After last week’s abomination of an episode, I figured we could only go up from there.
However, having watched the series’ latest and most pointless episode to date, I’m now seriously wondering if She-Hulk: Attorney at Law could be the worst television show ever produced.
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She-Hulk has a lot of problems, and outside of its blatant misandry, its biggest one is that it just has no direction.
Across an average 16 episode cable season, you expect to get a couple of filler episodes that have little to do with the series’ overarching story.
However, in the case of She-Hulk, its fifth episode marks the second filler episode (after last week’s wine aunt Facebook post come to life) of its short, nine-episode season.
Talk about wasting people’s time.
This show only exists because it’s about a female superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
At this point in the story, Jennifer Walters is not a hero, as she’s made clear in her multiple denunciations of the idea that she could ever be a costumed crime fighter.
Hell, she’s barely even a lawyer.
She-Hulk also suffers from the fact that it has no compelling villains for audiences to root against.
In fact, the only thing close to a ‘series bad guy’ She-Hulk has are the pop-feminist caricatures of men she keeps meeting on dating apps.
Worst of all, the show clearly isn’t funny, and with every attempt at humor seems to be playing chicken with its viewers’ patience.
So what are we left with?
We’re left with an episode about copyright and clothing.
That’s it.
The A-plot of this week’s episode revolves around a copyright conflict between the Jade Giantess and psuedo-supervillain (if you can even call her that) Titania over the name ‘She-Hulk’, which the latter trademarked in retaliation for her poorly-cut-humiliation in episode one.
At this point, Titania is nothing more than Khloe Kardashian with super powers.
Speaking of, we still don’t know exactly why Titania attacked She-Hulk in that episode.
With no official word, I’m left to guess that in an attempt to impress viewers, the first episode was roughly retooled with footage from later in the series which would have explained why these two are enemies at all.
The fact that they were so willing and able to chop up the series’ story structure in post-production is another sign that that She-Hulk has no direction.
This show is a mess.
Don’t worry though, dear viewers, because the episode’s B plot is far more interesting.
And by interesting, I mean f—ing pointless.
While not focusing on Jen’s current problems, the episode follows her BFF Nikki and their law friend pug (who seems to change his personality and speaking voice between each episode) as they hunt for the ‘Drip Broker’, a secretive fashion designer who works exclusively in superhero costumes.
(Also, for the record, I still suspect Pug is gay, as he’s the only male up to this point in the show that’s been given any positive portrayal.)
Eventually, the two are introduced to the man himself, Luke Jacobson, a character who feels like he was plucked right from the contestant line-up of a RuPaul’s Drag Race finale before putting on his makeup, Luke agrees to take on the task of not only crafting Jen a custom, shape-shifting business suit.
Feeling inspired by his new client, he also throws in her first superhero costume free-of-charge.
Don’t worry though, you won’t see it in this episode, as this storyline goes nowhere, and after being forgotten halfway through the episode, is revealed to be a drawn out way to set-up the reveal of Daredevil’s new helmet ahead of his cameo next week.
Of course, for those of you who have been waiting for Daredevil’s MCU debut, keep in mind that the writers of this show are not going to use any of the canon from the Netflix series. Brace yourselves for a quippy Daredevil.
On the subject of Jen’s fashion date with Luke, their interaction in the final moments of the episodes features an absolutely bizarre editing mistake.
Upon her arrival to Luke’s studio for her appointment to try on her new clothes, the designer leads Jen to a changing room, helping her inside before handing her a suit from off the rack next to him.
Weirdly, as soon as she receives the suit, a zipping noise is head from inside the changing room, followed by an excited response from Jen as she lays eyes on the clothing.
This hand-off is followed by a brief moment where Luke, looking in on Jen, compliments his own work before turning to close the changing room’s curtains and give her the privacy to change her clothes.
At this point in the scene, given that nothing Luke handed Jen featured a zipper, it appears that the designer is simply looking in on a nude Jen as she takes off her own clothes.
However, the next moment reveals the source of this error, as Luke next hands Jen her superhero costume as packaged in a clothing bag – a clothing bag which does have a zipper and can be heard being unzipped in the next few moments.
What does this mean? It means the series’ production team fell asleep at the wheel and thought that both of Jen’s new outfits came in clothing bags, despite her business suit clearly coming off the rack as-is.
It’s small, but with how it seems to imply that Jen had no problem with Luke watching her undress, it’s a mistake that absolutely breaks what little, little immersion you may have had.
On the topic of the series’ lazy production team, this episode’s visual effects are arguably the worst of the series so far.
Some of the VFX look downright unfinished, almost as if there had been no time to do post-production on some scenes before they made it to air.
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Oh, and as a bonus? The show whose cast and crew have regularly complained, whined, and decried men who objectify women, this episode brings back the ‘sexy male feminist’ from the last episode just for the sake of letting the audience know that he’s a sexy male feminist.
With this kind of mentality at the forefront of her series, it’s no surprise that She-Hulk‘s showrunner is pushing 40 and still single.
I know this is a shorter review, with a decent amount of it dedicated to a single editing error, but that’s because there just isn’t much to say about this episode.
Nothing happened. I’ve seen more plot development in a 10-minute episode of Doug (Nickelodeon’s Doug, not that Disney bulls–t) than I did here.
If there’s anything positive about this episode, it’s that it can be looked at as the calm before the storm, as I have a good feeling that there’s going to be a lot more people getting angry at this series after their favorite Horn Head gets the Disney-ization treatment next week.
That, and at least this episode was shorter than the last one.
