There’s an emotional weight of coming to terms with your own history and Kamala Khan’s packs a powerful punch. Her history, directly tied to the partition of India, is a story that we’ve heard variations of throughout the first four episodes of Ms. Marvel, and we left episode 4 knowing that she was about to learn about her grandmother and the loss of Aisha. What we got was a powerful episode on family, love, understanding, and a connection to Kamala that she didn’t know before. It’s a look into her own history and the story she thought she always knew, and it gives us, as the audience, a look into the pain and history therein.
Episode 5 is a stunning example of the power that Kamala Khan has not just as a hero but with her story as a whole, and it is an emotional ride towards the season finale.
**Spoilers for Ms. Marvel episode 5 titled “Time and Time Again” lie ahead.**
Ms. Marvel has told us the story of Aisha being separated from her family and her daughter, Sana (Kamala’s grandmother), during the partition of India. One of the stories we’re told from the start of the show is that Sana saw lights that led her way back to her father and the two fled together, and that’s how she made it through the partition. The story was something that Kamala and her brother, Aamir, would roll their eyes at throughout the years, but it was this episode that really showed us the pain that this story left with Sana, and also how Kamala was connected to it all along.
For the most part, the episode shows us how Aisha met Hasan (who is Kamala’s great-grandfather) and how the two fell in love in India before they were separated. We see her hiding away from Najma (Kamran’s mother and the seeming leader of the ClanDestines) and even hiding the bangle, the same one that gave Kamala her powers, with her daughter Sana, all as a way of protecting her family. What Kamala learns is that Najma essentially took her family away from Aisha because of the bangle and Aisha’s refusal to help her.
Aisha is trying to flee with Hasan and Sana, and Najma comes to her wanting the bangle, wanting to go home. When Aisha refuses, Najma stabs her and leaves her bleeding and alone at a train station, dying away from her family. That’s when Kamala, in her journey to the past, sees her great-grandmother bleeding out and is told to protect Sana, because Aisha knows in that moment that Kamala exists because Hasan and Sana escape. Aisha takes a picture of Hasan, Sana, and herself and gives it to Kamala. There, she’s told to help Sana get back to her father, and so, Kamala is the one who lights the path for her grandmother to get back to her great-grandfather, in the story we’ve been hearing all along. The picture is a means of explaining to her mother and her grandmother what happened when she gets back to her own time and realizes that the story of the partition that her grandmother always told was Kamala lighting her way all along.
Kamala and her mother
While the majority of the episode shows the audience Kamala’s great-grandmother and connects Kamala to her grandmother in a new way, we also got a bit of growth in Kamala’s relationship with her mother. Kamala’s mother, Muneeba, is in Pakistan trying to help Kamala learn what she needs to about the origin of her powers really knowing what’s going on, and in this episode, she’s terrified for her seemingly missing daughter and makes an important discovery upon finding her.
As Kamala is standing there with the Red Dagger, her mother asks her what is going on and eventually asks Kamala if she’s that girl (presumably the hero that everyone has been talking about), and it’s a moment of clarification for both Muneeba and Kamala. The two are honest with each other, and it’s emotional to see just how much Kamala had bottled away from her mother and the connection the two now share.
Episode 5 hit and showed us just how powerful this show is, and I’m not ready to say goodbye to Kamala Khan or Ms. Marvel yet, as the finale approaches.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
