Viewer Log: Ms. Marvel ep 2

Kamala takes a crash course in power use. 

Last time on Ms. Marvel, we got to meet Kamala Khan. The massive fan girl from Jersey was desperate to get to the first ever Avenger Con. Her plan to get there were fouled up by failing her drivers test and her parent’s belief that a Con was more or less a massive party. She devises a plan to go anyway, much to her BFF Bruno’s chagrin. She and Bruno are able to make it, and Kamala gets into the Captain Marvel cosplay contest. She snaps on a bangle that was sent to her mother from her grandmother and it triggers a sudden case of Superpowers in her. She accidentally knocks over a Mjolnir statue wit her powers and knocks popular girl Zoe around but saves her with a stretchy hand. She and Bruno escape, but her mother catches her sneaking back in. Unbeknownst to her, the video of her is seen by Damage Control agents and they decide to bring her in.

 

Episode 2: Crushed

 

They're a good group.

         We open with Kamala going to school and feeling real good no that she has powers. She corrects a gym teacher who’d been getting her name wrong for years, is assertive with the lesbian couple that block her locker everyday and is just feeling good… right up until she runs into a guy. He’s cute and distracts her for a second until Bruno runs in and gets her talking about using her powers again. I guess she sent him some indistinct videos of her tests of flight, shrinking and communicating with insects, but nothing came of it. She tried the Ant-Man one because quote “we’re both charming and we look a lot younger than we are.” Ha. Kamala’s joy bubble was burst when she finds out that Zoey is kind of using the experience to boost her follower count. Nakia joins them, hears this, and utters my sentiment to this information “Ew gross.”

 

We cut to Zoey telling the story, with Kamala smiling as Zoey plays up the feeling of safety she felt being saved by this mysterious hero. Nakia calls her the Budget Captain Marvel with makes Kamala smile more. It disappears though when Zoey dubs her Night Light. Zoey announces that she’s throwing a party on Friday to celebrate the fragility of life. Kamala is initially against it, until the cute guy from earlier, dubbed Kamran, says he’ll go and suddenly she and Nakia are into it. Shocking.

 

I honestly like the visuals of her powers.

Later, Kamala and Bruno slip away to experiment with her powers. She makes her skin glow with the energy and incases her fist in energy. She increases the energy fist’s size until it’s too heavy for her to lift. She almost knocks Bruno’s block off with her fist, but then saves him from being crushed by some stuff she breaks. She starts training, mostly running for a bit, until deciding super strength isn’t in her toolbox. She sees Bruno playing a platform game on his phone and has the idea to make platforms with her powers and jump around. During the montage, we stop for a moment for Bruno to clarify with his weirdly advanced monitoring equipment that Kamala’s power is coming from her not the bangle. It kick-started the process, but the power is all her. They both notice that the bangle has either Arabic or Urdu writing on it in their investigation too. Kamala gets better at her platforms being able to run on them after a few days of practice.

 

We cut to Kamala and Nakia running into their mosque, rushing to finish the pre-service rituals before said service. They make it just in time. Kamala and Nakia try to follow along with the lecture from their Sheikh, Sheikh Abdullah, but have difficulty as the women’s section has poor speakers, and carpeting, and walls, and is generally not as nice. Fun fact, this is an almost line for line recreation of an early comic scene. Right down to the Sheikh spinning Kamala’s complaints as it’s important to share their voice. Sheik Abdullah reminds everyone that the Mosque Board elections are still open. Kamala tells Nakia to run, but she’s hesitant, until learning her shoes were stolen during the service. Don’t mess with someone’s shoes.

 

Everyone is having a good time.
... Except Bruno, obviously.

Later, Kamala helps her mom with some bags and apologizes for sneaking out. She then asks her mother if she can go to the party, which her mom does agree to as Nakia and Bruno are their and she promises to be home by nine. She arrives and is almost immediately tricked into drinking a screwdriver. Oy. One kid jumps into a pool, revealed to be Kamran. Both women approve, saying something in Arabic in approval. They say it means Damn, but Bruno clarifies it literally translates to “God has willed it.” No one likes a mansplainer, Bruno. Kamran comes over and introduces himself. A moment later the cops bust the party, but Kamala and her crew escape in Kamran’s car. Kamala flirts with Kaman as they drive, with Bruno third wheeling hard, and the others clearly feeling awkward. Kamran drops them off at thee Circle Q but gets Kamala’s number before she goes.  Kid is smooth. He says goodbye to everyone, getting all their names right except Bruno whom he dubs Brian.

 

Kamala gets home and has a fantasy sing and dance moment. Lord, Kamala is the Pakistani American version of any daughter I might have. Not that I’m complaining, ha. She texts Kamran and confirms a “driving lesson” for Monday. Nice.

 

That Monday, Kamala’s nose start glowing. She is so freaked out about this and so doesn’t hear Nakia’s excellent point that High Schools focus more on Greece and Roman history than Persia and Byzantium by a wide amount. Kamala slips into the bathroom to get her nose under control. Nakia follows her and offers some menstrual products, assuming it’s a period thing. Kamala comes out after getting her powers under control and she and Nakia talk about the difficulties of being Muslim in America. Nakia gives Kamala some earrings and a cute top for her driving date with Kamran.

 

Bruno goes to meet with Mr. Wilson, who reveals that Bruno got into an early immersion program to Caltech. Bruno is hesitant to go, where Mr. Wilson is gung-ho to get him going.

