Disney+ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Marvel Cinematic Universe) (1 Viewer)

[Joe Wong]

Overall thoughts on the season...

* A mostly fun and frothy legal comedy set in the MCU. Some humour was hit-or-miss but the 4th-wall breaks were great.
* Incredibly aware of how MCU fandom is reacting, both in terms of expectations (eg. Wong universe, etc.) and misogynistic toxicity (eg. social media, Intelligencia)
* Deeper dive into how regular humans (ie., non-enhanced) treat or think of all these superheroes walking amongst them. We got a taste of this in films like Thor: Ragnarok (when some passersby want to take a picture with Thor) and Endgame (with the kids wanting to take a picture with Hulk) but in this series, superheroes and their powers seemed to be pretty mundane and essentially a part of everyday life.
* re-introduced some fan favourites and gained (I think) at least one new one (Madisynn)
* had some uneven tone / episodes but hit it out of the park for ep. 8 and a finished with a wild but suitably meta ep. 9

 

[jayembee]

I haven't watched this yet, but I did read about it (I'm not a spoilerphobe). Here's a link to an article explaining some of the decision-making behind this episode.

WARNING: DEFINITE SPOILERS AHEAD. The article assumes you've seen the episode.

I've even put the link behind a spoiler tag, as the title of the article might be considered a spoiler.

Spoiler

‘She-Hulk’: Introducing Marvel Studios’ K.E.V.I.N.

Were you expecting a man?

www.marvel.com

 

[NeilO]

I did want to warn everyone that the credits sequence at the end prominently includes the name of a guest star who only appears in the mid-credits scene. I understand why they did it like this for contractual reasons, but the episode effectively spoils its final twist before it happens. I saw the name and I thought, "That person wasn't in the episode. I bet they're in the tag and they're going to...." Then, sure enough, the person was in the tag and they did exactly what I thought they would do. So if you can somehow manage to skip over the credits directly to the tag, I think you'd have a better experience. If I had been in charge of putting the finale together, I would have withheld this person's credit until after the tag scene.

Exact same reaction. I was wondering where I missed this actor and then the tag came. I think they should have had the tag in the middle of the cartoon credits.

Lots of good information in the Marvel site article about the show that @jayembee has in his spoiler tag.

I was really surprised by some of what happened, but I think it all fit with what they were doing in the show.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I loved the show up until the season finale. I agree it was underwhelming. I would have rather just had 40 minutes of Madisynn and Wongers watching tv.

 

[Wayne_j]

The premiere and the finale were probably my two favorite episodes. Banner's comedy in the premiere and the massive 4th wall breaking in the finale.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I loved it. This is my favorite of the TV shows by far. Everything from the premiere to the finale hit note-perfect for me.

 

[Citizen87645]

Definitely not what I expected and that was the point, to break out of the MCU mold a bit. Still would have liked to see a bit more physical beat down of Todd, but oh well.

Looking forward to seeing her continued relationship with Matt Murdock.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Season finale was underwhelming.

I was biased against the finale conceptually, because I like to invest in a cinematic universe and suspend my disbelief, and breaking the fourth wall deliberately punctures that.

But my larger problem is that:

Spoiler

While breaking the fourth wall in a such a brazen way -- having She-Hulk visit the actual writers' room, and then stalk through the actual halls of Marvel Studios, and then climax with a GLaDOS-esque satire of Kevin Feige -- gets points for boldness, calling out the flaws in the final episode formula doesn't change the fact that the final episode formula is flawed. I didn't have a problem with skipping the big CG fight sequence, which I agree is unnecessary. But basically all of the season's storylines get pencil-erased: When the story picks up again, the bad toxic incels have been defeated, Jen's plea deal has been negated, and the tension between Jen the lawyer and She-Hulk the superhero has been resolved. But we don't actually get to see how any of it happened. And Matt's back not because of a story reason but because Jen was horny for him. And then Hulk has a son out of the blue.

I just think if you're going to mock the formula, it is incumbent upon you to come up with something better rather than just skip over the hard stuff with a meta joke.

 

[Jason_V]

On one hand, I admire they had the balls to do what they did in the finale. On the other hand…dude, not cool. This is going to have ramifications for the entire MCU and I’m not sure I like them right now.

 

[Josh Dial]

I loved it. This is my favorite of the TV shows by far. Everything from the premiere to the finale hit note-perfect for me.

I also loved it. Beyond just the big swing, I loved the sheer audacity this show had to tell story the way it wanted to tell it. At no time did could I see the seams or studio manipulation.

This particular fourth wall smash isn't even unprecedented. One the "fun" (okay, fun to me) things I'm doing is reading every Marvel superhero comic starting from the Silver Age around 1959. Basically when the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Ant-Man, Iron Man, Thor, and Spider-Man all debuted. In one of the very early F4 issues Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are literally in the comic talking to Reed on the phone. Doctor Doom has burst into the Marvel office and has threatened to kill Lee and Kirby if they don't trick Reed and the rest of the F4 into coming over. The comic plays a bit fast and loose with whether Lee and Kirby are making the literal comics we are reading or whether it's an universe "chronicle".

