House of R - 'Ms. Marvel’ Episode 5 Deep Dive

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Mal and Joanna are here to dive deep into the fifth episode of ‘Ms. Marvel’. They start with their general thoughts on the episode and the series so far (4:22). Then, they go through each key scene of the episode, starting with Aisha’s journey (20:18). They then have a discussion about time travel in this show and in other popular TV shows (50:35). They talk about their expectations for the finale and answer a mailbag question (1:22:36). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Social: Jomi Adeniran Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Addition Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Are you tuning in to the Challenge USA on CBS? Well, tune in to me, Tyson Apostle, as I break down each and every episode with my co-host, Amelia Weddemeier. I'm also a contestant on the show, which gives you all the insider scoop. Amelia, how stoked are you to do this? Tyson, I'm freaking excited. I cannot wait to sit my butt down every single week to watch the show, then come here and recap it with you on the Ringer Reality TV podcast. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

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Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer.

Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome back into the ringerverse, 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 Mallory, Rubin. Hi, Mallory. 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 Miss Marvel episode five. time and again written by Fatima Asgar and directed by Charmine Obaid Shinoi and this is the penultimate episode of a Marvel TV product 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 a, 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? Beo, be here on Friday. Tomorrow maybe if you're listening to this on the 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. Meli, I have already seen this movie 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. Oh, my goodness.

Wow. Yeah. That's, I feel like there's some joke to be made there about love triangles, but I'll hold off until our pod. Okay. Fair enough, fair enough. And the Midnight Boys will be back with the boys finale next week. that's happening.

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 podcast. 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. Jomi is everywhere. Jomey is on this call right now with a Rubik's cube in one hand and a lightsaber in the other which just just proves his dedication to the bit to the cause. So, uh, false and social. And last but certainly never least.

Your friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Which is quite simply that we would 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'll talk we're talking about before we, I don't. know, lay out the full plot of a movie you maybe have been waiting to see. But 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. It's a causal loop. That's all the business I think that I'm. have to have to do. So let's let's just give some overall thoughts of 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 on the time travel front and otherwise. And that gets me to the place that I am and 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 like 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 to the set of six, you don't, you can purely appreciate that, right? Like, we got here, one of the things that in Obi-1, we really were longing for, which was like, wouldn't it have been cool if we had just gotten a Reeva 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-finally, 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 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 um and also oddly enough this week um i did not watch the show at midnight when it dropped um 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 um 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 to satisfied, 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 Isha and we're with Sun. 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 spend forever watching these two people flirt. And I was like, if this is the whole episode, just like them, I would have 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 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, the star path.

And perhaps if we have, hadn't seen that coming like three episodes ago. Like we, um, 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 Asgaban 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 watching this. I love time travel stories so much. I was like, this could have been a whole season of television, honestly.

Like, Kamala, like, interacting with her family's past. That's just sort of where I landed. So, yeah. Yeah. I was going to, I'm glad you. brought that that up about kind of anticipating the Trail of Stars reveal. Because 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, because I have the exact same thought. And I'm like, I wonder if that's a fair thing to be

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, 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 the universe, like we, 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 Bona 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 Ascompan, 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. But it gets back to your point about like 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 like exacerbates and compounds that sensation. And then you move to the final stretch of the episode where you are 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 are 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 schedule that I have 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 in 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 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 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 in the ensuing episode but 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 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 loan is kind of emblematic of like both sides of this coin where 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 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 your magic and like what an incredible feeling that must be right That's lovely. Like I thought that was great. If I'm being honest, there was that part of my mind that was like, that's not an answer to the, that's, there has to also be the actual answer to the question. I want that emotional heart, which is beautiful and like 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 the, 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 are brought into sort of overhaul some things and their names are on several episodes and you can see that all the way um so all that happened their names are not on this episode by the way um 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 everything with, like, if that's the last we see of Najma, like, which it may not be, but if it is, like, that's so confusing. And 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 Mniba 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. I love her.

Muneva discovering that she can track her daughter through her cell phone is like, oh my God. An incredible moment of television. But watching our. watching our pals who also break down this stuff with us like Eric Boss or Ryan Ary and 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 only because it makes me sound more right last week that two Bengals in one place help. 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 but like... 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 I should call Kamala, like from 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, okay, maybe it's both things. Anyway, all of that's to say. Should we go sort of like be? 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 um that i did but in the previously on we see wali at our dear departed we only knew him for 15 minutes member of the red daggers um says to kamala uh you know basically like what we need to talk about your great grandmother and all her legends the hit it's her with the old ned stark the next time we see each other we'll talk about

your mother. Your mother. Always works out. A fun question about that and 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 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 really fun thing to get to learn. Yeah. What, like, is that, again, is that a Miss Marvel season two?

