The Ringer-Verse - 'Ms. Marvel' Episode 2 Reactions

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Joanna, Jomi, and Steve are here to give you their reactions to the second episode of 'Ms. Marvel.' They start by discussing the process of Kamala learning more and more about her powers. (9:50). Later on, they talk about the potential villains of the show (43:02) and wrap up by answering some mailbag questions (1:10:39). Hosts: Joanna Robinson, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. How does it feel? Like an idea to come to life. So I guess super strength is not a part of the equation. You, well, maybe I should have tried harder in Jim. I saved you. Only because you almost killed me first. Hello and welcome back into the ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me to add a little, how did it a little to the podcast?

It's the Double Mint Twins themselves, Steve Alman and Jomey and Jenneron. Hi, guys. Doubleman is great. I love that. Doing fantastic, Joe. So thrilled to have you here. If you folks don't know, if you're not obsessive ringer-vers listeners, Steve and Jomey have started their own show that they're doing occasionally on this feed,

Mint Edition. You can hear them very soon this weekend talking about Light Year. And I heard a rumor that you'll hear them talking about something else very soon as well. But Stephen Jome, you're here today to talk. Talk to me about Miss Marvel episode two, crushed. We're going to get into all of that. But at first, you know what comes first. It's programming reminders.

As I mentioned, Stephen Jomey, late year. That's happening this weekend. But before we get there, Mallory and I have to spend an hour or five talking about the latest episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi breaking that down for you on Friday, episode five, I believe we are on. And then Monday, I'll be back with Anne Charles, talk about the boys episode five.

And then it just goes from there. Keep going. Obi-1, Miss Marvel, The Boys, whatever other movie comes, other things, Stranger Things will be back soon, et cetera, et cetera. We're doing all of it here on the Ring of Earth's Feed. Jomey, how can folks keep track of all the things that are coming out on the Ring of Earth feed? Well, I'm really glad that you asked, Joanna. You're the only one that knows.

I'm the only one that knows. I am the keeper of the secrets here at the Ring ofverse. If you want to know what's coming out, when's coming out. Besides this for our podcast, follow us on Twitter, on Instagram, join the Facebook group. And all of that is at Ringaverse. So if you go to your little Twitter search bar, your Instagram search bar, your TikTok search bar. Ooh. We got some fun stuff up on there as well.

Search Ring ofverse. Hit the follow button and you will stay locked in on everything going on in the Ring ofverse stratosphere. I love that. also Steve what kind of spoiler warning do we want to

give the folks for listening I usually go with a friendly neighborhood one if you want to switch it up to go for an angry

one we can do that Spoilers for Ms. Marvel some comics lore and probably the rest of the MCU to date we might be talking

about it yeah yeah that's a good rule of thumb rest of the MCU to date everything's ever happened

in a comic book all on the table right regreted teeth So that's happening today. Also, we just want to give a quick shout out to a listener Abby, who wrote us a message on Twitter earlier this week that we all love to see. And we hope you're doing well, Abby.

And we just wanted to say hi. So hi to you. Sending you all the love, Abby. Love you, Abby. Jim just waved. So that's how you know it's real. All right. So as I mentioned, we're talking about Miss Marvel.

I'm going to be optimistic. I'm going to say season one. Yeah. Episode two. Yes. Crushed. written by Kate Gritman and directed by Mira Menon. Mira directed one of my favorite episodes of The Magicians, Escape from the Haffy Place.

Folks who are fans of magicians definitely know that episode. And a fun fact about last week's directors, Adelaal, which I didn't mention last week, is not only do they direct Bad Boys for Life, but they were also handed the Batgirl gig, which, I don't know, it's a bit of a monkey's paw. No bumpy roads there. Clear skies all the way. Yeah, we know D.C. is like thriving right now. They're in the problem of their life.

There's no issues whatsoever with their content production schedule or anything like that. Some of their stars are out there doing stuff. No, no, no, no. Haunting authorities, no. Yeah. Whole thing's going great. So, actually, I mean, I wish them the best. They did such a bang-up job with the premiere of Ms. Marvel and I, and I hope they crush it with Backgirl.

All right. Before we get into this episode, which I think we all three of us loved, I didn't get a chance last week, of course, to hear from Stephen Jomey on their sort of background with Kamala Khan and the characters. So let's start with Steve. Like, what's your background? Where are you coming into this series? Surprisingly fresh.

I didn't have that much of a story to history with Miss Marvel because she was more of a recent addition to the Marvel roster. And at that time when I was late in my college. game. I wasn't reading as many comics as I would have wanted, but even in the premiere days of Miss Marvel, the comic, I knew that it was catching fire amongst a lot of comic book fans. Like, never has a hero been this new, this lauded, this quickly. And it's kind of reflecting in the show pretty well, that like almost everybody's, well, you know, everybody that has a brain has pretty much all good things to say about this show. And I have nothing but great things to say about

this as well. And Jeremy? I was not into Miss Marvel for a minute. I was late on the train, but shout out Marvel Rising. It was a little Marvel animation that they did. I think it was like, I think it was originally like Disney X-D, but I found it on Disney Plus in 2020 during the panty and Kamala Khan is a central figure. And I was like, I'm rocking with her. She got the goods. I love what I'm seeing right now. And that's when I was like, this is a cool character. Whenever they do a live action, I'm locked in. And here we are.

I have to say, out of all of us in the, in the Ringerverse team family, I feel like Jomey was the most excited and optimistic for Miss Marvel. Like, a lot of us were doubting. And Jomey's like, yeah? We were foolishly doubting, honest. Like, we feel silly now, like two episodes in

of a very, very good show. I was going to wait I was going to wait till episode 6 to get off my victory lap I was going to wait right but since Joanna mentioned it was just like this is the kind of stuff I know that I love like I go back

and I watch high school musical right like at least once a year you know what I mean like this is my bread and butter so I was like you know even if it's like Disney Channel original movie type stuff I like it so like this has no problem for me I can rock with it if that is and it's shown to be

so much more than that, and I love it. That's the main critique I've heard from people who care to critique the show is that it either feels like, yeah, too juvenile, a little like Disney Channel for them. As someone who has watched a lot of Disney Channel programming in my day, I just want to say, this is so much better acted than I've ever been on the Disney Channel, guys. Yes. And so much better written. Like, yes, we're in a high school setting, yes, it's very candy-colored.

Yes, there's a lot of like family drama, friend drama, boyfriend drama, all that sort of stuff. But I feel like people calling it Disney Channel have never actually seen a Disney Channel show because I've seen all of that so Raven and this is not that. So I'm just saying. Until we're in like City 4 of in Milan's like arena tour, I think we could say that this is safely not a Disney Channel adventure. Can I be honest with you guys? Yeah. I.

This is really hard to say to. This is a space, right? Just three of us. Nobody else is listening right now. No one else is listening to Joe. No one else will hear this. Very easy for you to say. I'm a big fan of high school musical musical the series.

Oh, it's a great show. I don't know about that, Joanne. No, no, no. It's a great show that's like really terrible, right? There you go. There you go. Season one was cool. The season two.

Oh, I haven't watched season two. I'll be honest. See, love yourself. Don't do it. Okay. Love yourself. And so like that, like, at least this first season you're like man

these teens really really giving it like this is this is teen television Miss Marvel blows it out the water. This Marvel is just like through the first two episodes I'm like this right here this is real cinema right here's like Olivia Rodriguez who you know what I mean

so so here we go we're gonna we're gonna do this in whatever order I decided we're gonna do it which is not necessarily chronological order but I want to start with something we get a staple of a hero development, which is a montage.

Even Rocky had a montage. We had a training montage in this episode. And I want to start, I'm going to come in hot with you guys and say, wow. Do you think this montage, that there's a montage here is anything to do with like the usual critique of female superheroes that she didn't have enough training?

to be as good as she is at something. Why, or why do you think, or is it just fun? Like, why do you think the montage is here? Let's start with Joni. I think the montage is here because she has to learn how to use her powers, right? They don't just, like, she literally just discovered it, what, like, two days ago, like, over the weekend or whatever. So you can't just walk up one day, like, understand.

Plus, it gives us, you know, context for her relationship with Bruno. You know, they're figuring out together. They're, you know, they're a team in some sort. And so we'll talk about it later when she, like, like, you know, skips out on power practice. That becomes a sticking point. It's true. There's no, yeah, I don't, come on, Mary Sue, get out of here with that, right?

It's just, you know, it's something we've seen, like, a lot of films. Steve, what do you think? Be fun. Let montages be fun. Training montages are great. She's throwing her little intergalactic pop rocks out and doing some little Mario Super Mario jumps. Let her have fun.

This is fun. I, you know, as baffling as any sort of Mary Sue argument has, has ever been. I certainly don't think it applies to Kamala because like throughout the rest of this episode she's still very much figuring it out and you know, we're along for the ride and having fun with it.

