She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Episode 3, “The People vs. Emil Blonsky,” finally gives us a court case, because it is a lawyer show, and I felt like Jennifer was floundering the whole way through it.
I liked the episode. I want that on the record first. My co-host liked it too, and said it was longer than last week’s but felt like it went by so much faster. But the story seems to be carrying Tatiana Maslany and She-Hulk along. It’s dragging her. There are too many things happening, and she’s still very much in this wide-eyed, I’m sort of shocked, oh my, we’re gonna react to that mode. She’s very reactive right now, and I don’t think that’s serving the story they’re trying to tell as well as it should.
A lot of people have said that over the series we’re going to get less and less of her as She-Hulk, because it takes real effort and real money to create an entire CGI person. You can definitely feel that here. It’s Emil Blonsky’s parole hearing, she’s representing him, and you don’t see her be She-Hulk once during it. My co-host was waiting for it to happen during the actual hearing, especially when he turned into Abomination and everybody freaked out.
What Was Left After the Origin Story Moved
I called last week’s episode a tether episode. Come to find out, now that some reports have come out, it’s more of a dangling participle episode.
Her origin story was not supposed to be in Episode 1. It was supposed to be closer to Episode 6. They’d already filmed, so when the decision got made, they had to make the switch with what they had. If you watch Episode 2, it technically fits butted right up to Episode 1. If you move the origin story, we probably should’ve gotten an hour and a half long Episode 1. What they did instead was shove the new material into Episode 1, cut everything, and slide it over. So the thing I thought was a tether taking us somewhere is really what’s left after you add the origin story to Episode 1. A lot of math, a lot of recipe work there, forgive me.
What we get this week is an almost episodic episode. It stands on its own.
Two Plots, and Misogyny Bait
There’s an A plot and a B plot. The A plot is Emil Blonsky, and it’s literally the name of the episode. The second storyline has to do with the Dennis Bukowski character, or as I like to call him, misogyny bait. He’s horrible. From the first episode you’re like, this guy is clearly here for one purpose, and that’s to get a rise out of all the women there.
He’s hired GLK&H, the firm she works for, to help him sue an Asgardian shape-shifting elf lady who made herself look like Megan Thee Stallion. He thought he was dating Megan Thee Stallion. Everyone’s looking at him like he’s crazy. And yes, you get a Megan Thee Stallion cameo.
I liked the B plot, and I liked that we got to see Pug more, because we’re learning who all the new people are and eventually she’s going to be part of an actual legal team. They have to get over the fact that nobody likes Dennis, so they lean into it. Pug’s pitch, and I’m paraphrasing, is that you don’t like him, so you can speak to the fact that you believe one hundred percent he would actually fall for this. They call her up, she’s like, oh yeah, no problem, and she just lays out the case that he’s clearly narcissistic and self-indulgent. At one point she says he once said he was a New York 10 and an LA 11, and I’m like, bro. That’s when he stands up and objects. He’s not the lawyer, and it’s his witness. That was the funny part. He would absolutely believe it, because he thinks he’s God’s gift. He’s the height of male privilege, and I was like, right on, I’ll go with this.
So this is the first time we’re seeing her do something in the courtroom, and she isn’t exactly a lawyer doing it. She’s a witness for the B plot.
The People vs. Emil Blonsky
The court case is exactly the premise we were left with at the end of last week. The news has footage from the Shang-Chi fight where Abomination and Wong were there. Wong cameos in this episode, which is great. You get that one part where Jennifer’s driving and she breaks the fourth wall to say she doesn’t want you worried that this is just a cameo show. Well, except for Bruce. And Blonsky. And of course Wong. And then she’s like, whatever.
Wong shows up doing his little Doctor Strange thing, I love it, and he’s willing to testify for Blonsky. So Jennifer has to go before a parole committee who all see him as very sketchy. What about you becoming Abomination? Apparently he’s done the full namaste, I’m calm thing, and he can control his transformations. He proves it by changing into Abomination, and everyone kind of irrationally freaks out.
I say irrationally because if you can’t keep a prisoner like him secure, why is he in jail? What are you doing? I get what they wanted out of it, but it was a little over the top. The one guy who’d been a real piece of work, and there’s always one on that parole board, was hiding behind a woman’s chair. He climbed behind her. Like, bro. Jeez.
