Osborn? Ooh. See, this could have been HAMMER! And sure, to those of us in the know, that would have been a giveaway, but not to everybody!

Haha these dudes are so incompetent that I fully agree! I've updated the dial and need to rep more folks before repping you -and dang, have you earned it on my posts!Part of it is I think their role in HOMECOMING is a bit vague. They clean up after superhero fight, but are they also law enforcement? Is their goal to prevent and control superhero collateral damage? If so, that'd make their actions in NO WAY HOME make a little more sense. Additionally, can we assume the Sokovia Accords are still in effect? The Accords' status in the MCU has been unclear at best. Is Damage Control the enforcement wing of the Accords? That possibly makes their actions more clear in MS. MARVEL.

I do also think it helps a little that the show specifies that Deever has gone rogue and is more racist than her coworker, but the show also doesn't want to paint Damage Control in a positive color either, so...That's a hell of an interesting theory, and there might be something behind it. The upcoming series SPIDER-MAN: FRESHMAN YEAR shows stills of an apparently Black Norman Osborn. There are also rumors that Giancarlo Esposito has been cast in an unspecified MCU role. It could very well be Norman Osborn!

We also never found out who bought Stark Tower in HOMECOMING and if that matters...Haha HAMMER would be fun, if only for Justin Hammer to return.

That said, I wonder if Damage Control's actions are dipping them toward being an anti-metahuman organization. If so, I wonder if they're going to eventually be retooled into being the Department of Mutant Affairs and, much further down the road, Orchis...

Sounds good

Exudes big Karen energy, huh?



#144 Agent Sadie Deever
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 5
Points: 40
Keywords: Damage Control, Soldier

6 10 17 2

6 10 17 2

6 10 16 1

6 9 16 1

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Rogue Agent: At the beginning of your turn, roll 1d6. On 5-6, Deever's Actions don't count against your action token this turn.
Damage Control Drone: POWER: Generate a Damage Control Drone bystander within Deever's range and line of sight.

#144 Damage Control Drone
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 5

7 10 17 1

Taser Lasers: Penetrating/Psychic Blast & Incapacitate.

Hi folks! Thanks for your patience with me in getting these out the door. It's been crazy busy on this end, and I wanted to make sure I got to everybody's comments before continuing.

Ok, that's the last of the MS. MARVEL dials. The show has had the most lasting acclaim for an MCU show I've seen since WANDAVISION, so hopefully that means a 2nd season is coming. There are already rumors MOON KNIGHT S.2 is coming, so it could happen!

Our next few dials will potentially be from I AM GROOT, provided they're interesting enough. If now, SHE-HULK sure looks like it will provide TONS of zany dials.

Ooh, nice design.

Finally saw Love and Thunder and it worked for me. As some full disclosure though - I haven't read the iconic Mighty Thor run, I haven't read hardly any Thor comics, and Thor has always been my least favorite Avenger. I've also seen lots of folks (here and elsewhere) pretty down on the film, so my expectations were fairly low going in.

I think what worked for me is that:

First, broadly speaking I think the movie was fun and funny. I guess I just generally am open to Taika's campy, cheesy, mood-whiplashing ways.

I think a lot of the criticism here has been about the movie that didn't get made - which is totally fair! It's always dangerous to judge a movie for what it "should" have done, but in this case this movie is an adaptation of a fairly beloved and fairly recent (by Comics standards at least) story arc, and is the 4th movie in a franchise. It's fair enough to have expectations. For me though, I was okay that the movie didn't seem to want to try to critique Thor's "Godhood" or Colonialism or fitness to rule, because I felt like it made it crystal clear that it wasn't interested in doing so anymore. I also felt like it was okay that it only waved at romance without making that the core - again, I don't feel like that was its point.

The movie's point felt, fundamentally, to be about finding purpose after devastating loss, or grief, or tragedy. And I think it did a great job driving that arc home.

- This is a Thor that just spent five years in a crippling, drunken depression and rage after Thanos' victory (and Hela's, before that). Even now that he's "won", he's clearly a man unmoored, one who defined himself by "Avenging" so long he doesn't know where to go from here.

