Whose Show Is This?
We’ve made it guys. Episode 9 of She Hulk starts with Jen waking up in a cage. After not being able to control her anger, Jen claims that this is “how anyone would respond in that situation.” Which is a fair point… except Jen has already told us that she can control her anger infinitely better than Bruce can. Would Bruce Banner have reacted in the same way? Anyway, Jen is given an offer from the DA for a plea deal. The terms include her permanently banned from transforming into She-Hulk. She also quits her job and gives up her apartment too, moving back home with her parents. Dennis even goes on-air, adding insult to injury by claiming he dated Jen for a while and could see the issues there. A video of She-Hulk dancing does the rounds – but it’s not the twerking in the office. It’s a video of Jen at college dancing about, which Jen’s embarrassed about, claiming she has work to do. That work includes Jen and Nikki working together to try and find out who has taken Jen’s information. Pug shows up on Nikki’s command at a conference in a lodge, where a group of men bemoan She-Hulk’s powers. Pug chimes in claiming it’s all due to nepotism. Todd is there too and he confirms that he’s the one who hacked Jen’s phone. Funnily enough, Abomination is also there. Jen arrives and notices Emil and Todd, and she’s shocked that she’s been betrayed. It turns out Josh was actually hired by Todd to steal her blood, that way Todd can take the blood for himself and become his own Hulk. As he injects himself and starts to become a Hulk, Titania crashes through the wall and Bruce drops from the sky. And then everything just goes completely off the rails. She-Hulk breaks the fourth wall, busting out of her own show and appearing in the writer’s room, talking to them directly. She-Hulk wants to talk to Kevin Feige, unhappy with a big action set piece in her own show. After hurting innocent security guards who are just doing their jobs, Jen shows up and notices that Kevin is actually an AI robot. Jen claims that she’s not happy with the direction of her show, pointing out that it’s a legal comedy. She decides to rewrite the whole story, going on to completely belittle the original Avengers and point out the flaws inherent in all of Phase Four’s projects in the process. She-Hulk turns back up in her own story. Titania is there in the background for some reason, along with all the other characters. Todd is arrested and Jen tells him she’ll “see him in court.” Emil heads back to prison for 10 years, absolutely fine with what’s happened, while Daredevil drops from the sky because that’s what Jen wants. During a family barbecue, Bruce arrives and shows off his son Skaar. During the post-credit sequence, Wong saves Emil and busts him out of prison.
The Episode Review
So She-Hulk comes to an end with a finale adding a bit of originality… but also doing so by bashing Marvel’s formula, The Avengers and the stale writing across Phase Four. It’s actually shocking that we’ve got to the point of “nothing matters, who cares, lets just do whatever and break Marvel continuity” as a solid way forward. It’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see how it pays off for them! To be fair, a lot of people have commented on Marvel’s declining writing and it’s nice to see it called out. But then that only matters if the writing improves from here and we see a genuine change to the quality in Marvel’s projects. On the whole, only Moon Knight, No Way Home and Wandavision really stand out. Sure, Multiverse of Madness threw in the ‘member berries but as a story, it had multiple plot holes running throughout. This finale of She-Hulk is certainly one of the more original in recent times but it also feels like dressing to disguise the lack of stakes or genuine storytelling. There’s absolutely no explanation of how Todd hired Josh, what their connection actually is and why he was at the wedding in the first place. Why was Emily Blonsky working with them? And what was Titania was even doing in the finale. Oh, and that’s with overlooking the fact Jen broke her own parole by turning into She-Hulk to apprehend them! All these plot elements seem like quirky inclusions until you actually dive into the details around what’s happening and see that the show is breaking its own established rules and stakes. But maybe that’s the point; throwing a bunch of random stuff at the screen and seeing what sticks in a sort of meta “See? Who cares anymore, as long as we get the nostalgia bait, people will love us!” Only Marvel can answer that but She-Hulk has been arguably the worst project Marvel have put out.
