As a joke, I said that if they really wanted to drive it home, they would’ve included the iconic theme song from the 90s TV series

Sounds like a classic example of “priming”. You just needed the right context to unlock it. I caught it first time, but I also caught how easy it would be to miss. As a musical stinger it didn’t feel out of place in the show. I don’t think was entirely due to subtlety in how they played it in that moment. I think it felt a bit like it was there the whole time. I’ve been thinking to maybe rewatch to see if I can catch which of Ms. Marvel’s musical themes it was already cleverly buried inside, because that seemed really well done. I’m not that musically inclined though, so I’ll probably instead hope some smart video essayist covers it.