Last night's She-Hulk, the season finale, informed me it was a creative triumph. Which is certainly not something I would have picked up on otherwise. Headwriter Jessica Gao returns to write the finale, the third episode she's written in the series overall, after the first two episodes. I still think the first two episodes are pretty good but this final episode just felt like Gao didn't want to be doing this anymore.
Full disclosure time again: I'm not a fan of sitcoms and I'm not a fan of fourth wall breaks. So, if you've seen the episode, you already know the main reasons I wasn't a big fan. Fourth wall breaking is a hallmark of postmodernism--art that achieves its effect by commenting on other art or on itself. I can appreciate it at times, particularly in the French New Wave, when it felt like the filmmakers were really using it to say something. But I feel breaking the fourth wall for sake of breaking the fourth wall is way too far past novel to be funny. So Jen marching through Disney to get to K.E.V.I.N. was not funny in itself for me and went on far too long.
I also don't think the show significantly explained why this was supposed to be better, or more artistically substantial, than Tod transforming into a Hulk and Titania and Bruce showing up. Titania and Bruce were obviously over the top on purpose, but a conflict between Tod, Emil, and Jen could have been a good action scene. Though then Titania would have been a loose thread. Having some explanation for her involvement would have been nice, and it really wouldn't have been so strange for her to use Intelligencia as a tool to take down Jen.
The show claims that it's ditching this in favour of resolving the plot about Jen coming to terms with her new dual identity. But that really hasn't been a prominent aspect of the series. It feels like the writers are lamenting the fact that this whole show is not a different show. It just leaves me with the question of, "Why didn't you write it differently then?" Maybe this is their admission that they couldn't, that they really don't like themselves or what they do. I can't jump on that hate train. It seems cowardly. I'd rather see the show go down on a noble effort than on this cop out.
The end of the episode sets up some things for the MCU as a whole, probably directives from the real Kevin (Feige). I'm not really into the whole "everyone has a kid now" theme so I'm not too interested in Bruce's kid. But it's also frustrating because it feels like there were a series of Hulk movies that happened off screen that we'll never see thanks to Universal holding onto the rights.
It was nice to see Daredevil come back. And Jen brought him to meet her family. That certainly seems more in line with the devout Catholic Matt Murdoch than a one night stand. I wonder how long their official coupledom will last. It would be nice to see her turn up on Daredevil with a more competent writing staff.
She-Hulk is available on Disney+.
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