She-Hulk Attorney At Law

I don’t like to throw around the word “hero,” but since I’m reviewing a comic book adaptation, it seems appropriate. The next time that you see me on a plane, you need to offer me your first-class seat because I am an absolute hero for sitting through this garbage so that you don’t have to. Not only can I save you the time of watching this wreck, but I can save you the time of reading the rest of this review. Don’t watch She-Hulk Attorney at Law. It possesses no redeeming qualities sufficient to outweigh its inherent problems.

Ok, if you’re still reading, I assume you like punishment or are looking for just enough info to piss off your blue-haired Pelosi-loving sister-in-law at the Thanksgiving table. Either way, buckle up.

She-Hulk Review

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a contrived, uninspired mess from its very first fade-in—an awkward exposition dump—straight through to its intentionally self-aware snooze of a conclusion. Yes, the show proudly tells the audience that it doesn’t want an exciting ending. So instead of the usual meaningless MCU third-act CGI battle, we get something even less meaning: actual nothingness.

And that’s not hyperbole. By the time Jen returns from her trip outside the show’s reality and into the “real world” (which sounds fun—it’s not), the action is over, the police have arrested the bad guys, and we’re off to a family meal.

At this point, I’d normally give a plot summary, but She-Hulk has no plot to summarize. Jen gets turned into a Hulk, handles a few goofy lawsuits, sleeps with some strangers, and comes to terms with her transformation. That took nine thirty-minute episodes, and yet it’s still not a plot—it’s just a list of things that happened.

I’m not under the delusion that every series needs to be plot-driven. Some of the best TV is character-driven—Seinfeld is literally a show about nothing, and it works because the characters are fun. So with that in mind, let’s talk about these characters.

Jen Walters starts the series as a thirty-something deputy district attorney in Los Angeles. We quickly learn she’s a whiny complainer and professional victim who’s so narcissistic that she compares getting cat-called to the decade-long nightmare her cousin Bruce has endured since becoming the Hulk. As he selflessly attempts to help her transition to being superpowered, she belittles him at every opportunity because she’s a “strong modern woman” (read: snarky b!t@h). And maybe she should belittle him, because for no stated reason, she’s immediately better at everything Hulk-related within 24 hours of transforming.

She has perfect control of her strength and form, can fistfight Bruce—who’s twice her size—and can switch between Jen and She-Hulk at will while retaining her personality. Again, there’s no explanation. It’s not as though she’s a martial artist, yogi, or fitness guru. She even mocks Bruce’s attempts to teach her mind-body discipline. The only “reason” offered is her unearned and arrogant insistence that she’s simply better than him. She’s such a Mary Sue that in one scene, while in human form, she’s sucker-punched in the face by a super-powered villain hard enough to fly fifteen feet through the air, lands without a scratch, and stands up unassisted. I still remember Thor: Ragnarok—Bruce jumped out of a plane and died on impact before transforming.

Next up is Titania, the closest thing She-Hulk has to an antagonist. She’s a super-strong influencer with a fragile ego and a greedy streak—full stop. We meet her when she bursts into a courtroom in a rage over a traffic ticket and nearly murders a jury before Jen Hulks out and easily stops her. One might reasonably expect this rampaging criminal to spend the rest of the series in a super-powered prison (a thing that exists in the show) or at least stand trial. After all, this is supposed to be a legal comedy. But no—she’s immediately out and her next move is to trademark “She-Hulk,” slap it on cheap beauty products, and sue Jen. That way, instead of super-powered conflict or wrestling with the role of the superpowered in society, we get to watch tertiary characters argue over trademark law for a few minutes. Riveting!

Some of you might remember Emil Blonsky—the relentless special-forces commander who became the Abomination in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. Well, buckle up, because he’s back as a neutered cartoon of a man. You get to watch a bored-looking Tim Roth wandering around as a pothead hippie who dreams of running a commune for D-list super-powered lost souls.

Then there’s Daredevil—the character many were most excited for. And boy does he exist. He fights a bit until She-Hulk saves him, sleeps with Jen until he doesn’t, then returns for seconds after an awkward chat with her dad about Matt’s sexual relationship with her.

I cannot stress enough how little actually happens in this show, and of what low caliber that which does.