 

Kamala heads out to meet with Kamran. Bruno runs over, thinking they’re going to go train today, and to talk about the Caltech thing, but she lets him know about the driving thing. Bruno is obviously bummed out by this information, but does tell her he’ll go with her to an Eid celebration with her family, because he’s a good friend.

 

Aamir clearly knows something is up, but is a good
brother and doesn't pry too much.

Kamala drives around in Kamran’s car for a bit before they go for food. They discuss Bollywood films and the merits of Kingo vs. Kingo Sr. (Guess people still don’t know he’s Eternal). Kamran reveals that he’s close to his mom, just as Kamala notices her brother and his fiancé outside. She hides behind a menu and Kamran hides too, making them way more noticeable than before. Aamir obviously sees her, and he and Tyesha (the fiancé) go to see her. They lie and say that Kamran is a cousin. It’s a real bad lie but Aamir seems to play along. They bounce and the two have food.

 

We cut to the Khans having dinner. It’s a sweet family moment, that shifts to a slightly darker topic discussing the Partition. I suggest googling it for more info, but short version is when England gave up control of India, they shipped as many Muslims as they could to the newly formed country of Pakistan. Yusuf’s family had been in Karachi, Pakistan for generations before it was Pakistan, but notes Muneeba’s family came with her grandfather and her mother. When Muneeba leaves to clean up, Yusuf tells Tyesha their family story about the Partition. Namely, that Muneeba’s mother Sana, as a toddler, was separated from her parents at the train station. They had to make it onto the last train and find her. Somehow, Sana got back to her father, who had a limp and had trouble keeping up with her. She said he followed a trail of stars back to him. Tyesha asks about Sana’s mother, but Yusuf says that she disappeared that night. The bangle starts glowing at this point. Kamala sees a vision of a train before passing out. Her family wakes her up.

 

Later that night, Kamala calls Sana and asks her grandma about the bangle. Sana reveals that it belonged to her mother, Aisha, and that she doesn’t no much else. Yusuf, walking by, hears her talking and wants to see what she’s doing, but she blocks the door with her powers. She tries to get her grandma to tell her more, but Sana is off on a tangent. She hangs up and fakes sleep to avoid questions.

 

The next day, the Khans are prepping for Eid. Kamala asks Muneeba about Aisha, but Muneeba refuses to talk about her grandmother. Kamala wants to know more but Muneeba is against it completely. They head out to the party.

 

Nakia, Kamala and Bruno gather and head out to campaign for Nakia to join the board. They have nicknames for all the different Mosque clicks, and they all have their assignments. Nakia chooses to focus on her “white whale,” Yusuf Khan. She pressures Yusuf *hard* to get his vote.

 

Meanwhile, Zoe is brought into Damage Control and interrogated about the incident at Avenger Con. Agent Clearly plays good cop for a bit before asking about the “enhanced individual” at the con. Zoe tries to hide info, but Clearly and his fellow agent, Deever, pick up on her tells enough to know they’re looking for a non-white woman. Clearly orders they search every Community center, temple and mosque in the tri-state area.

 

I suddenly have a desire to play a platformer game
no idea why.

Back at the party, Kamala is charming the Illumi-aunties, not for Nakia’s campaign but to pump them for information about her Great-Grandma. Some of them knew her or knew someone who did. Aisha was the subject of a lot of gossip, so there are a lot of stories about her, claiming she cursed or killed people during the Partition. Meanwhile, a kid called Hameed was taking selfies in a tower, falls out and is barely hanging by a curtain. Kamala, seeing this, suits up in her cosplay suit and goes to help. Kamala, clearly nervous, tries to keep Hameed calm as she approaches him. She makes platforms to get to him, firsts slowly, but then runs when she realizes he’s about to fall. She catches him as he falls, but they collide and drop several feet before she throws up another platform. She tries to help Hameed down, but has another vision caused by the bangle of a mysterious woman. She loses concentration and Hameed falls. Kamala throws up enough platforms to slow his fall but his ankle breaks in the drop. She runs off.

 

Away from everyone, Kamala is targeted by Damage Control drones. They chase her, but she dodges around them and later Deever and more agents. She climbs over them, gets hit with an energy blast and drops. Thankfully, Kamran arrives and gets her. In the backseat of his car is the woman from Kamala’s vison, Kamran’s mom. Dun dun dahhh.

 

This was a solid follow up to the previous episode. We got to see Kamala use her powers a bit and learn some of what she can do. I’ll note that in the comics, Kamala’s powers are (essentially) to stretch and alter her mass, like Mr. Fantastic but more complicated because she’s Inhuman. The hard light is a bit… Green Lantern, but as he’s my favorite hero from the DC stable, I can’t complain. The sub plot about Bruno getting into an early Caltech program and not sure how to tell Kamala is fine, standard teen drama, but doesn’t really go anywhere I’m sorry to say. Same with Nakia running for the board. A fine concept, but I know it gets sidelined here extremely quickly. But I’ll get to that later. would have liked something a bit more… dramatic for Kamala’s second time out as “Night Light.” Saving a kid from falling is a noble thing, but I don’t know, this seemed a tad forced. All I’m saying. Oh, and I should point out that I think it’s super sweet that Kamala and Kamran bond over a love of Bollywood films. It’s just cute. Kamran and his mother are going to be a big deal in the story going forward. But we’ll get to that tomorrow. Have a good night.

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