Will the fourth wall ever get fixed?
The ending of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law took the MCU to wild new frontiers.
From the beginning of "She-Hulk," Jennifer Walters wants us to know that this isn't a
superhero show — it's a lawyer show.
The first episode shows her in her element, practicing closing arguments in her office
before heading to court.
Since she knows the majority of us watch MCU movies for the heroics of larger-than-life
characters, she turns to the camera and agrees to tell us her secret origin just to get it
out of the way.
"It's true, I am a Hulk.
And I'm guessing you're not gonna be able to focus on this fun lawyer show until you
know all about that, so let me get you up to speed."
After we learn about the car accident with her cousin Bruce and his blood accidentally
falling into her wound, and Bruce fails to train her, Jennifer enthusiastically exclaims
that this is now a lawyer show.
Then, Titania bursts through the wall and forces Jen to Hulk-Out, revealing her secret
to the world.
In a lot of ways, that is what the show is about: Jennifer Walters' refusal to be a superhero
and determination to just be a really good lawyer.
This idea comes back in various forms throughout the series, but the finale really hits it
home when she flat-out delivers a closing argument defending her right to want her show
to be something new and different in the MCU.
In this way, the series basically serves as an argument as to why new and different kinds
of stories can and should exist within the superhero space.
Another important theme moving through "She-Hulk" is that of second chances.
The most obvious example of this is the character of Emil Blonsky, who is Jennifer's first client
once she gets the job at the law offices of GLK&H.
The character was first introduced to the MCU in 2008's "The Incredible Hulk," in which
he signs up to receive the super soldier serum, which ultimately turns him into the Abomination.
In that film, he's clearly depicted as the villain, but in "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,"
he argues that he was the victim of a botched experiment carried out by the American government,
and that he's changed.
Jennifer is suspicious of Emil, but Bruce assures everyone that they've buried the hatchet
and that he too is a different man now.
Yes, this is an obvious reference to the fact that the Hulk was played by Edward Norton
in the '08 film, but it's also a statement on how people can change over time.
Aside from the various antagonists who get second chances, Jennifer has to learn to give
her new identity a second chance as well, which we see in the scene where Matt Murdock
explains that she has the incredible opportunity to help people both in the courtroom and in
the real world.
When Jennifer is infected by Bruce's blood, it throws a wrench into her entire life.
She had her own career and her own life, and now she's forced to live with a power that
she wants nothing to do with.
It's a common trope in superhero stories, but for her, it's a curse.
Not only can she no longer live her normal life, but everyone insists on comparing her
to her cousin.
"Jennifer Walters, also known as She-hulk, rumored to have been rejected by the Avengers."
The minute she reveals herself in court to stop Titania from hurting people, Jennifer
obliterates her anonymity.
To make matters worse, her identity quickly gets co-opted by the media, who claim her
to be nothing more than the "female" version of her cousin.
By the end of the series, Jennifer is so fed up with everyone comparing her to Bruce that
she literally rewrites the ending.
Everything's in place to have Bruce and Jennifer fight Hulk King side by side, but that would
only further the misconception that she's just a lady Hulk.
So she shuts that down and refuses to allow her show to end in the usual Marvel third
act action sequence.
The villain of "She-Hulk" isn't someone you can just haul off and punch in the face several
times.
Like the version of the Mandarin we got at the end of "Iron Man 3," She-Hulk's nemesis
is more of a concept than it is a specific individual.
Although, there is someone at the center of it all that is primarily responsible for all
the horrible things that happen to her.
Intelligencia is a website predominately made up of men who can't stand the fact that a
woman got cool superpowers and they didn't.
A lot like certain groups on the actual internet, they complain about being victims, claiming
that She-Hulk is strutting around with abilities that she doesn't deserve.
They feel betrayed and disenfranchised, and they take out that anger by shaming her online
and threatening to kill her.
As evidenced perfectly by the vitriol that's been leveraged at the show by a subset of
viewers since its announcement, this kind of response is far from fantasy.
From start to finish, the series makes a point of showing the real-world trends that allow
groups like Intelligencia to flourish.
Bruce Banner had to struggle for years to find peace with his alter ego.
Through his dialogue in "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law," we learn that for him, the Hulk truly
is another being living inside him.
After merging with that being, Bruce is finally able to find solace.
He tries to help Jennifer do the same, but she doesn't really need his help.
"The triggers are anger and fear."
"Those are like the baseline of any woman just existing."
People are always ready to knock her down, take advantage of her, or just assume they
know more than she does.
Since she's spent her entire life coming to grips with that, she doesn't need the same
training to control her moods that Bruce does.
Instead, her struggle is in accepting the fact that she can transform at all.
Again, once she changes, she becomes a public figure.
And when you're a public figure, the millions of strangers who know your name and image
decide who and what you are.
Jennifer argues over and over again that she isn't She-Hulk — she's just Jennifer Walters.
Only when she's able to embrace her new public persona, thanks in part to a little advice
from Daredevil, can she finally stride into the courthouse at the end with real confidence
— even though the media immediately accuses her of being a diva.
Titania is set up as the villain of the series pretty early on when she smashes through the
wall of the courtroom before Jen can deliver her closing argument and win the case.
Their fight is the inciting incident of the entire series, because that action results
in Jen revealing her green self to the world and the morons who post on Intelligencia to
rally together to take her down.
Then she disappears for a while.
When she shows back up, she has trademarked the name She-Hulk, making us think that she
has some diabolical plan to take She-Hulk down in a public forum, but that doesn't happen
either.
Finally, they meet again in the flesh at a wedding for Jen's high school friend, but
the fight doesn't quite go the way we expect either.
Then, just before the climax of the series pops off, she shows up to throw down with
everyone else — but the show takes a drastic left turn.
By the end, she's just another person standing around with nothing to do.
While Titania could be plotting something else, the fact of the matter is that she's
a nobody.
She's a person who learned how to manipulate public interest into making a profit by flaunting
her wealth, her image, and selling people bottles filled with nothing.
She is, basically, who the Intelligencia posters think She-Hulk is.
Jennifer Walters' love life is an absolute disaster.
She's too busy for relationships, and once she becomes She-Hulk, men are more interested
in her green form than her human form.
She thinks men don't want the "real" her — they just want the idealized version of her.
Still, she decides to use that to her advantage and sets up some dates.
The first guy she takes home is nice enough at first, but once he sees her human form,
he loses interest in her.
The second is a certifiable monster who films himself having sex with Jen without permission,
takes photos of her while she's sleeping, and then steals all the information on her
phone.
So, by the time she meets a blind lawyer named Matt Murdock from Hell's Kitchen, AKA Daredevil,
she's pretty done with relationships for the time being.
However, Matt manages to see her more clearly than anyone else.
He's uniquely suited to understand her struggle because he's also living a double life, so
he gets a bit of what she's going through.
In addition to their romantic connection, he helps her understand that there is a way
to use her double life to help people so she never has to give up who she is.
If "She-Hulk" has a singular villain, then it's the loser named Todd Phelps who dubs
himself "Hulk King."
At first, he's just one of many dates Jen goes on, and while his personality is played
for laughs, there's something unsettling about the way he speaks and carries himself.
Things take a turn later when he reveals himself to be the guy behind Intelligencia, and that
he set up Josh to infiltrate Jen's life and wreck it.
He doesn't see her as a human being.
As far as he's concerned, she's a giant, green reminder of everything he's not.
He's not confident.
He's not powerful.
He's a petty, childish, and dangerous sexist who assumes he's destined for greatness and
can't bear the fact that a woman has powers she didn't even want.
That's why he tries to dismantle her life and take her blood — he wants to be the Hulk.
We expect there to be a big throwdown when he Hulks out, but Jennifer pulls a twist and
just changes the trajectory of the episode.
The ending of "She-Hulk" is certainly strange, but it makes perfect sense for the show.
This is a character who's trying to be one thing, but everyone else wants her to be something else.
She doesn't want to be a superhero, but Bruce tries to make her one.
She doesn't want to go public, but Titania screws that up.
She wants to be respected as a lawyer, but her boss and the media are determined to make
her a freak show.
When the narrative of the series turns into a big punch-fest, she can't take it anymore
and literally steps outside her show to confront Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige himself,
in A.I. form.
Through this bizarre twist, Jen takes back the narrative of her own series and her life
in general.
"Enough of this angsty nighttime, let's do this big climax in daylight."
She's been the pawn in other people's stories for too long, and she decides to take back
what's hers.
Some viewers might find the ending so unconventional that it puts them off the show, but after
considering all of the show's meta-commentary, it's an oddly perfect way to wrap things up.
"She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" wouldn't be a proper MCU show if it didn't spend some time
setting up future stories.
After Jen re-writes the episode and makes sure that everyone gets some kind of arc,
she winds up back home with her parents for a celebratory barbeque.
Of course, they want to know everything about her life and especially her new beau Matt.
As everyone sits down to their meal, Bruce shows up in his Hulk form and apologizes for
being away on Sakaar for so long, promising to let us know all about it in the future.
The show even gives us a little tease as to what happened there when Bruce introduces
his son Skaar.
The character of Skaar first appears in "What If: Planet Hulk #1" before joining the Marvel
universe proper following the "World War Hulk" storyline.
In the comics, he's born to the Hulk and his wife Caiera on Sakaar.
Skaar ages quickly, and becomes an adult in no time, just as he appears in "She-Hulk."
His presence in the show suggests that the next Bruce Banner story we get might be an
MCU approximation of that same storyline.
It's a bit confusing at first when we see Emil Blonsky locked up in "She-Hulk: Attorney
at Law," given that the last place we saw him was fighting Wong in a cage in "Shang-Chi
and the Legend of the Ten Rings."
The series explains that Wong broke Emil out in order to have someone to spar with, but
that Emil returned to his cell to serve out his sentence afterward like the reformed man he is.
At the end of the "She-Hulk" finale, we see Emil locked up yet again, this time for violating
his parole by transforming into the Abomination.
Wong then shows up to break him out again.
"Emil, my apologies for the delay."
"You got sucked into another show, didn't you?"
Is Abomination asking Wong if he's binging a new tv program or hinting at the idea that
he and Wong could appear in another MCU show in the near future?
For now, that's one of the big unanswered questions in "She-Hulk."