'She-Hulk: Attorney At Law' Episode 1: "A Normal Amount Of Rage" Recap and Review
Who would have guessed after the poor reception to the trailer that the CGI would be the least of the series’ problems
WARNING: Contains Spoilers
The term ‘Mary-Sue’ has been thrown around the last few decades at characters that most often do not fit the criteria often by people who simply don’t like that specific character. For those who do not know, a ‘Mary-Sue’ references a character, often female, who is naturally liked or is attractive to everyone, is good at or successful at everything they try, and has no real flaws aside from the occasional naivety. This character most often pops up in fanfiction when the author inserts themselves into their fictional universe of choice to fulfill their fantasy. Some famous ‘Mary-Sues’ in cinema include Beowulf, Katniss Everdeen, Harry Potter, Rey Skywalker, and Luke Skywalker. The reason why this pertains to She-Hulk: Attorney At Law is that the entire first episode is a montage lining out why she is a ‘Mary-Sue.‘ Her origin is a Deus Ex Machina, which should require its own explanation but will not for the sake of brevity, as well as being poorly written and glossed over. There is no real conflict external or internal aside from an extremely brief tussle, which may be too strong of a word, with someone who might be the series’ antagonist in the closing seconds. The only real positive takeaway from this episode is that it at least has a few laughs and Tatiana Maslany does a great job in spite of what could be the worst opening episode of any Marvel series to date.
The episode begins in the law offices of Ms. Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) as she practices her opening statement for upcoming legal proceedings in front of her co-workers Dennis (Drew Matthews) and Nikki (Ginger Gonzaga). They praise her speech and head to the trial but before she leaves she turns to the camera and addresses the 6 foot 7 inch green rage elephant in the room: She-Hulk. Cut to a few months ago during a road trip with her cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk. After some banter and a brief speculation about Captain America’s virginity, an Alien spaceship comes out of nowhere and the two go careening off the road and roll over into a ditch. Jennifer is generally unharmed aside from a cut on her arm but Bruce is slightly more dazed, as she pulls Bruce from the wreckage a few drops of his drop onto her cut. Almost immediately, her veins turn green and she enlages into a hulking rage monster. She runs into the forest and blacks out. Hours later she wakes up in the middle of the forest and wanders to a nearby diner. She sneaks her way to the bathroom where she cleans up and is taken care of by an overly nice group of bar patrons. After a quick to her cousin for a pick up she is confronted by a group of guys with bad intentions. After being pestered once too far she Hulks out but is tackled by her Hulking cousin just before she could do any real harm. She wakes in an strange bed in a beach front villa. After some exploring she finds her Hulk of a cousin in a gamma lab in his basement. He lays out her situation, to put it simply she is also a Hulk and there is no going back. After breakfast, Bruce lays out the plan to help Jennifer control herself as a Hulk. Together they induce She-Hulk out and quickly learn that she is in full control of her Hulk form. With that knowledge, they try several techniques to help her control her new super strong form. She takes to her new form like a seasoned pro and it makes her question why she is still in isolation. Bruce tries to stop her, with some light force, but in the end he realizes that she can take care of herself and lets her return to the world. Back to the law offices, Jennifer sits quietly in the trial waiting to say her piece when the villain Titania (Jameela Jamil) bursts through the wall randomly, Jennifer wastes no time knocking out Titania and showing the world She-Hulk.
After an episode like this it is hard to break down the events and story because there seems to be no real reason for any of it. A spaceship comes down and causes them to wreck and the only acknowledgment of it is Bruce saying “I should probably look into that,” Titana appears at the end of the episode, breaks through a wall, gets into a fight with She-Hulk for some reason. In fact, most of this episode can be boiled down to: blank happens for some reason. Her She-Hulk blood heals Bruce for some reason, she can control her Hulk form for some reason, she is good at being a Hulk for some reason, and a villain shows up to her trial for some reason. There is bad writing, there is lazy writing, and there is whatever this is. As little effort that was put into writing the story it is clear that put all their effort into making sure Jennifer is quippy, smart, likeable, and adorable. She has literally no personality flaws, nothing to humanize her or make her feel like a real person. She feels as if she was written by an eighth grader trying to make the most awesomest popular girl who is too cool to hang with the popular girls who are all just jealous of her anyway. In all fairness, Tatiana Maslany plays the character well enough to almost mask the flaws in the characterization and writing. The character of She-Hulk/Jennifer Walters is likeable which is a testament to Maslany’s acting because, as written, the character could come off as cocky or overconfident but she manages to avoid it… barely. Given how little we see of any other character it would be unfair to judge their performances thus far so the only other role to scrutinize would be Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner. But there isn’t much to say about Ruffalo’s performance that hasn’t been said before over the last decade, he’s a pro. Ruffalo knows this character inside and out and everything that has been said about his character has been said, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. There is nothing new to the character and he is mostly used as an expository device to explain Jennifer’s situation but what really hurts the character is that he is used as a measuring stick to show how much better at being a Hulk that Jennifer is than him. Bruce spends the entire episode baffled at fact that Jennifer is so much better than this than he was. At one point he even confirms that he is able to heal his arm, which was extremely damaged due to the Infinity Gauntlet, because her blood was better than his. Every aspect of this episode is tailor made to show just how smart, cool, likeable, strong, and great that Jennifer Walters is to the detriment of the story overall.
To say that She-Hulk: Attorney At Law stumbled out of the gate is an understatement. The series ran into the gate at full speed, bounced off, turned around and ran the opposite direction for about 50 feet. You can’t judge the story because there is none to judge. There is really only one character to look at because the other is mostly a prop. There is nothing to be said about the CGI that hasn’t been screamed about since the trailer dropped. So what can be said about the show? It could be said that an earnest effort to create a smart, likeable, and strong female protagonist instead created a character that is unrelatable. It could be said that in an effort to create an environment to showcase how smart, likeable, and strong this character was they neglected to make a story that made any sense or had any impact. It could be said that good intentions led to a poorly assembled show that is not to the standard that previous shows have established. What can definitively be said about the show is that it is not off to a good start, but there is room to improve and only time will tell how the series ends up. So for now, one can only hope that the series improves… for some reason.