Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock walked into the courtroom to defend Luke Jacobson against Jen Walters and her client, Leap Frog who was suing him because Leap Frog claimed his suit, that Luke made for him, was defective. Matt Murdock was awesome in the courtroom as he quickly got the case dismissed.
Big News too in the court: The Sokovia Accords were appealed. It was a line dropped by Matt Murdock, but it carried a ton of weight for the future of the MCU.
Matt and Jen then met up in a bar and they sparkled with chemistry. In just a few minutes, these two were just perfect for each other.
Daredevil and She-Hulk wound up in the typical super hero fight and She-Hulk was pretty impressive, though also very destructive.
Seeing Daredevil back fighting henchmen in a hallway was so awesome. The show used the Netflix Daredevil music in this scene and watching Daredevil dominating once again was such a great feeling.
Daredevil and She-Hulk team up to rescue Jacobson from Leap Frog’s secret headquarters, the Lilly Pad. Then, they hung out on the roof of the Lilly Pad and flirted like crazy.
And then they hooked up.
Unbelievable. Daredevil did the “walk of shame” afterwards.
The first part of this episode was so amazing that when the tone shifted, it became very unsettling. Jen, back in her apartment, started breaking the 4th wall and wondering why the episode wasn’t over yet. They also made a fun reference to the Red Hulk and to being “fridged.” It was unsettling how she reacted and then they went off to the gala for female lawyer of the year.
The Intelligencia came out fully as they played a video showing Jen and Josh having sex. Jen reacted in a violent manner and nearly lost control of her hulk.
This was such a great episode this week and I am excited to see the finale.
This week was another fun episode of She-Hulk. Jen headed out to check with Emil Blonsky, whose inhibitor seemed to be malfunctioning. She winds up being stranded at Blonsky’s retreat, Summer Twilight where she worked through a therapy session with Blonsky and some D-list villains.
I loved seeing this group of characters. Man-Bull, El Aguila, Porcupine, The Wrecker and Saracen, all real villains from the Marvel Comics. I loved how they worked Jen through her issues about Josh, the guy she met at her friend’s wedding and who has ghosted her after they slept together. As El Aguila said, “Josh has made an enemy of everyone in this group!”
By the way, in the comics El Aguila is a mutant. Just sayin’
Of course, we learn that Josh was a dirtbag from the start as the last scene showed us that he did take Jen’s blood and copied her phone while she slept. Josh has become the most hated character on the show because of what a slimeball he was manipulating Jen for Hulk King. It is ironic that the villains were the men Jen could count on, but all the other men in her life are bad.
When Josh did not respond to Jen’s text, she proved that the Muppets were canon in the MCU as she was watching The Great Muppet Caper.
A self=contained wedding episode just as everyone was jonesing for Daredevil? Excellent.
We spend some more time with Jen Walters at a wedding where she is being treated like crap by this old friend who asked her to be a bridesmaid. This old friend would be a former friend if they tried to treat me the way they treated Jen.
Still, that was the minor issue as the major one was that Titania had manipulated her way into an invite and showed up with the intention of making trouble for Jen. Titania’s jealousy over She-Hulk was on full display when she confronted a very drunk Jen and wanted her to hulk-up so they could fight.
Did not turn out very well for Titania… once again.
We also discovered that Marvel’s super villain group known as The Intelligencia is in the MCU. It was first introduced with a hate web site that posted plenty of angry posts about She-Hulk and other topics. However, it looked as if the Intelligencia was behind the attempt of the Wrecking Crew to get some of Jen’s blood. With another new needle, it looks like that effort is going to turn up the volume.
Who is behind the Intelligencia? There are several options but, in my mind, the choice is simple. It is a character who has been confirmed to return in Captain America: New World Order. He is a character who was obsessed with the Hulk’s blood back in The incredible Hulk. I believe it is Samuel Sterns, the Leader, as played by Tim Blake Nelson. I could be wrong about that and it would turn out to be Todd, the slimy guy She-Hulk went on a date with (I do believe he is involved as well), but The Leader makes a lot of sense and was involved in the Intelligencia in the comics.
