She-Hulk: Attorney at Law – Superhuman Law Review

One of the benefits of being a half hour comedy is that plot can move quickly – in fact it has to move quickly – to accommodate the shorter episode running time. So, where it might have taken a hour-long drama version of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law two hour-long episodes to get Jen ensconced at Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway (GLK&H) headlining the Superhuman Division (and being forced to use her alter-ego for work, despite not really wanting much to do with her Hulk side), this series got us there in a quick 45 minutes – by the midway point of “Superhuman Law,” Jen was assigned to work on Abomination’s parole hearing.

Now, is this particular case (or this particular arc) all that interesting yet? Not really. Yes, it was interesting to see Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky officially in the modern MCU (he appeared in 2008’s Incredible Hulk, back when Edward Norton and not Mark Ruffalo was playing the green hero), after his brief appearance in Shang-Chi (he was, as he appeared at the end of this episode, working with Wong in the fighting pits – which is presumably how Wong will find his way into She-Hulk, once Jen confronts Blonsky and Wong about the former breaking out of a maximum security prison to win some cash fighting). And I did enjoy the latest installment of “MCU villains point out that the good guys acted pretty poorly as well” with Blonsky pointing out that he was provided Super Soldier Serum by the US government, who then instructed him to take out Hulk (that he went a little nuts and rampaged through Harlem as well, well, I mean, they gave him the Serum and very little oversight – perhaps it was a side effect?). It’s a compelling argument for parole – one that Jen recognizes does have some merit – but I just hope that the show is willing to actually interrogate some of the “good guy” actions here and not just provide lip service and then drop the plot point – see Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness for recent examples of some of these same ideas coming up (interrogating the idea of good guys and bad guys and what determines the distinction) only for the writers to drop them off a cliff when it came time to bring the narrative thread home.

But, outside of the potential for an interesting narrative arc for Blonsky (who is likely not getting parole any time soon after his little fight club outing), the best parts of the episode had more to do with Jen being Jen than with her being She-Hulk. Watching her interact with her family – especially Mark-Lin Baker’s Morris Walters, Jen’s really lovely dad – was a highlight of the episode. What a colorful group – no wonder they didn’t really care that Jen is just like cousin Bruce! And Jen’s new, dim but kind, coworker Pug (played by the always hilarious Josh Segarra, who is also killing it and stealing all the scenes in HBO Max’s The Other Two) was a welcome addition to the series. It was interesting that, after introducing her briefly in last week’s premiere, Titania didn’t make an appearance (outside of appearing in various news reports naming the character and mentioning that she was trying to escape from Traffic Court).

And it’s that lack of consistency with Titania (although we all know she’ll be back at some point in the series) that leads me to my one issue with the series thus far: While the plot is moving forward at a nice clip, we aren’t really getting the time to sit in the story. Yes, this is a half-hour comedy, and that’s one of the things I was just praising. But there’s a way to move the story forward (letting Jen get fired and hired at a new position in a mere ten minutes is a good thing) while still allowing us the chance to get clear character development and a better understanding of the rules of this particular corner of the MCU at the same time. While it’s not uncommon for an attorney to switch from prosecutor to defense attorney (which is the switch Jen made this episode), it’s not really nearly as simple as the show made it seem (and yes, it’s a TV show, I give it a lot of leeway for that, but you don’t just take a job as a defense attorney after working in the DA’s office on a whim – that reflects strangely on Jen as a lawyer in my book). While the show has mentioned GLK&H, and we’ve seen them briefly in court, we didn’t learn anything about them this week – other than they pay well and one of the named partners purposefully sought out Jen to lead the new department. Are they a shady firm (as most high-powered defense firms are shown to be in film and television)? Is there something more going on here than just having Jen front a new department (aka: Is the firm working for some outside MCU force)? I’m sure we’ll get the answers at some point down the line – the series will, eventually, need to link Jen and She-Hulk to more of the MCU game board than just Bruce Banner* and a handful of lower-level criminals and supporting characters. But it’s odd to me that Jen didn’t spend any time really getting a feel for the firm or for the offer before accepting. It’s a missed opportunity to give us some exposition – and a better look at Jen as a person – before pushing forward with the narrative arc of the series. I mean, when you have a lead character who breaks the fourth wall, it’s not a hard thing to add in quickly.

*Speaking of Bruce, we see he’s off on his own adventure, presumably having investigated just what the Sakaarian ship wanted when it caused Bruce and Jen to crash in the episode one flashback. So, Bruce is headed off to Sakaar. What for? Well, that’s something I’m sure we’ll learn in another MCU property.

But, while the series remains fun and light, the lack of real substance was really felt this week. Maybe it’s because we’ve been trained to look for alternatives and wait for the other MCU shoe to drop with all series, but I wasn’t as engaged with the story this time out. I just want to know a bit more about Jen – who she is when she isn’t being exploited for her power and what kind of attorney she is. After all, that’s part of the show’s title – hopefully next week, when she inevitably confronts Blonsky and Wong, we’ll see a bit more of who she truly is.