It’s growing on me. (Spoilers)
Back when I wrote the first episode chatter for She-Hulk, I noted that the show would have probably benefitted from dropping two episodes at once. And after watching episode 2, I can say that me from a week ago was one hundred percent correct. Not that episode one was terrible, but given that it was 90% flashback I thought the first impression would have been better with a two hour premiere.
Episode 2 takes place right after episode one, as Jennifer Walters reveals herself to the world as She-Hulk and stops Titania (Jameela Jamil) from harming the courtroom. Since no good deed goes unpunished, Walters finds herself fired as district attorney after the case is thrown out due to jury bias. Saving the jury’s life from a supervillain has the tendency to sway their opinion and all of that. Now known as the super hero, Walters finds herself virtually unemployable as an attorney due to the drama that would come with hiring such a person. I’m sure most of the law firms don’t want their building destroyed by the villain of the week.
Desperate for work and hitting rock bottom, Walters receives a surprise offer from Holden Holliway (Steve Coulter) to come work for his firm in a new division focused on superhumans. The catch is she has to do all of it in She-Hulk form. Her first case? The parole hearing of Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) aka Abomination. It’s interesting to see Disney finally acknowledge the Ed Norton 2008 Hulk movie as part of the MCU canon, something they’ve been rather hesitant on for years partly due to the films relatively low success, and because of the falling out with Ed Norton that caused him to be replaced by Mark Ruffalo.
It plays into the tone of the show nicely as Jennifer calls Bruce to get his approval to represent Blonsky, and in explaining how they’ve moved past that history Bruce says “I was a completely different person at the time” Jennifer gives a glance at the camera and “ha.” Of course all of it goes sideways when footage emerges on the internet of Abomination participating in an underground fighting ring, the same scene we saw in Shang-Chi. That scene was odd when it appeared in theaters last year and led to a lot of questions that I imagine the show is now going to address.
Why is Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme, breaking a supervillain out of prison for underground fighting tournaments? In Shang-Chi, Wong looks like he’s been helping Blonsky control himself, which Blonsky says in She-Hulk that he’s been working on controlling himself all these years. And then of course he breaks out of prison. This is not going to look good at his next hearing.
I think it’s fair to say that if you wanted a Matlock in the Marvel universe that you’re not going to get one. I believe even the show writers themselves have admitted they don’t know how the courtroom works and aren’t trying to emphasize the “attorney at law” part of the whole She-Hulk thing. Expect courtroom scenes to be interrupted before any legalese is drawn out with doors being busted down, walls smashes, and people revealing their secret identities (see photo above).
But I am enjoying the show.
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