Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Ms. Marvel Season 1, Episode 5.Ms. Marvelhas taken the Marvel Cinematic Universe to an entirely new dimension, a new time period, and a new country. At the end of Episode 4, a battle between evil ClanDestine Najma (Nimra Bucha) and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) sent Kamala to the past, specifically the day of Partition in 1947. But the next episode, “Time and Again,” left viewers hanging, focusing instead on a touching romantic storyline between Aisha (Mehwish Hayat) and Hasan (Fawad Khan), Kamala’s great-grandparents.
The core of the fifth episode is a heartbreaking sequence where Kamala’s ancestors are separated from each other on the worst day of their (and so many other people’s) lives. But the significance of the scene was the unraveling of a mystery that had haunted Kamala and the viewers since the start of the show — how did Kamala’s grandmother Sana, at the time just 4 years old, find her way back to her father on that fateful day during Partition?
Every family has at least one mystery that plagues succeeding generations. In Kamala’s case, it’s the story of little Sana (Samina Ahmed) and “the trail of stars,” a story that Kamala’s father Yusuf (Mohan Kapur) had recounted early on in the season. But first, we need to rewind back to 1942. In Episode 2, “Destined,” we saw Aisha and Najma working together. The ClanDestines from the Noor Dimension had been exiled on Earth for decades, and they had been searching for a way back to their dimension. When they finally uncovered one of the bangles that would get them there, British soldiers stopped their search. While escaping the British, Aisha was separated from Najma and the other ClanDestines.
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“Time and Again” opens with Aisha running from the British, still hiding the bangle that would eventually be passed down to Kamala. Aisha’s plan to return to her dimension takes a backseat when she meets and falls in love with Hasan. The two make a peaceful life together, eventually becoming parents to Sana. Sana is mesmerized by the bangle, and it’s eventually her saving grace.
Fast-forward to 1947, and life is no longer the same for Aisha’s family. It’s the year the British leave India, but not before dividing the country into India and Pakistan. The story of Partition is much more complex than that, butMs. Marvelisn’t a history lesson; the show gets straight to the tragedy of the event. Families found themselves torn apart by an arbitrary border, created to split the country across religious lines. As we see in “Time and Again,” religious hatred made the lives of Muslim families in India precarious and dangerous. Hasan and Aisha are victims too. They’re ostracized in the community they built, to the point where they have to bootleg milk and groceries. Hasan struggles to accept their fate, but Aisha knows they have to cross the border if they are to survive.
Of course, unknown to Hasan, Aisha has a second reason to escape India — her former ClanDestine compadre, Najma, discovers Aisha in India and threatens to take the bangle and return to the Noor dimension. Aisha forces Hasan to pack up and leave, and the two of them, along with little Sana, join the countless desperate families fleeing India aboard the final trains to Pakistan. DirectorSharmeen Obaid-Chinoyperfectly captures the chaos and emotion of the situation as the young family tries to navigate the throng of humanity. But then, the worst happens.
Aisha spots Najma and tries to negotiate with her but Najma stabs her instead. Separated from her, Hasan and Sana are left to fend for themselves. Hasan does his best, but he has a disability and has to navigate a terrified crowd with his daughter, knowing he’s just lost his wife, and find a place for them on the train before it leaves them behind. While Hasan searches for seats on the train, Sana breaks away from him in search of her mother and Hasan loses her in the crowd. It’s a frantic, distressing scene as little Sana calls for her mother, all while Aisha bleeds out unable to reach her daughter. Instead, Aisha recites a line from a poem that Hasan lives by, “what you seek is seeking you,” and this ignites enough Noor power in her to activate the bangle in Sana’s hands and brings Sana’s savior to this era. That’s where Kamala enters the scene.
Kamala arriving at the train station precisely when Sana is lost is intentional. She finds Aisha, who hands Kamala a picture of her family and tells Kamala that she has everything she needs to save Sana. Kamala locates Sana, but even she can’t get to Hasan before the trains depart. Instead, Kamala uses her powers to light a path for Sana. When Kamala is knocked down by the crowd, her circles crash and turn into a trail of stars that allows Hasan to spot Sana. It looks like Sana might have controlled the stars at the end, but Kamala takes all the credit. We’ll give it to her. And that is how little Sana is reunited with her father, and the two of them leave for Pakistan.
Fatimah Asgharand the rest of theMs. Marvelwriting team expertly blend the emotional stakes with a central family mystery. Kamala playing a significant role in saving Sana may seem like a predictable story choice, but it’s also essential to the MCU’s take on Kamala — her family and heritage is an intrinsic part of Kamala’s character and characterization. Kamala going back in time and saving her grandmother gives her the chance to bring back a family photo with Aisha in it. Sana has nothing but her memory of Aisha, but now, thanks to Kamala, she owns an image of herammi. The experience also brings Kamala’s family closer together. It’s obvious that Kamala’s mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) has had a tenuous relationship with Sana. Once Muneeba and Sana reunite in Pakistan, it becomes obvious why—Sana’s fantastical stories about the trail of stars turned Muneeba into an outcast and Aisha’s disappearance made Sana much clingier than Muneeba wanted. With those issues resolved, the three generations of women can be a family again, without simmering tensions.
With that major mystery solved, it’s time for Kamala to return to New Jersey. But will the Noor dimension find a way to Earth without the ClanDestines?
