TL;DR – Probably my favourite of the Disney+ Series so far, and the first to make the most of the narrative medium it was on.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

She-Hulk Attorney at Law Review –

How do you tie up a season that has been so joyfully chaotic as we have gotten so far? Do you bring back Wong (Benedict Wong) because everyone loves Wong? Do you add a splash of Daredevil (Charlie Cox) because people can’t get enough of him? Do you bring in a secret cameo that didn’t get spoiled in the first trailer for the show? After watching it, I can tell you that you did not expect to land where were ended up. In today’s review, we will first look at the season finale and then take a broader look at the season as a whole.

So to set the scene, after trying to take She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) down all season because they don’t like that she is a woman with Hulk powers. In Ribbit and Rip It, the group of assholes finally found their moment to strike when Jen was getting an award for being a good lawyer. While that was happening, they broadcast intimate images taken without her permission, trying to slut-shame her with revenge porn. In that moment of complete degradation of privacy, She-Hulk lashed out at the televisions showing the abuse, but now people see her as a monster, and cue old-timey opening titles. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode and season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

There was something so viscerally poignant from the opening this week that even though someone had committed multiple acts of invasion of privacy and assault, the only person facing any repercussions was Jen. For all its light-heartedness, this has been a show that knows when to ground itself in harsh reality, which is what we got this week. It is also needed to bait the viewer into thinking the episode will follow the same thematic beats as many shows in this post-The Hero with a Thousand Faces world, and indeed most of the MCU.

This direction is then built up with wave after wave of coincidence until nearly every person of importance in the show just so happened to end up at Emil Blonsky’s (Tim Roth) lodge before all hell broke loose. There was this moment where Pug (Josh Segarra) was sitting down with the idiots, and I think I have heard verbatim conversations about superheroes like Jane in Thor: Love and Thunder and how she didn’t ‘earn’ her powers. As if the entire Superhero universe is not filled with people that got their powers after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the show had just stopped her and then moved to its big set-piece action finale, it would have been a fine season finale. However, that is not the direction the show went in.

We have seen superheroes like Deadpool break the Forth Wall before, usually to comedic effect. We have also seen movies and shows that have revelled in that meta-commentary about filmmaking [see this year’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent or The Matrix Resurections]. However, I think it has been a long time since I have seen a show go hard in that direction, as we witnessed today. Not only did She-Hulk break the fourth wall, but she broke through the artifices that confine modern storytelling in the MCU.

Smashing through the entire Disney+ UI was not a direction I thought the show would take, nor was Jen fighting with the writer’s room, even less her going to Kevin Feige to fix things. If I am honest, I never suspected they would go full-Space Jam 2 and turn Kevin into K.E.V.I.N. [with his little cap on]. There was a level of meta-commentary that was both a wink to the audience and an honest exploration of what narratives mean in the modern age. Now to be clear, while the show was delighted to tease some of the familiar tropes of the MCU and, indeed, the creative head honcho himself with K.E.V.I.N., which is some Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. levels of punctuation annoyance. You can still feel that this whole storyline was okayed by the Marvel and probably even the Disney higher-ups. It does not ruin the episode at all. But I do think that it does need to be pointed out.

As I sit here in awe of what they pulled off, I wonder how the rushed ending might feel in future viewings. I took a moment to think about how this first season of She-Hulk landed, and I think this might be the best of the Disney+ shows in Phase 4. Some shows like Loki struggled a bit on that transition from movie to tv. Others, like WandaVision, had unique ideas but could not stick the landing. But She-Hulk Attorney at Law worked as well as it did because it was a tv show first and foremost.

At the heart of this show is a procedural, and while much like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, it skews more to the comedic side of things. Those structural bones make each of those episodes feel like an untied whole. Take, for example, The People vs. Emil Blonsky. We get two different legal stories, one with Emil Blonsky wanting to go out on bail and the other with someone impersonating Megan Thee Stallion. While we might have ended with twerking, each story has an opening and conclusion because a trial gives you those natural narrative points. It is a structure that has legs that could go for multiple seasons.

It also helps that this is a show that has constantly picked great casting choices at nearly every turn. Every moment Josh Segarra and Ginger Gonzaga are on screen is a joy, and I do hope we see more of them in the future. Tatiana Maslany brings all those years of working through different emotional states in Orphan Black and nails a complicated character that could have so easily been a failure. All the guest cast have been a delight in their own ways, and Jameela Jamil has probably been the best promotional actor in the business and has not stopped shining a light on the show at every opportunity.

In the end, do we recommend She-Hulk Attorney at Law: Whose Show is This? and Season 1? Yes, absolutely. It is such a strong outing that I think it just piped Ms. Marvel as my favourite Disney+ show this Phase. Every episode was a joy to watch, and I can’t wait to see more.     

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen She-Hulk Attorney at Law yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of She-Hulk Attorney at Law
Directed by – Kat Coiro & Anu Valia
Written by – Jessica Gao, Cody Ziglar, Zeb Wells, Kara Brown, Dana Schwartz, Melissa Hunter, Francesca Gailes & Jacqueline L. Gailes
Created by – Jessica Gao
Based On – She-Hulk by Stan Lee & John Buscema
Production/Distribution Companies – Marvel Studios & Disney+
Starring – Tatiana Maslany, Josh Segarra, Jameela Jamil, Ginger Gonzaga, Jon Bass, Griffin Matthews, Steve Coulter, Mark Linn-Baker, Tess Malis Kincaid, Patti Harrison, Rhys Coiro, Brandon Stanley, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Megan Thee Stallion, Tim Roth, Benedict Wong, Mark Ruffalo & Charlie Cox with Nick Gomez, Candice Rose, Michael H. Cole, Nicholas Cirillo, Drew Matthews, Elizabeth Becka, Wil Deusner, Eden Lee, Justin Miles, Trevor Salter, Si Chen, Vas Sanchez, David Pasquesi, McJenzie Kurtz, Abigail Esmena, Heidi Rew, Lucia Scarano, Bree Shannon, Schwanda Winston, Gregory Nassif St. John, David Otunga, Eddy Rioseco, Michel Curiel, Darin Toonder, Patty Guggenheim, Britt George, Leon Lamar, Ryan Powers, Mike Benitez, Caroline Henry, Justin Eaton, Nathan Hurd, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Terrence Clowe, John Piruccello, Jordan Aaron Ford, Justin Eaton, Peg O’Keef, George Bryant, Jason Turner, Mahdi Cocci, Keith Flippen, Bruce Blackshear, Brandon Hirsch, George Bryant, Monica Garcia Bradley, Tiffany Denise Hobbs, Toni Bryce, Arrianna Marie Hagan & Maliah Arrayah