I don't see anything wrong with this at all. No, there's nothing wrong with it. I just think that like I think it's interesting like who gets a training montage and who doesn't or like I think Marvel is, I mean it goes back to the Midnight Boys quarter flipping question, right? Is like, is an opening? credits,

montage of Kate Bishop training her entire life to be good at what she does enough to justify her flipping a coin later in the show or not, do you know what I mean?

Yes, the answer is yes, by the way. Right, the answer is yes, and it is odd that we feel that we sporadically feel like we need to qualify, you know, our heroes bonafides in fighting crime or, you know, being heroic in any sort of sense.

But no, this is an entirely fun exercise that I love seeing, especially when it's a kid, to know that they're in this discovery mode of their own powers and like affirming themselves and believing in themselves. I love things like this. This is exactly what a show like this could use.

And to your point, Steve, I think like the first two missions, the first two quote unquote rescues that we see from her rescuing Zoe-ish or rescuing that dumbass kid hanging out a window taking a selfie. Like, it's shaky. It's rocky. She's like kind of getting it done.

You know what I mean? She's figuring it out. And I think that's a fun place to be in for a teen superhero like this. Quick note about the mosque kid, by the way, some eagle-eyed viewers noticed that he is wearing Nakia's shoes, which means he is the mosque shoe thief, or at least one of the mosque shoes. So my question is, and also this kid eats ice cream on pizza. I have a lot of questions about this kid. It's a wild. This kid is living wild life.

What's going on? Different. Living different. But I guess even shoe thieves deserve saving. All right. And let's also talk about because we get this montage where we understand, better understand her powers and what she can do with the hard light and she doesn't have super strength and she makes a joke about not having Ant Man powers.

because in the comic she can shrink down or, you know, go full giant man if she wants to. We get this really interesting thing on Bruno's incredible tablet. Every superhero should have a guided share with the tablet. That the power is coming from inside of her, but is activated by the bangle. Like, what does that spark for you, Jomey? What does that make you think? I can't believe I'm saying this. You say the word?

Inhumid. human? I don't, well, personally, like, that was my first stop, but then, you know, learning more about the bangle, it seems to be more of like a familial thing, like, maybe like a mantle that's like passed down from person to person. But, yeah, I was really scared. I was like, if they bring humans back and I didn't even,

I haven't seen Agent Colson in events since Avengers, I'm gonna be sick, to be honest with you. Like, it would have hurt my feelings. I weirdly got a lot of green, Lantern vibes because it seems to be whatever she believes it to be. And like, I love the idea of like, you know, the Green Lantern Ring, kind of reflecting what she can have in her own imagination. And it's stemmed from her belief and connection with herself.

And I think that that's a perfect opportunity to see just exactly what she can do. I've had a bit of a, like, misgivings about the change of her power set. But I think that this is a great use of that change. to kind of have it tied to her own belief in herself. I think it's a genius little bit. Believe in herself and also what we learn from her from the very beginning of the first episode, which is that she has a really creative mind

and can visualize things. She's a creator. She's an artist. She sketches. She makes videos, all the sort of stuff like that. So for someone like that, and if her power is,

if you can believe it, you can do it or if you can dream it, you can achieve it sort of thing. When you say it like that, we're just like, really? But it's like, yeah. Yeah. When the power of friendship ends up being the thing that solves it, you know, sometimes you earn it.

Well, I mean, remember, it's like, it's supposed to be like a coming of age story, right? And those are the tenets of every coming of a story. It's like, oh, man, I don't think I could, I could do it. And then someone's like, nah, the power was in you the whole time. Oh, wow. Thanks, best friend. I can go do it now.

Like, that's how it works. I think that this thing that she says where she says it feels like an idea come to life is how she describes the powers and how they feel to burnout. And I just think that that is that's really incredibly strong, that idea of like, yeah, believing in yourself, but also the tapping into that creative. Like, you know, I love if in the first episode of a series, we have a guidance counselor saying, you got to get your head out of the clouds and stop daydreaming. and then it turns out that daydreaming is sort of her superpower. I think that's a really great message, right? For the Inhumans cre thing, we should just say really quickly, I think we talked about it a little bit in episode one,

but this idea that, you know, Inhumans was supposed to be a movie that the MCU was going to do. Then they lost it to Marvel Television. Marvel Television did a real shit job doing Inhumans, right? Like, not to put too fine a point on it. But this idea that Inhumans are, humans that have been seated with some alien DNA from the Cree and there's something called a

Terogenesis mist which activates their powers and if you watch Easons of Shield like Jomey has you know exactly what I'm talking about here but there is this idea and that's how it works in the comics for Kamala Khan but there's this idea that maybe here it's

the Bengal is acting as the Territian mist so so there we go in humans and career back on the table, which is very very louds me. I sure hope not. I can't do it. Listen, advancing amount is back.

A la multiverse of madness. I think anything's back on the table. All right. Well, back or not. Countdown to Lockjaw showing up. Let's let's let's lockjaw the giant dog from inhumans. We should, we can only hope. Um, I think it's really smart to link, uh, to Jomey's point earlier about this idea of like coming a, coming of age story linked to this sort of belief in self. I think also this story of like a first generation girl from a Pakistani family,

how it seems like connecting with her ancestry is going to be the key to unlocking her power and the metaphor of that story that only by understanding her family where she came from, all this sort of stuff is how she becomes her fullest, most powerful self as a Pakistani American. I think that's a really smart and emotionally resonant way to tell the story. Kevin Feigy said an interview with Empire, I think it was. He said, she's interested in knowing about her powers. Great. Does that mean I'm an Asgardian?

Did I get hit with gamma rays? No, it's seemingly none of these things. It goes into her own past and her heritage and her lineage. Jomey, you have any any thoughts or feelings about this twist on the origin story? No. I mean, at the beginning when people were, you know, set out of power change, I figured, I mean, my prevailing theory was like they're not trying to do that stretching CGI. It's not going to look good on the TV. But it seems to play like a big story element, right? It's not about, you know, inhumans or terror justice, any of that. It's about her family and their past, you know, coming from Pakistan to America. And I think over the first two episodes, we're seeing. in how their family has changed and how that has affected them.

I think going forward is going to play even a bigger, bigger role. And that's perfectly fine. Like that, I think that works in the story. Also, to that point, I feel like occasionally in both these MCU shows and maybe even some of these Star Wars shows on Disney Plus, we might be bumping into...

Jesus. Sometimes we bump into a pacing problem where the show gets a little bored with itself and wants to throw the viewer into something that is immediately action heavy or giving us a sort of like preliminary threat that we can immediately identify with and sort of get things moving too much.

And what I admire greatly about the show is that it doesn't rush too many things and it wants us to get us knowing Kamala and her family and who she is first and give her a little bit of like teenage drama to sprinkle it in to like move things along with that and to know that like we can get to the great grand MCU boss battle come the end of this show probably. But to know that we're not racing to the finish line is a very refreshing change of pace.

There is, there's a little bit of casting. I don't know if I would call it a spoiler, but I'll just say that in the comics, Kamala at one point because she wants to, I don't know, understand her family a bit better, goes to Pakistan and like spend some time there with her family in Pakistan. And she meets a superhero there, Karim, who's known as the Red Dagger. He's played by Aramis Knight in the show. Like, we know that they've cast Red Dagger.

He's in the trailer. Red Dagger is here. And that is a superhero that is connected directly to, he's not a Pakistani American hero. He's a Pakistani hero. And so that, like, I don't know how that's going to play in. I don't know if we're going to Pakistan or I don't know if he's coming here. I don't know what's going to happen.

But I just think that that's an interesting little, like, flag they planted. that they're not only doing Comron in season one, but they're doing Karim as well. So that's all coming. But I want to like, Jomi talked about this a little bit last week when you pulled him on to talk about the power set. But I want to talk a little bit about these bangle, various bangle theories that are bumping around the joint. I believe that Jomi brought up the negab bands last week. But Jomey, can you go into that a little bit, the negab band theory and like what this bangle could be if it is indeed a negaband? Well, like, so when we saw it in, you know, in episode two, like, she's like transported to like a purple dimension and like, you know, my first thing is like, is that the ancestral plane?

But remember in Moon Night, Tarwet is like there's so many, you know, afterlifes that are all connected, things like that. And it's really fun to see each of them. And so I think it's something to that nature, right, where it's not exactly, it's like a different plane. Some people are saying the Cree Supreme Intelligence, although like we've seen that in Captain Marvel and I looked a little different. Yeah. But, hey, you know, we're, you know, we're in the future now. Like anything could look like anything. But ultimately, I think I want to go back to the point I made last week as well.

