She-Hulk 1X9: They went there

Episode 9 is the finale to 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law'. It presents an unexpected, yet perfectly on-point conclusion to a show that has consistently kept its focus on the human aspect of life in the MCU, superpowers notwithstanding. This episode centers on a key argument that Jen has with Nikki. Given what Intelligencia had done to Jen in betraying her trust, violating her privacy, making her look like a monster to everyone she loves and respects, and legally depriving her the use of her She-Hulk power, Jen has a very strong revenge motive that, regardless, she insists on seeking a legal resolution for. Nikki, however, wants to punish the group "by any and all means", though she defers to Jen with a wry "boring".

"Boring" sums up the entire season, and is the whole point of the show. In a universe that boasts an ever increasing menagerie of people -- including the protagonist -- who possess a diversity of incredible powers, this show wants us to see life from the normal, non-powered perspective. The real heroes of this show are Nikki and Pug who represent the power of friendship at all cost; and Jen's dad who wields the formidable power of family acceptance and support. Mallory Book, and to some extent, Emil, help Jen with perspective and balance. These are powers that are easily taken for granted, but they are real and accessible to us since there's no way in our universe that we can get hold of any conceit (like She-Hulk blood) that will grant us superhuman ones.

So when the big showdown between Intelligencia and She-Hulk occurs, and the scene degenerates into unintelligible chaos, reminiscent of Titania bursting into the courtroom for no reason in episode 1, which she does again here, along with Nikki, Pug and Bruce to face off against Abomination and Todd-Hulk, Jen has had enough. Jen invokes another superpower unique to She-Hulk that she used in her John Byrne comic book run c.1985: her ability to crossover from her universe into her writers' and artists' workplace to complain about their crappy writing and editorial choices.

One thing Marvel is not shy about is how it parodies itself. Here, Jen confronts her writers portrayed as a bunch of noodle-heads discussing a cringey plotline for "season two", all beholden to Kevin, or K.E.V.I.N. as they reverently refer to him. K.E.V.I.N. possesses the algorithm that churns out "near-perfect" Marvel properties, though it leaves quality ratings to the Internet. K.E.V.I.N. knows that the fans want big action, high stakes, satisfying conclusions, and spectacle. The problem, Jen points out, is that while the formula been highly profitable so far, it has become worn and transparent. For the narrative she wants to tell, the formula shoehorns in a lot of extraneous elements that distract from the key narrative: that of a normal person learning to live with and incorporate a physical disability into a normal existence. Boring.

That K.E.V.I.N. relents and renders the Hulk blood plotline into a red herring is good news. This move suggests that future Marvel projects could rely less on crowd-pleasing formula, and support more original, more creative stories, yet remain resolutely focused on the human element, which is the core of how Marvel has always Distinguished itself from its Competition.

"Who's show is this?" It's Jen's. Having regained control of the narrative, Jen resolves her issue with Todd and his hate group in a normal human way. "I'll see you in court". There is no resolution in this outcome. Given Jen's track record in the courtroom, Todd and company could still win and get off scot-free. We don't know as the season ends just before the trial begins. This ending is unsatisfactory to us, but it is non-formulaic. It is also very human in that Justice is never a foregone conclusion, but a process that we make our best effort to pursue. Justice is attained not on a battlefield, but in a boring court of law.

I've always held the notion that comic books aren't just for kids. It's interesting then, that this TV series based on a comic book has seen lots of kids leaping to their feet, flailing their hands, and screaming, "yer tellin' it wrong!!!" To which I respond, ok. I'm sure y'all have had fun doing that too.

She-Hulk 1X8: She who wears the suit

It's taken 7 painful episodes getting to know Jen Walters, slowly peeling away at her character and discovering what makes her tick. The human Jen Walters, that is, who up until now has carried her special ability like it was a terrible disability, although she occasionally found ways to use it to her advantage.

But honestly, who needs roughly three and a half hours of runtime to get to know a person? In the Spider-Man movies, how long did we need to get to know Peter Parker? Less than an hour, maybe? Then he's already off in his costume fighting the big bad guy.