- Gorr in this regard is a mirror of Thor, not a critique - he literally is only fueled by his desire for vengeance. I knew the rough ending and still found myself floored at Thor's final move - to stop fighting and to point out that seriously, you can wish for anything, and you're going to wish for more death instead of life? Christian Bale sells the hell out of that scene. Gorr is Thor's future if he doesn't stop finding wars to fight and start finding a reason to live.

- And Jane is a counterpart - a person who knows death is inevitable, and finds the strength to keep fighting and keep living as long as she can. She represents both a culmination of all the lessons Thor has supposed to have been learning across his three movies - that worthiness starts with your own internal work and not a label that's granted to you, and she's also a sign to Thor again that no matter how bleak things are, there's always a reason to keep trying.

- And of course the reason to live is the actual reason for the title - to be a father, to train the next generation of legendary godlike warriors, to embrace parenthood. Thor has spent so long trying to be a King and an Avenger and a Lover that he needed the arc to show him what actually made sense and filled his life back up. It's a beat that is simultaneously out of nowhere and totally makes sense given Thor's relationship with family that has defined the first three movies. It's also a bit of an interesting beat culturally, to have a ripped, powerful, white guy decide that parenthood (and single parenthood) is what fulfills him, which I appreciate. (although admittedly, Disney's addiction to this as basically a new trope across The Mandalorian, Dr. Strange, and Kenobi might be getting a bit overplayed now)

I dunno. The movie isn't perfect and I'd put it solidly in the middle of Marvel. Of course I agree that Omnipotent City goes on too long and feels indulgent, and that Gorr feels deeply underused and mostly works on sheer force of Bale. But I think it did what it wanted to do, even if that isn't what it "ought to" have done based on the comics.

Well, I AM GROOT was the first MCU project that A) I didn’t like, B) that I didn’t think had much thematic heft, and C) that didn’t seem to have much purpose in existing. The conceit of the collection of shorts seems to be to be a set of Looney Tunes-like shorts about Toddler Groot’s misadventures, and sure, that could be good… but every part of it is compounded by something.

The shorts are not packaged together on Disney+, meaning they must be searched by episode title.

The shorts are not long, meaning that they’ve inherently got fewer ideas than a given Looney Tunes short, and tend to just stretch out a single joke for their 3.5-minute runtimes.

The shorts don’t hint anything forthcoming in the MCU, meaning all of the value is in the shorts themselves.

I wound up disliking the shorts themselves because they depict Groot as a spiteful, vindictive little bastard who’s just kind of… there. Apart from the picture he draws of the GotG, I don’t see heart or anything that endears me to the character, but material that pushes me further from him.

To be clear, my opinion isn’t the end-all, be-all, and some might find the humor more worth even the minimal time spent in these shorts… but I did not.



#145 Toddler Groot
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 0
Points: 30
Keywords: Guardians of the Galaxy, Brute, Kid

7 10 17 2

6 10 17 2

6 9 16 1

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Temper Tantrum: Giant Reach: 2. // When Toddler Groot misses with an attack, he has +1 Defense and Battle Fury until the beginning of your next turn.
Dance Off!: Super Senses, but when Toddler Groot succeeds with it, the opposing player may challenge you to a dance off. If they have sicker moves than you, Super Senses instead fails.
Leaf Costumes: Shape Change, and when Toddler Groot succeeds with it, he has +1 Defense until the beginning of your next turn.

Whoops! Looks like I missed some comments! Sorry about that, folks. It's been a hectic few weeks!
Many thanks, friend. I generally try to avoid dials that are roughly the same on every click, but Deever didn't have too many tactics or abilities, so simplicity seemed to be the way to go here.
This is a very interesting alternate take, and I respect your arguments!

You may be right about the greater textual point: where does Thor's story in this movie begin -in the movie itself, or in his previous few appearances where he'd allowed grief to consume him? It must be difficult as a MCU director, screenwriter, and showrunner to know where your story actually starts, especially if your work isn't the character's first appearance. We certainly see Iron Man go through a mega-arc over the course of all of his live action appearances.

I think my contention is that apart from the cold open with the GotG, I don't know if I see Thor exhibiting that same wanderlust and uncertainty, so much as him oscillating between the uneven romance and the comedy adventure. The search for purpose and the stagnation of not living for the moment didn't feel realized in his arc for me.

