Enough has been said about the near perfect South Asian representation in Ms Marvel, and yet we keep getting something new to talk about, with each new episode. The fifth episode of the MCU show continued the story of Indo-Pak partition, which has also emerged as a sub-theme in the series. And, as icing on the cake, we finally got to see Fawad Khan on-screen. The internet has been gushing over his character, Hasan, and we don’t blame them.
However, it’s the filmy romance that has made desis happier – we’re soon going to lose count of all the things we loved in the episode. ‘Time and Again’, or episode 5 of the series takes us into the past, which also revolves a lot around Aisha, and how she was separated from her family. And, with Aisha and Hasan, we got a love-story, the kind that makes you giddy.
Like a lot of Bollywood films and Pakistani dramas, it had a meet-cute which almost started with a fight. We then see Hasan helping Aisha, in a place that is alien to her. From the visuals that are typically filmy to the chemistry, everything almost made me forget that I was watching a show about a superhero.
The story advances from a strange meeting, where Hasan recites a poem that reminds him of Aisha, to them building a family together. And, if that doesn’t speak romance, I don’t know what does.
Whether it’s the exchanged looks throughout the episode, or the fact that their love-story has everything we expect or like in films, Aisha and Hasan now have a special place in all our hearts. They’re like those characters we wholeheartedly root for. Marvel has clearly done their homework in giving us this heartfelt South Asian representation of romance, that is so pure. It literally unfolds across borders, and there’s no way to not fall in love with it.
And it seems like Twitter is not getting over the episode soon – rightly so.
I’d happily watch a feature film just based on their romance.