Well, I’ll say one thing: It’s hard to write a review of a television series when the writers essentially craft a finale that says, “We’ve heard your past complaints, anticipated your current worries, and course corrected to make them all moot.” Because that’s essentially what “Whose Show is This?”, the first season finale of She-Hulk did. I’ve been writing about MCU (and, as it turns out, non-MCU) television shows since Agents of SHIELD hit ABC and Daredevil and Jessica Jones hit Netflix and nearly every single time, I’ve ended a season with the same complaint: The show was on a great course, but was willing and able to drop key character development beats because Marvel needed keep with its tried and true formula of having a massive fight to end the story (even if it didn’t really need one) and because the show had to serve as a launch pad for the next shiny thing in its arsenal.
WandaVison? Amazing, but the final battle was rather anti-climactic compared to the crushing emotional weight of the story that came before and the ending was meant to set up a film. Falcon and the Winter Soldier? A mess of confusing battles and underserved villains and clearly only existing to set up a future film. Ms. Marvel? Tried some really cool things and kept character as its central focus until a big battle caused the villain’s motivations to get blurry, but yeah, we knew it was really there to set-up a movie. Aside from Bruce’s throwaway introduction of his son (which, yes, is something we’re certain to learn more about in a future movie), She-Hulk managed to avoid using its finale as a film launchpad and meta-ed itself out of what was quickly becoming both an expected ending to an MCU property and a complete narrative mess.* And it did it with its trademark humor, smooth writing, and evidence that Kevin Feige really does have a sense of humor (or he actually is a robot overlord who simply has a human avatar he allows to walk among us – the jury’s still out on that one).
*Shout-out to the series for the really fun Incredible Hulk TV series sequence that was a hoot and a half.
It’s easy to say that She-Hulk smashed its finale because it gave me everything I was asking it to, and did it with humor (yes, K.E.V.I.N, the series is a half hour comedy). But there were definitely a number of cracks within the series that the finale opted to simply wave away rather than confront and explain. For example, what was the point of Titania? She was a half-baked character who never got off the ground outside of rather schlocky appearances that didn’t add much to the story. I mean, it doesn’t help when a one-off character like Madisynn fills her role leagues better than Titania ever could, but still. It was a big miss. And yes, the finale was great and I fully appreciate what it was attempting (and succeeded) to do, but the hand waving of all the conflict also served to eliminate the stakes rather than resolve them. Yes, Todd is in jail (and being sued). Yes, the Hulk serum is presumably gone*, and there was no alternative Hulks to fight off. Sure, not having a mindless epic battle felt pretty great in the grand scheme of things, but what happened with Todd, Abomination, and Titania once Jen reset everything? How did the bad guy get got? I’m guessing Todd’s serum failed and they called the cops?
*As Marvel fans know, the Intelligencia in the comics is a group of villains who wreak havoc on the world, and at least two of their traditional members (MODOK and The Leader) are set to appear in upcoming MCU properties. But She-Hulk never confirmed if anyone other than Todd was working behind the scenes with the intelligencia website – were one of these villains involved? Was it just rich incel Todd behind it all? It certainly seems like Marvel will want to have an official Intelligencia at some point (I mean, why not?) so perhaps they’ll simply absorb the now defunct site and name and rebrand? Time will have to tell on that one.
The one delightful addition within the finale – and a spin-off I now desperately want to see – was the addition of Wong breaking Blonsky out of prison once more (as it was a mid-credit scene, I was spoiled a tad by seeing Benedict Wong’s name in the credits and wondering when he appeared, only to see him pop in moments later). An extra nice touch to have him be late because he got caught up in binging another series (as Wong said, it’s Peak TV and there’s so much). One can only hope Madisynn is still hanging with Wongers, catching up on her own TV binges. A show with that trio, just watching TV and getting up to hijinks? That might just be the greatest MCU property of them all.
And that illustrates what I hope will be the lasting legacy of She-Hulk: You can have fun with these characters without also needing to send them into deadly peril at the drop of a dime. Yes, action adventure and fight scenes are cool – and I enjoyed several of the set pieces within this season. But you can play around with the superhero story structure without losing much of anything. We don’t always need the third act introduction of the super villain who came out of nowhere (or who was teased and teased so much that we expect them to come and fight). You can subvert these tropes and still have a compelling personal arc for a character. Jen was right: Her arc was learning to that Jen and She-Hulk could coexist within her. She didn’t need a massive fight sequence at the end with a similarly super-powered being to prove that to herself. It was something that she learned on her own. And that’s ok.
As the MCU expands and gets even more complex (with multi-verse adventures, time travel, and afterlives being explored), the human element of its stories is starting to get lost in the shuffle. But that’s the reason humans react to stories the way we do. We don’t need the flash and CGI insanity. We want to see human interaction, learning, compelling emotional stakes. If you throw in a fight sequence, that’s all well and good. But we watch movies and television for the characters. It’s my continued refrain in all my reviews: Give us complex and compelling characters on an interesting personal journey and we will come and watch. If Marvel can remember that and hold it as their North star as things continue expanding, the MCU will be all the richer for it.
-
Writing
-
Acting
-
Direction
