While there’s certainly been no shortage of action and the visuals have been reliably lush, I can’t help but feel that Eyes Of Wakanda has been something of a missed opportunity. From a purely surface level point of view, the show has provided us with a glimpse into the history of the famously secretive nation of Wakanda as we skipped through the ages to watch agents of the Golden City reclaim stolen, Vibranium infused artifacts to keep their technology safe from the rest of the world – which is fair enough. But considering that show developer Ryan Coolgler isn’t exactly a filmmaker who’s known for being “surface level”, I actually was expecting the show to be a far deeper affair than we’ve gotten.
Still, with one episode left to go, can the show manage to deliver one final, powerful, Vibranium-powered blow to shake things up, or will it ultimately settle on just being “ok”.
The year is now 1896 and as a battle rages through the Ethiopian city of Adwa, two Wakandan War Dogs creep through the devastation in order to locate and retrieve yet another misplaced relic that contains a deceptive amount of power. However, these War Dogs are not your average Wakandan spies as one is decorated veteran, Kuda and the other is the brash and impulsive Prince Tafari, who only thinks of securing his legacy in the glory of victory. As the pair bicker about whether it’s too dangerous to locate their mission, Tafari, disturbed by the apparent lack of loyalty the old War Dog has to Wakanda, races off and finds what they came for by narrowly risking his life.
What they’ve managed to retrieve is a simple Vibranium axe, but before they can celebrate their success, they are attacked by a figure with tech and abilities far beyond their own who is also after the weapon. However, in a brief moment of calm, the infiltrator not only reveals her identity, but she also delivers a stark warning. It turns out that she is the Queen of Wakanda from a time 500 years into the future and as the last Black Panther, she has used Quantum time travel to travel back in time to stop the end of the world from occurring. If the Vibranium axe isn’t found, it starts a chain reaction through history that ultimately leads to Wakanda to accept that it needs to take its place alongside the rest of the world. When an alien race known as the Horde eventually attacks, Wakanda is able to help the world fight back, but if the axe is taken back to its homeland, these events will longer occur and divided, Wakanda and the rest of the world eventually falls.
Will Tafari and Kuda believe this supposed Black Pather from the future, or will they let unwavering obedience deny her request and finish their mission? With the very future riding on their decision, both men have to take a deep look into their hearts to see where their faith truly lies.
While The Last Panther certainly has its heart in the right place, the final installment of Eyes Of Wakanda ultimately trips itself up thanks to multiple issues with its story. The notion of a random character falling through time in order to warn the past about a threat in the future is so old, it feels like it predates some of those slippery relics the War Dogs have been trying to lay their hands on for the past three episodes and for this show to try it feels like it’s somehow run out of ideas. It’s a fairly unforgivable feeling to have considering the show has the entire history of Wakanda to play with, but as the episode continues, you start to get an overfamilar feeling that can be traced elsewhere. While you may think that I’m referring to the time traveling fuckery we once saw in Avengers: Endgame, the episode actually has a worryingly high amount of similarities to the movie adaptation of X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Not only does it use the whole Kyle Reese method of a time travelling hail mary play to alter the past to erase a shitty future, but lurking at the crappier end of the time stream are a group of ferocious proto-mechanical creatures who zap death rays and who act suspiciously like the future Sentinels do in that 2014 movie.
Despite the episode doing what it can to show that Wakanda’s isolationist attitude is a bad idea even before the events of the first Black Panther movie, it’s all somewhat undone by the episode falling into something of a generic time travel adventure and even the direct connections to the MCU can’t shake it.
Of course, the fact that the axe in question is the exact same item that Killmonger steals at the start of the Black Panther movies to kick everything off is pretty neat, but once again, it feels like the show seems to be shirking it’s original aim of opening up Wakandan history like never before. And yet we’ve not once seen a rule change hands, we’ve seen no political shifts and even though I was thrilled to see an Iron Fist zip around the Golden City during last episode, we didn’t even have a single episode set fully in Wakanda. Where were the episodes dealing with the nation from a street level perspective? Why was there no stories about the Dora Milaje or the border tribes to expand on the history? Why is the only Black Panther we meet from the future? There are so many avenues here to create a rich, complex series of stories that frustratingly were squandered on four mission episodes that all told variations of the same story and I’m surprised that such a show would set itself so narrow a focus.
Still, season gripes and derivative plot aside, The Last Panther still easily holds your attention for the thirty minutes it’s on for and delivers all the standard plus points that the show’s displayed thus far. Tafari and Kuda make for a thoughtful double act as the older War Dog has come round to believe a successful mission is one that ultimately gets you home to your family, where the younger, more idealistic agent has nothing but the glory of Wakanda on his mind. As their outlandish adventure continues, both find their outlooks softening a little to realise that their unwavering opinions could stand to be a little more flexible; but even though the message is a perfectly acceptable one, the introduction of a time travelling Black Panther – cool Predator armour and all – kind of draws focus from the point of the show.
It’s not like Marvel animation hasn’t managed to pull off some blinders over the last few years. Not only did X-Men ’97 manage to balance furious action with genuinely poignant moments that hit like the Juggernaut, but Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man managed to serve up complex, but fluid villain sub-plots that flowed naturally into Peter Parker’s story, so I’m not entirely sure why Eyes Of Wakanda seems to short change itself by keeping those peepers trained on only a limited part of its world. I wouldn’t say no to a second season, but if we do take another journey through the history of the Golden City, maybe we should follow characters with a bit more vision.
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