Is that a, the Marvel's thing, you know? So we get the opening credits. There's been a lot of people parsing down the opening credits. Eric Fost 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 rock stars, 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 that he could parse in this episode. Do you know what I mean? But we have the, there's Urdu,

Hindu, Bengali, Parsy, 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. Is there anything about the opening credits you wanted 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, very attentive eye and, you know, mission to, again, like steep the story in a real understanding.

of the history that the characters would have experienced. So I thought it was awesome. You know, and 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 of our Ringervverse Pals on the earlier pods earlier in the season, but just like have really, like, sincerely learned a lot watching this show.

and 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 gotten to enjoy. We get this newsreel in 4-3 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 British newsreel like story of the partition, right? But the language is all very anti-colonial and it's very like they're occupational. It's like who I don't want to get hung up too much because it's just all it is and it is this 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 in a British voice. Anyway, 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. was 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 Nordimension 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 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, 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. 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 flight after retrieving the bengal from the severed, we assume Cree arm. And the thing that was really interesting about revisiting that is like just remembering that in that moment of time in 1942, the discovery of the bangle 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, a 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. about it. 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 Isha 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 instinct, right? Escape. Harm. 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 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 really cool thing in 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. And four generations in a way. Really important question in all of that in terms of like who you choose as your, as your, like, as your family, as a person that you're going to stay. Like, is that person extremely hot and quoting roomy to you while making you parata? Like that's, that's the question, right? Great looking couple. Really top tier.

Here. Lovely. The roomy. I mean, like, the thing about son is, like, he's hot no matter what. And then he's politically active, that's hot. And then he's quoting Roomy. And it's just, like, grows beautiful flowers and cooks. And then starts quoting Roomy.

When the soul lies 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 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. whatever happens, it happens, man. What would Daniel Farrona tell you? Exactly.

Whatever happens happens. All right. The, 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 tagged me in.

It is about the way in which I've been describing Kamala's identity and how maybe I could do better on that. 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 gin facets for 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 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 the thread goes on from there. It's really thoughtful. The username is at Violencia Demore, if you want to look that up because the whole threat is worth reading. I thought it was really thoughtful. And I really appreciated that feedback. But I like what you're talking about in terms of what you say echoes with this listener said here, which is this idea of choice, which is like, Aisha's a gin woman who has chosen a human family. and it's not one is pulling her apart or whatever.

It's just 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 part of her identity going forward. But none of it. I think 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 Karim 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 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 on discipline today. I'm sorry. I'm zipping ahead, but like, I was so 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 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 reflection 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 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 Muniba's response here to finding out about Kamala is like it's similar, it's similar to comics, but different. And the way it rolls out in the comics is that like when Niva knew that Kamala was Ms. Marble 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 of 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, NACIA finding out is also like, NACIA doesn't know for a very long time. Much longer. Right. You know, and so to change the timeline the way they did, you know, 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 the story.

Spider-Man's an incredible rarity. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, which ends up obviously becoming a seminal plot point. 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 Mnibu find out and have this reaction and have it be all part of this moment in their mother, daughter, mother, daughter, daughter, mother relationship. like feedback loop relationship of seeing each other, really seeing each other. I mean, somewhat 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 symbol, I think it's beautiful.

As a symbol of this lightning bolt, which in the comics is just a part of Kamala's like fan girlism over, you know, Carol, here becomes part of her name. That's beautiful. in execution it felt a little again they're just it felt like everything was going chop chop chop chop fast fast fats to me so yeah um all right anything else you want to say in the nineteen forty three nineteen forty seven we've got like nashma finds ayesha 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 um the 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 has on a and Aisha have. Is there anything you want to say about that time period? I think 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 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, of, uh, 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 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 a complex idea inside of a show that it 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 the show and for many different characters 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 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 any, does not have? You know what you mean? And like is the ability to sort of see your mother, a memory of your mother that clearly when you were so tiny, 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, you know, 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, like really eager to learn more about and would love to see, to, you know, witness conversations about over time. But we can just, we can, 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 like, 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? Like how much of that was Hassan from 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 nurture that in his daughter

and work for her and work to ensure that she like embraced something that she didn't necessarily get to spend a ton of time outside of that one really formative moment actually like seeing unfold. So that's like a cool, a cool thing to think about. But the reason it made me think of it

with what you just said is because maybe there's all of this magic that it's just happening even, even absence like us getting to witness it. Because we know she had the bangle. So like, who knows? Who knows what she has up to? Maybe there's a whole Nani as hero.