Another character making a debut this week was Mr. immortal. Mr. Immortal was a member of the Great Lakes Avengers in the Marvel comics and this week, he arrived at GLK & H with a legal problem. Apparently, Mr. Immortal had been married a few times over the years (9 or more) and, he was so afraid of confrontation, when he decided that it was time to tend the marriage, he would “kill” himself, which would not stick since he was immortal.
This B plot was extremely funny and was a great highlight for Nikki. I love the Great Lakes Avengers and Mr. Immortal is a perfect fit for this series.
I have really enjoyed the fact that She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has been a series that has a bunch of mostly self-contained episodes and does not feel the need to be one overarching story. Even though we are getting the Intelligencia, this feels like a sitcom in structure. That is great.
And we know that we are getting Daredevil, Frog Man, a returning Abomination for sure and who knows what else they have in mind.
“Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans”
She-Hulk episode five built off the ending of the fourth episode as Jen Walters has to deal with Titania, who has trademarked the name She-Hulk and has placed it on squarely on a series of beauty products. In order to do this, Jen gets her co-worker, Mallory Book (Renee Elise Goldsberry), to take the case.
The story continued to focus on the dichotomy between She-Hulk and Jen Walters as they brought back the four dates from last week that wanted to date She-Hulk and put them on the stand to testify that they wanted to go out with She-Hulk, but not Jen Walters. This was a rough moment for Jen to hear.
There was also a side story featuring Nikki and Pug out to try and find a designer who could create clothing to fit She-Hulk. They had to take several steps along the way, including purchasing some off brand Avongers merchandise.
Nikki and Pug were fabulous together and I really hope that we get more with them as the season progresses. They were able to find someone who could create a wardrobe of clothes. They found Luke Jacobson, the MCU’s version of Edna Mode (from the Incredibles) and challenged him to design clothes for She-Hulk that would adjust to which body, either She-Hulk or Jen Walters, was in use. Jacobson took the challenge and apparently came through. However, there was another reason for bringing Jacobson into the MCU, which was the final tag of the show.
Does this mean that next week’s episode will feature the MCU debut of Daredevil? I think so…
Another cool bit on the show was during the closing credits where we see a drawing of Pug and his Iron Man 3s shoes, that he bought with the help of Nikki. Behind him is a bunch of shoes that are designed after other Marvel characters such as Captain America, Thor, Falcon, Spider-Man, Dr. Doom, Green Goblin, Deadpool, Frog Man, Cyclops, Black Panther, among many others. It was an awesome Easter egg that the art department gave us all.
The courtroom style drawings in the credits have been so cool all season long and this one is a highlight of the art.
I had intended on doing a write up after each episode of Netflix’s hugely successful series, Cobra Kai, after the fifth season episodes dropped. However, when I started watching the show Friday afternoon, I just did not want to take the time in-between the episodes to write. I just wanted to get to the next episode and, before you knew it, I was done with the series. So instead, I decided to do a season 5 overview instead.
Season five was just tremendous. I think it may be my favorite Cobra Kai season yet. It was just so enjoyable and it actually seemed to break some of the series’ own typical trends. There were a very limited amount of group fights between the kids of the show. It seemed in past seasons, the kids of the different dojos were constantly physically fighting, and, while there was some of that, the giant fight scenes were kept to a minimum. That made the fight in the finale feel much more important.
Another thing they switched up this year was the re-introduction of Mike Barnes. As a long time fan of General Hospital, I was looking forward to the return of Sean Kanan, who played AJ Quartermaine on the soap. Just about everyone speculated that Terry Silver would call on his old associate Barnes, the bad boy of karate, to help him out with his new plan. However, the show took that expectation and twisted it, bringing back Barnes, but making him a decent guy who has overcome his horrendous past to build a better life. I loved the use of Kanan in these episodes mainly because of the switch up.
Chozen is one of the best aspects of season five. I was really worried about him though because as soon as he made that phone call back to Kumiko’s voice mail, I was sure that he was doomed, and it sure seemed as if I was right about my fear when Silver left Chozen sliced and diced faced down in his fountain, bleeding from a series of sword cuts. Thankfully, Chozen survived, continuing to prove he was the biggest bad ass on the show.
