The Sensational She-Hulk

She vs Man

So first episode was surprising in how it just jumped into things. Just instantly, we casually meet Jen and Bruce and then a spaceship throws them off a cliff. Crazy. I don’t think I had any theories on how she would get powers but that’s just a funny situation. Then we don’t even discuss the spaceship, Bruce just gets right to testing her, classic male moment. The training arc was good and with the skip of 2 months, I decided to just adapt to the fast paced nature of the show. I do have to wonder, outside of special moves, what Bruce trained her on because this specific MCU Bruce hasn’t shown any martial arts. He does try to also pre-emptively tame her as he knows how angry Hulks can get. But two things about ‘anger management’.

1. First of all (redundant huh), I think he should be far more concerned with how she can just phase in and out of hulk mode. He kind of shows shock but doesn’t test why. This is a spoiler for later but we’ll also see Abomination/Emil Blonsky also phase in and out quite easily. So it begs the question of why Bruce needs his inhibitor so bad if he apparently ‘worked things out’ during the Blip. Because it doesn’t fucking looked like you worked out anything, you just suppressed the Hulk persona and are still restrained in the physical shell. Or maybe it’s because he secretly is “always angry” whatever the fuck that means. This issue mostly stems from the fact that they can’t give Hulk a movie so we don’t see Hulk or Bruce explore each other at all.
2. The scene where Jen displays the troubles have to go through while keeping their emotions in check is probably the first time many male Marvel fans ever heard of that. No, I’m serious, people really are that ignorant. As she tells this to her cousin Bruce, she plays into the emotions and phases into hulk in order to fool him which works and she easily phases back. I imagine that also tricked plenty of other fools. The main reason I brought it up though is because, in Rick and Morty, whenever a character has a speech like this, there’s usually a character or plotline that exposes their hubris. Of course, Gao wasn’t on R&M the whole time but I thought this may be a speech of hubris that would be exposed later on in the show. It’s also a very easy writing technique to give your character an arc, like there’s no sneaky secret to it. So I was slightly disappointed to go online an only see people complain about the see because #WokeDisney, #LFeminisim, #SheHulkBad. If it was a guy who might have the same arc with the same lines, it would have just been ignored and just taken as a regular story tool.

Now I also think Bruce is very stupid in arguing how necessary his training may be. You see, Hulks get their power from anger or any extreme emotion. For Bruce, that is supposed to be anger so the angrier he gets, the closer Hulk gets to breaking the world with one punch. But MCU Bruce does not try to relay this to Jen at all. He just says, “if you get angry, you’ll be dangerous” which is a very funny thing to say to a woman. It should be “if you get angry, you’ll be stronger”. Or, if he really wanted to show her hubris, he should have just pissed her off. Really get her to destroy the island. Convince her Rick Sanchez style. Even after destroying the bar, she kind of just shrugs it off, rebuilds it, and leaves without really learning about the upper limits of her power.

Maybe this is a way balancing the meta. In a video game, it would be harder for a Bruce player to transform but he’d be angrier/stronger than the Jen player who can phase easily.

Now Jen goes back to her regular life and I was okay with this. Then Titania busts through!!?? Wait what the fuck? Why now? She transformed just like that? Didn’t even try to find a hidden corner? Their fighting? Lmao rip bozo.

I don’t know if they should have introduced her arch enemy like that. So funny Titania asks “who are you” like she got introduced or some shit. I don’t know, I wouldn’t have done this scene but maybe next episode solves it.

Haha so the next episode doesn’t answer this because this is a sitcom which follow story arcs very loosely if at all. So She-Hulk gets named on the news much to Jen’s chagrin. After understandably losing her job, we meet her hilariously normal family. Then Holloway comes to offer Jen a job as a lawyer which we later learn to be as a superhero lawyer. Now this is a very interesting development world building wise. In the Defenders Saga, the title of superhero lawyer went to Jeri Hogarth who publicly represented Luke Cage and Danny Rand along with hiring Jessica Jones and Foggy Nelson. interestingly, she never met Matt Murdock. But Jeri promoted this persona on the news and everything, it was super public. It’s interesting to me that GLK and H would think that role would be revolutionary but it has been over five years. Mostly likely no one else stepped up. GLK and H are a very large firm but they are based in California. I wonder if they know how many superheroes operate on the East Coast.

Anyway, I kind of understand Jen’s frustration that she is just being used by her hulk persona but at the same time, no one was going to hire her for her human lifestyle. If I was her friend I’d inform her that everyone already has human lawyers and she can represent those who want superheroes. Now funny enough, she does have no experience being a superhero. One thing Bruce kept mentioning is that as a Hulk, she should absolutely be a hero. He was pushing the Great Power and Great Responsibility lesson without elaborating why or trying to inspire her. Tbh, if I became a hulk, I ain’t changing my lifestyle. I might flex or whatever but I got no business jumping into Kiev to stop the war. People truly are born for that kind of thing, you can’t just give someone powers and expect them to do a job they never wanted before. So in the end, the smartest thing to do is a few hero missions around LA (God knows that city needs someone) and then up charging your price to be hired. Cause how much is GKL and H really paying her to be the only super lawyer? If her salary isn’t in the millions, she is highly dumb.

Then we meet Emil Blonsky as Holloway just puts his case on her. This man has been in prison since 2008 and now it’s 2023/2024? Jeez, but he probably receive life in prison. Emil tells his perspective to Jen which is the objective version of events if you watch the Hulk movie which isn’t on Disney+ (lmao?). Then uh Bruce leaves the planet. Cool. THEN news of Blonsky fighting Wong (which was in the Shang-Chi film) spreads to the law firm which does a lot for me.

I thought at this point that since the show seems fast paced or at least time lapsed, that it would start in the timeline in tandem with Shang-Chi. Then maybe by the end of this show we would catch up to the last events of the Thor film, whatever happens there. That would instantly make this show a lot more interconnected than the other shows including the ones that actually have movie characters. I mean, it’d be what I wanted with the Defenders Saga as well. We’ll see.

“No I said I choose not,” is the funniest first line of the episode from Blonsky. Which is true, from the trailers he just seems to phase in and out easier than Bruce can. We then move on to a string of news and social media posts, public opinions on She-Hulk, some of which are very meta and others that fit in the universe. I know her and Blonsky are celebrities but it is surprising to me they are reporting the upcoming news case. I don’t know, I don’t pay attention to real news like that.

Wong! We get a very goofy little scene with him but I wanted to point how Jen said this won’t be a cameo every episode kind of thing. Firstly, that only convinces me that this show will continue to have cameos, specifically males ones which would be very cool. Man vs Man is a reliable writing structure and with it being one woman vs many different types of men, we can see how her character will react to each one. Using those reactions, you can paint her character. Secondly, Wong references the memory wiping spell but if I were to believe this episode takes place in the autumn before No Way Home (which ends at winter time) this is just a reference to other times that Strange and Wong use the spell. He did regret that in NWH as well but in a less silly matter.

Then we get to the trial which I would say worked out fairly well for Blonsky. I mean, as the viewer who sees all, it can be kind of hard to be convinced that the protagonist lawyer is arguing accurately enough to convince an ‘impartial’ judge. But there really were no holes in the arguments she presented and with the help of Wong, they really clinched it. The use of the inhibitor also should have just apart of the parole, how was that something she had to bring to the State after Bukowski complained about the fairy?

Speaking of that case, Pug’s actor has a very nice voice. Something about the delicacy in it. Honestly I don’t think the show spends enough time describing and mocking how funny it is Bukowski thought he was dating Megan Thee Stallion just because of a shape shifter. Like bro never asked, “why don’t you post me?”. Also Jen lambasting him in court was delivered quite well. Another male defeated.

I guess we had three guys today. Emil a second time, Wong, and Bukowski. Oh and the Wrecking Crew at the end which was interesting. Uh let’s try to paint her character with these three. Oh and Bruce. So Bruce is her cousin and they are very close cousins I have to say. I assume Bruce is older than her and anyways he treats her as a little sister but understands she does function as her own adult. To that, Jen is very forgiving or, it might be better to say, generous to Bruce. She’s able to lay down true feelings that she has and excuse herself if she feels rude. She forgives him a lot easier than other people. She’s somewhat mature, kind, and generous. With Emil, we see the generosity stretched very wide as she was willing to meet and listen to the man who tried to kill her cousin. Then she was flexible to forgive him after hearing from Bruce. She could also raise herself to defend him to the best of her efforts, even stringing in Wong who she does not know or could hope to control. But she never tries to control men, if only ever exposing the flaws of men such as she does with Bukowski. She is not childish but not so high strung to never mock stupidity. She is also cautious to never associate herself with these men in anyway that may weaken her.

Now I watched this episode a little late but I can usually forget/block out any spoilers for anything. Such an easy tactic, I don’t know how anyone complains about no spoiler warnings. But I had seen people posting about Megan and She-Hulk twerking. The first tweet I saw had no caption to the image so I thought it was an edit. Then after watching the episode, I started to see folks maulding at the idea that they did actually twerk. And I watched the full episode almost forgetting it happened until the post credit scene where it happened. Bruh! It wasn’t even a main part of the episode and these niggas are maaad. They’re furious at ass shaking (and it didn’t even shake like crazy). Like, I would understand if this was in the middle of the episode or otherwise imperative to the plot but you had to wait for the credits to roll by (or I guess you just skip them) and then watch them twerk for ten seconds. Then you get mad? That’s too funny to me what the hell. They were fully clothed, nothing skimpy, and ass barely vibrating. You really can’t win with these conserved snowflakes. Although there was another party that instead mocked the Disney company for needing to have that scene as if it wasn’t in the post credits scene. “Of course they made her slutty, its in the Feminist agenda” 😭😭.