Ms. Mess

What a mess. And a tragic mess when you consider how charming Ms. Marvel was in its first few episodes. But last night's finale was a meaningless hodgepodge, utterly failing to capitalise on any organic buildup from within the series. It did have a couple of cool moments but mostly it felt like such an incoherent rush to the finish line it hit almost Benioff and Weiss levels.

Most of the series was written and directed by Muslim women but last night's script mysteriously came entirely from white guys with tiny imdb pages. As though someone at Disney panicked and said, "Oh no, we need white guys, any white guys will do!" Story credit goes to Will Dunn, apparently not the same Will Dunn who had a role in the Harry Potter movies, while the teleplay is by Dunn along with A.C. Bradley and Matthew Chauncey. A.C. Bradley wrote one episode of Arrow and he and Chauncey worked on an obscure cgi series called Tales of Arcadia. So in case you were worried about Disney's money, don't worry, they didn't spend very much of it on writers.

And where was series creator Bisha K. Ali? Well, one can hardly blame her for not returning to the finale for a show that by this point bears very little resemblance to the one she created. After only six episodes.

I'll talk about what I liked. I liked when the imam (Laith Nakli) quoted Abraham Lincoln. And I liked how when Kamala was finally referred to by her superhero name, her father (Mohan Kapur) pronounced it Miss Marvel instead of Miz Marvel. I wonder if that was intentional. In any case, I'm glad it was sneaked in. Some people are under the delusion that the "Miz" pronunciation is really widespread, like the people who write English text books here where I work in Japan. Any counter-momentum to that idea in media is nice, especially in media as notoriously biased as Disney's is getting to be.

I also liked some of the action sequence when Kamala "embiggened".

Otherwise it was a mess. One of the cornerstones of the story from the beginning was Kamala's tension with her family but last night it was all gone so the plot could happen. Her parents, who feared for her safety when she wanted to go to Avenger-Con, didn't even ask if she was bulletproof when she revealed herself to be a superhero. Her mother is so fine with it she apparently whipped up a costume in a matter of hours, one a far sight more professional and understated than the Hulk costume Kamala's father was wearing.

As our heroes arrive at the high school, Zoe randomly shows up with some lame excuse about needing to film her TikTok there. It felt like the writers were downright flaunting it, winking at us and saying, "Oh, yeah, we can't write!"

The big action sequence felt peculiarly edited down, too.

The big surprises at the end involved a nonsensical reference to X-Men and an appearance by a famished Brie Larson. No-one's sure if it was Kamala shape-shifting into Captain Marvel or if Captain Marvel actually swapped places with Kamala. I honestly don't care.

A side-quibble: Kamran is told to go to "the harbour". Why not name a specific harbour? Maybe even a specific spot on the harbour ("The system of waterways of the Port of New York and New Jersey forms one of the most intricate natural harbors in the world" - Wikipedia). When did screenwriters get so afraid about being specific in real cities? I was watching Double Indemnity a few weeks ago and it was cool hearing characters refer to specific streets an intersections in L.A. That kind of thing helps create a real sense of location.

Ms. Marvel is available on Disney+.