She-Hulk, Season 1, Episode 9: Whose Show Is It Anyway?
Yeah, I'm... I'm not the biggest fan of this one. Admittedly, it's a very, very brave, ballsy move. And I can respect that. My hang-ups over this episode doesn't come from the frankly underwhelming plot about the Intelligencia storyline, but rather about the massive fourth-wall break that happens around halfway through the episode.
It's just that... well, I do really think that She-Hulk: Attorney at Law didn't really try to commit too hard into the fourth-wall breaking that her comic-book counterpart does, which makes this complete shattering of the fourth wall as a huge part of the climax feel a bit more bizarre than funny. Compare, I guess, the Deadpool movies where the fourth-wall breaks happen at a much more frequent rate. Although... I suppose the show might've gotten a bit too annoying if they had done it a bit more often? Eh.
The actual events that followed up the cliffhanger of the previous episode were a bit more procedural, if not the most exciting way to spin it. The other lawyers meet Jen in Blonsky's old cell, there's a nice little talk about how Jen doesn't get the 'anyone would respond like this' since she's not just 'anyone', but a Hulk. She gets a power-inhibitor cuff slapped on, she's fired from her job and we get to see a montage as she ends up moving back with her very supportive parents. At least dad is, anyway. Jen and Nikki try to hunt down Intelligencia and bring them to justice, which leads Nikki to use Jen's high school dance video to get a way into Intelligencia. And because they assumed a 'him', Nikki uses Pug to infiltrate the douchebag gathering, leading to Pug having to meet the Intelligencia members who are all frat bros who bitch about Lady Thors and She-Hulks and other 'females' and all that. Very obviously, Todd (the 'Wakanda spear' guy from last episode) is actually the mastermind of all this, which... sure, why not.
With the power of coincidence, Jen takes that time to take Blonsky's offer up on using his mountain retreat, not realizing that the retreat is where Intelligencia is having their little retreat in. Also, Blonsky, or rather, Abomination, is the guest speaker in this location... but the episode doesn't really make it particularly clear whether Abomination is actually the secret mastermind or sponsor behind Intelligencia or that he's just there to make money with his Abomination form. It leans more towards the latter since Abomination helps Jen out later on, but I don't know... this 'revelation' of Abomination entering the room feels kinda cheap.
And then things go absolutely off the rails. Todd injects himself with Jen's Hulk blood and turns into a deformed Hulk. Titania shows up! Hulk shows up, and mistakes Abomination protecting Jen as an attack!
And while I do agree that things kinda make sense, Jen... punches through the Disney+ Marvel menu. Okay? She decides to swing into "Marvel: Assembled", the behind-the-scenes show about the MCU... where she proceeds to basically take the role of a fictional character that's self-aware that she's in a show and talk to the writers. We get jokes of the massive Disney-Marvel NDA, we get jokes of the 'all just a dream' cop-out from the writers, and she comes face-to-face with Kevin Feige. Or rather, K.E.V.I.N., an AI entertainment algorithm that creates movies based on a formula -- poking fun at how Marvel themselves do admittedly fall into using formula.
There are a couple of fun jokes here, the best part of which is KEVIN telling She-Hulk to transform into her human form because 'She-Hulk' is expensive... and for the camera to cut away to the animation team doesn't have to animate her transformation. All the while, of course, KEVIN himself is a CGI robot. It's probably the funniest joke in this episode.
Jen and KEVIN have a bit of an argument, and Jen's argument is that the main story of her show is that her balance between her Jen and She-Hulk lives... and KEVIN agrees? Okay? Which... ends up returning to a superior climax, right? Except there really isn't any climax to speak of, because what we return to after KEVIN rewrites reality seems to be a retconned version where Todd never uses the 'derivative Super Soldier serum', Emil gets arrested, and... what happened in this sequence is muddled and Jen never really got her comeuppance against Todd and that other douche she slept with (who didn't even appear, right?) and... I don't know. I'm not going to trash-talk this episode just because the climax didn't agree with me. Because it's definitely experimental, and I know there's a lot of people who like these sort of comedies... but I don't know. Maybe I'm just old.
At the very least, I would've liked them to at least show how things went down in this 'fixed' version of events? With perhaps showing how the She-Hulk blood didn't work on Todd, or something? Or an actual conversation with Emil that explains what he's up to? No, instead we get Daredevil dropping down from the sky (literally!) and while it's always welcome to see Matt Murdock again, it feels far more shoehorned than Titania or Hulk in the 'bad' climax. Oh, hey, I guess KEVIN also sneaks in Hulk back into the family barbeque, with the completely out-of-nowhere introduction of Skaar, Son of Hulk. Okay, sure.
And... uh... yeah, I guess the final shot of the episode is She-Hulk going back to lawyering. Wong breaks Abomination out of prison. And... I don't know. This climax does try to be clever, it does try to be different. I respect that. The whole season has felt very experimental, really... I guess this just isn't a show for me, but I respect the fans of this show.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- The episode opens with a shot-for-shot parody of the 1977 The Incredible Hulk TV series, although obviously with She-Hulk in place of Hulk.
- Despite the bizarreness of Jen's fourth-wall breaking, Sensational She-Hulk #31 did have Jen break through her comics and demand explanations from Marvel offices.
- K.E.V.I.N. is, of course, a reference to head of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige.
- Skaar, Son of Hulk, is the son of Hulk and a Sakaarian in the comics, which he conceived during the events of World War Hulk which was very, very loosely adapted to Thor: Ragnarok.
- Wong and Abomination talking about the Wi-Fi password in Kamar-Taj is actually a reference to Mordo and Dr. Strange's discussion about Wi-Fi there (the password is Shamballa).
- Jane Foster's Thor is mentioned as one of the female superheroes that Intelligencia is complaining about, using the moniker of 'Lady Thor' which Jane in-universe loathes.
- She-Hulk mentions the X-Men, rightfully asking KEVIN when they're going to be added into the MCU.
- Black Panther's music plays when KEVIN talks about how the SFX team has moved to another project.
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