Spin off. But here's the deal. I have to hope that if Nani had like actual, actual powers and Sennale could actually do magic. At one point she would have taken her teenage daughter, Moneva aside and been like, look at what Mami is. can do.

Okay. We're literally magic. Maybe she tried. Maybe she tried. A lot of maybe. A lot of maybe. 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, we know that the, we think we know, the clandestine can like manifest their weapons because 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, 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,

Because 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. And is she doing that because she thinks it will save her daughter 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. Was it done that way because they just didn't feel like they had. 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 I could maybe possibly explain it by saying like if the bengal 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 Najah was able to, like, get the drop on her so easily? What do you, what do you think?

That's a 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 got to be a healthy dose of magic right there to call someone through time. Yeah.

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, and over the course of this episode, we get to really understand 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 failsafe 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. I don't know the answer to that, but yes, you're right to identify that even without the bengal 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. 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 anah 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 Sana'a have? Like that's the Trail of Stars.

It makes me think that she has something in her, right? Because Kamala does the platform thing. But it seems like Sana 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 Vascoband, that that's the easiest example. But someone pointed out to me that there is, there was a great episode of Lovecraft Country 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 usually really, really gets me. And it got me a bit. But like 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 one thing. But like for that Lovecraft Country, episode, which is, again, a really strong episode of television or for this here, 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, with prisoner of Ascaband 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, the throes of the actual climax moment. But when I revisit the final pages of Prisoner of Askeban, 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 like experience and live inside of firsthand. The moment...

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

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 things. 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 for Mooney, for Nani, for all of them. So I think we're, yeah, 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.

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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 Sanan? 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, 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. 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. Go on with it. Okay. Bootstrap paradox.

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 Highland 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? 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 what is the sourcing on in 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 they felt like they needed to say.

And if it makes my rally and 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, 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 groped enough by a story, like I'm a human being and often heart first. So I'll be like, you know what, I'm just very moved by this. I'm fine. But broadly, I think this is honest. 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 um 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 um you know like uh the the the the role of a day as ex machina in just completely like 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 like exactly the same thing. That's more like narrative structure and when you're planting the seeds and teasing ahead.

But it's like 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 really immersive in 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 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. And like the stories out of 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 where 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 the story so and I get that I think I I think my maybe recently developed allergy to getting too tangled up in time travel rules is that end game really does follow apart if you try to really parse it and like Steve Rogers showing up the end game 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, this is 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 thing game, but before I got a chance to do that again years later on binge mode, right? Uh-huh. And I'm like regularly think about that. Totally normal. You love an instant reaction.

You love an instant reaction. I love listening to them and the 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. about the approach to the time hasten in-game 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 do the rules are they always going to be the same are they always going to be ones that I think makes 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 and 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 mcfili 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 end game and then larger mccc 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 an 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 are, 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 variance and we have these offshoots in time and we have to actually 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 the MCU is such a vast and sprawling thing that it's never going to be able. The answer won't last for long. This is, this is, I think you're not a Doctor Who person, right? We've talked about that before, right? You're like, 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, in a all-time banger. two-parter episode at the end of David Tennant's run, 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 died. 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. And so Stephen Moffat, who wrote that, then took over a 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 as you're trying to like make it all make sense for like when they met. and who know who when and all this sort of stuff. And it 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, like, various prequels into the cracks and margins of their existence story. Like 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 connects to family is some of the most powerful storytelling you can get. An early example of the genre that I have such an emotional attachment to is a quantum leap two-parter. Spoilers and coming for a quantum leap two-parter. Quantum Leap is a show from the late 80s, early 90s where is that I can't wait to talk about quantum leap moment. I just love the I love the spoiler warning. for quantum leap.

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 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 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.

The most powerful two episodes of Quantum Leap involved 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, 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 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 in time. 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 1 and Part 2. 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 is powerful of that i was there i'm part of my family origin and to make it a rushed minute or two of a 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 um with emotional promise So that's my quantum leap. So box moment. Oh my goodness.

