do—stand around and look mean, not actually attack), and it’s the DODC that steps in and stops the action. But not before the Polar Express comes through in a vision, which means enough to Kamala’s grandmother to book a flight to Karachi (or a ride on the Darjeeling Express? I’m not sure of the travel arrangements). And Nakia finds out the truth about Night Light!
It’s all very Joseph Campbell-y, with next week’s stage being the call to adventure, so at least this structure is rooted in classic storytelling. It’s the tonal focus and perspective that we need to worry about, though. Ms. Marvel is NOT an action comic book; stick to being relatable and authentic, not to being what Marvel tends to superimpose on their properties. It’s best when it’s a coming-of-age story. I was also disappointed that there was nary a hint of the lush animation style from the opening episodes. The wide-eyed imagination of Kamala Khan needs to shine through before it gets buried under a rubble heap in the middle of Karachi. (Which sounds too much like the fourth episode of Moon Knight. Yikes!)
“Come with us Kamala! Things turned out just fine for me in the asylum!”
I still have hope, but a little less than last week. Remember, nothing from here on out was screened for critics, so again, what comes next is anyone’s guess. Last week I doubted that Kam-mom was from “an extremist faction…with Inhuman powers,” and I called that scenario “unlikely,” so, yeah. At least I know that no matter what happens, the show has still built an amazingly authentic and talented cast with a clear unapologetic vision. Just keep your hands off this one, Fiege.
Star City Rating: 3½ out of 5
Next week: I'm gonna get you on a slow boat to Karachi.