To be clear, I don't doubt it's there, like you suggest-- but I think it's one of the many other ideas we've discussed that the movie plays with. They're all good ideas and takeaways, but I don't know how many are fully formed in execution.

Fun dial - your time running the Comedy design thread has served you well.

Good to know I should give this a skip; sounds sadly inconsequential and mostly good for slightly amusing a kid for a few hours. Disappointing stuff since "Groot gets into hijinks while still being lovable and loved by his surrogate parents" sounds like such an easy pitch to get wrong.

Haha I mean, if you like Looney Toons or slapstick shorts, it might be worth your time to one extent or another. I DO very much enjoy Looney Toons and Nicktoons, despite me seeming curmudgeonly about humor; I just want it done well.

These 5 shorts, excluding credits, translate to 15 minutes of total runtime. There might be something there... but I didn't see anything that impressed me as someone who's enjoyed EVERY Pixar short.

Meanwhile, I'm struck by how beautiful the VFX work is and I wonder, based on a previous article I posted, how much crunch the shorts imposed on already-overburdened VFX artists : /

Just found this thread.

Loved your dials for the No way home movie.

Even with the critics for me , this is a DREAM COME TRUE of a movie. I dream for the 5% to be on a movie that give me 200% of what I could not even dream off. Love it. become one of my favoite movies ever and It give me more emotions than Endgame

I haven’t seen any of the Groot shorts yet, but I can say as someone who has a toddler, toddlers can be pretty awful when they want to, and the endearingly wonderful a moment later.

I’m completely on board with getting Marvel shorts out there, especially if they can give smaller characters who may not rank full on big screen treatment some exposure. I’d straight up die for Marvel movies to be preceded by Forbush Man shorts. And I still think Sony’s stupid as hell for not preceding every single Spider-Movie with a brand new Spider-Ham short cartoon like the one they made for the home release of Spider-Verse. Not only do we need more Mulaney Spider-Ham, but it feels like a perfect way to do it, and brighten up even the turdiest turd movies they can make with at least something good.

I’ll check out the Groot stuff and give more concrete thoughts at some point.

In general I've hated a lot of the shorts on D+ because it's like 90% credits and it's a hassle to watch them. I've watched...

- Star Wars: Forces of Destiny: I'm a pretty "woke" guy and generally higher on the sequel trilogy than the average fan and still found this all painfully tedious.

- Olaf Presents: Snore. A few good sight gags undone by too little substance.

- Rocket and Groot animated shorts: Lame. The first one had some vintage Invader Zym craziness but again just sunk by the format.

- Dug Days: i.e. the only good ones, since each episode still had some heft. Got a bit of a bump from this being one of Ed Asner's final acts as a performer.

It makes me wonder - who are these for? With the long opening and closing credits, they can't be for kids with no attention span? But with their fluffy, bite-sized nature they aren't really for "fans" of the franchise either?

Thank you so much, friend! I really appreciate it! I'm still very proud of my 3 dials for the Spider-Men and for Sandman in particular. Those were all quite fun to dial.

I'm glad you loved the movie so much! It's a great nostalgia piece for the live-action Spider-Man franchise, and it's got so much charm and heart in its own right. You can really see the love and dedication that went into it. That's a VERY good point about toddlers, and probably very fair to level at the I AM GROOT shorts. I wonder if what I needed in each short was a little bit more reason to invest in Groot and care about his microadventures. Of them, I think the final short did the best job of selling me on such a thing with such a character, but by that point, I was feeling pretty burned.

Haha getting Forbush Man shorts and/or more Spider-Ham shorts would be fun as hell. I'd also be down for each movie beginning with another Marvel One-Shot, or telling the continuing adventures of Howard the Duck as he blunders into one movie after another until eventually being in way over his head in an Avengers-level event.Haha your note for Olaf Presents is about what I made of I AM GROOT.

It's funny, I can't remember these being a thing prior to CARS when MATER'S TALL TALES came into being. I can't remember if they were packaged in the CARS DVD or if they were their own thing, but Cars was such a popular IP that those shorts had to have also been popular and Disney, in turn, would've taken notice. At a guess, all of these shorts are an attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle with whatever resources they have left over from various projects.

