Review: ‘Ms. Marvel’ Episode 5 – ‘Time and Again’ Provides an Emotional Look at Kamala’s Family History
I was interested to see what would happen this week after Kamala journeyed back to the time of Partition in last week’s episode of Ms. Marvel. It was clear she would get answers about her family history and I was eager to learn more. Time and Again does an excellent job telling the story of Kamala’s great-grandmother Aisha and what exactly happened to her that night as her family rushed to get the final train out of India.
Mehwish Hayat does a great job as we get our best look at the character since she first started appearing to Kamala in those bangle-induced visions back in episode 2, as she transitions from a highly guarded stranger in foreign lands to a loving wife and mother. Hayat does a good job at bringing forth her warmth after an initially hostile introduction.
My only wish is that we’d spent more time in the flashbacks. The present day content that makes up the second half of the episode is still good, but it brings forward conflicts I thought would be saved for the finale. I don’t think we really needed to see any of the present day stuff until next week, and it would have been nice spend a full 45 minutes in British-occupied India to really sink our teeth into Aisha’s life there. Instead, it felt like both sections of this episode were a bit rushed.
There were still plenty of quiet emotional moments this week though, as Zenobia Hammond’s Muneeba also got a resolution to her arc and a new understanding blossomed between her and Kamala. There’s plenty to love in Time and Again, I just wish it could have lasted a bit longer. As a result, there are a couple of conflicts and character arcs that appear to have been resolved an episode earlier than I expected. Though I wish some of that had been saved for next week, there’s a genuine possibility that Ms. Marvel might not have the blockbuster finale filled with CGI and explosions that have become standard in Marvel’s shows. It means I’m not sure what to expect, which is no bad thing, even if I don’t know how to feel about it.
Spoilers ahead…
I really enjoyed Aisha’s story. The scene where she meets her husband Hasan, a peaceful Muslim man preaching for peaceful resolution, is so warm and tender as he notices her sleeping rough in his rose garden and offers her food and shelter. I would have liked more connective tissue here, watching her slowly warm to him before falling in love, but instead the next scene shows her already in love and pregnant with Kamala’s future grandmother Sana.
The transition between scenes does work, but I still wish we’d seen more of the two of them. The story jumps forward a few more months to when Sana is a newborn, and then the next one jumps forward a few years to the time of Partition. Aisha is visited by Najma and you immediately see the difference between them. Najma is still laser-focused on returning to the Noor dimension, and presumably hasn’t even attempted to settle into her new surroundings. In contrast, Aisha has a family she loves and doesn’t want to leave them.
However, she immediately realizes that Najma is dangerous, so she lies and tells her she’ll retrieve the bangle so they can go home. This serves as the trigger for her attempted escape to Pakistan. Hasan is reluctant to leave, as he resents being pushed out of his home simply for being Muslim, but agrees to leave anyway because Aisha wills it. He’s an incredibly likeable character with motivations that I think everyone can relate to. If not for the fact that we know he survives to raise Sana in Pakistan, I would have bet on him getting killed by Najma. No character that good tends to survive these stories, so it’s a nice surprise that he did.
Instead, Aisha dies after being stabbed by Najma by the train tracks. We then finally see Kamala for the first time this episode, who has presumably been watching these flashbacks the entire time. Iman Vellani sells the sadness and trauma that Kamala must be experiencing, witnessing firsthand such a volatile and chaotic period of her family history. It was quite moving to see Aisha confuse her with Sana, as Kamala was allowed to appear to and interact with members of her family, but no one else.
Watching Kamala then help her grandmother find her father was particularly touching, as all Sana’s stories started to become clearer. Sana thought Aisha was the one who rescued her, but it was actually her granddaughter traveling back in time, thanks to the bangle.
Then the flashbacks are over and we are transported back to the present day, as everyone comes to from the energy blast caused when Najma struck the bangle in last week’s episode. The blast has caused an energy rift that appears to offer a way back to the Noor dimension, until one of Najma’s followers touches it and crumbles to dust.
Najma slowly begins to realize that the rift cannot take her home, and that the only way to close it and save our dimension is to sacrifice her life force (why that didn’t already happen when her follower died, I’m not sure). She expresses a regret that she didn’t bring Kamran with her but still appears to blame him for abandoning her. When Kamala pleads with her not to abandon her son, she decides that the only way to save him is to sacrifice herself, opting not to return to him at all but giving herself what she believes is a heroic death.
I don’t think this was very well executed in the dialogue and it made Najma’s intentions a bit confusing, but after rewatching the scene again it became clearer. Nevertheless, it was still a bit messy and probably should have been fine-tuned a bit so that Najma’s decision-making was better telegraphed. However, she seemed to transfer her life force into her son and give him powers.
Kamran runs to Bruno for help — I appreciated his horror at learning that he’d been calling him the wrong name all this time — but he gets found by Damage Control. Interestingly, Kamran now has powers that seem similar to Kamala’s and he blasts the drone back, only for the drone to fire a rocket that blows up the store on the ground floor.
Damage Control get more incompetent with each episode. As if their inability to capture a teenager still learning her powers wasn’t bad enough, they’ve now destroyed someone’s business in their overeagerness to capture another powered teenager. Along with their cultural insensitivity in the mosque scene with Nakia, they have almost no redeeming qualities. It’s surely not what Tony Stark would have envisioned when creating them.
Kamran states at the end of the episode that he believes his mother wouldn’t abandon him or make him an orphan, so it will be interesting to see what the finale has in store for him. How will he react to the news that his mother is dead? Will he believe Kamala’s story and join forces once again, or will he turn against her? He’s felt like quite a light-hearted character so far, so perhaps everything will be fine. It should be an emotionally charged moment though.
The rest of the episode is dedicated to repairing the relationships between mother and daughter, both for Kamala and Muneeba and for Muneeba and Sana. Seeing Kamala in action with the bangle is a crystallizing moment for Muneeba; she understands that her daughter is special for reasons beyond her understanding, while simultaneously realizing that her own mother was on to something for all those years.
Other shows would have inserted a development here that had Muneeba scared or angry with her daughter’s newfound powers, but thankfully Muneeba is immediately supportive. I think it does feel a tad rushed, but it is heartwarming to see a mother be instantly supportive and full of love for her child.
With Muneeba’s arc wrapped up and the Djinn all dead, I’m not sure exactly how this show wraps up now. The only antagonist left is Damage Control, and they seem underwhelming compared to the cosmic threat Kamala just defeated. Kamran’s arc also needs wrapping up, but I’m really not sure what to expect from the finale. I’m intrigued to see how Ms. Marvel ends, because aside from some forgettable villains it’s generally been great. Hopefully they have something special in mind.
Josh is a huge a fan of Star Wars, superheroes and video games. He spends most of his time wondering who would win in a fight between Boba Fett and Star Lord.
