No Time To Die was a pretty amazing sendooff for Daniel Craig’s James Bond. There were plenty of amazing characters to add to his journey, and I wish we could have spent more time with them, seeing as it was the last of Craig’s series, meaning that we might never get to see any of this crew again. One of those characters was Nomi.
I’m a great believer in the fact that anyone can be 007 but not everyone can be James Bond. The character of Bond himself benefits from a patriarchal system and misogyny, and so the character has to be a man to truly get away with the things that he does. But No Time To Die gives us the option of a different 007, and Lashana Lynch’s Nomi instantly became one of my favorite characters in the movie.
While she went on quite a journey throughout the film, let’s talk about what made Lynch’s take on Nomi so amazing and where the character could go in her own world.
**Spoilers for No Time To Die lie within.**
We know that, for the most part, when a new James Bond comes in, we get a clean slate, give or take. The “give or take” is sometimes M (as Judi Dench stayed from Pierce Brosnan through Craig), but that doesn’t mean that any of these characters we’ve come to love in the Craig era will continue on to whoever is next. But that makes me a bit sad when it comes to a character like Nomi, because I feel like there was so much to unpack there, and we just broke the surface with her.
Nomi is the new 007 and doesn’t let James Bond forget it—not that he really cares. It’s honestly funny. She uses it against him, and James is so done with the life he used to lead that he’s sort of like “okay, whatever” about it until he’s fully back in the game. At that point, when they’re both standing side by side and Nomi gives him back the title of 007, saying it is just a number.
What’s so interesting about it to me is that she realizes, I think, through Bond’s lack of care over the title, that it is just a number that she wanted to feel like she was as good as James Bond. She was missing that she was just as good, regardless of the title, and was holding herself back. But all that time that Nomi had the title of 007 and what she does after Bond’s death? That’s what is interesting to me. I want more of Nomi and her missions.
Maybe just give us a Nomi and Paloma spinoff movie that explores the two of them working together for some reason or another—just to let us back into this world while another James Bond ends up taking over, because I liked seeing Lashana Lynch as a badass spy, and we deserve to see more of her.
All this to say that if they want to give me a new 007 series with Nomi as the agent, I’m here for it, and I’ll gladly watch anything and everything Lashana Lynch’s Nomi is in.
(image: MGM)
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Published: Oct 13, 2021 12:15 pm