But who are they for? THAT is a damn interesting question, and one I can't answer. At least not beyond, "For fans of those properties." As you say, all of these shorts are poorly arranged on Disney+ and annoying to track down. They could be packaged together as 15-minute anthologies and be easier to track down and plausibly make bigger waves than they do. Their stories aren't super substantial, and they don't get much hype from the company.

Some guesses:

1. They're proof of concepts for animated shows or movies. They're attempts by the company to see if they get enough eyeballs to justify greenlighting a full series or movie based on elements of the shorts. In the Michael Eisner days, they just would've gotten cartoon shows, animated sequels, and merchandise galore. In the Iger days, the brand has refocused on maintaining what makes Disney feel special, so they're more careful about diluting brands than before. That's striking in an era when brand dilution is just what you do.

2. They're tax write-offs. Hollywood accounting is magical, inexplicable, and always ends with the corporation getting refunds. On paper, most movies aren't successful until decades later, which is a tactic used to underpay royalties. It's possible that these shorts were made with excess budget to fulfill financial & tax needs to reach a certain tax threshold.

3. They're holdovers to keep you interested in the brand. The way to keep people thinking and talking about Star Wars is to release more Star Wars stuff. Same for Disney & Marvel properties. The more you're excited about the brand in between big releases, the more likely you are to watch and buy more stuff, which is really the end goal. Spend $10 million on a few shorts, rake in $50 million from merchandise sales.

4. The shorts division is a separate divison trying to stay relevant. This is the most speculative here, but just going by how each brand on Disney+ is organized differently and not always intuitively, I'd guess that discreet companies upload content to Disney+ in different ways with different levels or organization. The division that makes shorts might be a separate one that might not intuit things about how to make their content most visible and accessible on the service. You'd be surprised how common that is in the content curation industry.

That's... the best I got. I wish I knew and had more, because that's a hell of a question.

SHE-HULK

Episode One

Things I Liked:
+Humor

Things I Didn’t Like:
-Bruce’s Training
-The structure

Mixed About:
*Captain America’s sex life

SHE-HULK greets us with a choppy pilot. It was evidently meant to be the 8th episode before getting swapped around to forefront the origin to meet audiences’ expectations. I assume the episode’s intended place would’ve made the spaceship and Titania’s courtroom appearance feel less random.

In the beginning and end of the episode, I see hints of a funny, 4th wall-breaking legal show about the misadventures of She-Hulk. I assume episodes 2 and 3 will solidify that.

Otherwise, the episode bugged me.

Oh, the origin is fine enough- basically what you’d expect a streamlined version of the comic origin to be. While I liked the ladies at the bar helping Jennifer while she was down, I was a little less wild about the cliche pack of would-be rapists.

Everything is sullied by the interaction with “Smart Hulk” (what happened to Professor Hulk?). While there are some funny moments here, the protracted training sequence never stopped feeling like male gatekeeping and mansplaining. It slowed the episode’s pace to a crawl and honestly made me like MCU Hulk less.

Special note to the subject everybody wants to take about: Captain America’s sex life. It’s a polarizing note that feels a hair garishly inserted, like Marvel Studios is trying to address the “why are your characters sexless” note in the shallowest possible way. I’m of 3 minds on the subject. 1) this is how loads of people talk about celebrities and the Marvel characters. Jennifer being obsessed with it didn’t feel out of character. 2) The idea that Steve randomly hooked up with a USO girl felt out of character to me, but… 3) This is a retcon, and who knows if a later retcon might not say that he didn’t tell the truth to Hulk or that Hulk lied to make Jennifer calm down.

Episode Two

Things I Liked:
+The Easter Eggs and reference to Shang-Chi
+Getting rid of the Hulk

Things I Didn't Like:
-Blonski's retconned personality
-The Hulk
-"She-Hulk"

Things I Felt Neutrally About:
*the entire episode

What a bizarre episode.

