Last week, the hardcore fanbase of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was treated to 20 minutes of absolutely nothing.
This week, they received 25 minutes of almost something – but I wouldn’t say the result was much of an improvement.
Let’s get this spoiler out of the way at the top.
For those who were anticipating the appearance of a certain Horn Head following last week’s absolutely jam-packed episode, don’t worry: There’s no Daredevil this week.
We don’t even get to see either of the suits the series spent half of last week’s episode teasing.
Instead, we’re treated to the sad diary entry of a single woman in her late-30s who gets all of her dating advice from Twitter, Tik Tok, and, well, shows like She-Hulk, and is still confused as to why no one wants to be around her.
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What do you get when you put several incompetent women into a writer’s room and force them to stay there until they’ve turned out an episodes-worth of content?
You get episode six of She-Hulk, as written by Kara Brown, who prior to her MCU debut was best known as a staff writer on the CW Show In the Dark.
If you have never heard of this show, join the club.
Despite running for seasons, it never managed to pull in more than a million viewers with any given episode – no surprise that it was eventually canceled.
And it’s thanks to Brown we get what presents itself as the first thing resembling a ‘storyline’ across the series’ last three episode.
Opening with a direct dig at audience’s expectations for the costumed MCU debut of the Man Without Fear, wherein Jen breaks the fourth-wall to tell them “If you think this is happening at an inconvenient time, you’re right”, this week’s ‘A plot’ revolves around Jen’s serving as a bridesmaid at her high school friend’s wedding.
But of course, in typical She-Hulk fashion, the event serves as little more than a new venue for another Jennifer Walters pity party.
Though she arrives to the festivities excited to show off her new super-powered form, her friend quickly asks her to refrain from doing so as not to draw attention away from her big day.
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Disappointed but understanding, Jen proceeds to ‘de-Hulk’, and from there spends the rest of the event getting dumped on, offering no protestations to such frustrations as having to walk down the aisle with a dog as her respective groomsman, being asked by the bride to clean up all of the garbage lying around the venue while everyone else kept partying, and the bar being cash-only (and particularly pricey).
And of course, Titania.
Yes, the ‘supervillain influencer’ is back this week, if only to give viewers the illusion that the series has a real villain and isn’t just a rehash of the same ‘Jen realizes no one finds her interesting outside of her She-Hulk persona’ sorrow basking week in and week out.
Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t really do anything. Her appearance amounts to a few catty quips between her and Jen, one of the least exciting super hero ‘fights’ ever put to screen, and an overextended, grade-school level gag about her dental veneers being ruined during the tussle.
As for Jen, all this story really did was solidify my opinion that when this series end, she’ll go down as one of the most unlikeable protagonists in the history of television.
There is absolutely nothing compelling about her as a character. The writers have turned her into a placeholder for every over-the-hill career woman who blames men for the fact they haven’t achieved what they’ve wanted in life.
When all is said and done, all this story does is offer further confirmation that this show’s writers think a pratfalling Kim Kardashian clone or a woman getting wine-drunk is peak comedy.
In fact, by the time you get to Jen’s turn on the wagon, She-Hulk will have overplayed the ‘white girl wasted’ comedy skit so much – there was even a whole episode dedicated to the gag! – that you’ll need a drink of your own to get through it.
And just in case you thought this week’s ‘B plot’ would be its saving grace, don’t worry, because it’s even more pointless than the main one.
Taking on the Toxic Male of the Week, Nikki and Mallory are hired to help iron out the marital status of one Mister Immortal.
A super human with the ability, as his name implies, to self-revive after biting the dust, Mister Immortal seeks the pair’s assistance in divorcing from his over a dozen wives – and one husband – after they discovered he had faked his own deaths in order to escape his respective relationships.
This storyline is utterly f—ing pointless.
It is not funny, nor does it provide any entertainment value whatsoever.
Really, it serves only as a vehicle for Nikki and Mallory to team-up and shame Mister Immortal for ‘mansplaining’ and being emotionally weak.
And don’t worry, because the male bashing doesn’t stop there, as the end of this episode teases Intelligencia.
In the comics, this name referred to a supervillain group composed of a number of the 616’s smartest antagonists, including M.O.D.O.K., the Leader, and even Doctor Doom, who often find their world-ending plans thwarted by the Hulk.
In the She-Hulk series, it’s used by an online community of “manbabies’ who do nothing but insult the Jade Giantess and make the most strawman-esque death threats towards her person – because after 14-years of the MCU and numerous female heroes, men have all of a sudden decided that they can’t handle a female superhero in the world and, as such, must take her down.
The only time She-Hulk‘s primarily-female writers room puts any effort into their job is when they have a chance to just crap on men.
It would be one thing if the scene in the first episode where Jen lectures Bruce about how much more experienced she is with controlling her anger compared to him because she deals with men every day was where it ended, with the subject never really being brought up again.
However, such anti-male harping happens in every single episode.
On some level, as seen in interviews, the women who write this series have blamed society’s ‘male domination’ for the fact that it took them this long to get the opportunity to write a big-time Marvel project.
Yet, we’re six episodes in and at least 70% of the series’ entire dialog thus far is bitching about men – they’re showing you in real-time exactly why they should have never been given the chance in the first place.
Folks, we are two-thirds of the way to the end of She-Hulk‘s first (and let’s hope only) season, and the only real takeaways have been:
- The fact that the show has a serious problem with men, to the point where they’re basically the main antagonists of the series.
- Jennifer Walters has a severe ego problem for someone who has yet to prove themselves as a superhero or a lawyer.
- The Sorcerer Supreme really likes watching The Sopranos.
That’s it.
The too long didn’t read version of this review is simple: Barely anything happened and it doesn’t give me any optimism that the show will manage to do anything with the three episodes left in the season.
In fact, I’m pretty sure the only thing this first outing of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law will be successful at is making its audience want to find Jesus just so they can beg him to take them to the promised land and end their suffering.