I also loved the maturing of Johnny after learning that Carmen was pregnant with his child. He still approached everything with the immaturity of Johnny Lawrence, but he was trying his best. Plus, the friendship between Daniel and Johnny finally seemed to be able to put the past away. In every other season, Daniel and Johnny try to make amends only to find themselves on opposites once more. Not this season, which was epic. Once Johnny got back from Mexico, the friendship really became an important part of the show.
Daniel was put through the ringer this season. Building on his borderline paranoia over Terry Silver, Daniel was becoming someone we did not recognize. He went from someone out of control when it came to Silver to someone in total control in the finale. Daniel had a great arc this season.
It was also epic to see Miguel and Robbie finally put their anger with each other away and become friends. In the fight between them this season, they used flashbacks to their infamous school fight to perfection. It built beautifully on what they had done before and what they had learned in the previous seasons.
Tory Nichols and her story arc was excellent too. At first, working as a mole inside Cobra Kai for John Kreese, and then eventually arriving to Sam and the others in her “Rogue/X-Men” moment. There was a lot of getting past old baggage between characters this year.
Speaking of Kreese, he showed how much of a bad ass he still was. Yes, I thought he had actually died in the finale, but I was fooled. I have no idea where he will go now, but I am there for it.
There are scenes and evens that happen in Cobra Kai that would not work in a lot of other series because it would be just too corny. However, it all works beautifully in Cobra Kai for some reason. There are plot points and moments that should never work, but fit into the tone of this series perfectly. Season five just flew by and it blended each episode together with a wonderful cast of characters that spanned the gamut from oddball to sinister, and it does so with a smoothness that just should not work. And yet it does.
Cobra Kai season five was just exceptional and, even though most of the main threads seemed tied up nicely, I hope there will be more Cobra Kai to come.
No, he is not Ghost Rider. He is a failing magician who has a sling ring. His use is a danger to the world and Wong returns again to try and put a stop to it.
My first thought as we saw Donny performing to a relatively bored crowd was, in a world with super heroes and sorcerers, wouldn’t a stage magician seem really boring. When reality is more amazing than the show, how do these magicians survive?
With the return of Wong, and the arrival of Maddisynn, there were a lot of laughs with the ditzy character who spoils The Sopranos and our Sorcerer Supreme. Wong and Maddisynn had some great chemistry and the humor was right on point. Benedict Wong does a masterful job of keeping the balance between the strange humor and the seriousness of his position. Wong seems to be able to fit into any tone or any situation in the MCU ( or is it the Wong Cinematic Universe?)
She-Hulk does some online dating and she finds every loser in LA. Wong’s line about feeling like Jen’s dad when he arrived and interrupted Jen and her date on the couch was hilarious.
The episode ends with Jen receiving a court notice about Titania sewing Jen over her use of the name She-Hulk, which Titania had copyrighted.
The post credit scene included Wong and his bestie, Maddisyn with two Ns, an I and a Y but not where you think!
Another great episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. And we got…
Wong!
The Sorcerer Supreme has ben all around the Marvel Cinematic Universe during phase 4 and it is great. You can never have enough Benedict Wong. He showed up at the law office in response to Jennifer Walters’s request for questioning over the video from Shang Chi that was floating around at the end of the episode last week.
I thought that the two 4th Wall Breaking this episode were some of the best of the series so far. It started with Jen in a car saying that this was not a “cameo every week” show (despite there being Bruce, Emil and Wong, as she said). The second was my favorite when Jen said the “A & B plots coming together, nice” was so meta and clever.
Another cameo was the appearance of Grammy winner Megan Thee Stallion, as herself. She showed up to twerk with She-Hulk in the post credit scene.
One of the best moments of the show may have slipped by many people. When a reporter asked Jen about the rumor that she had gained her super powers from a mob hit gone wrong, that was a shout out to She-Hulk’s real comic book origin.
The Wrecking Crew arrived too. Now, they got crushed by She-Hulk, but that did not bother me any. They seem as if they had just gotten their weapons just recently. The big part of the use of the Wrecking Crew was the reveal that they had a “Boss” that wanted She-Hulk’s blood. Who could that be? Val? The Leader? Thunderbolt Ross? There are plenty of possible choices.