Like, I'm my first time, I'm still, I think this would be important even like in the Marvel's later. but Sean Chi's 10 rings. I think that's really like, that's where our brain is at when I think about it. You know, because Captain Marvel was there in the end of Shang Chi, right? She was in that post-credit scene.

And so, you know, maybe she goes back. She's like, hey, that kind of look familiar. What's going on there? You know what I mean? But I ultimately think, like, even if it's not like actually connected, I think that'll be tangentially connected in the MCU down the line.

I think I'm going to let's, you've talked about this in a second, but I think it could potentially all be the same thing. Like in the comments, the nega bands are these two bands that Captain Marvel has and that connect to the Supreme Intelligence, right? And Kamala only has one bangle. And that could, you know, in the comics,

in the Miss Marvel comics, she only has one bangle. It's really just an accessory. But there's this idea that possibly there are two bengals and the one we mean at the end of the episode, maybe has the other. And this idea that what could the two bangles together do? What could that matter?

And then also speaking of that Shang-she end-of-credit scene, right? Wong says that there is a signal coming out from these 10 rings that that Shang-she has, right? So this idea that maybe when Kamala put the bangle on, it sent out a signal to maybe the other owner of a bangle or something like that to this has been activated like this has been activated come come find it and the way in which that could tie into the marbles and going into space to find the source of the bangle or something like that like all that sounds really fun to me um what do you think steve what are your accessory related thoughts and theories i think i think the signal that the the bangles in me it is walk like an egyptian no uh i think probably the best thing

I think the best thing that they could probably have for, uh, like, like the overall connection to Miss Marvel because the, you know, Brie Larson cameo that's bound to happen in our final episode, uh, is probably going to be something akin to like what we see at the end of Shangchi where,

you know, there's this powerful, uh, mcuffin symbol that is going to be, uh, emitting something very powerful that Miss Marvel would need. And then that will be, uh,

leading us into 20, three next summer when we eventually see her and Captain Rambo kick ass in space. Yeah. The bangle in the comics, we should say really quickly, is something that Kamala's a great grandmother used to smuggle money out of Bombay during the partition. We already got some partition mentions in this episode. So it feels like, you know, it feels pretty clear where all this is going in a way that doesn't feel like it's being obscured for us, but as you say, like slowly, slowly rolled out versus,

let's say, I mean, if people are listening to this and watching Obi-One, some of the conversations that Midnight Boys had about the Riva storyline and how it felt apparent from the start what it was, but it felt like they were holding it back for no reason at all, only to reveal to us in episode five something maybe we felt like we already knew about the character, whereas this journey with the Bengal and the ancestry and partition and all that sort of stuff, it feels like it's It's coming, but it's not being held back from us. Does that make sense? Like that distinction?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Plus, every single, you know, anti-British colonization story I can get. I'm rocking with. Let's go. Rob all those museums. You know what I'm saying? Get our stuff back.

That's what I'm talking about. I wish every British museum a very give that shit back. Something that I've seen a lot of people praise this show for is the idea that it feels like a very, like a very real world. it's very well inhabited. And I think some mistakes in the telling of some superhero stories is that the superhero part or the villain part or the mission part or all of that is the only story they're telling and they're not telling the rest of the story around this character. And what I love about the show is that every single character has their own life and their

own story going on, right? It makes everyone feel really real because you've got Kamala figuring her stuff out while also trying to figure out like high school and a crush and all that sort of stuff like that. But you have Bruno who doesn't just exist to help. Like if you think about like Ned, you know, literally in Spider-Man, what do we know about Ned outside of him just helping Peter?

He likes Star Wars. He points at the big ship and he's like, we're all going to die. That's what he does. Like he likes Star Wars. And then he drops the Lego sets. He wants to go to MIT. But like I don't, you know,

and we met his Lola in the third films, but I don't know much else about. Ned and what like what he's interested in what motivates him right but like Bruno has a story about like going to a really cool fancy program at another school because he's a brilliant kid Nakia and her like running for the mosque board um that whole campaign incredible um here amir and Taisha have a wedding that they're getting ready for usufus this whole thing about like the american dream that he wants to fulfill for his kids so great you know and then Kamran is obviously working his double agenda.

So which we'll get to in a bit. But like, do you know what I mean? Like the fact that they, I was talking to a TV critic friend of mine who was saying that he was more interested in like Naki and the mosque board politics than he was in the superhero story. And I kind of feel like that's okay. Like that's not, I don't think that's a knock on the show. I think that just speaks to how well the show is defining all the all the characters and

the world around our hero here. What do you think, Steve? You make a great point because at almost every avenue when we have these characters just on the exterior when we get like that quick little scene with Nikita, like, persuading Yusuf to like, you know, give her her flyer and like convince him for her boat, you can easily be like, okay, well, wait, let's follow her for a couple of minutes. Like I want to see her like campaign a bit more. I just want to kick it with the Illuminantes

is basically what I'm saying. But what I really want to see is knowing that everybody has their own story going on with Kamala just like being the nucleus of all of these things circling around her. It's again like a great strength of this show where you end up liking almost everybody

that is going around and at least you can believe that everybody has this dimensionality that you don't often get in a TV show because we often think that we don't have time to cram this all into 45 minutes for a TV show in Disney Plus because we've kind of missed that. That's why a lot of these other prestige shows

that we've been seeing only have like a handful of characters to follow around because they've got to follow our main protagonist for so long. But instead, like, you get to see all of these lives outside of our main character that are just wonderfully illustrated and I love it. What do you think, Jimmy?

I mean, Steve really said, like, he really said it all. Oh, like there is a liveliness to it. There's a thumping to it, you know. It's like a heartbeat, you know, all like, it's so in rhythm where, like, if you spend time away from Kamala, it doesn't feel like you're missing out on anything. It doesn't feel like, all right, let's get back to the story. Right, right. It's about everybody is playing a role.

Everybody has, like, a central part to play, you know. Even if Kamala's the sun, everybody else makes up the solar system within the story. and I'm enjoying watching all of it. I think also, I mean, we don't, I've, I've not seen any episodes past this one. None of us have. We don't know what the last. Are you sure? I saw the whole thing. I see season two.

No screener gate. No screener gate, no. We're not getting burned. Charles knew. We don't know what the last four episodes are going to do. We don't know if the show's going to go off a cliff. We have no idea. We love these first two episodes.

But something that establishing all of these characters is like fully formed humans around our hero means we better understand what she's fighting to protect if later it's threatened. You know what I mean? And so the stakes, yes, the world's ending. We have to save the world. That's a stake

you can put on something. But Kamala has always been in the comics a lower street level lower is not the word I want, but street level, your friendly neighborhood you know, Miss Marvel. And she's protecting Jersey City because no other

hero can be fucked to protect Jersey City, right? And so us getting to know this community, going to an Mabarak festival, like knowing what the mosque dynamic is like, knowing with the high school dynamic is like, that's important for us to then later care about Kamala, like, saving everyone, you know? Yeah. I refuse to let this show make me care about Jersey City. I'm not going to fall for that trap. Too late. Too late. You care.

Damn it. Too late. We mentioned this like Disney Channel critique before, but a question that I've heard a lot of people ask is like, who is this show for? You know, who is this for? I think that's like a dicey question at the best of times. But I do think it's interesting that there is this like very specific.

I want to talk about the way in which the very specific like Pakistani South Asian culture is being presented in the show. I think it's threading a really interesting needle between. translating something, whether it's like Bruno explaining what the girls are saying at the party or, you know, the breakdown of the mosque clicks or whatever it is,

like explaining something, but then also leaving some things unexplained and allowing the audience the intelligence to figure it out for themselves what the context is. Jomi, any thoughts on this? Well, I am not Pakistan or South Asian, but I am,

an immigrant, like a first generation immigrant. And so, like, a lot of the, you know, the parents being really, you know, strict on you, where are you going out? Who you're going out with? What time are you going to be back? Like, that whole energy. I'm like, bro, I live that life. Like, I know, like, I know what Kamala's going through when she has to, like, swallow, like,

all her pride and, like, go ask her parents. She's so scared to ask her parents to go to AvengerCon. Or, like, really nervous, acts of parents to go out to hang out with friends because, you you like the no is just not a no right it's it's a lecture it's a whole you know another problem you have to have and so you know even even though like i can't speak to the pakistani south as an accuracy of it like as an immigrant yeah it's just it's so perfect it gets it's so perfect and nor am i a you know first or second or any real generational immigrant to speak of but Joanna, you tweeted something brilliantly

that was along these lines where the question of being when people that look and sound a lot like me ask, say that the age old phrase, you know, this thing isn't exactly for me or I'm not the target audience, it's really disappointing when,

for the lack of a better term, you can't stretch yourself to attempt to relate even remotely to somebody that isn't exactly like you in a story like this. and, you know, to see the story, like, you know, even offer the, you know, white people training wheels of being like, okay, well, this is what this means and this is what we're doing.

