Okoye comes home with a surprising offer in this Exclusive deleted scene from Black Panther: Wakanda Foreveravailable in digital format from February 1.
The scene, titled “Daughter of the Frontier,” is one of the four that will be included in the domestic version of the Marvel Studios blockbuster. The official description for “Daughter of the Frontier” is as follows: “After a conversation with her uncle, Okoye is faced with a daunting choice.”
As you will see in the scene, there’s so much more to this “daunting choice” than the official description suggests. To explain why we will have to delve into…
Warning: Spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever continue.
This scene takes place after the death of Queen Ramonda during Namor’s attack on Wakanda. After being fired from the Dora Milaje, Okoye (Danai Gurira) visits her uncle (Danny Sapani), who is officially only credited as “Elder of the Border Tribe” (although the fandom claims he is M’Kathu). .
His uncle says that all the other elders of the tribe are now disputing who will be the next ruler of Wakanda and that it must be decided at Warrior Falls, as tradition dictates. He wants Okoye to run for the Border Tribe to become queen.. He assures him that he will have the support of the people.
Here you can see the deleted scene:
“And what about Shuri?” Okoye asks her uncle. “We cannot allow the whims of a grieving woman to influence the fate of our great nation,” he replies. She advises him to lie low as war inevitably breaks out, and when the dust settles, she will emerge to “become the leader this country truly deserves.”
Okoye doesn’t outright reject her uncle, instead looking more dazed than anything else. She finds herself in a vulnerable situation after being kicked out of the Dora Milaje by Ramonda for failing to protect Shuri. The seriousness of what his uncle is suggesting in light of that rejection is evident in his reaction..
Perhaps linking Okoye to some kind of political intrigue after Ramonda’s death would have made her seem less sympathetic and that’s why this scene was removed from the final version. Or perhaps it was removed for pacing reasons in an already long film full of characters. But this deleted scene hints at a plot line that could have put Okoye in potential opposition to Shuri.
The end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever shows how M’Baku becomes the new king while Shuri travels to Haiti to discover that he has a nephew named T’Challa. Meanwhile, Okoye breaks Everett Ross out of US custody. Now that M’Baku is king and Okoye has escaped from jail, it seems unlikely that he will challenge his uncle for the throne.
Danai Gurira recently told Stephen Colbert that he could “hint gently” at the possibility of an Okoye spinoff, which has reportedly been a few years in the making. Although it seems likely that the series will show the aftermath of Ross’s escape, it would be interesting to know if his uncle, the Elder of the Border Tribe, he’s up to something else in Wakanda that might implicate Okoye.
Angela Bassett recently won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Ramonda and is the first actress to be nominated for an Oscar for a Marvel film. Bassett has expressed her mixed feelings about Ramonda’s death.
