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'Ms. Marvel' star Iman Vellani emailed Kevin Feige in all caps when she learned of that big finale twist
All six episodes of Ms. Marvel are now streaming on Disney+.
Still jazzed about that major reveal in today's finale of Ms. Marvel? So are we! But our excitement woefully pales in comparison to the giddiness felt by head writer/executive producer Bisha K. Ali, Kamala Khan actress Iman Vellani, and the rest of the show's inner circle who have been eagerly waiting for audiences to geek out alongside them.
We are, of course, talking about the brief, yet extremely momentous, exchange between Kamala and Bruno (Matt Lintz) in the final moments of Episode 6. If you have yet to check out the finale, we recommend bookmarking this article for later because the spoiler valve is about to be opened all the way.
**SPOILER WARNING! The following contains major plot spoilers for Episode 6 of Ms. Marvel!**
Before leaving for his program at the California Institute of Technology, Bruno takes one last look at Kamala's DNA and makes a rather shocking discovery: Her super-powers are not just the result of her being a descendant of the Clandestines. "Kamala, there's something different in your genes," he says. "Like...like a mutation." At the word, "mutation," Laura Karpman's score hits a few synth-heavy notes from the iconic theme song created for X-Men: The Animated Series (the same collection of notes that heralded the Charles Xavier cameo in Multiverse of Madness). That's right, folks, Ms. Marvel just set the stage for the arrival of mutants — and by extension, the X-Men — on Earth-616.
“They sent me, and only me, the draft [of the final episode], and I immediately freaked out,” Vellani said during a recent interview with Marvel.com. “I emailed [Marvel Studios President and Ms. Marvel producer] Kevin Feige in all caps. I was like, 'Are you doing this like for real? Are you sure? I'm so honored!' I was like yelling at him through an email. I was freaking out. This is the biggest deal in the world, and the fact that it's happening in our show is crazy."
“They didn't even have it in [the script],” Lintz added. “I remember I was having a conversation about it and [the directors] were like, ‘Yeah, you say this crazy thing.’ They wouldn't even tell me what it was! I was like, ‘What's the deal here?’ They were very secretive about that whole thing.”
Vellani was so pumped that she could barely keep a straight face when it came time to film the Earth-shattering conversation. “It took a really long time to film that scene because any time Matt would say that word I'd start giggling,” the actress recalled. “I think we got the one take. The one you see in the episode is one of two that we got where I was mildly serious. It was really, really, really difficult. I think we have so many outtakes of me just breaking because I was so excited and giddy over this."
Lintz remembered how members of the crew were "all screaming and the excitement and joy that they had was really, really funny. It's a very big moment. I was just blessed and lucky enough to be able to share that with Iman and everybody else.”
Interestingly, it wasn't always the plan to turn Kamala (an Inhuman in the original comics) into a mutant. “It wasn't from the beginning [of the show]," Ali explained. "With Marvel, something's always a moving piece, and we're trying to solve this question of, ‘If any of [Kamala’s family] put the bangle on, would they have powers?’ The answer was always no, from a character perspective, no."
She continued: “I feel so excited as a viewer of my show. The Bisha teen fan girl in me is like, ‘I can't believe it.’ And the fact that it's Kamala — it's her. It's like her wildest dream already came true over the show [gaining powers], but then we just gave her one more bit of the dream. It's incredible. I'm overjoyed.”
All six episodes of Ms. Marvel are now streaming on Disney+. Kamala Khan will return in the first sequel to Captain Marvel — The Marvels — on July 28, 2023. The television series sets up the film with a brief appearance from Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), who finds herself transported into Kamala's bedroom without warning. Did the two characters switch places or is this some sort of Shazam! situation? We'll find out the answer to that mystery next summer!
Looking for more sci-fi in the meantime? The entire run of SYFY’s Battlestar Galactica is streaming now on Peacock, along with the second season of Resident Alien, which returns to SYFY this fall with new episodes.