Getting to know Jen in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was an arduous journey. It was like watching Peter Parker using his new powers to show off, make money, and pick up girls while never having to face his Uncle Ben moment, at least not for a long while. And for Jen, it has taken a very long time, and she still has yet to learn that 'with great power, comes great responsibility', but she is just starting to.

Episode 8 features three costumed main characters, all connected by a common thread, Luke Jacobson, who has made each of their outfits.

The first is the character of Leap-frog, who is essentially a straw-man inhabiting an empty suit. He is a relatively unknown entity in the MCU so he comes with little baggage. He has no skill, generally embarrasses himself, and the only thing special about him is his suit. We see him as a nobody, no backstory, no motivation. We first see him fighting a couple of burglars. Is he a hero? He styles himself as a crime-fighter, so maybe. But because he is really just an ego in a costume, when he makes his heel turn later in the episode, we don't question the sudden twist. When it happens, we're like, whatever. We have no investment in him whatsoever.

The second is Matt Murdock, who makes his long-awaited appearance. His courtroom attire makes him a confident professional both in the courtroom, and in Legal Ease, all the lawyers' favourite bar. His transformation into Daredevil is eagerly anticipated, and it feels so rewarding when we are treated to his signature Netflix hallway fight sequence after the show has delayed our gratification for 8 weeks. Matt is clearly a hero, whether he is in a business suit, or in his 'mustard and ketchup' devil suit. We also remember how much of a ladies' man Matt is when he gets out of it. This character needs no introduction. He has had a long history in the comic books, and a number of seasons on Netflix, so we know who we're getting, and despite some expected artistic licence, is still the same person we know and love. He represents the constant we measure a hero by, and Leap-frog doesn't make the grade.

But it's Jen's show. By Episode 7, Jen has finally learned to embrace She-Hulk as part of herself. She has now earned the confidence to don her super suit which she does. She-Hulk, the superhero, runs off to rescue her client, Leap-frog, from an unknown assailant. But She-Hulk's first ever attempt at being a superhero is embarrassing. She picks a fight with the wrong person, causing much collateral damage in the process. Jen underestimates her control over her She-Hulk persona. For She-Hulk in fight mode, the ends justify the means. She tears up a parking lot, hurls an expensive car and wrecks several others while fighting Daredevil. Par for the course for a Hulk, but irresponsible and willful damage of property for a lawyer. Which is why Jen chooses to talk Leap-frog out of breaking any more laws, while Daredevil fights off the goons.

Needless to say, Jen's most special ability is to invoke Murphy's Law upon herself. She attends a gala for 'Female Lawyer of the Year' hosted by... the organiser's name is never mentioned, but it is a shady operation. The host makes some backhanded compliments about the recipients, and the award is condescendingly handed out like participation trophies to a number of notable female lawyers. Jen is, of course, a recipient though as far as we've seen, she hasn't won a single case yet this entire season. Very sus. It's a trap! Intelligencia makes its move, publicly exposing the cloned contents of Jen's phone along with revenge porn of her and Josh, provoking her to Hulk out in view of her family and her legal fraternity, thus fulfilling another of Bruce's predictions that the world will see her as a monster. Compared to the Matt Murdock hero constant, She-Hulk falls off the charts at this point. But it's because we've seen Jen deconstructed and reconstructed as a person over several episodes that this new transformation into monster Hulk is devastating.  

This season started with Jen on the outside of Blonsky's cell as his lawyer. It has taken Jen on a journey in which her credibility as a lawyer diminishes step by step until, inevitably, she will see life from the inside of a Hulk-proof cell. Will this be Jen's Uncle Ben moment? I don't know, but one prediction of Bruce's remains unfulfilled: being a Hulk puts a target on those she loves. Perhaps episode 9 could end in tragedy, and no one will be laughing then.

A deeper dive into She-Hulk 1X7: 'The Retreat'

The show has been criticized for being 'man-hating', and of pushing a 'female' agenda, but episode 7 clarifies that it is doing neither. It's not because of a simple inclusion of a few identifiable 'good' guys whom we'll probably never see again. There's a much stronger undercurrent, the foundations of which have become more apparent since the previous 'wedding' episode.

