‘The Marvels’ Proves That Actually Cats Are the Best

Often, cats get the short end of the stick. If you go online, everyone loves to hate them. But The Marvels finally showed us all that they’re actually the best, and gave the cat lovers of the world that justification that we’ve always deserved. Thank you, Carol Danvers and Goose, we owe you queens the world.

Goose the Flerken (previously known as Chewie in the comics) comes to us in the form of an orange tabby cat. If you know anything about cats, especially tabby cats and orange ones at that, they’re chaos. My lovely tuxedo boy is the brother of a tabby (his sister was an orange kitty) and so I’m going to pretend she is Goose now. Anyway, cats are great. I know this because I have one but I have been a fan of them since I was a kid. I watched The Lion King and said, “what are these shoulder blades, this is fun” and wanted a cat. My mom hated them and said “absolutely not” and it took me until 2020 to finally get a cat all my own.

Changed my life and now I am that person. My Benji is my life and I will dedicate my every waking moment to talking about my cat and why he’s the best. People in this world hear that and think to themselves “cats must suck, though.” Why? No one is quite sure. It’s just the way it is. But The Marvels gave us multiple moments combating this idea and for that, I owe my thanks to Nia DaCosta and the movie for giving cats a better name.

Cats had one of the best moments in all of The Marvels

Throughout the beginning of the movie, we had some great Goose moments (we’ll get to the queen herself, don’t worry). But when the cats really had a brilliant moment to shine, they ended up being the heroes that Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) needed. Nick Fury, a man who has every right to hate cats, still loves Goose very much and so when they’re trapped on S.W.O.R.D.’s base with Kamala’s family and not enough scape pods, Nick has an idea. That’s when Goose and her new litter come in handy.

Who is Goose’s man? We don’t know but Goose reveals a litter of kittens to Fury and the team, and suddenly a plan is formed: Use the Flerkens to capture all the remaining S.W.O.R.D. crew and get them in the last escape pods and take them down to Earth. A scene straight out of a horror movie, every human is captured by the tentacles of a Flerken as “Memory” from Cats the musical is playing. It’s the only time I enjoy hearing a song from the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical that’s not “Magical Mr. Mistoffelees,” but that would only apply if a tuxedo cat was doing the capturing.

The sequence was hilarious and horrifying all at once, but it’s also iconic in a way that will remain as one of the top tier Marvel escape sequences. All because of the cats.

Goose is a queen and should be recognized as such

Starting by riding around on Carol Danvers’ shoulders through space, helping to make coffee, and protecting Kamala Khan when she’s thrown into the middle of a fight not knowing what’s going on, Goose is a straight up queen throughout the movie. Remember, I said that tabby cats (particularly orange ones) can be chaotic. But Goose? She’s a star.

There’s something very calming about seeing a cat just hanging out in space with her owner, riding on Carol’s shoulders. That’s something that is typically reserved for dogs, so to see that get awarded to Goose ruled and made it clear to me that The Marvels was letting the world know that you might have a weird prejudice against them but really? Cats rule. And they can save the day, if you let them.

(featured image: Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios)