Yeah I know it's capeshit, but I read some of the comics back in the day so I thought I'd give the show a chance and watched the first three episodes, and now I wanna riff on it.
Episode 1: Therapy is for Losers
In ep 1, we get She-Hulk's backstory - she was in a car with her cousin Bruce when a UFO appeared right in front of them and they swerve to avoid it and get in a wreck. Normally, Bruce would Hulk out, but he's wearing an inhibitor he developed - but bc he doesn't Hulk out, he bleeds on Jen, causing her to black out and turn into She-Hulk.
Bruce takes her to an island retreat where he takes the form of Smart Hulk, an integrated form of Bruce and Hulk. He reveals that he, a brilliant scientist, and the only other person to ever be affected by the Hulk condition, has been learning how to deal with it for the past 15 years on both a personal and scientific level, and he offers to share what he's learned.
As She-Hulk, do you:
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Respect the Hulk as a teacher in light of his scientific expertise and lived experience?
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Realize that this Hulk stuff works differently for you, but that your cousin has been suffering alone for a decade and a half, and empathize with him and hang out for a bit to keep him company, understanding that society may one day fear you as a monster too?
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Make fun of everything he tries to teach you, tell him you already know how to handle anger because you're a woman, call him a dumb idiot loser, and immediately leave to go back to your job as a lawyer?
:yea:
Episode 2: Sexist Idiot Douchebag Gets Owned in the Most Lib Way Imaginable
OK this is actually the ep 3 subplot but ep 2 is mostly setting things up so I've chosen to include it here for the sake of pacing my post.
Jen has a former coworker who's name is (or may as well be) Sexist Idiot Douchebag. He does stuff like randomly refer to a woman as "it," and is a very on-the-nose caricature, which is fine, like The Boys is very unsubtle but it works, whatever. Anyway he finds out that he was dating someone who he thought was Meagan Thee Stallion but was actually a shapeshifter, and he sues her because he bought her a bunch of stuff and is accusing her of fraud. The judge takes it to trial, but thinks that any reasonable person would know better than to think they were dating the real Meagan Thee Stallion, so Sexist Idiot Douchebag's lawyer calls She-Hulk as a witness and he's like, "Miss She-Hulk, in your opinion, is my client a sexist idiot douchebag who sucks?" and she's like, "Oh yeah, he super sucks, he's also a jerkwad and a nincompoop, he's totally dumb and self-absorbed enough to think he's dating the real Meagan Thee Stallion," and then the judge is convinced and awards Sexist Idiot Douchebag $175,000 in damages.
In the end, Sexist Idiot Douchebag may not have suffered any material consequences for being a sexist idiot douchebag, but he was held accountable.
Episode 3: She-Hulk Calls a Witness which Solves Everything
In this episode, She-Hulk is assigned to represent a former supervillain who claims to be reformed in a parole hearing - but he just broke out of his cell! He claims, however, that Wong, the Dr. Strange Villain, forced him to go along with it and that he voluntarily returned as soon as possible. So She-Hulk has her friend track Wong down on social media, and he agrees to show up and confess to everything, and he does, and the board agrees to grant him parole after all. Also, the reformed supervillain is very clearly planning to start a sex cult which is a weird thing to include but ok.
Anyway that's pretty much the whole story. Wong teleports in, says he did everything, and teleports out. Oh but he shows up late so She-Hulk has to stall for time.
One frustrating thing I noticed is that neither case needed to be about super-powered people. In the comics, the did some interesting world building, exploring weird legal questions that the existence of superpowers might raise. Can a ghost testify as a witness to his own murder? Where do you even begin to argue that from a legal standpoint? Ah, but She-Hulk has a clever answer - She points out people come back to life all the time in this universe, and letting the ghost testify is no different than letting Captain America or someone testify. That sort of thing is kinda cute and interesting to explore. But like, the shape-shifting could've just been an impersonator, and a prisoner can be forced to escape without powers. So why is this show, uhh, why does this show exist?
Tbh it seems like they mostly just wanna trigger the chuds so people will watch it because it makes people they hate big mad. A lot of it feels more like Twitter owns than actually believable and sympathetic characters. In conclusion, She-Hulk bad.
Yeah the first episode was the same for me. Like I know being a woman is hard as I am one, but are you seriously comparing getting catcalled to having split personalities where you black out for years at a time??? Like holy shit that is insanity to even begin to compare. Also the smugness of disparaging that disability made my skin crawl.
The show is just really weird. First they don't even make her legitimately buff looking, which is moral cowardice. Then they frame it all as a girl boss thing. Then they have a rap song as the ending credits for a middle aged white lawyer lady. Really fuckin weird.
So far my favorite capeshit is the Harley Quinn animated series, and honestly it isn't even a contest at this point.
Yeah I was thinking about that scene and it really encapsulates a lot of the shows problems. It's an epic Twitter own that completely flies in the face of both characters' characterizarion. It also doesn't make any sense, because what the Hulk represents is bottled up repressed anger exploding out, so being like, "I repress tons of anger" is like, that means you need more help! But also like, Jen is a confident assertive #girlboss who doesn't take people's shit, while Bruce is a shy nerd who is terrified of being seen as a brute and has struggled for a long time to find a healthy balance between his aggressive Hulk form and his passive Bruce form. Shy nerdy men who struggle with asserting themselves absolutely experience a lot of the same shit of getting talked over and stuff like that, so it really falls flat.
The show wants to have it both ways of Jen being cool, confident, and badass, but then also have her be like, "It's so hard having to make sure I never outperform my male colleagues and make them feel insecure, a thing that I would never, ever consider doing." And they could have it both ways, because they're dealing with a character with two sides! But that would require having the Jen side be more reserved and vulnerable sometimes, and the writers want her to be super cool in every scene and interaction.
They might redeem the scene later by making it out to be a character flaw, but it was presented in a very "Yass Queen Preach!" way so I don't have high hopes.
My biggest disappointment with the show. But not quite as bad as the LotR show having a beardless Dwarve woman.