‘Ms. Marvel’ Episode 2 Ending Explained: Who Is Najma?

Things can’t just be easy for Kamala Khan, can they? In the premiere episode of Ms. Marvel on Disney+, our fave Jersey City girl discovered that a cool heirloom accessory from her grandma unlocked some next level superpowers that she didn’t even know she had. In this week’s episode, she really hits it off with the hot new guy in school — but you know things aren’t that simple if you’re a character in a Marvel Studios production. There are some hurdles that Kamala’s gonna have to clear, and one of them appears at the end of the episode.

There is a whole lot to unpack after the end of Ms. Marvel Episode 2, so much that we gotta throw up a SPOILER warning for everyone who hasn’t finished this week’s episode. Who is Kamran? What’s up with Kamala’s nani and that bangle? And who is that mystery woman? Enough stalling — let’s just get to the mysteries.

Ms. Marvel Episode 2 ending explained: Who is Kamran?

This week’s episode is built around that classic teen storyline, the one where a hot new dude shows up in school and, even though everyone has the hots for him, he actually shows interest in the nerdy girl. His name is Kamran (Rish Shah) and he is more than enough to distract Kamala from the fact that she has super powers.

She rather quickly starts to ignore Bruno and their training sessions so she can ride around with Kamran, even though she knows her family would not approve of any of this. And then in the last scene of the episode, we get a big reveal: Kamran wasn’t just hanging out with Kamala because they like all the same movies and have a shared culture. He was hanging out with her because he knows the mystery woman from Kamala’s visions (played by Nimra Bucha) — and he knows her IRL. She’s his mother.

So far this storyline is hitting the broadest strokes from the comics. In the comics, Kamran debuts as a potential love interest for Kamala — and then she finds out that he has superpowers too.

They totally hit it off… and then Kamran delivered Kamala to his boss, a mobster named Lineage. There are some differences between the comics and what we’ve seen in the show so far. Note that Lineage was not Kamran’s dad, and Kamran’s parents were normal humans (as far as we know). Enough changes have been made to Kamala’s superhero origin that we should really assume nothing. Just like how Kamala is no longer an Inhuman with stretchy powers like in the comics, it’s possible that Kamran is not a henchman and that this mystery woman is not a supervillain. The only thing we can assume is that she knows what’s going on with Kamala and that bangle.

Who is the mystery woman in Kamran’s car?

The character is named Najma and she’s played by Nimra Bucha. She first appeared to Kamala in a vision while she was at the dinner table, and then later while she was using her powers.

We do not know who Najma is, other than that she is Kamran’s mother and has a connection to the bangle. That’s all we know for sure.

Considering how much Episode 2 went into Kamala’s family history, it would make sense for Najma to actually be Kamala’s great-grandmother Aisha. After all, the first vision took place immediately after we found out that Aisha disappeared the night that her husband and daughter boarded the last train to Karachi. But — and I can’t believe I’m using this as evidence — since both Najma and Aisha have different Funko Pops, they are most definitely two different characters.

What happened to Kamala’s great-grandmother Aisha?

In this episode, we hear the story of how Kamala’s great-grandmother Aisha, her husband, and their daughter Sana (Kamala’s grandmother) boarded the last train to Karachi on a chaotic night during the partition of India in 1947. According to the old family tale, Sana, who was just a toddler at the time, was separated from her father but somehow made it onto the last train and the two were reunited. We also know that Sana’s mother Aisha disappeared that night, and that Sana — who, again, was a toddler — has always maintained that she “followed a trail of stars” back to her father. Later when Kamala calls her nani Sana, she finds out that the bangle that unlocked her powers was actually Aisha’s.

So. If the bangle unlocked the powers within Kamala’s genes, could it have also unlocked Aisha’s as well during the partition of India in 1947? Could that “trail of stars” have been some magic light powers? Was Aisha guiding Sana back to the train from a distance?

Also because this isn’t confusing enough already, Najma is Urdu for “Star.”

Star is also the codename for a Captain Marvel villain who is herself a Kree/human hybrid but, y’all, “Star” is a very generic name for a character who has ties to outer space. It’s equally likely that’s a coincidence.

Does Kamala’s nani have superpowers too?

Just like Kamala Khan, we viewers are also trying to figure out the secrets of Kamala’s family tree. We know that the bangle was sent to the Khans by Kamala’s grandmother Sana. We know that the bangle belonged to Sana’s mother Aisha. We know that the bangle unlocked superpowers within Kamala — and we know that the powers come from her and not the accessory. Since we know the bangle has been passed down from generation to generation, is it possible that everyone in Kamala’s family could potentially have superpowers waiting to be unlocked? Maybe??

Whether or not Sana or Aisha have powers remains unclear. But it seems clear that the bangle is the source of some tension between Kamala’s mom Muneeba and Kamala’s grandmother Sana. When Kamala unpacks the bangle, Muneeba quickly takes it away from her. Earlier in Episode 1, when Kamala’s being driven to school after failing her driver’s test, you can hear Muneeba mutter to herself, “This is all my fault. These are my genetics. I mean, I come from a long line of fantasizing, unrealistic daydreamers. My mother was one.” And at the end of the episode, Muneeba asks her daughter if she wants to be a “cosmic head-in-the-clouds person.”

It seems like Muneeba is protecting Kamala from something — not having superpowers, but from having her life consumed by fantasy. Just theorizing here, but could it be that after Aisha gained superpowers, her daughter Sana gained a reputation as a daydreamer because no one believed her story about following “a trail of stars” to the train. This could have put a strain on Sana’s relationship with Muneeba, especially if Sana was always going on and on about that bangle. And now Muneeba’s watching her own daughter become a “cosmic head-in-the-clouds” person — and she’s wearing that darn bangle.

In the comics, the bangle is simply an heirloom that Kamala inherits. It doesn’t have powers and it doesn’t unlock any powers. The idea that the bangle played a part in Aisha’s survival during the partition, though, comes from the comics.

There is potentially something about Kamala’s comic book origin that could explain her powers in the TV show — and it connects the bangle, the mystery woman, nani, and even Captain Marvel.

Here’s a theory! We are now in theory territory!

In the comics, there are Inhumans. Inhumans are a genetic offshoot of humanity created by the Kree way back at the dawn of mankind. Kamala Khan had latent Inhuman DNA that, when activated by an outside factor, gave her superpowers. That means that one of Kamala’s ancestors, possibly even a distant ancestor, was an Inhuman. This idea was explored in 2019 via a fairytale-ish interlude issue, Ms. Marvel #36.

On the show, Kamala is not an Inhuman. Instead of being exposed to the Inhumans’ Terrigen mist (long story) and unlocking her hidden powers, Kamala instead put on this bangle and unlocked her powers. So, what if Marvel Studios is skipping over the Inhuman thing entirely and establishing that Kamala has latent Kree DNA? We already know who the Kree are, as seen in Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel. When Kamala first put on the bangle, she momentarily tripped across a portal, or vision, or memory of what looked like a whole bunch of aliens. Are they the Kree?

Plus, this gives Kamala a strong connection to Captain Marvel, who herself was powered up by a Kree superweapon and spent years of her life living as a Kree soldier. This is a good conversation starter whenever Kamala meets Carol!

We have another week to wonder, though, and hopefully some answers will come in Episode 3. But hey — at least Najma and Aisha are probably two different characters, which means Kamala isn’t related to Kamran and they can totally still flirt. Ms. Marvel drops new episodes on Wednesday.