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 loss, 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 here, which is the number one episode on the ringers, top 100 TV episodes of the 21st century special project build from a couple years ago. and one of my favorite episodes of TV of all time. And I think it 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 is 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 Hollow at Instagram. That's a recommendation from us to you. Boy, what a, what a follow he is. Desmond of 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 center on Jack or Locke. And not to say that there aren't Jack and Lock 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 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 idea. And to pull it off

It's such a, that episode moves, it breathes, it homes. 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

PEN. Penn. Is that you, Penn? Sometimes I ask, and I tell Adam, I want pasta. And I say I would like Penae. And he just launches right into reciting the constant scene because I am saying Pene, like Pena pasta. But he thinks I am doing the Desmond. Teddy.

You answer. And. Pene. Great stuff. The thing I love about that is that the constant, the rules of time travel and lost are whatever happen happen. By the way, the time travel season is my favorite season of loss. Same. Season five is my favorite.

Yeah. Shout out. Whatever happened. Now and always. Oh, God. Yeah. But like, whatever happened happened, there's an asterisk on that. Whatever 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 pot I mentioned Darkin. It was the last Miss Marvel pod. We were talking about that time. Yeah. I knew it was at some point in our recent timeline.

I love that show. I was actually thinking ahead of hopping on bike 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, reserve 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 part of what I love about it. But like, also, would you have to do it in German? Is the other question. As a show I really want to rewatch. I've only seen it once. Actually, 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 stood out and knew on a rewatch knowing how it ends. But 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, right? 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 Miss 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 loss 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

and press to talk about here but like the the answer to the constant 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 talks about and stuff like that. He gets caught up in a plot where his mother ends up shooting and killing him. And he realizes that she knew in encouraging him to go back to the island in the, 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 paradoxy, like the journal then, she then gifts him the journal later. Anyway, it's the whole thing.

But that idea, again, of predestination, of tragedy, of Daniel Faraday, our time guy, being, caught up and dying in a causal time loop, centered on his mother, a person that he's always had this fraught relationship with. It's just, honestly, it's lost at its, it's like, chewiest and best. It's so good. So good.

Two more things I'm a shout-out than I'm done. To say nothing, The Dog is a fantastic time travel novel. You've never read it. I just absolutely love. Like, that's my, that's my number one, like, 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 and we both thought it was just aggressively fine, right? Like, it's fine. Yes, I just chatted about this with my, 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 a Dog, banger. And then this is how you lose the time war is a book that I read. 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 remind them a lot of this sort of time time, time, 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 a taste for time travel, those are two things I would recommend to say nothing in the dog or this is how you lose time war. The Cellulose Time War is like, it's short, it's a novella, and it's very like kind of abstract, but really like viscerally beautiful language and all this sort of stuff. 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 Kramm, 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 so proud of me. Excellent.

Excellent. All right. Anything else, time travel-wise, that we should mention. Just what I'm excited to talk about more time travel stories in the future. I love the 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. Muneba and Sena 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? 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 enter the veil, this, this like almost like a crystallization and then a disintegration kind of. And Najma says that she doesn't have Kamran anymore left them behind. And Kamala, again, attempts to draw this parallel. all right. She says, all Aisha ever wanted was to be with her family. You took that from her. Please don't take that from Comran. Two, the reply is, you're right. There's only one way I can close it. Let's the energy from the veil touch her, calls out Kamran's name. Her eyes turned blue. She is killed, or at least we think, her physical form. We see her skull. We see her whole ass skeleton. So, you know. Yes. Could some essence live on perhaps? And then

we see that same energy, like, reaching, the energy from the Nore dimension and the Nore reaching Kamron, 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 allowed 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, 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, Waleed 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, didn't we close that? Are we sure? Are we sure? 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. Is this story going to continue somehow in the marvels? Maybe. Yeah.

I don't know the answer to any of that. But what seems to read clear, it's tough. I can't talk about why. 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 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 Mitt 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 mother died and somehow blame Kamala? Like his mother who ditched him and was terrible. Maybe that happened sometimes, right? That like, you know, the old Harry Osborne, 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 all that wraps up? I mean, I think the more we interrogated, the lesson 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 link but budding romance hashing out the name thing. 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 I've, so I'm far enough to have experienced Bruno saying that they wish is they would just blow up the circle queue more often so that they could do some renovating. So maybe think of that. We already mentioned the 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 lost his grandma and he told me that he was like hard sobbing through the end of this. And like I can absolutely see that. And again, we talked about this a bunch last week 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 Mniba as 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, to see Bon Jovi play. Follow Bon Jovi wherever he'll lead you. Even to the Oakland Coliseum, man. And, yeah, so just like realizing that your parent is a human, your parent was a child just like you. Yeah. I loved all of that stuff. Yeah.

