Wright has mostly been used as comic relief up to this point, and Shuri’s character arc necessitates refocusing that energy into how she processes her pain. The funeral procession that follows speaks to the incredibly fine line Wakanda Forever has to walk: even in their mourning, there’s joyous dancing and celebration of what T’Challa brought to the nation, but Shuri’s solemnity as she moves through holding T’Challa’s Panther helmet is a strong reminder of the conflicting emotions she and the movie at large have to balance. Wakanda Forever is an effective, emotional farewell to T’Challa - a meditation on forging one’s own future out of a painful past - but with a plot that has to introduce an entirely new nation and pave the way for a new wave of Marvel stories, it does struggle under the weight of all that expectation.īlack Panther: Wakanda Forever wastes no time addressing Boseman’s passing, with a chaotic and tense opening scene leaving Shuri (Letitia Wright) feeling responsible for her brother’s death. The death of T’Challa - and actor Chadwick Boseman - weighs heavy on Wakanda Forever, with the fictional nation struggling to replace both their monarch and their champion, and Marvel Studios deciding how to honor a man it was clearly ready to work with for years and years to come.

In a cinematic universe where half of all living beings have already died and come back to life, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever reminds us that losing one person can feel just as devastating.

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