'Ms. Marvel’ Episode 5 Deep Dive
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Hello and welcome back into the ringer verse your nexus podcast e for all things fandom. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me now. She has finally learned Bruno's real first name. It's my Ruben. I'm I. How you doing? Oh my God. I genuinely thought your name was Brian this whole time. Joe.

I know, because you're a good guy and definitely not a villain and everything's fine. Great. We are here to talk about Ms. Marvel, episode five, time and again, written by Fatima Asghar and directed by Charmaine Obaid-Shanoy. And this is the penultimate episode of a Marvel TV product series.

Which usually puts us in a position where we're like, where are we going? Where have we been? What are we doing here? What can we expect? It's always an interesting place in a six episode series, episode five. So we'll get into all of that. We'll do a breakdown. We'll give our overall thoughts and feelings. Just quick, of course, business before we get into that. Program reminders. The Midnight Boys? Ooh, we'll be here on Friday.

Tomorrow, maybe, if you're listening to this on a Thursday, but maybe you're listening to it on Friday. The Midnight Boys will be here with their Thor Love and Thunder thoughts and feelings. I'm really excited to hear what they thought of that. Mallory Rubin and I will be back on Monday with our deep dive into Thor Love and Thunder. Mallory, I have already seen...

This would be twice in the theaters and I'm singing again this weekend. So I'll be a three timer by the time you and I talk on Monday. Wow. So my goodness. Wow. Yeah. That's, um, I feel like there's some joke to be made there about love triangles, but I'll, I'll, I'll hold off until our pod. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh, and then I boys will be back with, uh, the boys finale next week. That's happening. Um,

So there's a lot going on and we'll be here for you through all of it in order to make sure you don't miss a thing. The most important thing to do as Mallory loves to always tell you is to just follow the podcast, subscribe Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, but preferably Spotify, but wherever it's fine. We're loose. We're easy. Follow us on social.

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit. We're everywhere. Jomie is everywhere. Jomie is on this call right now with a Rubik's cube in one hand and a lightsaber in the other, which just proves his dedication to the bit, to the cause. So follow us on social.

And last but certainly never least, your friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, which is quite simply that we will be talking about everything Miss Marvel leading up through episode five. We're also going to do a little like time travel in film and television and books discussion. So we will let you know what we're talking about before we, I don't know, lay out the full plot of a movie you've maybe been waiting to see. So, but yeah.

I'll let you know when we get that section. I'm just going to blanket it now. Please do not be mad at me for spoiling quote unquote, a movie that's 20 years old or something like that. We'll talk about it later. Maybe a earlier or later version of yourself has already ensured that that can't happen. Predestination paradox regarding the spoiler warning. You know, it's a causal loop. That's, that's, uh, that's all the business I think that I have to, uh, have to do. So let's,

Let's just give some overall thoughts and feelings, Mallory. How are you feeling about this episode? And how are you feeling about this season of television so far overall? This was...

the episode that I was probably most mixed on to date, there were parts of it that I really enjoyed and I thought were incredibly like emotionally cathartic and impactful. And I loved those parts of it. I thought that the mythology centric lore centric elements left me wanting a little bit more in terms of like the actual insights and explanations, the mechanics of the story choices, um, on the time travel front and otherwise. And,

and that gets me to the place that I am in every episode five of every Disney Plus show to date, which is that I wish the show were longer and think it needs more time. And one of the things that this episode did that I've actually really longed for and craved in other shows was spend time in a different character set, a different place, different moment of the timeline. I thought it was so cool that we got to go back

to that 1942 to 1947 window and spend time with Aisha and Hassan and see the roots that became this beautiful family tree that we are so deeply invested in and attached to at this point. And I think that if you have...

eight episodes instead of six, you don't, you can purely appreciate that, right? Like we got here, one of the things that in Obi-Wan we really were longing for, which was like, wouldn't it have been cool if we had just gotten a Reva backstory episode, for example? And like, it's not a one-to-one comp, right? But I think that's a through line of our Disney Plus episode length conversations. And so we got it here and I was glad we got it. But at the end of the episode, when we only had, you know, 10-ish minutes in the modern day timeline with our primary character sets,

I did feel myself like getting that pre finale, uh,

oh boy, is there enough time to close all of these loops, causal or otherwise, and answer all of these questions? And like, sometimes the answer to that is no. And the answer can come in a film or a season two. And we know we're going to see a lot of the things that are happening here connect to the Marvels and impending film. And like, that's fine. And broadly, I have peace with that inside of the MCU. But, you know, I think that this is like,

a lot of the, are these shows the right length talking points? I think like they were top of mind for me here. How about you? Yeah. Yeah. So I, we've talked about this before, but I love time travel stories. They're among my favorite in fiction in general. And like I said, we're going to get to some time travel discussion later, but, and also oddly enough,

This week, I did not watch the show at midnight when it dropped. Usually I do, but I did not this week for one reason or another. And I didn't even get I didn't get to it till last night, Wednesday night. And so at that point, I didn't have any like spoilers, but I had the general rumble of responses to the episode. And people seemed pretty dissatisfied, right, that they were not.

they were confused about things or just wasn't delivering what they wanted. So I went in with that sort of lowered expectation of like, okay, this episode didn't land with people, you know, as well as like the first two episodes really did. Right. But then the episode starts and to your point, we're with Aisha and we're with Hassan. And I was like, I love this. I like there. I mean, those people are so hot and so charming. And I was like, I got that for,

forever watching these two people flirt. And I was like, if this is the whole episode, just like them, I would have been happy. But then the whole thing felt, it's not just, doesn't just feel rushed in the broader context of the season. It felt rushed within the episode that we were just sort of like zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, no time for anything. You know, and especially like the train station stuff, you know, like,

where you're just tight on a character with like five extras around them. And it all just felt very like, what's the bare bones we can do to make a logical story with the payoff that I've been trying to think about this. Like we had no, no spoilers. We didn't know anything in advance. We just like have watched a lot of film and television. And I think they put their finger on the scale pretty heavily. This idea that Kamala would be the one to lead the stars, uh, the star path. And, uh,

Perhaps if we hadn't seen that coming like three episodes ago, like we it felt like it was treated like a big surprise. Cool moment in a way that I'm not sure it landed with folks who were like because they kept hitting it like over and over again. I think people saw it coming the way that again, I mentioned this last week, but the Patronus reveal in Prisoner of Azkaban hits you all the way in the feelings, you know what I mean? And I think that that's what they wanted this moment to do.

And there are aspects of it that did connect with me, but it all again just felt very like breezed through. And I mean, I was I was watching this. I love time travel stories so much. I was like, this could have been a whole season of television, honestly. Like, yeah, Kamala, like inter interacting with her family's past. Yeah.

Um, that's just sort of where I landed. So yeah. Yeah. Um, I, I was gonna, I'm glad you brought that, that up about kind of anticipating the trail of stars reveal. Cause I was actually, I was curious to ask you about that and almost like, I don't quite know how to phrase this, like whether, cause I, I have the exact same thought and I'm like, I wonder if that's a fair thing to be

Right. Almost like holding against the show because this is something that we talk about and I always enjoy talking about the conversation around the conversation and like...

When we have the weekly show and we're speculating and theorizing and parsing and analyzing and frame by framing and Easter egg hunting, like we and I don't mean just us here at Lingerverse, like we the collective, we people on the Internet who watch these shows and talk about them a lot are going to.

get things wrong and then have the Ralph Boner disappointment, right? And then sometimes get things right and weirdly be, like, disappointed about that, too, because you have that moment as a fan sometimes where you're like, why didn't the thing that happened shock me and wow me? I want to be shocked and wowed. But I do think it's not as simple as that here. Like, the prisoner of Azkaban comp is a really good one because...

Yes, we, I think, felt like very sure that we were going to see that it was not her great great grandmother who, as the stories told, had unleashed the trail of stars and that it was going to be Kamala herself. And I still think it is a cool character moment for her to realize that for her to have that revelation and that awakening. Yeah.

But it gets back to your point about the pacing and the parceling out because the episode did feel like it was structured specifically to build toward that reveal. And so then I think that exacerbates and compounds that sensation. And then you move to the final stretch of the episode where...

You were like really then eager for some new insight. Right. And that was the stretch of the episode where I had a lot of questions. And I've said this like a lot on pods over the years. And I'm sincerely sorry for just repeating myself, but like,

Time travel stories or otherwise, I can hang with almost any version of it, but you have to explain the rules of the universe to me. Like I have got to understand how it works, how the magic works inside of the story. Right. And maybe that will come again. Like this isn't a movie. It's not a book where I could just immediately go to the next chapter and get the answer on the on the schedule that I've decided to set for myself. So, you know, if that clarity comes in time, amazing. But I was like.

I left with a lot of questions. Did the Bengal prodding and activation last week from Najma send...

Kamala to the past or did Aisha calling her or did both? Is that one of the what you seek is seeking you loops? What happened to actually open the veil? Like this was one of the things we were going back and forth on in our prep. Like, are we supposed to interpret that as two bangles because it's the same bangle and two different moments in time activating and in tandem? I can hang with that if that's the answer. I'd love for a character to ask that question or, you know, engage with that idea a bit. Yeah.

for a character to time travel and not really talk about why or how, and then like for the moment, we also have the, the closing of the veil and all of this we'll talk about more as we go, obviously. And like the transfer of power to Cameron, which I was very confused by just like, again, quite literally what happened and how, and maybe we will learn that with the nor dimension and the energy and the ensuing episode. But yeah,

It was difficult not to leave the episode as emotionally satisfying and touching as I thought the bulk of it was with those questions, not feeling like they were really like hanging over it. And at the pace kind of, and the hybrid nature of the past and present sort of exacerbated some of those questions. And like, I think, um,

I think like a line like Nani, you know, answering the one, how did this happen prompt with, I don't know, but I like to think two people fell in love and created something, something much bigger than either of them could have created alone is kind of emblematic of like both sides of this coin where like,

I think in some ways that's like really lovely, right? And very sweet and very much of a piece of and representative of one of the larger themes of this story, which is like the power of connection and the power of embracing the bonds that you have with other people. And the real magic is not just what the bangle does. It's your child looking up at you and your partner saying to you, like, she thinks you're magic. And like, what an incredible feeling that must be, right? That's lovely. Like, I thought

that was great. But if I'm being honest, there was that part of my mind that was like, that's not an answer to the... There has to also be the actual answer to the question. I want that emotional heart, which is beautiful and deeply resonant and something that I've been grateful for in this show and love about the show and also could have just taken an entire season of. If the mythology is going to be the central, I want to pair it with an answer to the mythology front too. Daniel Chin wrote a great piece about this today at The Ringer, which is basically...

in essence, exploring that idea, the family examination, the bonds across generations, that emotional through line, really impactful, like really strong and well done here. Like one of the more impactful versions of this we've gotten inside of the MCU. We don't know much about the clandestine. We don't know much about the Bengal. We don't know much about the Nord dimension. And we have one episode left.

And to me, that speaks to so going into this show, we had some trepidation because we had heard some rumblings that like, you know, it got pushed back and all this sort of stuff like that. There were major rewrites and you can tell that they are based on the credits and how things are assigned. You know, like there's a pair of writers who were brought in to sort of overhaul some things and their names are on several episodes and you could see that all the way through. So all that happened. Their names are not on this episode, by the way. Yeah.

And then what's also true is that this episode is like close to 10 minutes shorter than all the other episodes seen so far. So if it feels rushed, it's not because they didn't have the time. It's because something else is happening where they just chopped things up in a way where I really, it really feels like they chopped this up in a way where they're just like, what's the bare bones of a story that makes enough sense for us to move through this episode and get to the other side. But yeah,

Everything with, like, if that's the last thing we see of Najma, like, which it may not be, but if it is, like, that's so confusing. And, like, watching...

We love to be positive and highlight the positive on this show. And there's a lot that I did. Like I got genuinely emotional. And I honestly think that Muneeba is like one of the better Marvel characters we've ever had. I absolutely love her. But Nani too, like an actual icon. I would watch a spinoff of every moment of Nani's life. I really happily love her. Muneeba discovering that she can track her daughter through her cell phone is like an incredible moment of television. But yeah.

Watching our pals who also break down this stuff with us, like Eric Voss or Ryan Arian, like watching their videos and both of them this week were like kind of steam coming out of their ears trying to wrap their heads around some of the mythology stuff, you know? And it's just sort of like, they're like, I don't know. Here's the best information that I can present to you based on what was given to me here. But your question of like, like I choose to believe that.

Only because it makes me sound more right last week that two bangles in one place helped open the veil. But we have no textual evidence in the show to give us that. We know that

Aisha said at some point two bangles are required to open or it will only work if there are two bangles. And we know that technically bootstrap paradoxes aside, there were two bangles in one physical location in the past. And we know that quote, that man from the temple said they needed two bangles, but we don't know who that is.

Right. So that could be the reason. And it does feel, it feels so true that Aisha called Kamala, like, to the past to help her, to, you know, save her daughter, etc. But then why would that coincide with the bangle being stabbed at the same time? Do you know, like, why?

Okay, maybe it's both things. Anyway, all of that's to say, should we go sort of like beat by beat now that we've sort of expressed some of our mixed mixed emotion about this? I do want to shout out. I don't know if you felt got the same feeling that I did. But in the previously on we see Waleed, our dear departed. We only knew him for 15 minutes. Member of the Red Daggers says to Kamala.

uh, you know, basically like, well, we need to talk about your great grandmother and all her legends. The hit is answer with the old Ned Stark. The next time we see each other, we'll talk about your mother. Uh, your mother always works out. I'm like a question about that. And I don't, I don't, I don't have the answer, but a fun question is like, that I'm curious to know is how the red daggers know about Aisha at all. Like,

Who told them who told them what she did? Like, where does this all, where does all this lore come from? That sort of stuff. I'm really interested in and hope we hope we learn more. But with one episode left, I'm not, you know, wholly optimistic. Yeah. There are insights into the Nord dimension too. Like how have they gained all that knowledge? That would be a fun thing to get to learn. Yeah. What like, is, is that again, is that a Ms. Marvel season two? Is that a, the Marvel's thing, you know? So we get the opening credits and,

There's been a lot of people parsing down the opening credits. Eric Voss did a great like sort of beat by beat. But also the way that Eric – and I love the work that Eric does on New Rockstars. But the way in which he spent like half his videos just parsing through this opening credits just tells me that there wasn't like a ton else there.

that he could parse in this episode. Do you know what I mean? But we have the, there's Urdu, Hindu, Bengali, Parsi, like all these different languages and all these different imagery of partition of the members of her family. The opening credits every week have done a beautiful job of highlighting these like elements from the, that we will get in the show in the opening here. I thought this was a particularly like, what a fun assignment. The person who every week gets to design the opening credit cards for Miss Marvel episode. Um,

Um, did you, is there anything about the opening credits you wanted to, to hit on? No, I think you covered it. I mean, they're lovely. They're steeped in history and culture and feel like very of a piece with the show's larger, um, very attentive eye and, you know, mission to, uh, again, like steep the story in a real understanding of, of the history that the characters would have experienced. So I thought it was awesome. Um, you know, and that, that, that's,

those elements throughout the season lines of dialogue, visual choices alike have just been like, I think consistently really vibrant and engaging and informative. Like we've talked about this a few times. And so have, so have our ringer verse pals on the, on the earlier pods earlier in the season, but just like have really like sincerely learned a lot watching the show. And yeah,

About partition, you mean? Yeah. And Pakistani culture. And like that's been that's been like a really enriching and valuable experience that I'm grateful we've we've gotten to enjoy. We get this newsreel in in four, three aspect ratio of sort of partition. It's a little confusing. And here's why.

And Ryan area over screen crash pointing this out. Otherwise I would not have noticed it. So it's in a British voice and it strikes you as like a Brit. This is, this is like a British newsreel, like story of, of the partition. Right. But the language is all very anti-colonial. And it's very like they're occupational. So it's like, who is,

I don't want to get hung up too much because it's just all it is. And it is a pure exposition device, but like who wrote this newsreel? Who is it for? Right. Like if it were a British made newsreel, it would be full of pro British propaganda, but it's not. And so it's like very anti-colonial, but done, uh,

In a British voice. Anyway, a minor, a minor confusing thing. But we get, you know, we get this sort of story of what's happening in partition. They've told it to us a few times. But as you say, there's a lot of people who don't know anything about it. So it is worth sort of explaining again and again what this like partition event is.

And then we hop back to 1942. This is an event that takes place directly after the temple incursion, right? Aisha has the bangle, but she's being pursued by the soldiers that, or at least one soldier who crashed into the temple at the end of the previous flashback we saw. Right. Which was the beginning of episode three and the parting of the characters who had come through the, the North dimension together and were seeking a way home. Yeah.