That was really a wonderful and very touching moment. And, you know, when we talk about like tradeoffs and pacing, I think, you know, you mentioned this earlier. Like, is there something? thing like almost, okay, this is very tidy that everybody got the resolution that they seek, that they saw it about like an exchange like Mooney saying. And 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 tradeoff that, works in the show's favor where the emotional impact outweighs the 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 of, it's a pretty rare thing to get. Like that ability to find that closure 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 of that. Again, that Tony Howard exchange and endgame is just an all-timer for hitting those exact emotions. All right, Mallory Rubin, it's a summer of no expectations as coined by our pal Van Lathan. 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 Muniba, Kamala's Blom, is going to, make her super suit for her,

a nice payoff from the Hulk seamstress moment in... Love it. 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 Denver could be there for like almost all of the episode.

That's a, that's a thing that Marvel could do if they wanted to. Or she might show up into post credits. We don't know how much Kingpin is going to be in Hawkeye. We don't know how much Carol Danvers going to be in Miss Marvel. Do you have at this point, do you have any like preference or, uh, or, uh, 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 were shared 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 and the Stinger. King, Ben. I mean, yeah, you're not tricking me with your blurry thumbnail. Stinger. I got just always wrong about this. So my instinct is stinger, which I guess means she will be there from like minute one opening a 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 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 Cameron dealing with them? What if they're all scrolls?

I'm into it. Okay. 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 as the scroll except for Carol. No. Everyone at Damage Control is the scroll. I'm into it. I mean, Stoia's a scroll feels like a lock. 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. 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 mean, 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 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 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 Moneva's like, guess what? I got this thing or 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. East drinks, there are hardly any in this episode, honestly. The only thing that I care to highlight is, I think it was Eric on Skirt Crush. You pointed this out that, like, bringing the photo back from an adventure to, you a relative is move straight out of cocoa.

The Pixar movie that has made me cry oceans and oceans of tears. Remember me. No. How dare you? That's illegal. Was there any... Did you locate any? Did I miss anything? All right. It's not, we're not really an Easter egg territory here.

We're in actual world history territory here. All right. We just have like, quick mailbag prompt, and 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 cook. You love to cook. What would you say here? Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll take this answer right now. 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's a good one. I do a lot of barbecuing. Like we've got a plum tree in our backyard and 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, those are a couple good options. What kind of grill set up? You got a gas grill,

charcoal grill, smoker? What are we working with here? I have a full dad set up. It's like a, I don't know if a smoker. Steve's not here on this episode, but Steve is telling me

that his dad got a smoker and it's like never looked back. I don't have a smoker. So I'm not, 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 gains her copy chief about plums and uh how his his daughter loves them it's very sweet it's it's plum season they're like dropping by the minute off

the tree in our backyard so oh my goodness oh heaven What would I order? So let me just say, I'd love to, I'd love to cook and I love a home-cooked meal. I just don't do it very often. I do, 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 Vinnie's for a really any time of day. Because if it's brunch, you get, man, you get some of those soft scrambled eggs with the barata, tomatoes. I love that Tuscan kale side, the grapefruit that's crumbullayed. Of course, you have to get the bacon from the open flame grill. Wonderful.

Dinner time. Lil'nats pizza, some pepperoni pizza. Okay. Multiple different pastas. Meatballs. I really enjoy the spicy fusili. That's a favorite pasta of mine there. I love that.

Ooh. Boy. I'm realizing I think my stomach egg is fading a bit. This I'm getting hungry. I'm talking about this. Okay, guys, we cured Mallory's stomach. I love John and Vinny's 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 for me to check out the Prestiagee TV podcast feed episode about the bear where Charles and I talked about food a plenty. I already got a recommendation. I was talking about how, so like the central dish in the bear is. is like the beef sandwich of Chicago, which I've never had. And Charles is saying, like, well, every city has like, it's 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 got to go. So I will be educating myself on the thing that I am woefully not educated about. All right. I mean, does that have anything to do with Ms. Marvel? You're my own little bit of Mary. but that is where we are at the end of this episode.

Molly Rubin. Joanna Robinson. This is 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 Tycho Waititi

will be on that episode as well. Ever heard of him? Cool story. Ever heard of him! If you can't wait until 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 mean, I think we did it. I'm really hopeful.

Here's what I'll 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 part. 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 stomach egg for most of it. To Arjuna Rangipal for his additional production work to show me a dinner on 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.

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