First, this show is very good at manipulating the audience through misdirection, and pushing, not an agenda, but emotional buttons. Episode 6 looks like it's a wedding. It is, rather, a look at Jennifer Walters as a high school student, but without breaking the timeline via a flashback to over a decade ago. No offence to Tatiana Maslany, but she would not pass off as a high school student if she were surrounded by a teenage cast.

A high school reunion would have been too obvious, but a wedding is the perfect occasion to bring all her high school friends back together and treat Jen like they used to way back then. Lulu is the queen bee who doesn't want anyone else to steal attention from her, while her 'mean girls' entourage continue to dump on Jen, who back then would have been happy to get any attention at all. Despite their age, Lulu and friends are written as high schoolers, with their obsession over boys (Lulu only wants to know about Jen's dating status), and her friends still talk about Team Edward or Jacob, which is what they would have been talking about a decade or so ago. Titania shows up as the school bully, and the fight is as juvenile as the characters they are symbolically playing. At the end, the bully defeats herself, which is usually how it plays out. And worst of all, no Daredevil in sight! Audience response: the wedding episode sucks. It's a horrible wedding because it doesn't feel important to the MCU storyline, and why tease DD when he's not going to show up? Rawr!

The show also occasionally brings up online sh*tposts from supposedly "hateful man babies", which are roughly analogous to people in our real world who identify themselves as 'incels'. The impression is that the show is making fun of its own of insecure, comic book reading, male fanbase, and that is a fantastic misdirection that draws the ire of the audience. Yes, the show is baiting the audience to hate it. In that red mist, what we overlook is that Jen, too, can be considered a female incel. Jen is unpopular, nerdy, and bullied in school. In adult life, she is insecure, unable to get a date, and seemingly defines herself by the lack of men in her life. The few who do date her put her down, none interested in a second time. These are all traits that resonate with people who identify as 'incel'.

Jen is plausibly about to give up dating when she meets Josh who likes Jen for Jen, and not for She-Hulk. But after a few dates, Jen, um, opens herself up to him, and he ghosts her immediately after. Jen's experience at Blonsky's 'Summer Twilights' retreat in episode 7 explains much of this show's philosophy, showing us how meta it gets. The emotional state that Jen is in when she joins Blonsky's therapy group mirrors ours by this time. Like Jen who ignores the group to look for a phone signal, we've also got better things to do than watch this boring show, but since it's on we'll just put it in the background. We've been promised an MCU fest, but we got an awful 'lawyer show' which has little 'lawyering' and a lot of one whiny woman griping about how unfair life has been for her. When Jen identifies the Wrecker in the group, she feels as attacked by him as we feel attacked by whatever agenda this show's been pushing that isn't to our liking. We feel as betrayed by the 'M-she-U' for making us watch this garbage as Jen feels betrayed by Josh ghosting her.

So what do we do? Do we, like Jen, instinctively Hulk out and immediately rage on the Internet, pouring out our hate and disappointment at this poorly written TV show? Do we make personal attacks on the female writers who care nothing for the source material and are themselves probably drunk, depressed, and are pushing a 'woke' agenda? Or do we sit in the 'calming chair' and work through our personal issues, and the real issues that this show raises for us to think about?

Like, can we spend time to listen to what another human being has to say about their pain, instead of valuing them only for how much they entertain us, make us laugh, or enact our revenge fantasies on our behalf? Can we empathise with them, accept them for themselves, and support them, instead of wishing She-Hulk would hurry up and punch something, but ignore Jen because her life is uninteresting?

And speaking to those in the audience who are feeling as lonely as Jen, She-Hulk is to Jen what Josh is to, well, someone who identifies as an incel. Josh is attractive, confident, successful, able to strike up and continue a conversation with their target, even from a cheesy pick-up line. But in the closing flashback, the show asks if we really want to be that guy, to use another human being and leave them confused and emotionally devastated once we've got what we want from them? Instead, the show assures us that there are people who will accept us for who we are, even if they look weird, or smell, or may even have attacked us once before. They may be awkward in how they express themselves to us, but their support is heartwarmingly genuine, if we, in return, accept them for who they are.

