TV Review: She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, season 1

TV #48 of 2022:

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, season 1

Origin story. Spinoff. Legal comedy. Rom-com. Fourth-wall-breaking commentary on typical TV and comic-book tropes. Straightforward MCU entry itself. Feminist critique of chauvinism in fandom. This first season of She-Hulk is trying to be a lot of different things all at once, and they unfortunately cut against one another in their effectiveness at times. But generally speaking: what a rush!

I’ve had a blast with this introduction to Bruce Banner’s cousin Jen, and both the looseness of the plotting and the sometimes-dodgy effects work on her are helped immeasurably by the decision to cast as charismatic an actress as Tatiana Maslany in that role. It’s the big break for the performer that Orphan Black fans have been clamoring for ever since that show ended, and her practice playing off alternate clones of herself surely helps her sell whatever motion-capture wizardry is employed for her Hulk form here. Even seven-foot tall, green, and bulging with muscles, the star has effortless chemistry with everyone else on the screen.

The plot has its ups and downs. The supporting cast could have been fleshed out better, particularly a criminally under-utilized Renée Elise Goldsberry, but the program does a great job at welcoming back into the franchise both Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky / Abomination and Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil — 14 and 4 years respectively since their last proper MCU outings, albeit with brief film cameos last year for each. And I appreciate how often the scripts live up to the series subtitle and center the fact that their protagonist is a working lawyer rather than a superhero, finding neat legal avenues to explore in most episodes.

I’m sure that the very meta ending is going to prove divisive, but I like it, up to a certain degree. It is definitely an unexpected and thrilling take that we haven’t seen from Marvel before, but its winking playfulness masks how the creators are essentially scoring points by critiquing their own writing decisions. There’s something a little too self-congratulatory in calling out the flaws in a story you’ve just spent nine weeks building up, you know? Like, Jen is right when she complains that the premise of a villain stealing her blood to copy her powers is overdone… but we still devoted a lot of time to the development of that angle week over week that could have been used more productively instead. If the only reason to include an element is to ultimately acknowledge that it’s a dud, why not simply steer the season in a different direction all along?

So I’m not ready to call this experiment an unmitigated success, but it mostly acquits itself — attorney pun! — and skates by on charm when it can’t. Overall, I’ve enjoyed the show’s spunky ambitions and am looking forward to a hopefully more relaxed and confident round two.

[Content warning for stalking, revenge porn, and suicide.]

★★★★☆

Like this review?
–Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
–Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
–Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
–Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog