Were you preemptively convinced that She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, like pretty much every other Marvel title, would come to some “inevitable†MCU conclusion, with big-screen cameos engaging in a punch fest that has little to do with the promising season of television you just watched? Gotcha! Jennifer Walters made sure that the She-Hulk: Attorney at Law season finale stuck the landing by basically writing it herself. What good is smashing if you can’t smash bad tropes and convoluted endings?
Let’s break it down. The finale was actually not that complicated. As much as Jen thinks she’s defying genre conventions, she can’t escape storytelling conventions. The episode more or less follows the story beats found in the last 30-ish minutes of a movie, starting with the dark night of the soul.
First, we are treated to an homage to the 1977 series The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. It’s corny and delightful. That turns out to be a dream that Jen’s having, one where she’s on a totally different kind of superhero show. In reality, she’s in jail after Hulking out at a gala. She takes a plea deal and is released with an inhibitor like Blonksy’s that prevents her from transforming. She then loses her job, moves back in with her parents, and still doesn’t have a lead on Intelligencia.
All Jen wants is to find out who’s responsible for hacking her phone and sue them for defamation and invasion of privacy. Technically what Intelligencia did is revenge porn and a criminal offense in the state of California, but I’m guessing that that term is a no-no on Disney+ even if the show is geared at more mature audiences. Everything kind of sucks across the board. She can’t be She-Hulk anymore, and it’s not really her fault. “This isn’t even a reluctant superhero story,†Jen says to the camera. “Is this what you guys want?†She leaves home in the middle of the night to stay at Emil Blonsky’s compound for a bit, where she is greeted by the Wrecker.
Meanwhile, Nikki posts an embarrassing video of Jen dancing in school that Jen’s mom gave her on the Intelligencia site to gain their trust and access to the inner circle. Trolls hate to see the women they hate having fun. Something very similar happened with U.S. representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez back in 2019. Nikki immediately gets an invite to the event. But she’s not a gross dude and can’t really masquerade as one. So she employs her work bestie, Pug.
Good Guy Pug is not enthused about making small talk with these men who refer to women strictly as “females†and don’t think She-Hulk earned her powers. He’s also losing cell reception and he’s forced to improvise in a room that seems oddly familiar. He then discovers that HulkKing is none other than Todd, the creep who’s been creeping about all season. In the words of Slick Nik, that checks out.
Meanwhile, Jen is pretty ready to skip to the healing part of her mental-health break. She asks Mr. Wrecker where she can find Blonsky. He tells her that he’s doing a private event in the lodge. The lodge! That’s where I’ve seen that location before. Todd’s Intelligencia meeting is taking place at Blonksy’s compound. Not only that, but Todd has hired the Abomination to speak to his aggressive online group. Jen discovers them and all of a sudden, miraculously even, all of our main characters are in the same place at the same time.
So was the Abomination the Big Bad? That feels a little unearned and unfair. Was the whole thing with the blood just so that Todd could get superpowers? That guy? Jen processes this along with us. Then Titania busts in, randomly. Then the Hulk — the OG Hulk, Bruce Banner — busts in as well. Soon enough, a bunch of superpeople are fighting and none of them are She-Hulk. Abomination even picks Jen up and holds her out of arm’s reach of the conflict that is technically about her. She’s been sidelined on her own show.
Jen breaks the fourth wall to complain about how the convergence of plotlines doesn’t make sense, and then the fourth wall fights back by pretending to kick us out to the Disney+ menu screen. Yes, seriously. Then, Jen takes off her inhibitor and She-Hulk smashes her way out of her screen, into the Disney+ menu, and then into an episode of the behind-the-scenes making-of documentary series Marvel Studios: Assembled. From there, she confidently strides into the She-Hulk: Attorney At Law writers’ room and asks, “What the hell, you guys?†Even Community never got this meta. I half-expect Jen to call me up and tell me how to write my recap at this point. Maybe she did. I’ll never tell.
