In the She-Hulk Finale, Both Jen and the Series Reclaimed Their Power

This might sound controversial, but an amazing finale doesn’t always have to be preceded by a season of episodes of the same caliber.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was always going to be different from the other Disney+ content Marvel pushed out. So far, it’s the only comedy released among a sea of dramas, and it is also the only MCU property to feature a character that can break the fourth wall (eat your heart out Ryan Reynolds). The final episode of the season finally took advantage of that.

Like every Marvel show, it is far from perfect. The middle chunk of episodes had me harping again on the fact that these shows lack a certain balance when it comes to their pacing, and a second season could absolutely benefit from four more episodes. Even with the overarching thread of Jen’s journey having a place across the series, there were still bits with other characters that felt like filler. It would have been nice to get a little more of Nikki and Pug with Jen instead of without her, even though they made a decent duo. Titania also could have used a bit more time to develop, and there were times where the show sort of meandered its way through an episode only to shock you out of a lull with a fight scene. That’s not to discount any of the good things the show has to offer, but these flaws speak to a clear pattern within Marvel’s TV branch and they should have been snuffed out at least 3 shows ago.

That said, the finale picking up the pace was definitely the way to go. In the face of all of the complaints about the CGI and misogyny that have been hurled at the series, She-Hulk tells a very compelling story about a woman taking back full control of her own life. Jen has spent the entire season trying to reclaim her life on a lot of different ends. She was given powers she didn’t ask for and had to rewrite her entire life around them all while the rest of the world wanted to decide who she was. Her job hinged on publicly appearing in her Hulk form during all work hours, the name She-Hulk was something thrown on her and as soon as she accepted it someone else claimed it for themselves, and once she was finally able to accept her new identity, it was stripped away from her.

When the finale goes on to reveal that Todd (recurring She-Hulk fetish-haver) is the person behind Jen’s downfall, things start to go off the rails. He turns into some weird halfway-Hulk creature, Titania breaks through a wall out of nowhere, and Bruce Banner falls out of the sky and starts fighting The Abomination. Instead of letting what would have been an absolute nightmare of a finale play out, Jen smashes through the 4th wall to set things right. Watching her climb through the Disney+ interface and into the real world was super satisfying, partially because it’s straight up funny, but also because She-Hulk’s use of the 4th wall as a part of the show actually had importance to the plot. A character can talk to the audience all that they want, but it’s way more fun when the gimmick actually goes somewhere. Jen confronting the She-Hulk writers room and making her way up to K.E.V.I.N—the robot creator of the MCU who should have been voiced by Kevin Feige—is great, and the only thing that would make it better is if there were more hints to it happening earlier on in the series.