REVIEW: ‘Ms. Marvel,’ Episode 5 – “Time and Again”

Ms. Marvel Episode 5 is perhaps the series’s most divisive installment yet – it features a great deal of what’s made the series stand out, but also highlights some major issues with the model Disney+ has taken with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s TV output. “Time and Again” picks up from the end of “Seeing Red“, where Kamala Khan  (Iman Vellani) was somehow transported back in time after a battle with the ClanDestine – specifically, British-occupied India in 1942. There, she encounters her great-grandmother Aisha (Mehwish Hayat), who is attempting to escape with her husband Hasan and daughter Sana.

The first half of the episode is dedicated to Aisha navigating the human world, as she falls in love with Hasan and decides to seek a better life with him by traveling to Pakistan. Returning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy infuses these scenes with a humanity that will hook viewers, especially as Aisha decides to live with her new family rather than return to her home dimension with the ClanDestine. The best scenes in “Time and Again” aren’t the superhero battles. They’re the quiet moments where Aisha convinces Hasan to leave with her, or when she holds her infant daughter in her arms. Part of what’s drawn me to the Marvel Universe is how it can find humanity in superhumanity, and that holds especially true for this series.

Obaid-Chinoy and writer Fatimah Ashgar also don’t shy away from the darker parts of history. Throughout the series, the Partition of India has been mentioned by Kamala’s family, and its effects are felt here. British soldiers use their “authority” to torment and harass citizens, and people’s attempts to board trains out of India are filmed with a chaotic urgency. I freely admit that after last week’s episode, I was terrified about how the time travel elements would play into the narrative, given that the end result could have been extremely tasteless. Thankfully, Ashgar remembers that the best time travel stories utilize emotional impact and that’s especially true as Kamala plays a surprising role in her family’s history.

You might have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Kamala as much, and that’s because the once and future Ms. Marvel takes a backseat in her own show. While she does get a bit to do in the second half of the episode – once again featuring a connection between her and her mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) – it does feel weird to go for a long stretch of time without the titular character. That’s not even mentioning the ending of the episode, which teases a new development in the life of Kamala’s crush Kamran (Rish Shah); it would have been nice to see that earlier in the episode instead of feeling tacked on.

In fact, “Time and Again” highlights a major flaw in the structure of Disney+’s offerings, particularly on the Marvel side. Six episodes feel like a little too short of a run,  Frankly, only Moon Knight and Loki have managed to make that runtime work, which leads me to believe that showrunners either have to craft stories that fit a six-hour structure or that more episodes are needed. I’m all for the latter, especially after watching shows like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and The Bear. Eight to ten episodes are the perfect length for a streaming series; it gives the story room to breathe and explore different plot threads along the way.

Ms. Marvel Episode 5 is an encapsulation of the series’ highs and lows, as it boasts a strong first half but its second half only proves that the story could have benefitted from an extra episode or two. I hope that next week’s finale is a season finale and not a series finale; while Kamala is slated to be part of The Marvels next year, I’d gladly take a longer Season 2 before or after that movie debuts.

The finale of Ms. Marvel airs next Wednesday on Disney+.