The witnesses before that were funny, especially the officer who went to him for marital advice. And Blonsky apparently has eight soul mates. I didn’t know we could have eight. He’s like, I have finally found the eighths of my soul. Okay, bro.
He eventually wins his freedom. She makes a compelling case that he had no control over leaving. I hope this is genuine. Who knows, we may get him on the Thunderbolts too, because they’re going to need a strong man, and we know from Comic-Con that’s coming.
The Boss Isn’t Going to Like This
In between plot A and plot B there’s a little alleyway, and I believe that’s our actual overarching season plot. Guys come at her with this huge syringe, she does her Hulk thing, they run back to the car, and one of them says the boss isn’t going to like this. We always wait until Episode 3, and now I think we have where we’re going: someone is trying to get Jennifer’s blood.
I don’t think it helps anybody, because Bruce already qualified it in the first episode. The only thing that makes him and her special is something in their DNA that helps them process and metabolize gamma radiation. So you want her blood for what? To experiment? To clone her?
I could totally see the MCU cloning her and somehow we get Red She-Hulk. Red She-Hulk is a concept that followed Red Hulk in the comic books, where there are different types of Hulk: Grey Hulk, Green Hulk, Smart Hulk. They may clone her and have her fight herself, which is very Marvel. Or we get something more aggressive, because a clone wouldn’t have all the baggage that is Jennifer Walters. No Jennifer personality keeping it under control means a savage, mindless She-Hulk. That’s all speculation.
As for who the boss is, She-Hulk’s had several villains. I think we’re going to get Titania as the muscle for whoever the main villain turns out to be. Whoever that boss is will be like, hey, aren’t you pissed off she punched you? Titania, when she doesn’t underestimate She-Hulk, is actually a very good foe. She’s the counterbalance. She’s strength, she can take her hand to hand, but she has to not take her for granted. She didn’t expect someone to suddenly be there strong enough to knock her down like that.
Get Writers Who Know the Courtroom
My hope, as much as I love Jessica Gao and think she’s done a wonderful job putting the show together, is for more of a seasoned, experienced hand with legal dramas. Give me real superhero cases. Show me people suing a superhero. I’d love to see someone try to bring Captain America up on a war crime or something. It’s not real, but you get the idea: someone saying we have every right to have this argument, and now She-Hulk has to represent Steve Rogers, or the Steve Rogers estate. Or Sam has to show up, because he’s Captain America, so if it’s the people versus Captain America she has to defend him, and he’s like, look, I’m currently holding the mantle, but I’m not the guy. I’m over here writing another show, forgive me.
I consumed all of Boston Legal and The Practice. My co-host loves NCIS and The Blacklist. You can call She-Hulk a legal show, and it’s dressed up as one and pretending to be one, but so far it’s really just a Marvel superhero show. That’s fine. Even Ally McBeal, which everyone’s compared it to, had those things.
Jessica Gao’s quoted as saying they were all in the writers’ room and realized none of them knew how to write procedural courtroom drama. And I’m like, well, why not get writers who do? That doesn’t mean better writers. If you’re going to set a story somewhere, doing something, you bring in the people who know it. Medical dramas rely on doctors’ expertise whether those doctors are writers or not. The comic books have done a really good job putting her in scenarios where the courtroom is real, so I feel like there’s a world in which we get that show eventually.
Where She-Hulk Fits
My co-host asked where She-Hulk falls in all this, and whether it’s one of those feeder stories that introduces the villain.
I don’t believe She-Hulk lives within the framework of Kang and what’s coming. In the comic books, She-Hulk has never had a long-running title of her own. People might argue with me, and I know there are some good runs. But Batman’s got The Dark Knight, Superman’s got Man of Steel, titles that have been around forever. She’s really not had that. There’s the John Byrne run, there’s the Dan Slott run, there are several. So she’s always been a connective tissue character. She’s intelligent, she’s an attorney, she’s educated, and then you add the Hulk strength. I believe she’s what connects your street level, like Daredevil, to your eventual cosmic superheroes like the Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man and the like. She’s the one who has both friends over to a barbecue.