Jen wins her case by getting Emil Blonsky released from the DODC. The B plot with Pug was a lot of fun too even though the most unlikable character, Dennis, was involved. There were a bunch of shenanigans with the shapeshifting Asgardian elf.
I’m a little behind on the She-Hulk write-up, but I watched this show on Thursday when it comes out. I have enjoyed the first two episode tremendously.
Let me address this week’s internet controversy over the short run time of She-Hulk episode 2. Some are losing their minds because they felt it was too short. My guess is that, since they moved the origin stuff from episode one up (it was supposed to be in ep.8) that the tag at the end in the court with Titania from last week, was meant to be with this episode. That makes sense to me why this wound up a few minutes shorter. Now, if you are saying that the show is only 28-30 minutes long and you want more, there is not much I can tell you. This is a sitcom and most sitcoms run about 30 minutes (23 with commercials).
Bruce Banner returned for a wonderful cameo in this episode where he dropped one of the best lines of any Marvel property when he and Jen were talking about her taking on Emil Blonsky’s case and Bruce said, “Jen, that fight was so many years ago, I’m a completely different person now – literally.” This was a laugh out loud moment with the reference to Ed Norton from the Incredible Hulk and one of the best Breaking the Fourth Wall moments so far.
And by the way, greatest cell phone reception ever…
Meanwhile, Bruce is on a ship heading to Sakar, most likely not to return this season. Mark Ruffalo’s use in this show has been nearly perfect, showing a great deal of chemistry between the cousins. While bringing credibility to Jen, he also gave us some moments with Hulk that we have never had.
The main thrust of the show came across this week as Jen is hired for a Superhuman Defense with the competition, the GLKH law firm. First, Jen was fired from her job and seemed to be unhirable since she was a distraction to juries.
Tim Roth returned as Emil Blonsky, the Abomination, with a reasonable argument as to why he should be paroled, armed with heartfelt Haikus. Roth is a great actor and he looked like he was having a lot of fun. The show then tossed footage from Shang Chi showing Abomination and Wong fighting in the underground cage fight.
Cousin Larry showed up as Jen’s father. Mark Linn-Baker, who was one of the stars of the 80s sitcom Perfect Strangers, arrived as Jenn’s oddball father and we meet the remainder of this strange group of family members.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has been very solid so far and has a lot of humor. I am excited about seeing the next episode Thursday.
The next Marvel Studios television program debuted this past Thursday on Disney + as we got the first episode of a nine-episode sitcom, the first for the MCU, in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Tatiana Maslany was cast as Jennifer Walters, cousin of Bruce Banner, who winds up being exposed to Banner’s blood after a car wreck. Banner’s blood turned his cousin into another Hulk.
Turned out that Jennifer was different than Bruce as she could retain her intelligence after transformation as well as being able to change back and forth.
This first episode was great. The interactions between Jenn and Bruce were some of the best writing you could get. Smart Hulk talked about the time during the blip where he was able to integrate his Hulk sides into what he was now. When he spoke about Tony Stark, there was such emotion. These scenes really gave us some much needed depth to the Green Goliath.
Mark Ruffalo did a fantastic job delivering the excellent dialogue and he and Maslany had amazing chemistry. The training montages were funny and charming, even though I had seen most of these in the trailers. My personal favorite one was when Hulk threw the boulder into orbit to show that he was stronger than Jenn.
However, this is clearly Tatiana Maslany’s show. She is perfectly cast as She-Hulk and she brings it. Known as a great actor and an Emmy winner from Orphan Black, Maslany is able to not only provide funny lines, but also the dramatic moments and the MCU world building.
The CGI had been controversial after the first trailer was released and She-Hulk did not look very good. Here, the CGI had been much improved. Was it perfect? No, but I do not think it needed to be. It is difficult to create full human faces and this is very close.
The mid-credit scene was one of the best of all the MCU as one of the most debated questions ever was answered- Was Steve Rogers a virgin?
The use of the Breaking of the 4th Wall was done beautifully too. It was not overused, and each time fit right in with what the show was trying to do. Like let people know that this is a lawyer show.