Like, the amount of grace that the story gives us to relate to Kamala and relate to all of these stories that we're hearing, while still not necessary, is very welcoming and inviting and something that you can't even get mad at because it's something that should be for everybody because this is at the end of the day a great story that I genuinely enjoy. Something that I think the comic does is so interesting that this show is doing as well is. Kamala's brother Amir is more fundamentalist than his family is. This is something he's decided.

We explore a little bit more in this episode and we found out that he had a goth phase and he was a hot topic before he decided that like this is the avenue that he wanted to go down. He wanted to like lean into his faith a little bit harder than the rest of his family. And something that I love so much about that is that it busts a stereotype that we see a lot in immigrant family stories, which is that the older generation is like regressive and conservative and fusty. And it's like it's up to the younger generation to show them like the Western ways and how it's like, you know, modernity is cool and stuff like that. And what I like about this is that it's not a generational thing. It's like Amir has made his choice.

and whereas his family, whereas his dad, Yusuf is like, all-American dream all the time. Like, I'm really into this Western culture. And I like, I like that it flips this thing on his head and it makes it more about a choice than it is just about a default. Well, this is how we were raised. This is how we're going to be. Amir is like, I've decided this is what I want to be. And I think that's really interesting.

How mad could you be really at a dad that just loves Bon Jovi? Come on. or a mom who's rocking with Bon Jovi. You know what I mean? I know. Slibery went wet. Pivotal work. That was nuts.

That quote that she said, if it wasn't for Slivery when wet, we never would have met. If my parents heard that, if my parents said that, I would simply cease to exist. Oh. That's real life.

That's real life nuts. It's just a very suggestive album title. It was the 80s, Jomi. That's just what they were doing. I would just turn the dust. Like, just Danos snat me out of existence, bro.

Oh, my goodness. And on the vein of those choices that people are making, I really loved the conversation that Kamala and Nakia had about wearing the hijab and why she decided to wear the hijab. And like I talked last week a little bit about how the creators of this comics decided that their main character would not wear a hijab because most teenage Muslim girls that they knew were not making that decision. But I like that there is a girl here who has decided that. and we get inside into her reasons why she's decided to do that. And, like, again, all of it is here to show you that all choices are valid choices as long as they're for you and not hurting anyone, right?

And by no means heavy-handed. Like, everything is presented earnestly and, like, so genuinely that, like, you can't, you can't possibly take that any other way. Like, they're still establishing stakes, like, at every turn, which I love. It's all part of this, like, yeah, back. from conversation about boys and like what it's like being a Muslim girl like navigating all of this. I just, I, yeah, I found that to be perfect. It's great. And it also speaks to like her, you know, trying to be a superhero, right? You know, she says, I was hoping to shut some people up,

but I kind of realized I really don't need to prove anything to anybody. And that's, that's perfect, you know, it reflects, you know, Nakia's character in like how, you know, how, you know, bold she is and how open she is. And it apart some wisdom on Kamala. It was like, yeah, I don't need to, like, you know, be, you know, who everybody wants to be. I don't need to, you know, I don't need to fit in anybody else's box. Like, I can do what I want to do and be who I want to be.

And that's something like she needed to hear. And I, it's just like the storytelling, you know, the writing is just so, so good in the show so far. Imagine actually coming to that revelation in high school. How powerful would we all be? Imagine being that woke. But I do love the moments when, like, so there's the moment in the coffee shop where Kamala's talking to Kamran before we decide that maybe he's evil. And, you know.

Just maybe. And they're talking. She says, she says, Ami, and then she's like, I mean my mom. And he's like, you don't have to listen. You don't have to translate to that to me. Like, I get it. We're on the same page. We're from the same people. Like, we understand.

And that's, that's a tough look for my guy, Bruno, despite the fact that he, you know, showed up to the Mubarak Festival in full regalia. Mom approved regalia, right? But, like, you can't. Did he had that at home or did she or did, or did like the family put that on him? I don't know if he had that at all.

He's like, is it right? Did I do it right? Is it too colorful? And mom was like, yes, this is great. I love it, Bruno. my adopted son, my adopted white son, I love you so much. But you know, that Kamala and Kamran can talk about Kingo or various other Bollywood things or the sweatshop boys.

What's so funny is when the sweatshop boys were playing on the radio in Kamran's car, I was like, why does that sound like Riz Ahmed? Because it is Riz Ahmed. Because it 100% is Riz Ahmed. That's his group. There's also, of course, the very. specific girl content. We're talking about crushes.

We're talking about coming of age superhero stuff as like a metaphor for getting your period, etc. And like this is a trope of male superhero stuff when you've got like Toby McGuire Superman shooting web fluid everywhere. Like puberty and superhero teen awakening is like a longstanding thing.

But to like just casually have a tampon scene in a Marvel Disney Plus show made me personally really happy and made me hope that that didn't feel alienating for people because it just shouldn't be. It just is a part of teenage girl life. No, no. Look, I saw Turning Red, all right?

Like, if you saw Turning Red, you're good. You'll be I'd in this scene. Don't stress. The movie that came out last year rather than, you know, casually having a period or tampon scene this year. No, it's great. speak for myself, but I've also danced

to a pop song after I've come home from a sort of date being stupid in love. So I can relate to that. I've also cleaned my house while that's happened too. That's good energy to you to clean the house. I need to put it somewhere. I need to do something. I didn't want to say one thing though, like in terms of speaking a specific

language, like, you know, whenever we cover these shows, these like Marvel shows, these Star Wars shows, I try to read and watch as many like, YouTube breakdowns and like other other writers writing their breakdowns to catch all the like little references that I missed. And there's always like detailed comic book things I've missed or this is a reference to this obscure Star Wars thing or whatever that I that I missed. But what kind of crack me up this time is like and most of people write those things or do those YouTube channels are men. That's fine. Whatever. But like one of the things that crack me up with the Miss Marlowe thing is that there are a bunch of references that I feel like those dudes. missed. So the way in which that I would miss like a super detailed Star Wars thing, they miss like the reference to adventures and babysitting

or clueless or all these other like very girly movies that that are being referenced here that are sort of flying under the radar for some of those creators. And I just thought that was kind of for once. I was like, I know something you don't know, man.

For once. Let's talk about the state of affairs of villainy in this show. Like Jomey, how are you feeling all the villainy cards are stacking up here? Well, we're not like, like you said, we're still early in the show, so Kamala's still learning about her powers.

We don't really have a true op. But, you know, it's just like real life. The ops probably the police and damage control right now. They're looking like, as far as we're, as far as you know, through two episodes,

they're looking like there were the ops so far. And it's, it's tough. It's tough. like Charles do you not give a shit about damage control or do you care about damage control? Well first of all they got my man, they got my man Stewie

so I'm rocking with damage control that was supposed to be that show remember that the comedy that they were like yeah we'll do this and then once Marvel took control of the TV side are like we're good off that don't worry we'll just throw that in the back burner

the back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back burner. You know, that would have been cool. But now I'm rocking with damage control. I'm here. Steve. Okay, take Stewie off of damage control. Do you care? Well, okay, that's a all different question, but he's on damage control.

No, that is the question. That's the only thing keeping us here. My man's right there, right? No, I mean, I think they'd serve a right. We saw them in Spider-Man, No Way Home, right? All the superhero stuff, all these shenanigans, somebody got to, you know, there's no shield, right? shout out to Hydra, but they, you know,

kaput. So somebody's got to be looking out for the Cipro stuff. And I guess Damson Control came in, you know, like, yeah, this is our turf now. We got it. But it's looking a little more shady than we once thought, truly. Something I really liked is that Cleary makes this comment. I mean,

Cleary is doing his good cop routine from No Way Home, right? The same way that he was sort of like in the parlance of the men of boys. He's crushing it, by the way. Offer the KFC to Ned. He was working Zoe. I would fall for this good cop routine for sure. Yeah.

Like, oh, you follow me on IG? You like the popcorn recipe? Wait, are you Zoe Zimmer? Oh, my God. Stop. Start. Stop. I see too many episodes of Law and Order.

I'm just like, where's my lawyer at? I need a lawyer. I fall for it. Come on. He does. It's great, too. It's like, oh, my gosh. I follow you.

You got it in the break room right now. It's all we are. Now. Oh, my God. And then he like flips a switch and he's like, oh, yeah. I forgot you were the actual police. But I do like the comment that he makes to his partner when he tells her to put some surveillance on the mosques. But also be delicate because the FBI is also monitoring the mosques.

Very great comment from a Disney Plus Marvel show. I was genuinely shocked. I was like, wow, they're, they're doing that. Like, that's incredible. Like, snaps to you guys for not only having some really illuminating insight there. Where's the lie? Where's the lie? No, zero.