I guarantee you that out of all these projects they’ve filmed bits and pieces that eventually end up in Kang Dynasty, or something having to do with the manipulation of time. A big thing happens and they flash to Daredevil on a rooftop looking up, She-Hulk standing up at her desk, Kamala Khan in high school looking at the screen, Tom Holland as Spider-Man with a hat on. It makes it important, and it creates a universe that’s more lived in.
That’s what this whole phase is for. I lent my voice to the argument, where are we going? For 11 years we knew Thanos was the bad guy. I thought we saw Kang in Loki, and we haven’t seen any indication of him since. We weren’t supposed to. This entire phase has been about expanding the universe and world building for the future. We now know Asgardians live on Earth, we know Jennifer Walters exists, we know Matt Murdock is Daredevil. It’s for getting Kamala Khan. And Hailee Steinfeld’s back in the MCU, could be a film, could be a series sequel.
I believe they’re building to a new Avengers. My daughter, Baby Noodle, speculates that they’re building to Dark Avengers, and I do agree, some MCU version of it. We started seeing it with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with Val recruiting U.S. Agent and Natasha’s sister. Florence Pugh. I love her, by the way.
D23 for 2022 starts September 9th, so next week they’re going to start announcing things. I think we get Fantastic Four, either a cast announcement or at the very least some sort of premise, and more detail on where a lot of these new shows are going.
The Hands, and Her Dad’s Suit
My co-host wanted to discuss her hands. They don’t fit her arms, let alone the rest of her. I understand she is a Hulk, but it’s rough.
I could be way wrong, but they have a reference model on set, Maliah Arrayah. She’s six foot seven, literally the dimensions She-Hulk would be, and she wears the outfits on set. Sometimes VFX artists, at least the ones I know, will take a reference model like that and literally model over it. So my feeling is there could very well be a little bit of the stand-in in the hands while it’s Tatiana Maslany in the face. My wife asked me why her hand is so big, and I’m like, she’s She-Hulk. Then she’s talking and all of a sudden it’s like, whoa.
And, being the woman in this conversation, my co-host really didn’t like the lawyer outfit this time around. Hair up, very Bruce Banner. How did She-Hulk find an outfit that looks like her dad’s suit? A string of pearls on the girl, anything.
After the credits, Megan Thee Stallion has hired She-Hulk as her new attorney. You see the head guy, Holliway, walking toward her office, and he stops, because Megan Thee Stallion is dancing and She-Hulk is basically twerking. So funny. Right on, good job.
The Verdict
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Episode 3 is a 6 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. My co-host laughed a lot, especially at the hands, and went with a nine.
I’m going to do something I normally hate when people do, which is judge this on the merit of the show I thought I was going to get. I thought I’d get something that connected more intentionally with the previous episodes. We got what should have been the second episode’s worth of stuff, because of all the moving of the origin story. It felt a little messy, like I could clearly see someone had assembled the puzzle.
There’s a quick little scene where Pug comes to the bar and Jen and her assistant are there, connecting the A and B plot. I feel like that was probably a recut after the move. They got those three actors and said, can we real fast, you slide into the scene, you say your bit about what’s going on with your case, and done. It felt very clunky. So the whole episode, story wise, felt ham-fisted to me.
Each of the pieces was good, and this one had better acting than Episode 1. Everyone’s clearly into their own mode, especially Drew Matthews, who plays Dennis Bukowski. In the first episode he felt really contrived, jerky man lawyer to be jerky man lawyer. Now he’s selling the personality and the circumstance.
Then there’s the interview. When she’s on the news as She-Hulk, it felt like the guy was talking to a CGI character and not a person. My co-host pushed back and asked whether it was supposed to be like that, and it’s funny, the bits where it’s her head in the box going wait, what, actually worked for me. But the scene looked like the previz version. With the technology they have now, the director can look in the camera and see a version of her in She-Hulk form, because they have to frame to the character she’s going to be and not the tiny person she is in real life. That’s very nice looking quality in camera. It’s also what that scene looked like. To me it felt fake, and those little elements started to really take me out of it.
I wasn’t as happy with this episode as I wanted to be. I’m still with the story, I still love She-Hulk, and I’m still here for the ride.
Tell me what you thought of Episode 3, who you think the boss is, and whether a Red She-Hulk clone sounds as likely to you as it does to me. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
