The people who wrote this episode can’t be the same writing team that wrote episodes 1-8. The season finale of She-Hulk was by far the strangest, craziest, and just unexpected storyline the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever produced, though I’m not sure if I love it or hate it.
For the first 16 or so minutes, I felt like I was watching Clockwork Orange. After a weird but hilariously strange (come on, you can’t say that interpretation of She-Hulk wasn’t funny) 1970’s-esque intro, we were instantly thrown right into the action as Jen Walters was stripped of her law degrees and barred from the bar, fired from her job, forced to move back into her parents’ house, decided to go visit Emil Blonsky, and her friends Pug and Nikki Ramos were invited to the Intelligencia (the evil lab coat group) celebration all in the opening 5 minutes.
If you’re confused by reading that, then you really should go see this episode. It was like I was watching an entirely different, wackier show.
Moreover, it was revealed that the rich client guy from a few episodes back, Todd, was the actual leader of Intelligencia and was responsible for leaking all of Jen Walters’ private information during the awards party, while it was also revealed that Emil Blonsky was transforming into the Abomination and hosting the group at his home.
I’m not sure if it was established that he was behind the harassment too, but it really doesn’t matter as NONE of this was even remotely set up. Just like most things in this show.
Still, this show got even dumber when everyone came together and had this massive fight in Abomination’s retreat room for no reason. Literally out of nowhere, Bruce Banner came flying down from space to fight Abomination, Titania burst through a wall, that Todd guy became a Hulk, and everyone ended up just fighting in a mass brawl.
It was painful to watch this show go from bad but comprehendible to atrocious and painfully ludicrous in the space of 10 minutes. I was honestly shocked by the stupidity I was watching and very tempted to close out of Disney+ and give this show a -1/10 right there and then.
Thankfully, She-Hulk herself was also just as dumbfounded by the stupidity happening around her as I was and closed out of the show for us.
Yes, the show completely went off the rails as She-Hulk broke the Fourth Wall by stepping out of her own show, jumping through the Disney+ Marvel menu screen, entering into the Marvel Assembled documentary, and confronting the writing team directly over how bad this show had become.
No, I’m not making this up! I couldn’t believe it.
(Disney/Marvel-She-Hulk: Attorney At Law-Intelligencia Trailer)
Were the very people who wrote one of the worst Marvel shows I’ve ever seen actually making fun of themselves? Well, given how the ensuing conversation was directed more towards the stupidity of the final episode alone, probably not. But, the way these writers were portrayed as dumb, arrogant, self-absorbed hacks, I couldn’t have characterized their obnoxiousness with She-Hulk any better myself.
Though, if that was the intention to mock their own writing talents, then I give them credit for being self-depreciating. But that still doesn’t explain why they wasted 8 episodes, millions of dollars, and She-Hulk’s potential just for this joke in the final episode to play out…
Anyway, after learning that someone named K.E.V.I.N. (I see Kevin Feige wanted a part in the cinematic universe too) was in charge and wanted the She-Hulk storyline to finish in such a chaotic fashion, She-Hulk stormed through Marvel Studios headquarters, signed an infinitely long NDA agreement (which is the only realistic thing in this whole series), and then beat up some security guards on her way to confronting K.E.V.I.N.
(PS: K.E.V.I.N. ended up actually being an all-knowing, all-creating AI-powered robot that has created every Marvel story up to date.)
After a pretty funny back and forth between Jen Walters and K.E.V.I.N., in which the X-Men movie (Hooray!), a new Hulk movie (I think), another season of She-Hulk (God help us) were all discussed and hinted at, the two eventually come up with a satisfying conclusion, in Jen’s perspective, for the final 5-minutes of the finale before she was transported back into the She-Hulk world.
In the end, the season concludes with a Banner family cookout with Matt Murdock now officially dating Jen and Bruce Banner’s return from space…along with his son, Skaar.
Whew, this was a crazy episode. Like I said in the title, I don’t know if it was really bad or really brilliant.
As for the things I liked, I really enjoyed the Fourth Wall breaking nature to this episode, and Jen Walters banter with K.E.V.I.N. Say what you will of this show as a whole, and I certainly have, but Tatiana Maslany is great as She-Hulk. This episode actually gave her a chance to shine with the Fourth Wall nature of She-Hulk, and I think she nailed it. She was genuinely funny arguing with the robot.
But, there was also a lot I didn’t like about this episode. To keep it simple, I hated everything about it aside from the Fourth Wall stuff.
Yeah, I know it was intended to be awful, but so much of this season has been a serious version of that nonsense. Whether the writers intended to make this season an utter travesty of good writing on purpose, as this episode kind of suggested, or not, it’s too late to change my mind about the show. The potential of She-Hulk has been ruined as far as I’m concerned, even though Tatiana Maslany is great in the role.
The season finale of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law gets a very generous 7/10. This episode was definitely my favorite, but that’s not saying too much given the utter trash we have been given for the previous eight weeks.
I’ll give my review for the season as a whole early next week, but I highly doubt it will get as high a score as this episode got.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Disney/Marvel) (Sneak Peek | Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law | Disney+ – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Disney/Marvel) (Intelligencia | She-Hulk: Attorney at Law | Disney+ – YouTube)