The first episode was great and I am excited to see where they go with their sitcom.
Today, Disney + dropped a new Marvel series, I Am Groot. This was five animated shorts that followed the life of Baby Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel.
The shorts were all between 3-6 minutes, so they were a very quick and easy watch. The character of Baby Groot is remarkably cute, predating even the cuteness of Grogu. Each episode took a small moment with our favorite walking tree and created a fun, humorous and enjoyable interlude.
While, I Am Groot is clearly directed toward a younger audience, there is plenty here for the older viewers as well. The humor tends toward the dark end of the spectrum and there are a couple of moments that are laugh out loud funny.
The animation is gorgeous. It is so full of life and beautifully rendered. There are several specially designed characters through the five shorts.
My favorite of the shorts was entitled “Groot’s Pursuit” where Groot wakes up in the middle of the night and encountered a water-based creature. The end of the short has everything great about Baby Groot and the Guardians of the Galaxy type humor.
These shorts are just fun and they are uncomplicated. They do not require you to worry about the greater MCU, the significance of the story or finding the hints toward the future of the films. It is just here and it is a joy of visual storytelling with a bare minimum of dialogue. I hope Marvel continues making shorts with Baby Groot and other edges of the MCU.
Every week when I watch Only Murders in the Building, there are two items that every week I can almost guarantee that I think about after watching the new episode on Hulu.
I would love the charming, humorous episode, and….
It feels like it goes way too fast.
Ever since I have begun watching this show on a weekly basis, I swear each episode ends and it feels to me that it had just started. It’s always around 35 minutes, give or take, but it goes so quickly that I feel upset. This is not a show issue, it is a me issue. I just want to make the comment that I am enjoying this show so much that time flies by in no time.
Last week’s cliffhanger over the question of Oliver’s son’s true parentage was teased all episode. I do love the fact that Oliver has told his two friends the truth of this so he could lean on them while he awaited for the DNA test to come in. We did not see him tell Mabel or Charles, but the discussions indicated that he had. I love that he did that and it played off the fact that Charles had hidden the fact of his relationship with Jan (by the way, using Jane Lynch as Charles’s stunt double to break up with Jan was inspired).
It was a tough week for Mabel. When the three crime fighting podcasters realized that they were not texting with Detective Williams when they were asking about a matchbook they found that had a blood mark and a fingerprint upon it, they decided that they would set a trap for this person. They were going to set up an evidence pick up and placed a glitter bomb in the trash can instead.
Turned out the mysterious man in black was bombed with the glitter, that our crimefighters missed because they were arguing over Charles’s strange relationship with Jan.
Mabel had come across her girlfriend Alice at her apartment, who was creating some kind of mural dedicated to ‘Bloody Mary.’ Mabel took off feeling betrayed.
She also wound up on a subway train with the man in black covered with glitter who came toward her.
Oliver’s son sent an online video to his father from someone who filmed Mabel stabbing the man in black with her knitting needle, continuing to make her look like an unbalanced killer.
There was also an interview on Tina Fey’s character’s podcast, Only Murderers in the Building, of one of Mabel’s old co-workers who claimed that she had cut off his finger.
Public opinion is certainly building up to make Mabel look like she is guilty. Our killer is going out of the way to make her look bad.
Only Murders in the Building has become one of my must sees right away. I have fallen in love with this series and I love our three main characters played by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez. They have tremendous chemistry with one another and with any other characters that may show up during their investigation of the season’s mystery.
The writing is always top notch and clever as can be and I do not see the twists coming as I do for most other shows where the mystery is not as well developed.
Of course, this season is the murder of Bunny and she casts her ample shadow over the show. It seemed as if the patron of the Arconia’s murder is tied to a ton of secrets in our main characters past, or even current, lives.
In a fun segment called “Son of Sam” which featured a card game where Oliver passed out cards and tried to figure out who was the killer among the room filled with innocent blondes. We see him playing this game early in the episode back in the 1970s (including Nathan Lane) and he pulls the same routine at a present day party trying to get info about Cara Delevingne, whose character is currently dating Mabel.