So this episode was theoretically meant to be the show's pilot, which makes sense; it introduces everybody we need to know about this season as well as the central plot --Blonski's trial. Your mileage on all the elements therein may vary, but I found the office stuff interesting, Jen's family tropic and annoying, and Blonski's retconned-to-Trevor-Slattery's-personality irritating. Wtf was wrong with Blonski's personality in INCREDIBLE HULK? He was cold as ice and ambitious, and that's what was interesting about him!

The showrunner claims that SHE-HULK was made in the spirit of ALLY MCBEAL, and as a comedy pilot... I don't see the comedy? I instead see a generalized "Marvel mileau" of characters going about their lives in the MCU without pushing the dramedy tone in any particular direction. A Marvel comedy should be raucously funny, no? An ALLY MCBEAL-styled show, should be snarky, inventive, and irreverent, right? It's telling that the critics got to see the first four episodes, because thus far, I'm not seeing the unique hook this show offers when --I assure you-- I very much want to love this show.

Meanwhile, Hulk's prominence in the series --as well as the customary mocking-of-superhero's-name joke-- highlight that yes, She-Hulk was a derivative of the Hulk by design because Marvel Comics didn't want TV beating them to the punch, and that the character probably should've gotten a new name by now. Angry Attorney? Lethal Lawyer? Crazy Counselor? Something. Further, Hulk himself just seems to be there to further gatekeep Jen when minimizing him would've made this feel like her show sooner.

I like that we're addressing Abomination appearing in Xialing's underground fight club. Feels like it should be bigger news that there's a giant stone robot that appeared in the middle of the ocean, not just a link without a picture. Hinting Wolverine was fun I guess, but at this point, X-Men teases are losing their luster. Either give me an X-Men movie (or announce it at D23) or just save it for a post-credit tease.

Episode Three

Things I Liked:
+Episode structure
+Wong
+making fun of misogynists

Things I Didn’t Like:
-Rejumbled episode in the season

The third episode of SHE-HULK was technically the second, given that the 8th episode was retooled into its pilot, and it’s a good, standard episode, showing that this indeed has the bones of a kooky lawyer sitcom. Jen motivated the events of the episode, and that felt good and well-structured.

It did feel like a lot of humor came from the Light Elf character, whose comedy was full clown mode. Everyone else seems to be operating in neutral MCU humor… or what I take to be neutral, given that the last movie was LOVE AND THUNDER. Not a criticism; just an observation.

I dug Wong being in the show because who doesn’t love Wong. I also dug the social media responses in the episode making fun of real online misogynists.

The only thing that felt missing from this episode was Titania, who was at least mentioned in both previous episodes. It’s clear that her bursting into the courtroom in the pilot was to expressly attack She-Hulk as a result of something that happens in episode seven. That’s what happens when you jumble episodes as per test audiences.

Haha special shout out to the Wrecking Crew, who looked like a pack of idiots in this. I guess holding a glowing Asgardian thing doesn’t confer any special abilities in the MCU; it’s just a glowing Asgardian thing. Oh, and I’m glad Megan Thee Stallion and everybody else seemed to have fun in the episode. Fun cameo.

Episode Four

Things I Liked:
+”Donny Blaze”
+Madisynn

Things I Didn’t Like:
-Rejumbled episode in the season

Episode four is a quintessential case of the week episode, and that works beautifully for this format. There’s not much to criticize— we see She-Hulk contend with a goofy, legally gray case of magic vs the mystic arts while she contends with the equally-murky over-30 dating scene. I found Madisynn to be particularly funny.

So it’s a good show, no complaints except for Titania’s name drop. It’s clear the show is suffering from its episodes being rejumbled. It’s trying to keep us invested in a character we really haven’t experienced yet. Choppy, but not the worst thing.

Special mention to “Donny Blaze.” Yes, I agree that “Johnny Blaze” would be a great stage name for a race-swapped update of the character. Yes, combining Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze would be a smart move. YES, I AM VERY READY FOR GHOST RIDER IN THE MCU GIVE IT TO ME NOW.

Showrunner Jessica Gao has said this ain’t Ghost Rider, though. So why not make this just another deep-reference magician character from the comics? This sort of feels like trolling with Mephisto all over again— especially with the unseen blood pact with Jake the goat demon.