The huge MacGuffin in the room is Hulk blood, which @HulkKing is after. This group, I believe, is hiding behind a 'hateful man baby' mask. Their agenda is not against women, but against super-powered individuals, and it's just that She-Hulk is coincidentally a woman whom they are targeting. We don't know yet if this group wants to create more Hulks with Jen's sample, but this show has been hugely successful at making a lot of its audience Hulk out at their keyboards. How better to create an immersive narrative that encourages mass audience participation illustrating IRL the very themes it wants to raise for discussion? It can't get more meta than this. 

She-Hulk 1X7: laying it bare

I wonder how many items of clothing Luke Jacobson made for Jen? Nikki mentioned a business suit and a supersuit in the previous episode. In this episode, Jen for the most part seems to be wearing a casual ensemble comprising a light top and capris. Jen is called on by Blonski's parole officer to check on Blonski's inhibitor which has malfunctioned. Jen goes as Blonski's lawyer and also as the parole officer's muscle, so it's the perfect opportunity to showcase an outfit that caters to both contingencies.

Jen is still exploring her duality in this episode. She may have embraced her inner Hulk, but it's still not yet a comfortable fit. Her trip to Blonski's meditation retreat plays around with this discomfort as we know from the previous episode that there are elements that wish to do her harm. On the premises there is neither phone nor WiFi connection to the outside world, suggesting that she is cut off with no backup if something untoward should happen to her. The parole officer makes no effort to hide his paranoia and flees immediately after his mission is easily completed.

Jen wants to leave too, but two superpowered brawlers wreck her car while they are working out their issues with each other. With no signal and no transport Jen is trapped under suspicious circumstances. What if the whole visit was set up by the Intelligencia as phase two of their plan? Could Jen possibly fight off a handful of low-grade powered villains led by the Abomination if that is their plan? When the Wrecker shows up unexpectedly, Jen recalls him as the leader of the Wrecking Crew which attacked her in episode 3, and as She-Hulk proceeds to do some wrecking of her own. Blonski is able to calm her down and gets her to sit in on their group therapy session before too much damage is done.

Within the circle, the men share their vulnerabilities openly. Blonski maintains an atmosphere of trust which eventually allows the only masked member of the group, Porcupine, to remove his mask to reveal... no one we know. In this safe space, Jen feels comfortable to open up about her insecurities with her She-Hulk persona, saying that it 'feels like cheating' as she has the ability to whip out this huge advantage over other people to get ahead. She also opens up about Josh whom she had been dating for a week, slowly building enough trust to finally be intimate with him and immediately after he ghosts her. Saracen, the wannabe vampire blurts out that perhaps Josh was only after her blood -- an innocent statement that should set off alarm bells for us.

When the tow truck finally arrives, Jen is able to leave Blonski's retreat unharmed, and has made some new friends. The obvious threat has proven to be not only harmless, but also enriching for her. But in a flashback to Josh and Jen's last night together, Josh carries out phase ONE, and reports his success to @hulkking. The person Jen was most openly vulnerable with turns out the be her biggest betrayal. Which leaves phase two open: if not for piercing She-Hulk's impenetrable skin, then the gigantic needle from the previous episode is for whom? Since Bruce is off planet, my guess would be the Abomination.

A note about the recent lack of post-credit scenes: The post-credit scenes in the first four episodes were frivolous fun moments that had little to do with plot advancement. These final scenes have since become incorporated into the main storyline, and serve as a clear transition to the next episode.

Finally, going by the pattern of Jen's Luke Jacobson wardrobe, I'd expect to see her in her business suit next. It won't be until the final episode of this season that Jen is fully incorporated enough, mind and body, to wear her supersuit, and in so doing bear the mantle of a superhero at last. Which probably means no Matt Murdoch appearance next week either. I'm fine with that. I'm here to watch She-Hulk, not Daredevil. I know whose show this is.