All right, you got to talk about my guy at Comran, though, if we're talking about villains. You mean Haram.com, Ron? That's so stupid. By the way, that whole scene was funny. So good. Have you ever been lied to so well that you believe the lie that they told and made up a fake nickname for somebody you never met? If I had a hot topic phase, maybe I would. I think the MVP of that scene, to be honest, it's not Kamran switching between the English accent and the Pakistani accent and with his Great British Bake Off cover story.

It's Taisha who knows from the judge. jump what the fuck is going on. It knows how dumb her fiance is. And she's just like dumb guy. Cousin. Mm-hmm. Like, uh-huh. Yeah, uh-huh.

Oh, this is, we are, man. What time is, oh, but we got to go. There's, you know, say bye to Kamala. Yeah. Say by to Shandri's nephew. We got to leave. She clocked it immediately. Yeah, immediately.

We obviously know who has the brains in that relationship. Exactly. I can easily speak to being the dipshit brother that doesn't know anything about what's going on in his sister's life. But even I could pick up on somebody lying like that. This is our cousin. Cousin Comron. All right.

So cousin Comeron is a character in the comics, as we mentioned last week, is like an old family friend who comes to visit and is immediately like speaking Kamala's language in terms of saying like he's a video gamer. He likes all the same Bollywood that she likes, like all this sort of stuff. He makes this great comment in the comics where he's talking about. liking Bollywood and she's like, do you like Bollywood to laugh at it or do you like

like it? And he's like, I like like it. He's like, I think our parents' culture deserves more than us laughing at something ironically. And I was like, I thought that was like a really cool statement.

Then he's just fucking evil, but also he's evil. Because in the, in the comics he's an inhuman and his whole thing with her was a con job to bring her basically to his master. right? We'll talk about that in a second. Do we think we know the MCU likes to put a twist on something?

So at the end of this episode, and we'll get to his quote-unquote mom, whether or not we believe that's his mom. At the end of this episode, when it's revealed that he has some kind of his ulterior motive here, do you feel like nothing he said leading up to that was genuine? Or do you feel like he has some real connection with her, starting with Steve? I think it's probably going to be the twist of like he might be a patsy being like, you know, like I got to know you so well for this whole time that like I actually did like you. And he's probably just, you know, following mom's orders, mom's orders for most of it. And he feels guilty.

And then they'll probably get together and save it in the third act turn. Jimmy, what do you think? Redemption or bad vibes? Fab-wives. I think he's definitely getting played. You know, I think whoever is handling him, whether it's his mom or it turns out to be somebody else, it's definitely like pulling his strings.

And so when it comes down to crunch time and he's like, oh, I got to make a decision. Do I choose the people I've always known or this, you know, this girl I just met? I think he's going to rock with Kamala at the end of the day because they had a good time, you know? It was like real, like, connection. He needs to be able to lie to not a dumb person

so that we actually know how duplicitous he is because right now he's just like he's just kind of freewheeling on his office he's playing on easy right now yeah right yeah I was suspicious of him from the start because I read the comics but also I felt like as soon as he called Bruno Brian I was like this guy's

bad news no good no good for anyone can we take a moment to talk about backseat Bruno and how we feel about our guy Bruno listen my brother Bruno who among us you gotta give up the game bro

this is a wrap you saw the way she was looking at him. It's over, my dog. You got to think, you got to start listening to Marvin's room. You know what I'm saying? You got, he got the Caltech offer, right?

Say yes immediately. Goodbye. I'm out of here. Go across the country. Yeah. Bro, bro, come out here, bro. We got beautiful women out here, bro.

You forget about Kamala. As soon as you get off the plane of LAX, you're going to forget. She's not even going to, like, be a glimmer in your mind, my brother. Like, give up games. I needed a friend like you in high school because Joanna, if you were to ask this question,

who is this content for? This is for me. Yeah. That's real Steve. Because who among us hasn't been a backseat Bruno in high school that, which is now the verb that we'll be using as a backseat Bruno. Backseat Bruno. I have backseat Bruno'd many high school lady that I found out wasn't the one.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure the phrase is holding up in court. given the way that you just use it. Snooie, don't do the good cop, I promise. Listen, who among us has not been, you know, a third wheel, you know, to a girl or a guy that they have liked?

And it's tough I hear in these streets, right? So Bruno, I know you're listening, Bruno, a big fan of the Ring ofverse. You have to get out of there. Because he's clearly like, he's head over heels. Like when they were leaving school and he was like, hey, we got to come train. And she was like, I got this little thing with, oh boy, but you can come. We'll see it.

And bark, right? For show, peace. The way his eyes rolled. That's pain. That's real life pain, bro. You don't have to live like that. You could do better. You could be better.

Right? Just go on. You know what I'm saying? Put on that new Drake. Right. And, you know, just say yes to Caltech. And you on your way, bro. You on your way.

Until Bruno gets dragged to a fallout boy concert that he didn't want to go to in the first place and then be a third wheel, he doesn't know what real pain is. Steve, go. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Steve, talk. Speak on, speak on it. Yeah, please.

Speak on it. Knights of Columbus, like 2003. Yeah. Art Nights of Illinois, went to a Fallout Boy show. that was what happened at the show Steve oh absolutely nothing that's that's exactly what happened so she dragged you to a show I mean like it's defined drag

did someone does someone you like I dragged myself I drag myself because I'm just like oh they're going to be there so I got to be there and then I got to do this thing and I got to stand in a certain way that's going to make me yeah no it didn't work out obviously oh no but hey this cooler heads prevailed okay that's crazy

Steve, that's nuts. I'm sorry for your loss. Bruno is doing just fine. I want to say, do you want to know where Bruno went in the comics to get away from Kamala? Oh, please tell him. He went to the Savagelands. He went to Wakanda.

Hey! You see you? Do you see what I'm saying? Bruno is with Bucky, living a good life. Because you know that the best technical school is actually in Wakanda, and that's where he went.

He went to like... WTT Technical Institute. Yeah, he went to Pollytec. Wakanda. My man was, you know, you know what I'm saying? Kamala one putting on it on. I was like, Shari, what's going on?

How are you doing? Like, where you been at? Somebody got to, I need somebody to go on, like, listen to my voice right now. I need somebody to put a Kofi on Bruno. Right now. I need somebody to put a Kofi on Bruno. I need it.

And then he'll come to you like, are the colors right? Or the, like, am I wearing it well? I want my mentions to be filled to the brim with Bruno Kofi memes. I need Bruno Hote mipes. He went to Wakanda for fun. He's like, hey, listen, come on. Let's not be working out.

This thing not going for me. I'm just dip. And he went to Wakanda, the land of the milk and honey. I see it. I see it, my brother. You see the vision? I see the vision. Glow up coming out of Wakanda, too.

I understand. I think this explains why the most important cultural reference of episode one, the split second shot of Felicity is in the show because that's a show. Your cultural touchstone Felicity. That's a show that is unbelievably a love triangle for four seasons. They pulled it out for four seasons. Felicity. Ben,

no, what's going to happen. I feel like that's where we are. I mean, I don't think I could watch Bruno Pine over Kamala and get us our broken for four years. And you got to set my brother up with a nice, nice, a woman lady.

It's a classic 80s. teen comedy thing. If you think about like teen, if you've seen Teen Wolf, Michael J. Fox or whatever, there's always like, in the like hero with the two girls, there was always like the blonde popular girl that the like newly minted hero would go for.

But is Brunette and you're like, oh, she's a brunette. She's so not hot, but she's very hot all along. And then she takes the glasses off and then goes to prom and like, oh my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Kamala's like, Bruno, you were here all along.

And you were here for me and doing everything for me. how could I have been so blinded by that guy doing a... Are we going to get that 16-cans-les ending? Are we going to get the... All I'm saying is, bro, don't get... Don't get Ducky-Dailed, bro. Bruno, listen. Don't get Ducky-Dailed, bro.

Come on now. All right, let's talk on Cameron's mother. This is going to be the key to whether or not we are rooting for him at all. Because I'm currently rooting for him to be very far away from her. is this actually Kamron's mother or is this woman that we meet in the backseat of this car creepily

is this actually Kamala's great immortal great-grandmother Aisha I mean that's the cooler option for sure I would definitely like to I don't think that this is his actual mom I think that the mom of it all is probably going to play out

in the next episode which again, I feel like a lesser show would like drag that mystery out for too long. But I feel like we're going to know exactly what's up with her come the end of this. But I don't think it's his mom, no. I think it might be like it is adopted mom, right? Yeah, yeah. Or, sure, sure, yeah. It could be his mom in which case.

And if his mom is also, Kamala's immortal and possibly evil great-grandmother, then he's her like great-grand-uncle, which... It's helpful then that they never actually kissed. Right. George Luke. George Luke. They just like held hands briefly in a cafe. And I'm like, that's so okay.