Interestingly enough, Jan, from her jail cell, pointed her finger at an artist as the killer of Bunny. I have to say that the odd connection that Charles seems to still be encouraging is a tad uncomfortable. I thin it is meant to be and to highlight how lonely Charles actually is for a relationship beyond his friends.
The whole Cara Delevingne story revealed that she had been lying about herself to Mabel, but that she had nothing to do with the murder, the latest red herring that this show does an admirable job of setting up. However, I think there is more to this suspect that what we have seen so far and I am not ready to count her as not guilty. She may not be the killer, but there is more to this than we know.
The big reveal of the episode was implying that Oliver was not the actual father of his son, Will, and that Will was a result of an affair between Oliver’s wife Roberta and Teddy Dimas. We saw the pair sitting together at that murder mystery party we flashed back to in the 1970s. This was quite a bombshell and could be extremely painful for Oliver moving forward.
With this episode focused mainly on Martin Short at the center of the show, while the other two cement or reignite relationships with other people, Oliver gives us a really strong character portrait and sets us up for what could be a terrible smack when Oliver and Will learn the truth.
This morning I finished off the second season of Ted Lasso on Apple TV + and I have to say that my life goal as of right now is that I want to be more like Ted Lasso. I want to be able to rip off constant pop culture references within sharp banter while being unbelievably respect to everyone. Ted Lasso’s dialogue is one of my absolutely favorite parts of this series and Jason Sudeikis delivers it perfectly.
We also were introduced to my favorite new character of season two with Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (played by Sarah Niles). Her arc with Ted as he recounted the reasons behind his panic attacks is just tremendous and her no nonsense approach made me love her so much more. In fact, when she was hit by the car while on her bicycle, I audibly gasped and would have been pissed off if she had died from the accident. Thankfully she did not and she remained. I am still upset that she left the team as of the season’s end.
I loved the whole season, but there was one episode that just did not do it for me. Episode nine, entitled “Beard After Hours,” followed Coach Beard after he left Wembley Stadium and got involved into a series of strange adventures that reminded me of the old episodes of Moonlighting when Mrs. DiPesto and Herbert Viola would have their own solo episodes. Those episodes were fine, but they were what you turned on Moonlighting for. You wanted Dave and Maddie, not Agnes and Bert. While I like Coach Beard as a character, I was not interested in this episode, even though the things that happened to Beard were fun and original.
I loved the relationship between Roy and Keeley but I was not happy where they were at the end of the season. I kept rooting for Roy to pop the question, but it did not happen. I found the confession episode where Roy and Keeley told each other all of the details of what was happening to them in connection to their love life. I want them together.
The relationship between Rebecca and Sam was interesting and brought some fascinating depth to the show. Sam brought out a lot of his character, much more than we had seen before.
Nate’s turn to the dark side was remarkably well done and he will be a very fascinating villain for season three.
Diamond Dogs! Woof Woof Woof Woof Woof
I love this show because they consistently take this show in different directions. I was sure that Ted and Rebecca were going to develop into a relationship. I thought that was the obvious route they were going to take, but there has been no sign of that happening. They have just created one of the best male-female friendships there is on TV. This show avoids clichés and tropes better than any show I think I have ever watched.
I included a spoiler tag even though this has been out for a couple of years now. Just to be safe in case there are people out there, like me, who had not seen Ted Lasso before today.
Ted Lasso has been one of those shows that everyone loved and everyone talked about, but that I had not watched. It is on Apple TV +, which I have, but I never got around to watching it. After hearing so many positives about the show, I put it on my list, but I had not gotten around to it. With The Boys, Ms. Marvel, Stranger Things over for now, and Only Murders in the Building releasing once a week, it felt like the right time to dive into Ted Lasso.
So I started it up, knowing that there were ten season one episodes and that if I was not interested, I could easily discard the binge and watch something else. However, that was not going to be a problem because I was immediately hooked after the first episode.
Jason Sudeikis played Ted Lasso, an American football coach hired to come to England and coach football (aka soccer) in a Premiere League team that had been ravaged by an ownership divorce between Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) and Rupert Mannion (Anthony Head).
