She Hulk Season 1 Review – A show that fails on almost every conceivable level

A lot has been said about Marvel’s declining quality of late, both on this site and the wider fandom, but Phase Four has undoubtedly been a rocky ride. The TV side of this long-running juggernaut started with WandaVision and since then has lurched between passable to underwhelming, before eventually sputtering to an end with She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, a show promising to be a pleasant distraction from the norm; a quirky, fourth-wall breaking legal comedy.

While that premise sounds interesting on paper, what we get instead is a show light on the comedy and completely devoid of any sort of legal drama.

She-Hulk is a bit of a mess; a tonally confused show that contradicts its own rules, as well as sporting a shockingly narcicisstic and arrogant protagonist.

Originally scheduled to drop before Ms Marvel, She-Hulk was apparently in such a mess that they had to postpone the launch and do emergency surgery to try and stitch this one together in some form of coherence. But even in doing that, She-Hulk’s problems stretch beyond bad CGI to simple things like storytelling, narrative, logical beats and character development – all of which missing or lacking here.

The show’s protagonist is Jennifer Walters, a successful lawyer who just so happens to be Bruce Banner aka. The Hulk’s cousin. The pair get into a car crash, prompting Jen to rip the door off and free Bruce. In doing so, cuts her arm open. Bruce’s blood mixes with her own and thus, She-Hulk is born.

After nearly seriously injuring a bunch of guys outside a bar just after, Banner saves Jen from Hulking out and losing control, taking her to a beach resort in order to help hone her power. He wants to teach her the ins and outs of being a Hulk.

However, Jen doesn’t like the idea of helping others and saving lives as that’s for “narcicisstic playboys and guys with ‘daddy issues’” so instead she doubles down on her job. Interestingly, she’s recruited by a top firm to work in the superhuman division as She-Hulk, which Jen doesn’t take too kindly to.

What follows is a loose string of episodic chapters that have very little to do with fighting crime or time in the courtroom, but instead focus almost entirely on Jen getting her social life in check. While that in itself sounds fine from a quirky comedic point of view, the show has a really cynical veneer over every scenario, where men are either belittled, act stupidly or -in the case of the finale – have to be told by a woman how to act like a man.

But even with all that in mind, some of these chapters are just plain boring. There’s an entire episode here around Jen waiting for a text from a guy she slept with after meeting him blind drunk at her friend’s wedding the chapter before. There’s another where Jen heads out to buy clothes, and a further chapter still where she decides to don the She-Hulk persona just so she can get some matches on Tinder.

What’s particularly shocking about the show though is how flippantly it deals with serious situations, inadvertently giving off double-standards for how Jen acts in almost every single episode. In one, She-Hulk sleeps with a guy on the first night and then in the morning, reverts back to being Jen. The guy is not happy that he’s been lied to and leaves. Jen however, believes it’s his fault, oblivious that she has essentially catfished him. I was half expecting the MTV crew and Nev Schulman to show up!

These sort of incidents crop up right the way through the show, moments that seem quirky and innocent until you actually stop and examine what’s happening. Nowhere else is that more evident than in the finale.

After 8 episodes of Jen taking digs at its audience, from proclaiming Wong’s appearance in one episode gives the writers “Twitter armour for a week” to calling out anyone criticising the writing in the show, She-Hulk herself breaks the fourth wall to head into the writer’s room, where a self-inserted Jessica Gao (the show’s head-writer and creator) is sitting, listening as Jen complains about the writing in her show.

In doing so, Jen changes her entire reality, including bringing a returning Matt Murdoch in (without asking his consent I may add) to join her for a family dinner.

It’s one of the most shocking and tone deaf finales I have ever seen and judging from the reaction online, has completely split the fanbase down the middle. Of course, if you enjoyed this show that’s absolutely fine and it’s great that people are finding joy in this series. In its own little way, this is a bold way of making your mark on the MCU but certainly feels as polarizing as The Last Jedi and Ghostbusters 2016 were.

At the end of the day, we all strive for entertainment and if you’re getting that from shows like She-Hulk that’s great, I’m genuinely happy for you guys.

As a critic, and with a job to examine and dissect things like narrative, story, CGI (which is a minor point, even if it is pretty bad) and character development, She-Hulk fails on almost every account making it one of the worst shows to come out of 2022.