But this was 1963. The Thing yells to Reed that he wants Lee and Kirby to stop making the Thing so ugly!

I don't agree with Adam's comment that if you mock the formula (and the finale did) then it's incumbent on you to do better. I don't agree because she wasn't criticizing that you follow a formula, but rather you serve the formula. The danger is when you do what the formula says because that's what it says, not what you want.

I think if you mock a formula you need to make sure you end up telling the story you wanted to tell on your terms. Jen/She-Hulk/Tatiana said her show is a legal comedy where she also gets to smash Matt Murdock. The implication is that she's uninterested in the other stuff like how the incel bros were defeated. So we cut it out. Oh and hey there's Matt Murdock literally jumping in from space, which is exactly what the show mocked five minutes ago. But now it's because it's what the show wants to do--not what it has to do.

 

[jayembee]

My wife and I loved it. It's all really in the grand tradition of fourth-wall-breaking that the comics and TV did now and then. In the case of comics, it goes at least as far back as the early 40s with Charles Biro and Bob Wood inserting themselves into the stories in their Crime Does Not Pay comic (though they didn't, like Lee & Kirby, interact with their characters). On TV, it goes at least as far back as the early 50s, with The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, with George directly addressing the audience, and doing things like keeping track of what Gracie was doing by watching her on his TV set.

What made this show different -- and what I think was the whole point -- is that this time, we didn't get a Grand Epic of Cosmic Proportions That Requires a Great Battle Scene at the End. This wasn't a show that involved gods or cosmic beings or universe-ending conflicts. It was a sitcom about Jennifer Walters trying to get on with her life after a major life change. In any other sitcom, she'd have become a widow or a divorcée, but here, she became an "enhanced individual'. But in every other respect, it's just like any other single-woman sitcom focusing on her job and her love life and her wondering why the universe seems to be against her.

Brilliant. It makes me wish that James Gunn would make an Ambush Bug TV series for HBO Max. But if he did, there would probably be people complaining that it was a rip-off of She-Hulk.

 

[David Weicker]

I loved the finale

 

[Randy Korstick]

I liked the series but didn't love it. Was a bit disappointed overall. I enjoyed Ms. Marvel more.

 

[Sam Favate]

Loved the finale, especially the recreation of the opening of the Incredible Hulk TV show from the 70s. This show was its own unique thing, with its own special voice, from beginning to literally the end. Good for them, and even better that they had some fun with the Marvel formula too. Maslany was perfect for the role. It may not have hit the emotional highs of something like Ms Marvel, but this was just as good in own way.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Now that more people have seen it, I feel comfortable in saying that I didn't like the finale. Yes, the ending was bonkers. But it set a terrible precedent. Doing this was certainly unexpected and different, but it creates a real stakes problem for the future. If any plot thread can just be thrown out at will, then why should I care about anything going on?

 

[Joe Wong]

Now that more people have seen it, I feel comfortable in saying that I didn't like the finale. Yes, the ending was bonkers. But it set a terrible precedent. Doing this was certainly unexpected and different, but it creates a real stakes problem for the future. If any plot thread can just be thrown out at will, then why should I care about anything going on?

I’d like to think that what happened (ie. changing the plot) in the finale is a one-off, just for this series, to illustrate how far Jen’s 4th-wall-breaking can go. It’s not going to happen again. If it does, then I agree with you - what’s the point?

She-Hulk has appeared in a few of the Captain Marvel comics issues during the current run. She doesn’t break the 4th wall in these stories (and is actually a little more serious). Granted, she’s not the lead, but that’s what I expect would happen in a future film or show where she’s not the lead.

 

[David Weicker]

I don't know, I cared about it because it was damn entertaining.

Thats all it was supposed to be - entertaining.

This whole 'has to fit in to the MCU' crap is boring to read over and over.

They decided to make an fun, entertaining show, and succeeded.

I realize there weren't a whole lot of brain-dead fights and battles. Just a lot of wit.

Now, if all you care about are brain-dead fights and battles and only existing to fit in (oh, and have to see Daredevil, can't wait to see Daredevil, must see Daredevil), then maybe this wasn't for you.

 

[Jake Lipson]

This whole 'has to fit in to the MCU' crap is boring to read over and over.

Marvel has made connections between different projects a signature of its brand. But that has nothing to do with what I was talking about or objecting to in my previous post.

 

[Jason_V]

I wonder if this is a whole muti-verse kind of thing. At some point, they're gonna go "Just Kidding! That was Earth XYZABC! Now back to our regularly scheduled MCU shenanigans!"

I think as I've said before, I loved Tatiana Maslany. She's quirky and fun and has a good read on how to do the fourth wall breaks and the humor. I really liked her chemistry with Charlie Cox. Episode 1 with Mark Ruffalo was very fun.

The lack of a central arc we're building to makes sense after the finale...it's just not what I expected.

 

[Joe Wong]

Whether it “fits” into the MCU or not due to its 4th-wall-breaking, She-Hulk has plenty of MCU references. Hulk, Wong, Captain America, Shang-Chi, Abomination, Daredevil… to name a few.

And if you take the finale into account… the MCU is now… part of the MCU?