All right, let's talk about this theory, though. Okay. So basically, Kamala has this great-grandmother that allegedly brought a lot of shame onto the family. We get the download from the Illuminantes. Kamala's mom does not want to talk about it, right? We don't talk about Bruno. We don't talk about great-grandma.

You don't talk about Bruno. Right. And so the Illuminati's said these various things. Let's just run down the list of things that were said about Aisha, her great-grandmother. Many people knew her and probably wish they had it. Okay. Okay. Brought sham on the family.

All right. All right. A snake. Ooh. Okay. A curse on everything she touched. Okay. She had a secret affair, possibly a secret family.

And she killed a man. during partition, right? She sounds like a badass to me. Honestly, all of these things, checking my list. I love this. A real queen. Okay.

So is this woman evil? And is there sort of an evil ancestor out there with another Bengal who's going to be like, to unlock your full potential, let me train you in my evil ways? Or is this an incontos situation where all these rumors are twisted? They get it all twisted and she's not actually evil. she's just powerful and they were afraid of her power. Jomey, thoughts, feelings. I am with you there.

I think it's just a whole bunch of hearsay, you know, rumors, people just, you know, talking trash. And ultimately, like, when we get the full reveal, we'll understand, like, okay, she had to do this stuff for a reason, right? Part of the, you know, her Kamala's dad tells a story of Kamala's great grandmother, Aisha, and trying to get away in partition. And I think just, you know, how stories get down the line, you get a little more crazy, they get a little more far-fetched, you know. You'll tell somebody, oh, man, I went to the iPhone store and I got a new Apple Watch. And then, you know, down the line and be like, bro, did you hear?

He went to Japan and he like fought Godzilla. It was crazy. You know what I'm saying? It's just like a weird game of telephone that has gone way out of hand. Generation. My uncle works for Nintendo type of stuff. Exactly. So ultimately we'll find out that it's just, you know, something that makes sense.

I think a slight twist on that. I think it would probably be her trying to sell her on the idea that like, oh, no, no, no. It really happened like this. I did these things for a reason. The family story kind of just trickles down like it is telephone, but she really is evil. And most of those things actually are true. And she's just, you know, kind of a bad person. I mean, I think it's possible that she killed a man during partition, like, because part of that story is like she,

disappeared during partition, but she set some sort of, she gave the bengal to her young daughter. So let's say there were two bengals. She gave one to her young daughter. Right. And she sent her on a path. This daughter followed the stars back to her father. So it's possible that Aisha laid a path of hard light or something like that for a son, her daughter, to follow. Kamala's grandmother to follow back to her father.

And if she killed a man, maybe it's killing a man to, like, protect her daughter and get her daughter to safety. There's all sorts of possibilities there. But I do... Both of those things can be twisted for good or ill. Right. But I do wonder... And I mean, the reason that people think this woman is... Kamala's grandmother, great-grandmother, is because she shows up in visions with the sound of the train whistle.

And we hear the sound of the train whistle when this woman shows up in the backseat of Kamran's car. So. And this idea of like, I've waited a long time to meet you. And Kamran says of his mom, we've had to move around a lot is something that he said, which is something that I don't know, the vampires of Twilight have to do. If they're immortal, you got to move around a lot. Do we think Kamran is, if she is immortal, do we think Kamran could also be immortal? Or do we think that's a real life teen right there?

Oh, man. That's got to be a real life teen. because then it'd be kind of... As much as I want to avoid a hop-on spider-monkey situation, I definitely don't think he's immortal. I think he's a flesh and blood team

just like the rest of him. Okay. Just happens to know how to flip off of buildings into... If you're hundreds of years old, you'll learn how to lie better, is what I said. And then the other thing we should say on the villain front is like, we talked last week about this villain at the beginning

of the Kamala Khan run, which is the... the Edison clone inside of a cockatiel-headed body. We're not doing that. Not off the board for me. Not off the board. But the villain of volume three is this character called lineage, who's this like horned purple inhuman who is connected to Medusa and all this stuff that's inhumans.

But let's take the word lineage and let's remove the purple. dude with all the horns and instead put your great-grandmother, your actual literal lineage is, and it's that guy, the purple horned guy who was running Comron. Like, Comron was working for lineage. So if instead Comron is working for this woman who he calls mother, whether or not she is mother, and that is the analog of lineage in the show. Again, I think that's much more interesting and connected to the first-generation American an experience of like instead of a rando alien-infused guy, it's your literal great-grandmother.

And I think that's entirely possible because the show has even in two episodes proven that even with its own little retcons with her powers or changing little tiny bits of things and focusing on the things like family and these other characters that actually matter, I have faith that that can actually be a thing that if they wanted to tweak for the sake of a good story that it can pull it off because it certainly hasn't failed yet. Yeah, so far so good. So why switch up the formula? Right.

And I think I think the reason that lineage is there and involved and like Medusa's involved is because like in humans comics was running parallel to Ms. Marvel. So you have this constant crossover of those two storylines. But something we talked about in the Disney Plus Marvel era is like with a lot of moon night, we kind of appreciate that it feels like its own contained story. like it doesn't have to heavily connect. So whether or not like Carol Danvers is going to show up at some point or whatever's going to happen and like obviously Avengers con and all that sort of stuff makes of the Avengers stuff feel very close to the story that we're telling here.

I think having the villain be something so closely connected to you as your own actual ancestor and not like Thanos or something like that I think is so. a smart way to tell this very small makes it sound like I'm diminishing it but I'm not like contained and story, you know? You're absolutely right because again, the smart thing and brilliant thing about the show is that like, again, with all these mentions of like

AvengerCon and her being a fan of Carol Danvers and the rest of the Avengers, you still feel safe not operating within the giant machine of MCU canon that we've been established with for so many years. Like that's just the thing that she talks about and the rest falls into place.

Whereas, you know, these other shows, you kind of feel like you need to be tapped in. Like, this is breaking the illusion that you've needed to known it all or see it all. Right. To be there. So you're saying you don't have to see all the movies to understand what's going on. It's interesting that you said that, Steve. It's very interesting. No, I wanted to see Kamala fight aim, so this is all really disappointing.

Zero out of ten. No, I think to Joanna's point. still on the way. Yeah. Right. Now, to Joanna's point, keeping this thing, like, you know, we speak so much about family about the show, speak so much about her heritage on the show. So for

ultimately, the villain to be, you know, in line with that would make so much sense and it would bring this thing full circle. And so even though I don't really think her grandma will be a villain, that works thematically. It really does. I mean, grandma certainly isn't. Grandma is concerned

with like the Mango Man showing up at her door and breaking up her face time call. Not lower stakes, okay? Let's not reduce her plight, okay? I'm not going to have that. Listen, if there were a mango man going around the neighborhood, I would break up every single Zoom call.

It's making me care about the Mango Man. When the fruit guy comes around the corner, like, yeah. Beard me, the Mango Guy. If you pause the Zoom real quick. We care about Cabbage Man from Avatar. We can care about Mango Man in this, okay? That's true.

My mangoes. All right. The great grandma. If she turns out to be the villain, then like that would make sense thematically. Illegal mango trade. All right. Mangoes aside.

Let's talk about some Easter eggs you might have enjoyed in this episode. I will shout out again on that sort of like girly stuff matters front. I love that when the guidance counselor is telling Bruto about the like Joseph Campbell hero story, call to adventure. sure he mentions like Jedi but then he talks about Devil Wars Prada for much longer

Is this the only cool guidance counselor to ever exist Like is like this is what they sell us On what guidance counselors are Like there's never been like this You need a guidance counselor who can quote Moulon and also Devil Wars Prada to you Steve I need somebody to guide me away from a fall off by show

Is what they That's true I don't think Bruno has seen Devil's Worst Prada I think he has at what point what my man Bruno had said down and be like, you know what? Movie night at the con household.

He doesn't strike me as a man who has many cultural blind spots. Yeah, I think he's seen it all. I don't think that's true. I mean, get him in Wakanda and then he'll really be a man of the world. How about that?

That's what I'm saying. You know, it's saying like, I mean, he could have gone to the crib and watched it with them. I don't think he'd watch it on his own for sure. There's no way. Man, too busy playing with. If Kamala watched it,

He watched it for sure. Oh, I love that. If he's too busy playing with tech and getting his heartbroken. You tapped into Bruno's mentality. I mean, the thing that I like about the Steve's and the Bruton's of this world is like this is a, this is a, this is a very endearing character type. As long as like Bruno and Steve, he stays out of Incell territory. Neither of you are in cells at all. But like this is the sort of like downtrodden friend zone thing that like people can get into and that is not the vibe that Bruno is giving off and is not the vibe that's.