She-Hulk 1X6: the clothes maketh the woman

People watching SH:AaL are disappointed that the show hasn't featured huge, monumental showdowns with the fate of worlds in the balance. There have been no jaw-dropping set-pieces, no inspirational moments, no stakes worth beating people up for. True. It's not that kind of show. So far, the series has dealt with internal conflict within the body and mind of Jennifer Walters as to who is in control of that very same body and mind. But now that that conflict has been largely resolved, we expect that we would be moving on to larger, more consequential conflicts within the MCU environment... but it was still not to be in this episode. Episode 6, aptly entitled "Just Jen", takes us on a much deeper dive into the person of Jennifer Walters -- who Jen is at the very core of her being.

Jen is whisked away from courtroom drama and into a wedding celebration. Jen reluctantly accepts the invitation to be a bridesmaid at her high school friend's nuptials, not because she wants to, but because she doesn't know how to say 'no'. She arrives like a superstar in her glamorous Luke Jacobson designed party outfit, and takes everyone's breath away. Lulu the bride, is of course pissed and makes Jen promise to revert to just Jen for the wedding. Feeling bad, Jen doesn't say 'no'. When Lulu's wedding planning staff quit on her for being a Bridezilla, she imposes all the staff chores to Jen -- general cleaning duties, and ironing the groomsmen's shirts -- while everyone else continues to enjoy the party. Jen is even assigned to walk with a canine partner down the aisle, while everyone else has a human partner. This story piles on aggravation after aggravation to make Jen Hulk out, but Jen resolutely stays just Jen. Even when her courtroom nemesis, Titania, makes an appearance as a wedding guest, Jen simmers internally, but doesn't boil over.

Bruce is wrong about what triggers the Hulk in Jen. Rage and fear may trigger his 'other guy' to come out, but Jen's trigger is different. It's not that she has more control, it's that she's a pushover. She avoids conflict and making a scene. She sucks it all up because she is submissive and compliant. We'll revisit this point later.

Having changed out of her Luke Jacobson, she wears the uniform of the other bridesmaids, which seems like she is one of them, but because the cut is She-Hulk sized, Jen once again looks puny and bully-able. It's likely that this was also the type of relationship she had with Lulu and her entourage all through high school. Jen may have been taken advantage of, but at least she had friends.

Not being able to stand up for herself is probably the reason she wants to be a lawyer. In this profession, she can stand up for others who can't stand up for themselves. Her business suits are armour that give her the confidence that Lawyer Jen has, that just Jen does not. This motivation is also why Jen is so reluctant to give up being a lawyer to train as a Hulk on Hulk beach with Bruce. Jen is invested in the totality of being Jennifer Walters: Attorney at Law, and becoming She-Hulk:Attorney at Law challenges her self-identity irrevocably. If the show hasn't been interesting for some viewers, it's probably because Jen avoids that conflict until the last straw culminating in episode 5. There is no superhero show if there is no conflict to resolve.

The 'B' story strongly parallels the 'A' story. It gives Nikki the opportunity to truly shine as a negotiator. We've already seen her negotiate with Pug, and the boba cafe barista in episode 5, but in episode 6, she negotiates a complex divorce case involving Mr Immortal, who has run out of several marriages by faking his own death, thus getting away from unpleasantness and alimony. Like Jen, Mr Immortal also pathologically avoids conflict, but by actually killing himself, then resurrecting and taking on a new identity once the messy paperwork has been settled.

In reviewing Mr Immortal's latest suicide attempt in a video posted online, Mallory and Nikki discover Intelligencia, a website dedicated exclusively to cancelling She-Hulk. Some posts on this site even go so far as to target her with death threats. This group is likely to be her new antagonist, taking her conflict from internal to external, moving forward.

The slap fight Jen has with Titania is a bridge between these two conflicts. Titania provokes Jen to become She-Hulk at the wedding. We learn that Titania is not a bully as she has no quarrel with Jen, but she views She-Hulk as competition for the attention of her 'Titaniacs'. The fight is for very low stakes, and it's quickly over when Titania accidentally faceplants herself and she literally 'loses face' in front of an Instagramming crowd. What we learn about just Jen is that her transformation into She-Hulk is not as seamless as confident Lawyer Jen's. Just Jen has to put in some effort to make that transformation, even 'forgetting' how to do it on her first attempt. It's not that she is in that much control over her 'other guy', but rather that her threshold for engaging in conflict is so high that it takes a lot of energy to work herself up that much.