To make everything even more bonkers, actual She-Hulk writers Jessica Gao and Zeb Wells are standing in the room behind two actors playing fictional versions of Jessica and Zeb and surrounded by more IRL She-Hulk writers. “There are certain things that are supposed to happen in a superhero story,†says fake Zeb. “This is the story that K.E.V.I.N. wants,†says fake Jessica. So she goes to speak with Kevin Feige. Well, not the president of Marvel Studios himself. (Thank goodness. Feige can be a showman, but we all know from many a Lorne Michaels cameo on Saturday Night Live that not every creative needs to act.) Instead, Jen talks to a robot named K.E.V.I.N., which stands for, in the great Marvel tradition, something very silly: â€Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus.â€
Because She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a fun law show, Jen presents her climactic final battle as a closing argument. The story, as she puts it, is that her life fell apart right when she was learning to be She-Hulk and Jen. She doesn’t need to fight an evil version of herself, whether that’s Titania or Todd and his weird blood story line. “The powers aren’t the villain,†she says. “He is.†She doesn’t need her cousin to do a deus ex machina. Her stakes are enough! To paraphrase the immortal words of Lady Bird, different things can be sad. It’s not all [Civil/Infinity/Secret] war.
Jen helps K.E.V.I.N. to pare down the finale to fit who she is as a superhero. Her changes also seemingly cross off the laundry list of complaints that those with Marvel fatigue have. No earth-shattering consequences. No teeing up teases for the movies. No more setting everything at night when you can’t see. More sex. She also uses her time with K.E.V.I.N. to ask some general MCU trope questions. Why are there so many Bad Dads? Is X-Men happening or not? Annoyed, K.E.V.I.N. kicks her out.
She returns to the compound where it’s daylight, Titania is livestreaming, Blonsky’s going back to jail for violating his parole, and Todd is being arrested. Jen says she’ll see him in court, because for her that’s way more satisfying than smashing him. Speaking of smashing and satisfying, Daredevil then defies all logic by dropping in from the literal sky. He’s too late to join the fight but just in time to dodge awkward questions at a barbecue with Jennifer’s family fit for the Toretto family.
Then Bruce returns, and introduces the group to Hulk’s son Skaar. You didn’t think she’d actually get away with her finale not setting anything up, did you? I, for one, welcome our K.E.V.I.N. overlord. There’s also a post-credits sequence where Wong breaks Blonsky out of jail again and allows him to stay in Kamar-Taj. What goofs! Interconnectivity had the last laugh.
That said, I wouldn’t think too hard about what the existence of K.E.V.I.N. “means for the phase four†or anything. Don’t let the word “nexus†trigger you. The robot said we’ll never be able to access him again. We can trust that, right? It’s probably not a multiverse thing. It’s not even a Deadpool thing. It’s a She-Hulk thing. By the way, if this was a little too Deadpool for you, know that She-Hulk was breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the writers in Marvel comics almost a decade before the Merc with a Mouth.
What do we think? Did She-Hulk: Attorney at Law have its legal-comedy cake and eat it too? Do you, as a fan, like being perceived by a Disney+ series? This episode made it clear to everyone who wasn’t already aware that there are folks at Marvel Studios who are just as online as all of us and are aware of every meme and hot take we make about Marvel movies and shows. I generally don’t like to be perceived, but I had so much fun with the show that I’ll make that sacrifice. She-Hulk can have her stakes. I can have mine. So be it.
Legal Pad
• There are multiple references to a second season in the Marvel Studios sequence. Is that confirmation? No take-backs!
• Was Jen’s “see you later, litigator†mug a Moon Knight reference or a great legal pun? What about both?
• Especially rude of that one troll at the Intelligencia meeting to say that “Lady Thor†sucks when she’s dead, my guy. Was the writers’ room not told how Thor: Love & Thunder ends? Yeesh!
• Technically, thanks to 2021’s X-Men: Hellfire Gala, Kevin Feige is a Marvel comics character. A two-dimensional version of the Marvel Studios executive approached Cyclops, drink in hand, and asked for his story. So thanks for the help, Jen, but Scott Summers is already on it.
• Jen forgot to tell the soundtrack not to tease future projects. Did you hear those Black Panther: Wakanda Forever drums when K.E.V.I.N. said that the visual-effects team was already working on another project and couldn’t do her transformation?
• Why are there Captain America posters that say “I want YOU … to put away your cell phone†all over Marvel Studios? Is this a real thing? I don’t have a witty remark about that. I am genuinely curious.