What do you make of what did you make of this Aisha interaction here? We remember the aunties said in the in the sequence in episode two where the aunties are talking about all the rumors about Aisha and one of them was like, you know, she killed a man. It's like, well, we I mean, we see her kill a man here. So what did what did you think?

Um, you know, I went back and rewatched the opening scene of episode three after seeing this. I was because I was like, oh, is this the exact moment? You know, let's compare the outfits and see. Yes, of course, this picks up immediately from that that flight after after retrieving the bangled from the severed, we assume, Kree arm. And the thing that was really interesting

interesting about revisiting that is like just remembering that in that moment in time in 1942, the discovery of the Bengal, putting it on for the first time, parting from her, her fellows, she also wanted to return home. That was the mission. And that was the goal sincerely for her at that point in time. Right. And so it was like a helpful, uh,

helpful recalibration for the rest of her journey then over that episode because and we've talked like a lot about the parallels across time and across character sets inside of this show which is one of the things I've loved most about it and

You can be in a different moment in time and have the context and experience of your own relationships and your own choices and your own decisions in your own life. And then find that common ground with somebody because of the experience or the decision that you made in this larger, grander sense. And so like you get the moment at the train station where Aisha reveals at last the nature of the Bengal, the source of her magic to Hassan, to her family. And he is not like,

explain it all to me. He's not, he's not podcasting, right? He's not like, explain it all to me. Tell me everything. How does it work? He's like, why are you telling me now? And they have this really lovely exchange. And she says, you know, I was running from something, but you never pushed. And I thought that his response was one of my favorite moments of the episode, which was,

Because I didn't care. You chose us. And that's what mattered. And that feels like one of those really central through lines of this story. Like, who do you choose? What family do you choose? What group do you choose? What thing matters to you? What people matter to you? And just to like pick up in that moment in time where it is this this instinct, right? Escape.

seek refuge and safe harbor, very like slowly suss out whether you can trust this new person who you've met after slumbering in his rose garden. Right. And that initial like bonding over a fresh meal and sharing your names with each other to get to the point where it was like, well, what's the one thing that really matters? Just that they chose each other. Right. So,

the switching of the choice, like who are you choosing to devote your time to? And how is that one central choice driving everything in your life? Like, I thought that was just a, a really cool thing. And one of my, one of my favorite parts of the episode, in addition to what we talked about for much of last episode, which was this, you know, three generations of women inside of one family finding shared understanding with each other.

Four generations in a way. The really important question in all of that in terms of who you choose as your family, as the person that you're going to stay. Is that person extremely hot and quoting roomie to you while making you paratha? That's the question, right? Great looking couple. Really top tier. Lovely. Wonderful. The roomie. I mean, the thing about San is like...

He's hot no matter what. And then he's politically active. That's hot. And then he's quoting Rumi and it's like grows beautiful flowers and cooks and then starts quoting Rumi. When the soul is down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about what you seek is seeking you. What you seek is seeking you is such a beautiful phrase that we like were introduced to last week.

I love that it's roomy. I don't know that anyone I knew flagged that last week, but the and what you seek is seeking you in terms of time travel stories and causal loops and stuff like that is just such like a perfect marriage of beautiful lyrical art poetry and

And the like nerdy ass, does this make sense? Time travel gobbledygook that we like to talk about when we talk about time travel stories. So I just loved all that. I do have some notes for Hassan about like when he decided to stop Aisha and be like, why are we running? I'm like, what if we get on the train and then have this conversation? What if we don't sit down here and have this conversation right now?

But in terms of identity, in terms of like the various... They had to sit down and have the conversation because they had already sat down to have the conversation. Whatever happens, happens, man. Whatever happens, happens. What would Daniel Faraday tell you? Exactly. Whatever happens, happens. All right. In terms of various pulls on Aisha, I wanted to read a little bit of this like very long, very thoughtful tweet thread. This is going to sound dumb to say tweet thread. That a listener posted

Tag me in. And it was about the way in which I've been describing Kamala's identity and how maybe I could do better on that front, because I've been using the word fractured to describe sort of the American and Pakistani pulls on her or, you know, the like.

human, jinn facets of her identity. And this listener wrote, Kamala has a single identity that is multifaceted but uniform because it is exactly her being. Her being isn't broken into many pieces. It's woven together like a tapestry. And that tapestry tells her and her family's history, which does have a lot of pain, but it's still whole.

Kamala has a multi-being identity, gen human, but an international multicultural identity. The makeup of her identity is forged by choices made by her family. And there's nothing fractured about something that's forged.

The pain in her family's history doesn't fracture her identity. What it does is create multiple consciousnesses. Each consciousness is differentiated by how she's marginalized in each of the spaces she occupies while also knowing she's still from all of those spaces. And then, uh, the thread goes on from there. It's really thoughtful. Um, the username is at violencia dim or if you want to like look that up, uh, because the whole thread is, is worth reading. I thought it was really thoughtful. Um, and I really appreciated that feedback. Um,

But I like what you're talking about in terms of what you say echoes what this listener said here, which is this idea of choice, which is like Aisha's a djinn woman who has chosen a human family. And it's not one is...

Pull pulling her apart or whatever. It's just she's she's chosen to steer her path in this direction. And that creates a new identity for her, which is the identity of like wife and mother, you know, and that's that's part of her identity going forward. But none of it. I think I think this the listener is right to call me on. It's not fractured. It's a whole thing forged from many different pieces. And I really like that.

That's really lovely. And I think one of the ways that the show is presenting and reinforcing that idea for us is in the

construction of the costume because we got a couple more elements this week, right? With Kareem gifting his red dagger scarf, which you had anticipated, right? And then the necklace, the broken necklace, but it's not broken really. It's going to become this new central piece to the thing that Kamala is forging and all of these different strands and pieces that

that she is going to be assembling into the thing that reflects who she not only is, but has really actively embraced being and has gotten to the point with her family and her loved ones where they can share that embrace with her, which was really one of the like, I don't mean to, boy, I'm being undisciplined today. I'm sorry. I'm zipping ahead, but like I was so excited

delighted by the familial embrace of the reveal because I think it would have been easy to have a version of the story where it's like, absolutely not. You cannot do this hero thing, but that's not what happened. Right. Her mom was like, responded to it in a way that really surprised her.

characters and viewers alike in a really exciting way. And then it builds to something larger than just that one insight, right? Which is this desire to then have like a shared experience

about all the things they don't know about each other, which we'll chat about more later. And like the Nani line, like at the end of that, the culmination of that, and like perhaps this was the journey I was intended to take, you know, one that would bring me back to you. Real opposite of Thanos energy here, right? Like we have so much of the MCU that literally...

lives in the shadow of like, you could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you back to me? And to get the inverse of that idea where you can like embrace that sometimes it takes a long time to work your way back to someone else. But like, if you get there in the end, then you got there and you got there together. And like, I really, I really love that. And I find that to be like a very hopeful and aspirational thing. What I love about Munipa's response here to finding out about Kamala is like, it's similar. It's similar to comic's

But different in the way it rolls out in the comics is that like Maneva knew that Kamala was Miss Marvel for a long time before Kamala told her.

And she was just basically like, do you think I don't know my own daughter? Like, and then she was like, you know, basically I was waiting for you to tell me in your own time. That's a, such a beautiful moment of like, of course I've known that this was you. And also not only that, but I was letting you tell me in your own time. So given that they didn't chose for whatever reason to not let the,

secret of her identity because like Nokia finding out is also like Nokia doesn't know for a very long time. You know, and so to change the timeline the way they did, you know, they they might have their reason. Secret identities is not really a thing that Marvel has ever done. You know, that's not a thing that

Not ever, but like from the moment that Tony Stark says, I am Iron Man, like Marvel's like, we don't really do long, just any secret identities. That's not really. Spider-Man's an incredible rarity. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Which ends up becoming a seminal plot point. Yeah.

So I think that that might be why they tried to decide to accelerate this or whatever. But so given that they weren't going to spool it out over several seasons or whatever to have Muneeba find out and have this reaction and have it be all part of this moment in their mother-daughter, mother-daughter, daughter-mother relation, like feedback loop relationship of seeing each other, really seeing each other there. I mean,

Some of it still, again, feels a little rushed to me. Her reaction to Kamala, actually, I liked that, but her immediate apology, oh, so you were right our whole lives about the fact that we have magic in our family and I'm sorry this caused a terrible rift for us for most of our lives and I was ashamed of you and I ran away from you. Sorry, Mom. And, you know, like that felt a little hasty. But...

her recognizing her daughter and understanding her daughter felt really beautiful to me. The necklace thing as a, as a, as a symbol, I think it's beautiful as a symbol of, of this, of this lightning bolt, which in the comics is just a part of Kamala's like fangirlism over, you know, Carol here becomes part of her name. That's beautiful. Um,

In execution, it felt a little... Again, they're just... It felt like everything was going chop, chop, chop, fast, fast, fast to me. So, yeah. All right. Anything else you want to say? In the 1943-1947, we've got, like, Najma finds Aisha and is like, Hey, babe, where you been? What about our plans to go back? Are we going to do that? Where's that bangle? Where'd you put it? You already mentioned the part about, like...

Her daughter thinking she's magic, which is completely beautiful. All of that. The confrontation on the way to the train, this conversation that Hassan and Aisha have. Is there anything you want to say about that time period? I think the only the only other line that I would want to highlight that felt not only really beautiful on its own.

in a dialogue vacuum, but very much like mission statement for this show was in the sequence where Aisha is trying to

mobilize, you know, convince Hassan that it's time to go. They got to go. And this is before the full reveal of why, but she says we can take our memories with us. So long as we're together, we can build a home anywhere Hassan. And, you know, again, that, that connects to a lot of the different moments in the timeline and character sets, but like, it's one of the, it reminded me of a good stretch of our discussion last week, because like, it feels like one of the,

One of the real distinctions, and I think there's this question heading into the finale of just like, well, who is even the primary antagonist in the sense that like many members of the clandestine are now no longer with us? Perhaps that has now become...

Cameron, is it damage control? Shout out Stewie. Haven't seen you in a minute, my guy. But that like whatever the answer is, like one of the real divisions between Najma and our hero set more broadly is this like more rigid read of where home is and what you will do to recover it. And then this, again, embrace of like the idea that

Home can be the thing you make with anybody wherever. Right. And like that's then a very complex idea inside of a show that so centrally focuses on partition. Right. So it's like not simply presented in any way. It's like very nuanced and I think deftly and sensitively explored. But I was so I was struck by that line because I think it felt like a very meaningful one for for the show and for many different characters across the across the timeline.

The other thing that I loved is this, you know, this idea that Sanaa has no photos of her mother. Obviously, she's going to get one before the episode is out. She had that beautiful painting that she made. And like we when we see Aisha in the past, she's wearing the rose like it's very. And to me, that's almost like a magical moment of like.

We don't know exactly how these powers manifest through everyone. Like Aisha has her powers. Kamala has like exhibited her powers, but like what powers, if anything, if any does not have, you know what I mean? And like, is the ability to sort of see your mother, a memory of your mother that clearly when you were so tiny, um,

is there something magical in that? You know? I like the idea of that. Yeah, I love that. And especially because we know when she called, the classic, I'm half a centimeter away from FaceTime when I'm FaceTiming you, they had that shared vision, right? So there's this element in the text, at least, that she is connected to that magic. And that was one of the things that I left the episode really eager to learn more about and would love to see later.

to witness conversations about over time. This is one of the areas where we can kind of fill in the blanks, I think, satisfyingly and on our own in the interim. But how did all of those stories that were passed down that ultimately became a divide before they became a bridge again, what was the nature of forging those stories? How much...

of that was Hassan for just the brief bit of magic that he got to witness firsthand and got to learn about and hear about how much did he work actively to like nurture that in his daughter and work for her and work to ensure that she like embrace something that she didn't necessarily get to spend a ton of time outside of that one really formative moment, actually like seeing, um,

unfold so that's like a cool a cool thing to think about but I think the reason it made me think of it with what you just said is because maybe there's all of this magic that is just happening even um even absence like us getting to witness it because we know she had the bangle so like who knows who knows what she was up to maybe there's a whole non-ease as hero spin off here's the deal I have

to hope that if Nani had like actual actual powers and Sanaa like could actually do magic at one point she would have taken her teenage daughter Muniba aside and been like look at what mom can do okay we're literally magic maybe she tried maybe she tried a lot of maybe a lot of maybe um speaking of like rules and regulations yeah and I care a little less about the rules and regulations with time travel we'll get to that in a second but like hmm

We know that the, we think we know the clandestine can like manifest their weapons. Cause we saw one of them do it in the damage control prison escape sequence. So they have these like signature weapons. We saw Najma use one multiple times. Right. And there's this idea that like, perhaps the bangle has become in a way, Aisha's signature weapon. We, you know, we, we know that she like,

put the inscription on it. Like she could manipulate it in some way. Right. Right. Yeah. So again, this is us filling in the blanks of things, but if that's the case, cause I was like a little disappointed by how quickly she was dispatched by Najma with like, didn't even really seem to put up any kind of fight at all. Is she doing that because she thinks it will save her daughter and her, and her husband somehow to like,

you know, just sacrifice herself in that moment. Like, I feel like she could have fought Najma, maybe done better. Is it, was it done that way because they just didn't feel like they had time in this episode to do a fight here, but like for her to just go out that quickly without like an incredibly powerful being who opens the episode, like on the run and tossing a dagger into someone's like chest. And then to just like see her go out. So I don't know. I had some questions about it, but yeah,

I could maybe possibly explain it by saying like if the bangle is imbued with her most like protective or her power, like the most of her powers or something like that. She obviously has some left because she calls to Kamala. Like, did that leave her defenseless? And is that why Najwa was able to like get the drop on her so easily? What do you what do you think? Good question. Oh, boy. Sheesh. So let's see. She does not have the bangle on her.

in that decisive moment because her daughter has it. Yeah. But as you note, she then is still able to not only deploy magic, but that's gotta be a healthy dose of magic right there to, uh,

To call someone through time. Yeah. To pull her great-granddaughter from decades and decades and decades into the future. And it was interesting because, you know, in episode four, the conversation about the inscription. Yeah. Kamala asked, is that like an important message? And Waleed said, I don't know, but it must have been important to someone. And here, over the course of this episode, we get to really understand that.

the shape that that importance took. When she is holding, when Aisha is holding the photo after the stabbing and she looks at the photo and she says, what you seek is seeking you and her eyes turn purple. Yeah. So it almost is like it seemed like an incantation, right? Yes. Like, was it a fail safe that was baked in? Did she...

put the inscription there for a time travel specific reason, knowing that the bangle might need to call upon itself in another moment in time at some point. Um, I don't know the answer to that, but yes, you're right to identify that even without the bangle on her person there, she was able to use magic. So why not use it in the fight? I don't know the answer to that question. Great. Okay. Um,

I do not know the answer to that question. It's a good question. Yeah. She's dying. Kamala shows up and she's like...

First she thinks that it's Sanaa and then she realizes it's not, but it doesn't like much matter exactly who it is. It's someone in her bloodline. They're pulled there to protect her family and that's what matters. And then we get the trail of stars. The question of like what powers does Sanaa have? Like that's the trail of stars makes me think that she has something in her, right? Because Kamala does the platform thing, but it seems like Sanaa is the one who

turns that hard light into stars and follows it to her father. You know what I mean? Or this is just a new, new power set that Kamala has. But I do love that moment again. It's not just in the prisoner of Azkaban, though. That's the easiest example, but some, someone pointed out to me that there is, um, there was a great episode of Lovecraft country, um,

set in the Tulsa riots, which has a similar thing where it's like, I know this happens. I know this happens in my family. I know that someone steps in here and does something. I know that something has to happen here. Okay. I'll just do it myself. And then it was always you who did it. Like, honestly, that kind of story is,

usually really, really gets me and it got me a bit, but like, it's, it's really powerful. That sort of like frantic. I know this is true. Okay. I will just do it. And then the post realization that it was always me. I was always part of this story. I was always the one. And especially when it's something like, like Harry Potter is, is one thing, but like for that Lovecraft country episode, which is again, a really strong episode of television or for this here, it's,

The discovery of I was always part of my family. Not only that, but like, would my family even exist without me being there at the root? I'm not just the flower on the tree. I'm part of the root. And it's just potentially very, very strong. And I just wish they had more time to do it. Yeah. I think that like in that in that moment of like personal epiphany, it was me, which is the line we get. Right. Mm hmm.

So the Harry comp there with Prisoner of Azkaban is the, you know, I knew I could do it this time because I'd already done it. Did that make sense? Harry, Hermione, like frantic. They're still in the throes of the actual climax moment.

But when I revisit the final pages of Prisoner of Azkaban, the part that's always going to make me sob. I mean, it's that too, definitely. But it's like the coda, right? It's the conversation that follows with Lupin. It's the conversation that follows with Dumbledore. It's the space for Dumbledore to say to Harry, so you did see your father last night, Harry. You found him inside of yourself. And like, that can be...

Just the most like incredibly important heartbeat inside of a story like this, right? That embrace of, and especially of course, in a story about like, and this is a through line here too, like where there's a loss or an absence or a relationship that you didn't get to, um,

like experience and live inside of firsthand the moment connection. Yeah. Yeah. The moment in your life where something like fundamentally shifts in place for you and you can, you can find a way to feel like that is like a, an active present thing because of your emotional connection and,

To your personal growth, like that you can find that connection to other people as you evolve yourself. It's just like a really, I think, poignant and empowering thing. So if we had just gotten a few more minutes where like we got to hear that version of that conversation here and that would have been such a meaningful thing, not only for Kamala, but.

but for Mooney, for Nani, for all of them. So I think we're, yeah, we're, we're, I'm now just repeating what you said about the timing, but it does feel like we needed that, like just space for that moment to breathe. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've done a lot of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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Should we take a pause here and talk about time travel? Let's do it. Love time travel. It's one of my favorite things. Me too. Not like I've never personally experienced it, to be clear, but in stories. Just in case that was confusing. Okay, so we're going to talk about

two classification phenomenons really quickly, right? So what happens here in terms of Kamala traveling back in time and she was always the one to save Sanaa and she was part of the story and that always happened. That has like several different names. Predestination Paradox is the one that I've heard a lot of people throwing around. The one I prefer is Causal Loop and Here's Why. When

Friend of the pod, Dave Gonzalez, was first describing to me sort of like these ideas of rules of time travel. We were talking about Terminator when he did. He accidentally called it a casual loop and he called it a casual loop like 10 times in a row. And it just like made me laugh. So causal loops, casual loops, nothing casual about saving your own grandmother from being trampled. But yeah.

Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's pretty self-explanatory. If you've seen Terminator spoilers for the film Terminator, right? The fact that like John Connor sends his own father back in time to save his mother, thus creating John Connor in the first place. That's a predestination paradox, a causal loop. Um, bootstrap paradox is a little different. Do you want to talk about that? Or do you want me to talk about that? Go for it. Okay. Bootstrap paradox. Um,

That was the phrase that Mallory brought up last week in terms of like two bangles existing in one place. And the bootstrap paradox is connected to, I believe it's a Robert Hyland story, wherein this man sort of

gives a journal to his younger self that's full of information he needs and so he then uses that journal and then goes back through time but his question is like and then he's given that journal and then he knows these things but the question is like who wrote that journal in the first place right like what is the origin of this object if it's a journal that's just looping through time so

The TV series Lost has a couple of these. There's this like pocket watch that is sort of on this like bootstrap paradox running through some of Lost. But these sort of like objects that travel through time. What is the source thing on it? I hear you when you say you really feel like you need to know the rules of a time travel narrative. And I think it depends on the context whether or not I feel like I need to know the rules. I think Loki...

Worked itself maybe in like a little too much of a knot to try to make sure that we precisely understood the fractures in time. And I also think Endgame was inconsistent in its understanding of time travels, which makes that film a little hard to talk about sometimes.

But I'll go back to the TV series Lost and say what I really love about Lost is that every time something got confusing, they just said whatever happened happened. That's all. That's all they felt like they needed to say. And if it makes my rallying cry, if it makes emotional sense, I'm not upset about it. Do you want to talk about why you feel like the rules and regulations, why you're a time cop in this scenario, why it matters to you?

I mean, it's I should say it's like not specific to time travel. It's just how I think I it's something that is important to me. And do I break my own rules here sometimes? Sure. You know, if I'm worked enough by a story like I'm a human being and often heart first, I'll be like, you know what? I'm very moved by this. I'm fine. But.

I think this is honestly just like something that stems from my dad and the amount of time we spent when I was like younger talking about stories and the stories that he introduced me to. And like some of the, some of the stories that he was less fond of, like often one of the roots, I mean, often it was just because he thought like the pros was subpar, but you know, like, uh,

The role of a deus ex machina in just completely derailing a story, I think that was something that my dad often talked about, when it feels like the necessary thing for your hero arrives in the moment of need without the pathway being set. And that's obviously not a one-to-one, exactly the same thing. That's more like narrative structure and when you're planting the seeds and teasing ahead. But it's, I think, a little bit of a piece for me because...

genre storytelling, sci-fi, fantasy. I love a sprawling fantasy epic. And part of what makes it to me like really immersive and a world that I can lose myself in fully is if I feel truly that it is a world. And like universes have rules and physics and norms and behavior and something happens and then there's an expected outcome. And if you are able to subvert the expected outcome, you should understand how.

So I think it's just broadly like the way like kind of my the logical part of my brain works. And sometimes I think about like the dissonance inside of myself as a reader and a viewer where I have a very analytical, logical mind. And also I'm just like, boy, I cried a lot. That was great. What a cathartic three hours. Can't wait to do this again tomorrow. Yeah.

And like the stories I love the most are the ones that give me both of that. So I think it's just like I want to fall fully into the world. And if something feels like if I hit that moment reading or watching, I'm like, wait, what? It just pulls me out of it. It's the thing that is most likely to pull me out of it. And then I've lost that that that veil, that veil has come up around the story. So.

I think I think my my maybe recently developed allergy to getting too tangled up in time travel rules is that endgame really does follow part if you try to really parse it. And like Steve Rogers showing up the endgame really does is tough. And I remember that there were a lot of people who wanted to argue with me about the finer points of it. And I made a decision where I was just like, you know what?

I'm just going to accept that this doesn't make sense, but it hit me really hard emotionally. And so I just don't want to argue about it anymore. Do you know what I mean? So I think it's a completely valid point. I...

sincere have like every now and then still years later like legit waves of panic or I think back to doing big picture with Sean on Endgame having we went to like a 9 a.m. screening and then immediately recorded I saw that movie once and I'm like how many things did I get wrong about time travel in the first Endgame pod before I got to do that again years later on Binge Mode right and

I regularly think about that. You love an instant reaction. You love an instant reaction. I love listening to them and full of admiration for people who do them well. But so nitpicking the time heist, very fair game. The thing that I...

respected about the time heist and about the approach to the time heist in Endgame is that the characters talked about that. There was this incorporation of the interrogation, right? Did the answer necessarily track in full? Your mileage may vary, but I thought it was really important, not just that we got the levity and the comedy of the hot tub time machine, let's name drop every movie or story that's ever dealt with time travel, though I obviously loved that,

it's that there was at least an attempt, right? And so that falls into like, do the rules, are they always going to be the same? Are they always going to be ones that I think make sense or that align with a storytelling philosophy of my choosing? No, but take the time to try to build the structure that we're going to operate inside of, right? You build the quantum tunnel so that I can reach the quantum realm. I mean, that's fair. That's absolutely fair. And I think

my critiques of some of the other elements of this, like how does the veil work? How does transferring your nor energy to your child halfway around the world work? Like all that sort of stuff. I am with you on these. Like, what are the rules? Can someone at least try to explain them to me with something like end game? When you have the screenwriters, Marcus, Marcus McFeely and the directors, the Russo brothers, each giving interviews, giving different answers about that time. I was like, oh, well, they did their best.

but it doesn't hang together and that's okay because it still works for me emotionally. Yes. I think there's like an in Endgame and then larger MCU thing too in terms of how long something holds, right? Like inside of Endgame, the Tony Howard moment is so... I was just going to mention that. Yeah. It's just like, it's such a Pantheon moment that you can forgive so much in its wake, right? 100%. And it's going to be like such...

and enriching and satisfying viewing experience and feel like the real payoff of years and years and years of investment for us as viewers that when we then like our, I mean, a lot of the interviews that you're citing were like fairly immediate, but then also a lot of that happened even later after the fact where we get into the next phase of storytelling and there are new rules. And now we have the TVA and we have, you know, the variants and we have these offshoots in time and we have to actually core

Incorporate a line into Loki where he calls the Avengers time criminals and asks why what they did was okay. And the judge has to respond because that was supposed to happen. Like that, that you, the MCU is such a vast and sprawling thing that it's never going to be able, the answer won't last for long, which is, this is, I think you're not, um,

a doctor who person right we've talked about that before right you're like i i i really like enjoy the doctor who that i've seen but i have only seen a sliver of the bulk of it yeah on the list there's an example there's a great example of exactly what you're talking about in doctor who in that in um in a all-time banger two-parter episode at the end of david tennant's run um

He meets this character, River Song, who he finds out over the course of this two-parter. Like, she knows him. He doesn't know her. And that's because she's met him before. And he, someone who hops through time and space, has never met her. And he finds out at the end of the episode that, like, she's his wife. And he's never met her. And then she dies. Sorry, spoilers for Silence in the Library two-parter. But, like, she dies in that, right? At the end of that. I don't know. And she's phenomenal. She's phenomenal. Yeah.