Most of the remaining cast fall into one of three categories:

1. strong independent women who get everything right,
2. cartoonish male buffoons—narcissists, chauvinists, or users,
3. cartoonish right-wing male buffoons—also narcissists, chauvinists, and users.

Oh, and Wong shows up…because reasons. The show even jokes that he’s there solely because fans love him and he boosts popularity.

Ironically, for a show so unaware of itself, self-awareness is a running theme. Like in the comics, Jen breaks the fourth wall, but here it mostly masks weak writing—especially as the series limps toward its finale. Several times, she looks into the camera and admits the episode or arc isn’t heading in the right direction. That’s not clever; it’s a confession.

Here’s the truth: Acknowledging that your writing is weak doesn’t excuse the weakness. She-Hulk claims to be a “legal comedy,” yet spends almost no meaningful time on the law and delivers even less comedy.

Its lack of self-awareness doesn’t stop there. In the opening, Bruce reveals he’s finally created a Hulk inhibitor that lets him remain human after a decade of torment. It’s broken moments later to set up Jen’s transformation. Jen immediately demands that he make another for her, even though the scene that just played out demonstrates that the inhibitor barely works. Bruce explains he can’t—it took years, it’s calibrated to him, and the prototype is ruined. A few episodes later, the super-powered penal system is handing out transformation inhibitors like Halloween candy. No explanation. The show needs them gone, so they’re gone. Then it needs them back, so they’re back.

In the series’s finale, Jen’s breaking of the fourth wall goes so far as to have her break through the Disney+ menu screen and break into the real world via a making-of documentary. There, she found out that all MCU programs and films are developed via a soulless AI that follows a tested and proven algorithm to produce consumer-friendly content. It’s a common enough complaint in the real-real world, but it falls flat just like everything else in this show. This breaking of the fourth wall is too much and isn’t earned within the context of the rest of She-Hulk. Rather, it’s clear the writers lacked the talent to end a series with no plot, so they skipped the ending and went straight to the mid-credit scene to set up the next MCU product.

WOKE REPORT

A Little of This, A Little of That

• The show is built on the foundation that to be a strong independent woman, you must also be a b!t@h and that men are either buffoons, misogynists, or both. Here’s a perfect example. There is an award ceremony given for the female lawyer of the year. It’s in an upscale venue. It’s beautifully decorated and a very classy event. When asked by the host (a man) what it’s like being a female lawyer, one of the show’s main supporting characters, who is also one of the award recipients, replies, “Twice the work, half the recognition, and you’re constantly being asked what it’s like being a female lawyer.” Remember that every time we’ve seen this woman working, we’ve seen a man working too. So, not doing twice the work. In fact, the show never indicates that she or any of the multitude of women in the law firm is doing anything more than any of her male counterparts. For goodness’ sake, she just won an award that is specifically to acknowledge her excellence in her field at an award ceremony that is specifically to recognize women in her field, and she has the gall to say that she gets half the recognition.
• In maybe the show’s best example of its tone-deafness, the first episode shows Bruce calmly and patiently trying to talk with Jen about her transformation, and she has the balls to say that she understands being angry infinitely better than he does because she’s been mansplained to and cat-called (also, there’s no way that she’s ever been cat-called). The man was on the run from the U.S. government for the better part of a decade. He had to give up his life’s work, the love of his life, and his identity. He’s had to deal with the guilt of billions in property damage and the displacement of people from their homes. He’s seen his friends die and fought in battles with universe-altering consequences and almost certainly suffers from PTSD, but sure, some Neanderthal whistled at you, so you know better. You wouldn’t want to be sexualized or anything…unless it serves you.
  • Yeah, that’s right; at one point, in an effort to hook up with strangers, Jen tried a dating app. When it doesn’t work, she tries again as her much better-looking alter-ego, cause girl power is all about embracing and exploiting your own sexuality, but you better not sexualize her…unless you’re hot.
• Modern woke sex politics is a major player in the show. Jen hops into bed with people she barely knows and says that making love is “eww,” and it should be called “sleeping with” someone instead. The show also acknowledges how miserable most people are after sleeping with someone new (aka a stranger… you know, like a whore) after the first few days, but it isn’t self-aware enough to maybe investigate or consider if that means that you shouldn’t do it.