Rebecca, angry over her ex-husband’s affairs and betrayal, had decided that the way to pay him back was to ruin the one thing that he loved, the AFC Richmond. This story started with a very Major League flavor to it, but I like this storyline much more, because we meet Rebecca and we find out why she has been such a cold and angry woman. While she is sabotaging her team, we can see the reasons and we can see the strain it put on her as she grows closer to Ted and others in her orbit.
There were plenty of other stories going on through the season including the brash, young and selfish stud Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), the aging and always angry captain Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and his developing relationship with club manager of PR, Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), who had a relationship with Jamie. There are several interesting characters floating through the series as well.
Other great actors involved included Brendan Hunt, Nick Mohammed, Toheeb Jimoh, Kola Bokinni, Annette Badland, Andrea Anders, and Ellie Taylor.
The episodes were hilarious and kept the sport team clichés away from the show. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I was never sure how things were going to happen and I enjoyed how the show kept me off balance with the sport tropes.
The character of Ted Lasso is as hopeful and inspirational as you are going to find, yet he is instilled with his own personal issues that he has to overcome. Jason Sudeikis truly deserved his Emmy win for this season.
The finale for the first season of Ms. Marvel on Disney + aired this morning and was just a fantastic finale that really nailed the landing on one of the most surprising, unexpected and undervalued Marvel Studios series on the streaming service since they began producing them.
And… in the biggest shock of all… Kamala Khan was revealed to have a “mutation” according to her best buddy and science whiz Bruno. As if that word wasn’t enough of a trigger for Marvel fans, the few chords of the X-Men Animated theme played over top of the scene to tell everybody… yep, we have just introduced “mutants” into the MCU and we did it in Ms. Marvel episode 6.
Not in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Not Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Not in WandaVision. Not in Loki. Not in Thor: Love and Thunder. Not in any of the other countless, constantly-speculated series or movies from Marvel Studios. Nope, in Ms. Marvel.
Of course, some people are still mad that she is not an Inhuman. Some people are still sore about them changing her origin and her powerset. None of that bothered me in the slightest because the real key to the character of Kamala Khan is not that she was an Inhuman, but that she had this large and supportive family. Honestly, I loved the way they adjusted her powers and we even got the “embiggen” in this episode, despite it being shown in a different style than in the comic pages.
Once again, with Kamala back in Jersey City, the main focus of this series, which has been going since the beginning, is that of family. The Pakistan episodes 4 & 5 still dealt with family, but felt a little weaker because we lost out on everyone except Kamala, Muneeba and Sana.
Episode six, back in Jersey City, took the best parts of the first three episodes (the art design, Bruno, Nakia, Yusuf) and the next two (increased powers, Kamala and her mom) and blended them into a great final episode.
Great family bits:
Muneeba present Kamala with her new superhero suit.
Kamala announces to her family that she was “Light girl” and they already knew because Muneeba told Yusuf and he had it on speaker.
Yusuf, sitting on the roof of their house, telling what the name “Kamala” meant and it leading to Ms. Marvel.
Aamir appears from out of nowhere to watch over Kamala because his mother wanted him to and Kamala says “Superheroes don’t need chaperones”
Muneeba says to a concerned Yusuf about trusting Kamala, a switch from episode 1.
Kamala and Nakia make up.
Zoe joins the group at the school and becomes a big part of the “Home Alone” bit.
I thought the battle with Damage Control at the end was tremendous. I loved the use of the powers and how Kamran’s powers were both potent and out of control. This series was not about the villains, which is why there are several people who feel like there was something missing. The whole storyline with the ClanDestine and Damage Control was meant to give them a plot point. This show was about the Kamala and her friends and family.
I say this every week, but Iman Vellani is absolutely a treasure, and she needs to be protected at all cost. I have heard some people criticize her performance in some of the more emotional moments from episode 5, dismissing it because of her lack of experience. I hope that, as she learns more of the craft, she does not lose the realism, the authentic nature of Iman Vellani that she showed every time she was on the screen. I truly believe that Iman Vellani could be the new Robert Downey Jr. of the MCU as we move along into Phase 5 and beyond.
And then there was a mid-credit scene featuring Carol Danvers that really was confusing, but was clearly a set up for The Marvels film coming in July 2023. Bri Larson looked fabulous in her new costume.