Episode Five

Things I Liked:
+Pathos of Jennifer being unwanted as herself, but wanted as She-Hulk

Things I Didn’t Like:
-weaker genre balance
-Avengers drip

Episode Four was a perfect balance of comedy, lawyer procedural, dating drama, and superhero show. It ticked all the boxes for me.

Episode Five didn’t tick any boxes for me. I didn’t find any of the above to be especially well-balanced, didn’t find much organic humor in it, and oscillated between bored and annoyed.

The show obviously recycled the “two examples of people who use their real names” without breaking the fourth wall to make the repetition the joke (the show doesn’t break the fourth wall consistently enough for it not to be jarring when it occurs). The Drip Broker feels like a rehash of Edna from THE INCREDIBLES.

I just wasn’t entertained. More, the idea of Avengers swag in-universe has never rested easy with me. Most of the Avengers are murderers who’ve broken several international laws. It’s weird for people-in universe to cosplay as them. More, seeing the two lawyers decked out in cheap Avengers apparel felt a bit mocking of the fandom. …or maybe that last bit is too deep a read.

I did like Jen using her failed dates as evidence in court, and I liked the pathos of her realizing that those men were attracted to She-Hulk, not her. I’m curious where the series will go with that and if it will validate Jen herself.

Beyond that, I hope the next episode has a better balance of comedy, drama, and action.

Episode Six

Things I Liked:
+Intelligencia... maybe

Things I Didn’t Like:
-weak writing throughout
-jokes didn't land for me
-Marvel stuff mined for punchlines

When SHE-HULK is good, it's a well-balanced lawyer sitcom comedy that's modestly funny. When it's not, you get episodes like this-- stories that hypothetically work in a vacuum, but are weakly structured and with questionable point. It's not clear why Lulu invited She-Hulk to her wedding, but it sure looks like she wanted someone to lord over... but after She-Hulk makes a scene with Titania, all is forgiven for reasons unknown when Lulu previously hadn't been characterized that way. Titania is just kind of... there, which is a weak continuation from her previous episode. It's scarcely better than previous episodes randomly dropping her name to remind us that she exists.

Worst of all, apart from the odd side character, SHE-HULK just isn't a consistently funny show. Certainly not compared to even other Marvel stuff. It doesn't feel like it's justifying itself in the format it's trying to be. It could be a much smarter, much funnier show, and we'd all be richer for it.

Personally, I'm getting tired of the show mining Marvel stuff for easy laughs. I'd kind of hoped to see the Great Lakes Avengers as a dedicated comedy team, not one member used as a one-off. "Donny Blaze," "Avongers," DJ whatever Hulk, etc... it all feels like it's mocking me for wanting to see more characters. Because 4th wall breaks happen only once or twice an episode, it feels like half of them have been dedicated to "Settle down, fans... believe it or not, this is MY show" which is getting frustrating.

I hated Intelligencia being "[the site] for hateful man-babies," which seemed to trivialize the team... until the end of the episode revealed that Intelligencia might be a bit like Kiwifarms-- a nazi site that conducted targeted harassment of women, trans people, and minority groups around the world, a few of which with deadly consequences. That's not a bad comparison to make.

Other than that, I'm noticing that many of these MCU shows are "how I learned to stop worrying and love being a super hero." Speaking personally, it's starting to feel tried.

Episode Seven

Things I Liked:
+Nothing, honestly

Things I Didn’t Like:
-weak writing throughout
-jokes didn't land for me
-Marvel stuff cheapened
-She-Hulk's monologue pointless.

SHE-HULK doesn't regularly click with me. That's ok. Not every show has to be for me. This last episode is decently structured around She-Hulk learning to love herself, but I don't know if it does more than that.

To me, episode four was a perfectly balanced sitcom in the MCU, having better jokes, actual legal stuff, a decent fight, and a romantic subplot. That's the show firing on all cylinders, but I don't know if the show has ever hit that since.

There's nothing wrong with this episode being very small and contained, but it feels like a digression for digression's sake, with much of the runtime eaten up by weak, easy jokes and psychobabble in a new age group therapy session. It doesn't do much that couldn't have been achieved better and more succinctly. Jen's speech within it, is literally just saying the overarching theme out loud, and it feels obvious. Yes, it's nice that Jen learns to embrace both her selves, but that's been the point of most of these Disney+ shows. Learning to love being a hero. Do we have anything else?