Edit: Another way we could read Jen 'forgetting' how to turn is that she manipulates Titania into standing in front of her so that when She-Hulk does her ground-stomp, the shockwave hurls Titania onto the dance floor into full view of everyone. Since Titania wants to destroy She-Hulk in public, She-Hulk brings the fight to the public instead of keeping the battle outside where no one's watching. It's a tactical move showing how much meek just Jen needs to wear her She-Hulk persona when she needs to literally put her foot down.

The episode ends with an organisation that is active on Intelligencia, putting a plan in motion to kill She-Hulk, or at least steal her blood with a huge-bore needle... probably made of vibranium? Todd was asking some very suspicious questions before calling her a 'specimen' in episode 4. But if this needle is the 'next' phase, what could the previous phase be? It's heartwarming that after Jen's Kamikaze courtroom session in episode 5, someone called 'Josh' would be equally interested in both just Jen and She-Hulk. But who else would have better access to Jen's entirely penetrable human skin? But unlike Mr Immortal, Jen/She-Hulk won't be resurrecting if this group of 'hateful man babies', as Mallory describes them, gets its way.

And in the meta, this show, unlike just Jen, is clearly spoiling for a confrontation with the real world's She-Hulk hating mob. In making them an antagonistic character for She-Hulk to fight, the show not only breaks the 4th wall, but drags them in, potentially provoking a war both on-screen and off. It's the show saying 'we know you're trolling us on social media out there. You want to cancel us? Bring it, bros!' That is some meta-sh*t!

She-Hulk Season 1 mid-season review

The true persistent villain in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has been literally in our face for the first 5 episodes of Season 1. Her name is Jennifer Walters.

Until the end of Episode 5, She-Hulk is denied by Jen, repressed by Jen, and emerges only to be taken advantage of by Jen, whether it's for her new job, or for protection from thugs, or to get dates. Because Jen fears the destructive potential that She-Hulk represents, Jen adamantly controls She-Hulk, an ability she is so proud of and throws in Bruce's face right in the beginning, in Episode 1. But control over 'the other guy' is not what Bruce is teaching her to do. Jen's training montage begins on Hulk's beach resort, but it continues all the way through to episode 5 once she learns Bruce's main lesson: to integrate both halves into a singular being he calls, 'Smart Hulk'. It's a name other people called him, and it stuck, so now he proudly owns it.

Smug Jen, however, believes control over her Hulk self is enough, and so the first half of the series focuses not on the rise of She-Hulk, but on the complete and utter destruction of Jennifer Walters as an Attorney at Law, gradually degrading her courtroom status episode by episode from confident Assistant DA to an intimidated plaintiff who can't even speak at her own counter-suit against Titania for a frivolous trademark infringement. Even 'genius' cousin Ched gets to 'explain her own area of expertise', Trademark law, to her, and she knows she deserves it for her rookie mistake.

Simultaneously fighting Titania to regain her She-Hulk name, and accepting to wear the same clothes that 'suit' both personas in episode 5 is a huge step in reconciling Jen and She-Hulk. When a severely humbled Jen acknowledges the she and She-Hulk are one and the same, she finally relinquishes the 'Jennifer Walters: Attorney at Law' title -- which she insists on calling her 'lawyer show' -- and comes to terms with the 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law' title, which is the actual title of the series.

Just as Donny Blaze in episode 4 uses 'cheap human tricks' to bamboozle his unimpressed audience, this show revels in using similar tricks of misdirection, such as the Wrecking Crew, their mysterious boss, and Titania, to hide the chief antagonist in plain sight. Jen Walters, a.k.a. She-Hulk is her own worst enemy.

This show has picked up a lot of largely undeserved negative comments from a section of its viewing audience. They view it as episodic, and lacking in a clear direction as each episode seems to deal with inconsequential issues with no major overarching threat that needs to be dealt with. But they are missing the woods for the trees. Perhaps this show is simply too clever for its own good, but under the hood, it's one of the most consistently and tightly-written pieces of meta-fiction I've ever watched on TV. Really looking forward to the remaining 4 episodes in which, I expect, the real superhero-lawyer show begins.