Ms Marvel - Episode 4 - Review

When the last episode of Ms Marvel ended, Kamala was told by her grandmother to come to Karachi, which is in Pakistan and her mother should come with her. Where this show picks up, is more less ignoring the events of the last episode, except with a singular throwaway line and that seems to be a trend for most of it, nothing is safe and everything can be ignored.

With Kamala being told over and over again in the last episode, either directly or indirectly, that family is everything and that with family, you are never alone, I had seriously hoped that this episode would start by addressing that. Instead the show starts with Kamala and her mother on a plane to Pakistan, it was a bold choice and one that felt cheap. There is no fallout from Kamala literally pulling a fire alarm on her brothers wedding and yes, they address it by saying the grounding is on hold right now, the problem is, there is no explanation for how they got on the plane. The show is jumping around story wise, in order to keep the pace going and while there are times when the makes sense, this is not one of them, are we just expected to believe that whilst her entire family was mad at her, she somehow convinced her mother to take her to Pakistan, but not her father, it is a story choice that makes no sense.

Moving on to Kamala in Pakistan, things are all over the place, there are times when Kamala is with her family, both extended and direct, doing family things and then there are times when she is hanging out with some boy she just met. Now given that the last boy she just met, had a mother who decided after 12 hours that she was going to kill Kamala, you might think that the girl has some sense of self preservation and doesn’t go with the strange person, from a foreign country. But again, she makes a joke, throwing out a single one liner about her being killed by them, but that is it, it really makes a connection to the character hard to accept, because at each turn, someone lays out exact steps on what she needs to do and she just either ignores it or does the opposite. I have said before that the show being central to a teenage female is not the issue, but rather that the character is just not interesting and given how she treats everyone around her, she proves it week on week.

Speaking of weak, we got the introduction of some new characters, one who didn’t last and while that wouldn’t be an issue, it does raise concerns about the folks who killed them. The Clandestines being killers is not the shocking part, the fact that they broke out of a maximum-security prison and then managed to leave the USA, which has likely increased its border protection after the events of the snap, then arrive in Pakistan. But not just any part of the country, the same city block that Kamala and her new friends are hanging out, it speaks to incredibly lazy writing, from the moment you see one guard leading five prisoners, without assistance, to their random drop in to the lair of people that have spent decades hiding from them, it just didn’t make sense. Story beats are important, it requires things to be set up and for connections to exist, it is the entire reason we saw Kamala getting out of the car in jeans at the club, so we knew why they were outside.

The arrival of the Clandestines does however provide a pretty fun chase sequence and unlike Star Wars lately, there is some speed behind this one. Seeing the streets of Karachi full of objects to smash, feels very Jackie Chan, but it also helps connect the world to a real place, that because of the stalls and their wares, people and clothes, all being thrown around, it grounds it. The final fight at the end though was a little awkwardly paced, don’t get me wrong it is good, but there are a few moments where they do a Texas switch and it doesn’t come off as cleanly as it should, but given that this is the first major role Iman Vellani, her not being a stunt professional makes sense. There was also a weird cut early in the episode, where Kamala was eating, it doesn’t break the scene, it just looks like they cut a few seconds from the show, making it feel disjointed.

I do have to give special mention to the set design team for this episode, while the set of Karachi was very much a set, there was so much packed into it, that it was sometimes hard to keep track of it being a set, which is a job well done in my book. With the streets packed with extras, it felt like a real place, something that Moon Knight did very well with its Egypt set, but unlike the aforementioned show, this one wasn’t confined to a square and helped sell the alive factor much more. There were some locations that were clearly sets, but they were rarely in the show long enough to matter.

For obvious reasons I won’t talk about the ending, though I really do want to, but its possibilities could lead to some very interesting places, story wise at least. Ms Marvel is really struggling to connect to the audience, the main character has charm, but almost every action they do feels out of place for what they should be doing. Part of that could be my whole, teenagers don’t know anything mindset, Hades knows I didn’t when I was a teen, but the show needs to account for that and they are not. I said it to a friend after the first two episodes, Pixar has spent years making content for all ages and demographics, even with movies like Luca and Turning Red, both aimed at vastly different groups, but still appealing to all. Marvel Studios hasn’t clicked like that and each episode we see from them, where they are not doing that, is going to hurt it more than anything else.

The Score

7.5

The Pros

+The chase sequence at the end of the episode, was one of the best in Disney+ history

+The sets helped make their travel feel like they went somewhere special

The Cons

-Kamala is still not connecting as a character, doing everything against all the advice she is given

-The Clandestines breaking out of prison, fleeing the country and still finding Kamala in a secret base, is just so lazy