The MCU Just Repeated Game Of Thrones’ White Walkers Mistake

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Ms. Marvel episode 5.

Ms. Marvel episode 5 just made it so that the MCU has repeated a Game of Thrones White Walker mistake, though not entirely to the show’s detriment. Since Ms. Marvel episode 3, it has been conveyed that the Clandestines were to be the main villains of the show, given their treatment of Kamala. The Clandestines were introduced as needing Kamala’s bangle to find their way back home, something that they quickly took into their own hands once Kamala alerted them to the dangers of doing so.

This caused the Clandestines to turn on Kamala, seemingly setting up the fight against the Clandestines to be the big Ms. Marvel season finale set-piece. However, episode 5 changed that in a way that mirrors Game of Thrones’ final season. While the show is still exceedingly enjoyable and has a lot going for it going into its final episode, the jarring change of villains emulated one of the biggest mistakes Game of Thrones made.

This similarity links to the Game of Thrones White Walkers. The very first scene of Game of Thrones set up the White Walkers, with every subsequent season after season one driving home that they are the biggest threat to Westeros and the rest of the world. This was only reinforced by the Game of Thrones season 7 finale in which the White Walkers brought down the Wall and moved into the Seven Kingdoms, setting up the final season as the major conflict the entire show was building to. However, the White Walkers were defeated after just one battle, with the Night King being killed by Arya far too quickly after eight seasons of build-up, leaving a major villain vacuum. Ms. Marvel emulates this, albeit on a much smaller scale. Obviously, the Clandestines were not foreshadowed to the same extent as the White Walkers or set up as the same type of pure, malignant evil. Regardless, their seeming deaths in Ms. Marvel episode 5, and the ending of the Noor dimensions threat to Earth, make for a finale that leaves a less compelling fight for Kamala to overcome than what was set up in Ms. Marvel episode 4.

Who Are The Villains In Ms. Marvel’s Finale?

That leads to the question of just who or what it is Kamala must overcome in the Ms. Marvel season finale. It seems that the final scene of Ms. Marvel episode 5 provides that answer: Damage Control. While Damage Control hasn’t exactly come out of nowhere in terms of their setup as the show’s “villains”, it remains the case that the Clandestines took center stage as the show’s primary antagonists almost as soon as they were introduced. However, with Ms. Marvel episode 5 seemingly changing this, and Damage Control attacking Kamran and Bruno back in New York, it seems Kamala will have to deal with her original aggressors going into the finale. Besides Damage Control, first introduced in Spider-Man: Homecoming, the only other potential villain for the Ms. Marvel finale is Kamran, who now seemingly has powers given to him by his mother, something that needs to be explored and explained in the final episode.

All that being said, it is possible Ms. Marvel breaks the MCU mold and doesn’t include a typical villain of sorts, and simply includes Kamala having to reason with Damage Control to protect Kamran and Bruno. This would be possible given Damage Control’s nature. They aren’t evil malevolent beings and are simply trying to find Kamala to prove she isn’t a threat. If that is proven by Kamala, the conflict could be over. However, with many questions still going unanswered going into the season finale, Ms. Marvel will hopefully end the show off on a point as strong as its first five episodes – as evident by Ms. Marvel’s good reviews – despite the jarring lack of villainous presence that episode 5 established.

New episodes of Ms. Marvel release every Wednesday on Disney+.

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