SPOILERS are ahead for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, now playing in theaters.
Of the many powerful Black women at the center of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is Danai Gurira’s Okoye, who is the general of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje. In the sequel, Okoye finds herself in a difficult situation when she is not successful in protecting Princess Shuri from their new enemies, Namor and the Talokan. In an emotional throne room sequence between the actress and Angela Bassett, she is stripped from her prestigious rank. According to Gurira, a deleted ending signaled an uncertain future for Okoye.
During the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ending, Okoye reemerges as a warrior in her Midnight Angel armor after losing her rank to break out Martin Freeman’s CIA Agent Everett Ross out of his custody. Gurira recently spoke to a deleted scene from the Black Panther sequel that would have touched more on the character’s future, perhaps in upcoming Marvel movies.
And then there's another key one of mine, which is really my character saying bye to Shuri, and she just catches her in Haiti unexpectedly, and Shuri's like, 'Are you going back to the Dora?' and my character says no. And she said, 'Where are you going to go,' and I was like wherever my blue suit takes me, and she just walks off. And they have the beautiful moment, and then she just walks off. [Coogler] was saying it's like that kung fu show, where the guy just walked the earth. She just walks off. We don't know where Okoye's going. And she's sort of letting go. She was fighting to keep that position, and then she lets it go. That's kind of her arc, that she lets go. And we don't know where that leads to.
While speaking to Deadline, Danai Gurira shared the deleted scene and said that she’d be excited to explore where that question mark leads Okoye moving forward. Per the moment that never happened in Wakanda Forever, Okoye would let go of her position in Wakanda following Queen Ramonda taking it away from her, and perhaps started anew on another chapter. But, what would that be?
Perhaps it was deleted because Marvel needed more time to decide if it truly wanted Okoye to say goodbye to Shuri at the end of Wakanda Forever, or there was so much happening in Wakanda Forever, it was simply cut for time. No matter the reason, it’s interesting to know the loose ends of the sequel planned for Okoye. It could very much play into what comes next for Okoye. Maybe she is done with the Dora Milaje and will take up a new title in the MCU.
Wakanda Forever had the massive job of passing the torch to Shuri as Black Panther following the death of Chadwick Boseman. As Ryan Coogler recently shared, the original story would have been father-son centric, but instead the storyline regarding T’Challa’s son was moved to an emotional end-credits scene that had Shuri meeting her nephew.
Looking to the future, we don’t yet know where the Black Panther characters will show up next. The MCU will kick back up on February 17 with the release of Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania.