This last part might just be me, but with everything trivializing Marvel characters and lore like a weak SNL skit, all within the MCU, it all serves to make things feel less special to me. "Less special" is, of course, the mantra I've heard about the deluge of MCU content lately. I've never felt it before, but seeing an episode that could've taken place in any universe without Marvel characters, where names are referenced just to have references... it doesn't feel special to me. It feels pedestrian.

Episode Eight

Things I Liked:
+Leapfrog & Daredevil
+Courtroom Stuff
+Superhero Stuff

Things I Didn’t Like:
-She-Hulk as female lawyer of the year contender

Ok, this was the best-structured episode since the Madisynn episode, deftly balancing lawyer sitcom stuff with superhero adventures and She-Hulk's personal (read: romantic) life. I enjoyed Leapfrog as a f***up supervillain and thought the romantic relationship between Jen and Matt was genuinely well done. Sorry, Karen.

I also thought that Intelligencia's slut-shaming of Jen made sense and was good, and I genuinely enjoyed her raging at being publically humiliated. I suddenly got interested when everyone was afraid of her, but then, that's me-- I'm way more into horror than I am comedy.

If this had been the structure of most this show's episodes, I'd be more onboard with the show.

The only real sticking point for me is why is Jen in the running for female lawyer of the year? Yes, it sure seems like a s*** beauty pagent, but I literally can't tell if in-universe it's taken seriously or not. Jen has bungled cases and struggled with a ton of other cases. We've never seen her be great at her job-- only baseline competent at best, bad at worst. Seems like if she'd done a proper job researching Leapfrog, she wouldn't have taken the case, gotten punked in court, or have ruined her relationship with Luke.

Episode Nine

Things I Liked:
+Classic TV Intro
+Disney+ Menu
+Talk with K.E.V.I.N.

Things I Didn’t Like:
-Skaar

SHE-HULK’s finale comes with all kinds of creativity and smart metacommentary. I loved the 70s Incredible Hulk-inspired intro briefly taking us through Jen’s origin. It’s so playful, unique, and concise that it frankly could’ve taken the place of the entire pilot episode.

The consequences of Jen’s outburst felt pathos-ridden and well-explored, as did making fun of Intelligencia’s toxic male culture. I still hate that Intelligencia got changed into a MRA gutter instead of a collective of brilliant supervillains, but whatever.

The real meat of the episode comes with She-Hulk calling time out during the climactic fight scene to demand better from Marvel Studios. Her crawling through the logo and visiting Marvel Studios to complain FINALLY felt like the show matching its Byrne-inspired potential. From there, the talk with K.E.V.I.N. Felt gratifying, nearly addressing all the issues that screenwriters and critics have had with the MCU and its shows for awhile. Lots of daddy issues (though that’s a general issue with Hollywood storytelling), rehashed supervillain schemes, and -most pointedly- a rejection of CGI-spectacle fight scene finales that don’t mesh with the preceding material, most notably in WANDAVISION & MOON KNIGHT.

The big question, though, is if any of this metacommentary will matter. Is this indicative of the MCU learning it needs to do better with its TV shows and movies, or will it be ignored in lieu of another big spectacle in the next thing. Supposedly Marvel Studios will be replacing some future shows with specials, following the reception to WEREWOLF BY NIGHT. Time will certainly tell.

I do like the extra-metacommentary that K.E.V.I.N. is learning in the process of making shows and movies, much like Feige has reportedly been surprised that films could be shot in natural lighting, as in ETERNALS, and that black and white could be just as —if not more— compelling than color, situation depending.

That said, I hate the ending with Skar, which draws attention away from She-Hulk and back onto Hulk. And Daredevil! He’s also present at the end. This was a series that, from the get-go, constantly had issues centering the story on its protagonist and frankly struggled to make her seem like a competent lawyer throughout.

I’m left only really liking 3 episodes, feeling neutral on a couple others, and disliking the other four. If there’s another season, I truly hope its writing improves.