And so Stephen Moffat, who wrote that, then took over as showrunner of the show. And he's like, well, I created this incredible character, River Song. She's fantastic. Let's bring her back. So then he created that great story. Great story in isolation. And then River Song becomes a main... And then you have to... And then it gets so complicated and it keeps circling inside itself and inside itself and inside itself as you're trying to make it all make sense for when they met and who knew who when and all that sort of stuff. And it gets...

gets harder and harder to parse. And so you have to be really careful with the time travel narrative, how much extra story that you then intend to pack inside of it, similar to sort of what we're talking about with Star Wars cramming various prequels into the cracks and margins of their existence story. How much can you pack in there and still make it all make logistical sense? But to your point about Tony and Howard, I think this idea of time travel, and especially when it can

to family is some of the most powerful storytelling you can get. My, an early example of the genre that I have such an emotional attachment to is a quantum leap two-parter. Spoiler isn't coming for a quantum leap two-parter. Quantum leap is a show from the late 80s, early 90s where...

Is that a, I can't wait to talk about quantum leap moment. I just love the, I love the spoiler warning for quantum leap. Great stuff. Yeah. Dr. Sam Beckett is jumping through time. He leaps into different people's bodies and he's there to like, try to write, put right. What once went wrong is the opening narration of quantum leap. So he hops into someone's body. And over the course of that episode, he,

He is he looks like that person to everyone else. And he has to fix something small scale or one time it was the JFK assassination. Try to like fix something and change history. Right. So he's going around. He's changing history. Like that's that's how time travel works in that show. He's hopping through time and he can only hop through time on his own personal lifespan timeline. So he's not going to ancient history. It's all like sort of recent history. Right.

The most powerful two episodes of Quantum Leap involve Dr. Sam Beckett leaping first into his own body when he was a kid. And while he's there, he's trying to stop his older brother from going to the Vietnam War because his older brother died in the Vietnam War. So he leaped back in time to try to convince him of that. And then in part two, he leaps into like one of his brother's war buddies in the Vietnam War and again tries to save his older brother in Vietnam.

And he does and he doesn't because this time travel stuff often like has a cost and there's a huge cost to everything he's desperately trying to do to save his brother. But that like very personal, I'm back home. My, my brother who died when I was a kid and he, you know, and he was like a young man, he's here. I get to see him. I get to see my sister. I get to see my parents, like all of that sort of stuff, especially for a show where that's about a guy stuck through in time and

And the tagline at the end of the intro to quantum leap is hoping each time the next leap would be the leap home. And this two parter is called the leap home part one and part two. So this idea of going home, being in your family, but also things in time that you can't change. That is such a hugely fraught emotional thing. And so for this show to have the opportunity to do something like that, something as powerful of that, I was there. I'm part of my family origin. And yeah,

To make it a rushed minute or two of a short episode in a short season of television. You know, that's where this episode misses the mark because this kind of storytelling is so ripe with emotional promise. So that's my quantum leap soapbox moment. Great show.

Oh my goodness. Got chills listening to that. Oh my God. It makes me think a little bit of one of our truest and most deeply rooted shared passions, Lost, which you've already mentioned. But like specifically, you know, we've had the pleasure of doing a Prestige TV Pod Hall of Fame episode on season three finale of Lost, Looking Glass. And we had...

a real like minute of, should we be doing the constant? We'll do the constant at some point. Everybody loves the constant. Let's talk about something else, but it's hard not to think about the constant, which is, uh, the number one episode on the ringers top 100 TV episodes of the 21st century, a special project build from a couple of years ago. And one of my favorite episodes of, of TV of all time. And I think, um,

is simultaneously like you could say the best episode of TV of the century and not the best episode of Lost and both of those things could be right, which is one of the things I love about Lost, right? And TV and The Constant. But one of the things that I really love like thinking about when I rewatch Lost, which as I've mentioned to you a few times, I did most recently because of you and I had a blast. So fun. My goodness. Never tired of revisiting Lost.

Follow Josh Holloway on Instagram. That's a recommendation from us to you. Boy, what a follow he is. Desmond and Penny are not main, main, main, main, main characters on Lost. Like, they're very present on Lost. But it's always interesting to me to step back and think about the fact that one of the most beloved and cherished installments does not exist.

center on Jack or Locke. And not to say that there aren't Jack and Locke episodes that are also top of the list because there obviously are. But it's exactly because of what you just described. It's not only this very consequential unlocking of something foundational inside of this fictional universe. It is...

Like number one on the list of no matter how many times I see it, I'm going to fucking dissolve into a puddle of tears watching this. It is the emotion and the heart and that recognition of the fact that that bond with another person could be your tether as you were completely unmoored. Your consciousness, your existence, your grasp on reality and even who you are, right? Like that is just an incredibly gripping feeling

And to pull it off, it's such a, that episode moves, it breathes, it hums, it has this like unmatched rhythm, right? It's a 42 minute episode of TV. That's not six hours. And it's perfect. Now there were a lot of episodes lost around it, to be fair. I mean, there's like set up for the Desmond and Penny stuff. And the thing that I love about Desmond Unlost is to go back to what I was saying about the time travel I love. Is that you, Penny?

Sometimes when I ask Emma, I tell Adam I want pasta. And I say I would like penne. And he just launches right into reciting the constant scene because I am saying penne, like penne pasta, but he thinks I am doing the Desmond voice. And great stuff. The thing I love about that is that the constant...

The rules of time travel and Lost are whatever happened happened. By the way, the time travel season is my favorite season of Lost. Same. Season five is my favorite. Shout out to now and always. Oh, God. Yeah. But like whatever happened happened.

There's an asterisk on that. Whatever happened, happened, asterisk, asterisk, unless you're Desmond. And that's what I love about trying to create time travel rules. Whatever happened, happened, except for Desmond. And like, but to your point, they talk about it. They're like, for some reason, you're an anomaly. So, okay. You know, this. I mentioned dark recently. Yeah. On our podcasting journey of.

Many recent conversations. I can't remember which pod I mentioned. It was the last Ms. Marvel pod. We were talking about it. Yeah. I knew at some point in our recent timeline. Um,

I love that show. I was actually thinking ahead of hopping on Mike today. What is my favorite time travel story? Like if you made me pick, what would I pick? I don't actually know the answer to that question. As is always the case. Anytime we do a list or a choice, preserve the right to change my mind at any time. Right now I might say dark because I think it was like the one that made me think the most and talk about a show that loves a bootstrap paradox. Right. And like,

this idea of the loops is, I won't spoil dark for people. I'm not even sure I could, frankly, that's what I love about it. But like, also, would you have to do it in German? The other question. That's a show I really want to rewatch. I've only seen it once. It actually is something I watched during the pandemic. It was one of my early COVID catch up binges. And I would love to revisit that actually and see what, what stood out and new on a, on a rewatch knowing how it ends. But yeah,

The thing that is so riveting about Dark, it's not just the actual mechanics of the time travel, though they are complex and immersive. It is the fact that the primary interest of the show is to have the characters confront questions about what that means for them. And to really, really...

violently rebel against something that is being presented to you as an inevitability? And then what does it mean if you do in fact wind up playing out that loop?

And what happens if you try, no matter what the cost of it might be, to break it? Like, I just, I love that. And, like, that's the mission of that show, and it's not the mission of Ms. Marvel. And ultimately, I was much more like, wait, what's happening with the veil than I was, like, what's happening with the time travel? But I love when the characters take the time to talk about those things. I think the...

I want to circle back to Lost for a second. And then we're almost done, I think, with our little, like, time travel excursion. I just thought it would be, like, a nice thing for us to talk about here. But, like... The answer to the constant is...

Is the season five episode, the variable, right? And this is again, spoilers for loss. This is the episode where Daniel Faraday, who has been our guide through the time travel hijinks of lost. He's the one who comes up with the constant concept and, and talks about his stuff like that. He gets caught up in a plot where his mother ends up shooting and killing him. And he realizes that he,

She knew in encouraging him to go back to the island and go to the island in the first place. His mother willingly sent him back in time to a place where she would shoot and kill him. And he says, you knew you always knew you knew this was going to happen. You sent me here anyway.

And then he dies. And then she gets his journal. And that's a little bootstrap paradox. See, like the journal, then she then gifts him the journal later. Anyway, it's a whole thing. But yeah, that idea again of predestination of tragedy of Daniel Faraday, our time guy being caught up and dying in a time, a causal time loop centered on his mother, a person that he's always had this fraught relationship with. It's just, it's,

Honestly, it's lost at its like chewiest and best. It's so good. So good. Two more things I'm going to shout out and then I'm done. To say nothing, The Dog is a fantastic time travel novel. If you've never read it, I just absolutely love it. That's my number one time travel romp story. You, Mallory, everyone would absolutely love that book. I've never read it.

Oh, I'm going to add it to my list. How exciting. You and I both recently read The Midnight Library. We both thought it was just aggressively fine, right? Yes, I just chatted about this with my Cuse College Book Club. Yeah. Literally last weekend. Yes, I just read it. It's okay. Absolutely. Yeah, it's fine. This movie, this book, Say Nothing to Dog, banger. And then This Is How You Lose the Time War is a book that I read. I'm reading that now. Wow. Oh, are you?

While I was podcasting about Loki, because one of my listeners, when I was doing the Loki podcast last year, recommended it because...

the relationship between Sylvie and Loki reminded them a lot of this sort of cat time, cat and mouse relationship in this is how you lose the time war. And I actually interviewed the author on the Loki podcast to be like, let's talk about Loki. And she's like, yeah, like that book is really good. So like, I don't know if you have, if you have a taste for time travel, those are two things I would recommend to say nothing to the dog or this is how you lose time. This is how you lose time war is like,

It's a short novella, but it's and it's very like kind of abstract, but really like viscerally beautiful language and all this sort of stuff. So I'm I'm I'm very happy to finally be reading it and also happy that I can tell a friend of the pod, our colleague Zach Cram, who recommended it on his time travel reading recommendation list in the wake of Loki that I'm reading it at last. He'll be he'll be so proud of me. Excellent. All right. Anything else time travel wise that that we should mention?

Just what I'm excited to talk about more time travel stories in the future. I love a time travel story. I really do. Me too. All right. So we're back in present Pakistan. We've already talked about a bunch of this, like the veil opens. Um,

Muniba and Sanaa find Kamala. She says goodbye to Red Dagger, Kareem. I don't know. What do you want to say about this? Well, what would you read on the transfer of power? Because there's like a final pitch that Kamala makes, right? She implores her like, it's not going to work. It's just going to destroy everything. We have already seen the effect on attempting to

To enter the veil, this almost like a crystallization and then a disintegration kind of. And Najwa says that she doesn't have Kamran anymore, left him behind. And Kamala again attempts to draw this parallel, right? She says, all Aisha ever wanted was to be with her family. You took that from her. Please don't take that from Kamran. Two, the reply is, you're right. There's only one way I can close it.

lets the energy from the veil touch her, calls out Kamran's name. Her eyes turn blue. She is killed, or at least we think. Her physical form. We see her whole-ass skeleton. We do. Yes. Could some essence live on? Perhaps. Possibly. And then we see that same energy reaching the energy from the Nor dimension and the Nor...

reaching Camron. His eyes glow blue. His hand glows like bluish orange. And then he has powers. So was like, it was a little, it felt a little similar to like saying something aloud almost functioned as an incantation, right? There was like a spell. But what is she transferring? Is she transferring her power? Is she transferring the power from the Nord dimension? Like how did you interpret that? It felt like her power. Yeah.

giving her power to Kamran. I don't know how doing that closes the veil. I don't know why she decided that we have no, you know, Walid of the red dagger side way too early before he could tell us about that. You know, also like just even the way it looked real, like stranger things. Like I left the door open three inches vibes to me. It's like, did we close that? Are we sure? Are we sure? Yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of options in terms of the end of the show here. Like, is this it? Is it Najma is dead, or at least mostly dead, and the veil is closed for now, and Kamran has powers, and the big bad of the final episode is damage control, possibly. Maybe.

uh is this story going to continue somehow in the marvels maybe yeah uh i don't know the answer to any of that but what seems to be clear it's tough i can't talk about why i i'll let's let's reconnect next week and i'll talk a little bit more about why this moment didn't work as well for me as it might have but um long story short intriguing comron has powers comron has powers in the comics so this gives him like his powers in the comics and i talked about this

I think with the, with the mint edition boys. And when he first showed up is like this idea that he is a villain in the comics. Is he going to be a villain? Is he going to be resentful that his, his,

mother died and somehow blame Kamala, like his mother who ditched him and was terrible. Maybe that happens sometimes, right? That like, you know, the old Harry Osborn, you know, story. So maybe that's going to happen. I don't know. I would love him for him to just join the team and be pals with everyone. Even Bruno, who has a Tesla poster that has nothing to do with the car. But that's, I mean,

That's the end of that. Anything else you want to say about how that wraps up? I mean, I think the more we interrogated, the less it makes sense. So my inclination is to just reserve judgment until I see what the finale has to hold. I'm down with that. It was nice to see Bruno again. I really enjoyed their, their like budding bromance, hashing out the name thing. Uh, uh,

Very, you know, the very quick like, wait, I actually have to literally rewind this to see what happened with his burst of power and then the drone missile into the circle queue. And like, it was so fast. I actually had to rewind it and make sure I understood what happened there. Kind of emblematic. But, you know, I'm further along in my comics journey. I'm I think I'm on issue 10 now.

And, uh, I've, so I'm far enough to have, uh, experienced Bruno saying that they wishes they would just blow up the circle queue more often so that they could do some renovating. Uh, so maybe think of that. We already mentioned those sort of like wrap up with the women, but this is like sort of the most powerful stuff. I have a friend of mine who recently, um, lost his grandma and he told me that he was like hard sobbing through the end of this. And like, I, I can absolutely see that this is,

and again, we talked about this a bunch last week as, as the aspect that really hit us very hard, which is like you realizing that your parent was once a kid like you. So the photo album with Maniba is like a young woman and like hearing about her traipsing around. She goes to the Oakland call all the way, the Oakland Coliseum in California, where I'm from, uh, to follow wherever he'll lead you even to the Oakland Coliseum, man. Uh,

And, yeah, so just, like, realizing that your parent is a human, your parent was a child just like you. I loved all of that stuff. Yeah. That was really a wonderful and very touching moment. And, you know, when we talk about, like, trade-offs and pacing, I think, you know, you mentioned this earlier. Like, is there something, like, almost, okay, this is very tidy that everybody got the resolution that they sought about, like, an exchange, like,

Mooney saying in recently, if I've been holding on really tight to you, it's because I'm not ready to let go. And then Nani replying, I didn't hold you tight enough. And her replying, that's not true. I couldn't see what you needed me to see. Okay. I'm sorry. Like maybe, but it's still hit, you know, and to see, I think that the reason that that feels like a very, uh, a trade-off that works in the show's favor, where the emotional impact outweighs the, uh,

desire for more minutes and just more time spent is because, or isn't lost to that. You know, that's just the kind of moment that I think a lot of people like wish they could have that a lot. It's a pretty rare thing to get like that ability to find that closure and

And that understanding or actually like say you're sorry to somebody or hear you're sorry from somebody. That's like a pretty precious thing. So it was really meaningful to get to see them share that. Again, that Tony Howard exchange in Endgame is just an old timer for hitting those exact emotions. Yeah.

All right. Mallory Rubin, it's Summer of No Expectations as coined by our pal Van Lathan. Not here. And we've already talked about how maybe prognosticating bit us a little bit in this episode. But I cannot help but wonder. We're the finale. We feel pretty strongly that probably Muneeba Kamalizam is going to make her super suit for her. A nice payoff from the Hulk seamstress moment in the premiere. Love it.