Steve is giving off. So love that about both of you guys. But any Easter eggs for you. Honestly, I couldn't get over my, like the parents name dropping my favorite Bon Jovi album. That's probably one of the best ones. The Pride of New Jersey. John Bois. Friday, New Jersey, baby.

This Marvel Homecoming? There was a homecoming dance poster. I know. Do you think we have time for Homecoming Dance? I would, see. I would not to keep on the, boy, but you know, Bruno, he's like, I'm gonna ask, come on, man, I'm gonna do this whole thing. And my man, come on, hit him with the slide, like,

ah, you good, my man, I gotta take it. If we could somehow manage to get a world ending, all stakes, no holds barred, villain battle at a homecoming dance, this is gonna be the greatest thing the MCU ever did. Right, because Peter left homecoming to go fight, like, elsewhere. Exactly. But he's like, what if we stay? at the dance.

And then Bruno plays Johnny B. Good on stage. Yeah. In his puppy vest, yeah. In his buffy vest. You guys aren't ready for this yet, but your kids are going to love it. Yeah, exactly. Have you, well, listen to this. It's your cousin.

No, so I think that fun fact, in the comics, there is a day, it's like a Valentine's dance, not a homecoming dance, but fun fact, the person making mischief at that dance is Loki. I don't think Loki's going to show up in this show. Again, that would be the greatest thing the MC you ever did. Well, now that you said it, I have expectations now, Joanna.

I have expectations that Loki's going to show up now. Loki likes the punch with potion at the Valentine's dance. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Guess what? This comic is great and everyone should read it. Go read this Marvel. It's a great comic. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Ripper back in a new series Dunton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Cole Houser returned, and this time they're taking on Texas.

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Joey, you want to hit us with some mailbox questions? I would love to. Our first question comes from Rich Parr. What Bon Jovi song would be your superhero anthem? Joe, do you got this one? I have an easy, I have a too quick of an

answer. Is it living on a prayer? Like, no, it is not. Oh my God. Okay, Steve, what's your answer? It is not. It is bad medicine by a one John Bon Jovi. Can you hit me with some bad medicine lyrics? Okay, I'll read you the, my favorite thing in the world is reading lyrics

poetically. Yes, please. Now you've got to sing it. You got to sing it. No, no, no, no, no. It's way more fun by, trust me. All right. Your love is like bad medicine.

Bad medicine is what I need. Oh, oh, oh, shake it up. Just like bad medicine. There ain't no doctor that can cure my disease. I ain't got a fever. I got a permanent disease. No. That's wild.

Amazing. That really... Hero anthem. It fits you. It suits you. I love it. Jummy, do you have an answer? Considering, like, I know, like, three L'on Jovey songs.

It's probably got to be, it's my life. Right? The late, the late career, breakaway pop hit. I wasn't... Very good. I was... I ain't gonna live forever. Would you say that that was like, that was the, that was the, that was the

kick. That came out in like what, 2000s? Like that was a A breath of fresh air for our guy. Crush. The album Crush. I was living in Italy when that song came out and it was like the most, it was like the most popular song in all of Italy.

I bet that rocked year under the Tuscan Sun narrative so hard. Yeah. Joe was in the Italian grapevines just in the vineyards. Just singing it's my life. Yeah. Skipping, you know, tricking some rain.

just skipping living your best life I'm jealous I had some Gauchio Pepe but I don't want to live forever Yeah I think wanted dead or alive Is my

Is my So A quick follow-up When in the movie Do these songs come in? You know that needle drop In Captain Marvel When she plays

No Doubt Oh God Just a girl That's exactly That's exactly where mine comes in. It's like really on the nose. Yeah.

I was going to say similar thing. But yeah, it's the, it's the final showdown with the villain. That's when Warned Dead or Alive plays. Right. You know? How about bad medicine? What is that place, Steve?

He's in the hospital. No, that's probably like my, that's probably like the weird science hot girl reveal and then like it cuts off and then like I get hit with like a spitball or something. Oh my God. No, I want to remit.

of weird science with the two of you guys in it. That would be great. No, you don't. The double the Twins two weird signs. I love it. I feel like we could rock a building Ted's excellent adventure remake. You probably do that. Yeah, man.

Hey, listen. I know, I know studio executives is listening. Me and Steve are willing to hear any pitches that you have right now. Right. You have my email address. Offer only. Only. And we need cash up front.

Sorry, you know, my agent says I need catch up front. All right. What else we got, Jomey? Our next question comes from Frost reads. What click would you most definitely infiltrate and why? Easy. Like of the ones presented in the mosque sequence? It's the aunties 100%.

The Illuminantes. I'm really good with aunties. I'm great. Same. Same. I think we all are on the same page. That's probably the funnest group. but realistically

I would be shuffled into the mosque bros stuff I mean it's infiltrate versus like sorted into oh you don't want to hang out with bros

I feel like you would fit into the IG click though what do you're social social extraordinary that's it's not you and Zoe influencers come on hitting the gram

during during service of the mosque no like it's my job right so like if anything I'll be like when you want to post through these hours you want to use you know it's you know it's nine by 16 right exactly so what you want to do was format you see you're not using your your IG right

you know you got to post from okay four to six to get maximum you know views when you said when you said it's my job what I heard was it's my life my life social media yeah well well yep great so Jomey so Jomey's the Instac click. Steve and I are with the aunties. Steve not a revert. He could be a revert. I mean, where Bruda goes,

so goes Steve, I think probably. They put me with the reverts. But I'd just like, I'd flock to the Illuminantes. Put me with the aunties. Oh, my God. I want all the goss. Oh, yes. All right.

Next question comes from Tanner. What's the dumbest lie you've ever told a friend or family member amidst in a sheer panic, a la Comran being Kamala. cousin that she immediately knew in the aftermath had absolutely zero chance of holding up under any sort of even mild scrutiny. This is such a, this is such a tough question because like, are we now going to expose lies that we've told to our friends and family?

My lawyer said I can't answer this question. It's not so much lies, it's not so much lies, but just hard truths. I don't know that I have a good answer to this one. Maybe when I told my parents, in early college, I told my parents I didn't drink. But they absolutely knew that I did. So maybe something like that. They didn't ask me in high school, but they asked me in college. I don't know why.

Wow. Now, Joanna, are you drinking? Are you drinking at, where did you go to college? Oh, UC Davis. Oh, UC Davis. It's like only to Polytechnica, Wakanda. Right. Yes. I am right. Different. Different.

That's funny. Yeah. I signed an NDA, so there's no answer for this for me. If you're not going to give an answer, we're cutting this entirely because it's all of us answer or none of us answer. Come on, Jomey. Come on. I think it probably would have been, like, it's probably like, I, like, my mind races to, like, middle school when I would have to lie to my parents about, like, doing certain assignments when, like, I was already, like, kind of not that good of a student at a time. but like if they knew like even slightly what my assignments were or what my homework was, like they'd catch me immediately. I actually have such a better answer for this. To yes and your your story here, Steve. When I was in like, yeah, middle school or elementary school, my parents enrolled me in this like extracurricular math program that I had to do because I wasn't.

Like a tutoring thing? I wasn't great at math, right? And so they put me in a program that was just to like brush up my math skills. and I had these packets of math homework that I got sent home with. They were like stapled packets of like quarter sheets of paper. And I would pull off the last like two pages of the packet and roll it up. And literally, I don't know why this was the hiding space,

shove it in the couch. And that's because you wanted it to be like believable. And like, yeah. Later, they would just like come up from out of the couch. the like pieces of, I don't know, like the teacher never said anything. The tussle of a couch. But yeah, the math homework that I tried to shove in the couch just came back to haunt me eventually. Oh, and like the minute you said that, immediately my mind raises to a better lie that I told that was easier to pull off summer reading lists.

What would you do? Because it was with check-ins with the library. So I used to also volunteer at the library. So I would have access to the stickers at the checkoff. No, you were inside the system. He was on the inside. I was on the inside. Lying with library stickers?

Yes. Kids don't lie if you're listening to this. Jomi. Friends don't lie. Listen, if you put in the work in a library to lie, you know. Honestly, Steve,

I have nothing but respect for that. It sounds to me a little bit like Jomey's weird gambit to get water from Sam's Club. Jomey. No, I've actually got really good at lying, so I got to go all the way back

to when I was a kid. And I forget, this one in miniature had it out for me that my last year eighth grade. And so what she wanted me to do was like, just have my dad's on a paper. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was like, I just had to get my dad to sign something that said that he knew that I got in trouble, right? But I was like, I'm not going to tell him that. I'll just have him sign a blank piece of paper and then write it. Right. And so I got my dad to sign the blank

piece of paper, right? And write it. And I was like, I did it. This is the top of the line. Like, I've made it. You traced it? No, no, no, no. He just signed a blank piece of paper like at the bottom. Oh, then you wrote the message on top. I wrote the message on top. So like you don't know what he's signing.