But the real question, the real question is not if we're getting a Carol Danvers cameo, because I feel like we have to. It's how much is Carol Danvers involved in the finale of Miss Marvel? If we're getting Najma and like clearing the clandestine as a threat off the table and just making room.

For the finale to cook on maybe a different track. There is a world in which Carol, I don't want to get anyone's expectations up too high, but there's a world in which Carol Danvers could be there for like almost all of the episode.

That's a thing that Marvel could do if they wanted to. Or she might show up in the post-credits. We don't know how much Kingpin is going to be in Hawkeye. We don't know how much Carol Danvers is going to be in Ms. Marvel. Do you have, at this point, do you have any preference or expectation? I don't know if I have a specific preference. I guess my preference would be for...

Carol to be introduced to the story in a way that really seamlessly feels like it moves us forward into the next cinematic installment in which these characters will share screen time without that introduction and meeting coming at the expense of our central figure getting meaningful time with the family and friends who we love and are very invested in her having time with. So I don't know what that sweet spot is. I think like,

My guess would probably at this point be Stinger, just because it feels like there's so much else to do in the meat of the episode. But I think I've said that about all of these shows. I was like, we'll see King in the Stinger. Kingpin, I mean, yeah, you're not tricking me with your blurry thumbnail. Stinger, I'm just always wrong about this show.

I, my instinct is stinger, which I guess means she will be there from like minute one opening shot. The question to me is what calls her. I guess it has to be the opening of the Nord dimension. Right. And like, that makes me think again, maybe it's not closed and it really poses like a vast cosmic threat. Cosmic threat. Yes. Love, love a cosmic threat. Yeah. But the thing is, okay. Once you introduce Captain Marvel into the finale of the show, like I can, I quite literally cannot take damage control seriously as a foe.

Right? However, what if? Is it Bruno and Kamran dealing with them? What if they're all Skrulls?

I'm into it. Yeah, let's go. I love this. I love it. When you say all of them, you mean everyone in damage control or just everyone? Yeah, everyone in damage control. Everyone who's ever existed in all of Marvel is the Skrull, except for Carol. No, everyone in damage control is the Skrull. I definitely, I'm into it. I mean, Stewie as a Skrull feels like a lock. That's my Skrull watch, by the way.

I love it. I love it. So are you counting then because we didn't see any humans from Damage Control in this episode? Are you counting the drone? The drone. The scroll? Yeah. I dig it. What do you think? When will we see Carol? I think we get at least 20 minutes of Carol. That's what I think. You're usually right about this, so I feel like that's correct. I don't know. I'm wrong all the time, but like...

you know, there's a, there's a really beautiful couple of issues where Carol shows up at adventures around with Kamala in the comics. So like, you know, and, and there's just like a really beautiful, like, I mean, that could just be the whole movie. So maybe that's just the whole movie, but like the idea of like meeting your hero and, and like,

And then getting to show them what you can do and then encouraging you to do it your own way and not like, don't dress like me. Find your own costume. And Muneeba's like, guess what? I got the Singer sewing machine ready to go. Give me these bits and bobs you've gathered from various important people in your life. I want to make something beautiful. So that's all of that.

Easter eggs, there are hardly any in this episode, honestly. The only thing that I care to highlight is, I think it was Eric on Screen Crush who pointed this out, that bringing the photo back from an adventure to a relative moves straight out of Coco. The Pixar movie that has made me cry oceans and oceans of tears. Remember me.

How dare you? That's illegal. Was there any... Did you locate any? Did I miss anything? We're not really in Easter egg territory here. We're in actual world history territory here. All right, we just have one quick mailbag prompt, then we're going to call it a day because the last train is departing the station and we got to go. But John wrote in this fun question. He asked if Aisha...

who we both agree is one of the hottest people we've ever seen in our lives. Aisha enters your home. What food would you cook to persuade her to stay? And because I know that the great Mallory Rubin does not cook that much. I'm going to add and say, what do you order on your meal delivery app of choice in order to entice a hot gin to stay in your house? You're a, you're a cook. You love to cook. What would you say here? Yeah, sure. Sure. I'll take this answer right now. Um,

I've got a couple things in the roster. One, my roommate in college, her mom taught me to make gumbo.

Van's not here to challenge me, so I'm going to say it's good. It's really good gumbo. It takes a long time. It's very good. So I would just like I would be like, give me a few hours and then you'll never want to leave. So, yeah, gumbo is a good one. I do a lot of barbecuing like we've got a plum tree in our backyard. I make this barbecue sauce out of the plums in our backyard. So like barbecue ribs with the plum barbecue sauce in our backyard.

That smells killer. No one's leaving my house once they smell that. So yeah, those are a couple good options. What kind of grill setup? You got a gas grill, charcoal grill, smoker? What are we working with here? I have a full dad setup. I don't have a smoker. Steve's not here on this episode, but Steve is telling me that his dad got a smoker and has never looked back. I don't have a smoker, so I'm not that dad level, but I do have like a four-

Yeah, like a massive gas range. Yeah. In the backyard. For sure. I love this. That sounds that sounds delicious. I was just having a conversation about. Yes, I do. This is my second conversation about plums with a colleague in a very short span of time. I was just talking to a ringer dad.

dad of the ringer, Craig Gaines, our copy chief about plums and how his daughter loves them. It's plum season. They're like dropping by the minute off the tree in our backyard. Oh my goodness. How heavenly. What would I order? So let me just say, I love to cook and I love a home cooked meal. I just don't do it very often. I do think I make a really good chili when I'm so inclined. So maybe I would do that. That's a...

I was going to say family recipe. It's like my mom texted it to me once. I have no idea where she got it. I've tweaked and amended over the years, but I'm very partial to that. I hear in the great city of Los Angeles, the great food city of Los Angeles, I think my number one go-to move would be to order some John and Vinny's for really any time of day. Because if it's brunch, you get...

Man, you get some of those soft scrambled eggs with the burrata, the tomatoes. I love that Tuscan kale side, the grapefruit that's creme brulee. Of course, you have to get the bacon from the open flame grill. Wonderful. Dinner time, little Nat's pizza, some pepperoni pizza. Okay. Multiple different pastas, meatballs. I really enjoy the spicy fusilli. That's a favorite pasta of mine there. I love that.

Oh, boy. I'm realizing I think my stomach ache is fading a bit. I'm getting hungry. I'm talking about this. Okay, guys, we've cured Mallory's stomach ache. I love John and Vinny so much. With our talk of takeout. Well, great. We did it. We have officially trapped some gins in our house.

With the power of food. By the way, if you want to hear more food recommendations from me, check out the Prestige TV podcast feed episode about the bear where Charles and I talked about

Talked about food a plenty. I already got a recommendation. I was talking about how, so like the central dish in the bear is like the beef sandwich of Chicago, which I've never had. And Charles was saying like, well, every city has like its meat sandwich. And I was like, the Bay Area doesn't really have that. Like, that's not really a thing that we have. And then I've already gotten a number of people sliding in my DMs being like, bro, you gotta

You got to go. So I will be educating myself on something that I am woefully not educated about. All right. I mean, does that have anything to do with Miss Marvel? You're Miley. But that is where we are at the end of this episode. Miley Rubin.

Joanne of Robinson. This has been a thrill and a joy. I'm so excited to come back on Monday to talk to you about Thor, Love and Thunder. I can't wait. But he cannot wait till Monday. Oh, also someone by the name of Taika Waititi will be on that episode as well. Ever heard of him? Cool story. Ever heard of him?

If you can't wait till Monday, the Midnight Boys will be here on Friday to do to give their instant reactions. I'm really excited to hear what they have to say. Can't wait. Listen to it all. I mean, you can hear Joe on Big Pick. Lots of Thor coverage. I did indeed talk to Sean for a while about Thor on Big Pick and it was a great time. All right. So that I think we did it where I'm really I'm really hopeful. Here's all just say, have we knocked on this episode of Miss Marvel a bit here and there we have.

I am extremely hopeful that this show just knocks out of the park with its finale because it started off so strong. I want to love it. And I do love Kamala Khan. Like, I think she's a great addition to the MCU no matter what. And I'm thrilled she's here. And I just hope that next week is just an absolute killer episode. That would be fantastic. Until then, many thanks to Mallory Rubin for powering through this podcast, even though she had a stomachache for most of it.

To Arjuna Rangapal for his additional production work. To Jomia Dinaran on social and to Isaiah Blakely for chopping it all together for us in a way that hopefully makes sense. And we will see you next week. Bye. This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

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