Wow. No, no, no. I just had him sign a blank piece of paper and he signed it. And then I wrote what I had to write, right? Thinking, right, beat the case. Like, look at me. I'm special. I'm different.

Nobody does it like me. Nobody's as good as me. Honestly, like, that's on your dad for not knowing what he signed. No, but then what happened, Jeremy. Tell me why they made a show to call my dad was like, hey, did you sign this piece of paper? did you know what it meant? And I was just here like, bro, like, what do you want for me, dog? If you just don't call him, why don't you just call them?

What was the point? Now, I'm in trouble twice because I got in trouble the first time, and I lied. You understand what I'm saying? I'm in double trouble because you didn't want to call first and foremost. You know what I was, I got cooked. Let me tell you, I got cooked for that. But, man, I thought I'd had it. I thought I beat the case.

All right, so these are our poor attempts of being criminals. I'm most impressed by Steve's. Steve was the inside. He got a blood. Library sticker system. That's wild. That's wild. That's different.

All right. All right. Joby. What else we got on the mailbox? Next question comes from K. What song would you have a dance sequence to after talking with your crush? This is easy for me.

It's the Cures Friday I'm in love. That's like a really good. Like, yeah. Butterfly song. How about you guys? I always go for B-sides like out of that. I would have done just like heaven.

Okay. I just like that song a little bit better than you, Joanna. I'm just a little bit more obscure. No, I just like that song a little bit more. It feels played out. No. I would probably go,

I don't know, probably like walking on sunshine because that makes a good cleaning montage song. Yeah, yeah. Whenever I'm like overly excited, I just clean. I love knowing that about you. Jomi. I've got sunshine.

Oh, Clown tempo. Oh my God. Do do do do do do. What is it? When it's cold outside. I've got the month of May. You can hear us who's daddy shorts in the sun.

I guess you'd say what can make me feel this way? My girl. My girl. Talking about my girl. Legal's going to get out of. Literally. please save some women for the rest of us. What are you doing here?

I'd be snapping. I'll be shaking my shoulders. Please stop, Jome. My girlfriend listens to this podcast. Come on. Come on now. As soon as I fall in love, that's the first song I'll play. It's beautiful.

It's beautiful. You guys are all so jealous you didn't get to see that performance. It's the fallout boy show all over again for me. If you're lucky, you will be able to see that performance. We're definitely also not recording video and there's no chance our video team has any chance

to make this into like a breakout or anything like that. That really sounds like you're asking for that to happen rather than saying that you should. They got things going on. They got the NBA finals. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on. You know what I'm saying? So if anybody's listening or possibly retweet it yourself if you were, if that happened

either. I could not do it. I just don't have the time. All right. A most important question I think is next. This I could go on for hours. From Aeron, the AvengerCon establishes a large economy of officially licensed merchandise for these superheroes. Is Falcon not getting any of that coin? Okay.

I don't entirely believe, again, Pepper doesn't need to be dipping into merch. I think this is all off the books. Again, Pepper, why does Pepper come up? Why has Pepper got to come up? What she got to do with this, bro? because she's running the books, right? Why are you invoking her name, bro? Am I your business, dog?

Stop pocket watching. Oh, my goodness. This is exactly what we are doing. This is your Tony agenda, bro. This is what is this. It's your Tony agenda. No, this is not it. That's exactly what it is,

my point being, it's that I don't think that a lot of this merch is exactly sanctioned because I feel like that's a bit dubious. Do you think Avengers Con is official? No. I do not. This is all off the books.

Nothing. Nothing at AvengerCon struck me as, like, officially branded. Let's just say. I'll tell you this much. If it were an official Avengers con, some of the Avengers would be there. And Falcon would clean up in the, in the Post Photos signature line. Exactly. And he'd be able to buy a fleet of boats for his family with that money.

Again, I feel like, I feel like, because here's the thing, I feel like Pepper's got copyrights. I feel like Stark Industries has got copyrights written. down. See this dude and it's stark a jenital. Somebody's got to be at the top of the food chain here.

Somebody's got to be actually holding the money here. This is real life Aiden. I think if there is a actual like brand or like merchandise deal,

I don't think they're exercising that because that's a little bit dubious. I think that's a little in poor taste because they're kind of like capitalizing on some tragedies. That's a little

you know, not that great. I think if they want to get good guests though, I think that's some pretty good. Like Scott Lang is for sure showing up to a VentureCon and doing a live podcast. Do you think Scott Lang has ads

on his podcast? Absolutely. Of course. What? It's me on days and manscaped all the time. Does he have that almond ad money though? I mean, that's the real... California almonds? Yeah, California almonds. I'm going to tell you all about my time in the quantum realm. But first, let me talk to you about

Squarespace. Honestly, I think all that merch is... He's like... He's promo code Pim for 30% off. Right. All that merch is, you know, like the stuff that exists like right now, like Red Bubble and Etsy. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? People are taking, bringing their shops as vendors to a Ventricon and like selling their stuff.

So I don't think any of that is officially licensed. And, you know. And I'll just say this, I'll say this for Pepper and or Stark Industries. If that's the case, then they are way less litigious than Disney. That's for sure. Very true. Disney would never let AvengerCon happen without them. Exactly.

That's the thing. I feel like Pepper's got her eyes on the real prize, which is world peace. I'm giving her some credit. Mortimer Mouse needs that coin. You're fin to come up off that copyright, bro. I need that. Montgomery Mouse absolutely needs his back.

He not letting his slide. Not letting the slide. All right. What's our last question? From Lauren, is damage control completely run by scrolls? Or is it just these two definite scrolls? I love that.

So is Cleary, a.k.a. A.k.a. A.k.a. Stewie from Succession, is this a scroll? Are they going to be part of the Secret Invasion show? I would say yes. I would say have to be. It would both break my heart and make me so happy to know that Stevie's a scroll. Not all scrolls are evil. Well, here's the thing, right? Remember that in No Way home,

Stui's like I don't know I know his name is Cleary in the show but that's Stewie to me He was like Fury's off planet You know and that's not like a Thing people know

Right like the reason Talos Was in far from home Was to be like yeah look Nick Fury's here I've been I've been here for this whole time Right so to be fair We've been told that he's off world Like three canonical years ago And like we just have to believe that he's still there

So whenever he eventually comes back back. I will say that like all um all theories about scrolls are good theories. That's what I think. Yeah.

And I think scrolls could be anywhere. They could be right behind you. Steve on this call, his whole follow-up boy story could be a scroll. You never know. A scroll. Where they are.

Shoe thief Moskboy could be a scroll. Who likes ice cream on pizza if not a scroll? You know what I mean? If that's not an alien, I don't know what it is. Yeah. That's true. So that's Ms. Marlop, episode two, a show that we're loving.

I'm hoping the consistency of the quality stays up. I hope people are rocking with it. I have no idea how many people are watching this show, but I think it deserves your time and attention. I have heard anecdotally from a bunch of people who are like, I think the show would be for me, you know, like demographic-wise or tone-wise or anything like that. I didn't like the trailer, et cetera. and I fucking loved the episodes I watched. So if you listen to an hour and a half of a podcast about a show you're not watching,

consider this our ringing endorsement that you should watch the show that we just talked about for an hour and a half. Of course, programming reminders before we go, Friday, Malarina, we back, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Like I said, between one hour and five hours. I'm not sure somewhere in that range. We'll be talking about that episode.

Joey and Steve, Mint Edition. episode two of Mint Edition covering late year. Anything you want to say to tease that episode, guys? Fellas. To infinity. And beyond. It was a really fun episode. And I think we had a really good time,

even though Steve is a car's hater, but we can talk about that at another time. Listen, everyone is a car's hater except for you. Again, it's okay. I don't understand. We're talking about cars like it's the room. or like it's like the latest M-night Sharmelon film.

Like let's slow down. Okay. It's it's perfectly fine. I just love it when my points prove themselves. That's not points themselves. It's cool. It's cool. It's fine. All right. And then on Monday

Charles Amanda and I will be here to talk about the boys. A great show. Fantastic show. This week's episode has a musical number in it that is a plus plus stellar. So check it out and we'll be back on Monday to talk about that. And obviously, follow us on all the socials, keep track of all of that.

Before we go, we cannot say goodbye without thanking our very own. Bruno's, our Nacquist, our support system, our best friends, Isaiah Blakely, producing our Juno Ramca Paul always here helping us out. Thanks to Steve Allman and join me a dinner on the end. Delmint Twins. I'll be back next week. I believe one Mr. Van Lathan is joining me next week. Have you heard a rumor that he's watching this Marvel? I've heard that rumor and we'll be chatting about it next week. Bye!

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