I feel like I should be angry at She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Episode 8, “Ribbit and Rip It,” and I can’t get there. This is what we’ve waited for. And then they rubbed it in, because she lampshades it right at the end.
Everything in me wants to say no, it’s too little, too late. But the tried and true fanboy in me is sitting here going, this is such a good episode, and all the things are in it. Mrs. Know-It-All called it a redemption, and I feel like they redeemed themselves too. But come on. You could’ve done it a long time ago. This is what I wanted the entire time.
And I don’t know how you go back from it. This episode was 35 minutes. How are you going to wrap up this whole storyline in a half hour? Maybe you don’t. Maybe they leave us on a cliffhanger, and they easily could.
Previously, on Her Show
The show starts with a “previously on,” and normally I don’t ever mention those. But this one I liked, because to me it was an inherent acceptance of who she is. She’s accepting that she is She-Hulk, and that Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk are interchangeably the same person, just with different skill sets, or features. I just made her sound like a car. Kind of like a Tesla.
Leap-Frog, Straight to the D-List
The episode actually starts with a brand new vigilante. The streets of LA are in trouble and only one person can protect them: Leap-Frog. He’s like a guard dog, only he’s a guard frog, and I feel like he’s trying so hard that I have to try for him.
There’s a character in the comic books named Kick-Ass, and Kick-Ass has a green outfit. Put the two of them side by side and these two things clearly live in the same universe.
So he’s a D-list superhero. Mrs. Know-It-All stopped me right there. D-list, right off the bat? Not C, straight to D? Absolutely. If there was a lower tier, I’d totally do it.
He does his superpower thing, he leaps up, rockets shoot out of the boots, and then he lands with an unceremonious thud and his legs are on fire. Cut to Jen as his attorney, because apparently his father is a well-placed person in the community and has the firm on retainer, which makes the kid an important client. She figures it’s a simple warranty defect issue and asks who the manufacturer is. It’s none other than Luke Jacobson, the one who makes all the amazing clothes for her that expand, so she doesn’t lose clothes anymore.
She goes to see him before there’s even a lawsuit or any paperwork filed. She’s just trying to have a conversation. Maybe he’ll take some responsibility, throw the kid some money. Luke takes it as a personal affront and fires She-Hulk as his client. We were actually kind of proud of her, because she could’ve totally done a Jen Walters meltdown like we’ve seen.
Matt Murdock at His Matt Murdockiest
So they go to court, and who is Luke Jacobson’s attorney? Matt Murdock. We get Daredevil, finally.
The rabid fandom online has been all, not my Daredevil, why is he smiling. And my wife very cleverly pointed out: he’s not our Daredevil. He’s not. Now, I don’t mind the guy he is. I actually think he’s pretty cool.
In court you get to see Matt Murdock be his Matt Murdockiest. The folks at Netflix knew how to write legal drama, they had great court stuff, and this scene was very worthy of that. So hats off to you, Jessica Gao, and the writing staff over there at She-Hulk. You figured out that maybe if you watched the Netflix show you could take some cues on how to write Matt Murdock, and they did. I thought they wrote him very well.
I liked the legal back and forth between them. We got to see Jen be a lawyer, and a good lawyer. She knows the stuff she’s spewing. She’s going, well of course, if this and this and this, and he’s going, well, how about this other thing, and they’re doing the back and forth you like to see in court stuff.
She was ready with the manufacturer warranty stuff, all kinds of stuff. I was impressed. Then Matt Murdock asks what kind of fuel he used in those boots, and he says jet fuel, being the dude bro idiot that Leap-Frog is. Luke says, really, because I told you not to, and the instructions reveal a lot. And Jen’s looking at her own client like, why didn’t you tell me?
She wants to compel Luke’s client list. She’s trying to embarrass him. It’s a tactic, lawyers do it, it tries to get the other party to come negotiate. The judge says no, we’re not going to endanger superheroes and their families. Totally viable. Matt’s point is that a lot of these superheroes have identities to maintain now, and that she only has the luxury because her identity is public. Fair enough. And we all know, inside baseball, that Matt Murdock gets his outfits from Luke too.
The Sokovia Accords Got Repealed Between Issues
In the middle of that, Matt Murdock points out that, after all, the Sokovia Accords were recently repealed.
Stop.
Mrs. Know-It-All says she wishes everybody could’ve seen my face when that line came out. Marvel, we’re going to stop this train for a second. Forget She-Hulk for two seconds. Are you trying to tell me that a major event like the Sokovia Accords, which were literally the framework for the back end of the MCU’s early phases, culminating in Infinity War and Endgame, is a major plot point that gets solved between issues, off camera?
I call them issues because I’m treating them like comic books. You’ve got this monumental stack of stories we all invested time in, and then all of a sudden somebody goes, man, it sure is a good thing we repealed that. He just tosses it out like it’s known.
How do you take a major plot issue for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe and relegate it to something off the page, between episodes, in the white space? That feels wrong. Whether it’s in the Captain America movie, the next one with Sam, give me something, man, because that was super unceremonious. It’s funny. I’ve watched this whole show, and this is my first fandom moment where I’m really livid about a decision. I haven’t been as livid as I am right this moment. I’m floored by the whole thing.
Mrs. Know-It-All’s read is that maybe this was Marvel’s backhanded, let’s-see-if-they-noticed way of setting up a movie about what actually happened with the Accords. It sounds like something Captain America might take care of.
The other thing I’ve only recently come to understand more fully is that this all takes place in Los Angeles, on the West Coast. I was telling Mrs. Know-It-All that She-Hulk was always popularly part of the West Coast Avengers, so I’m good.
The Bar, and the Balance
Later that evening Jen is at Legal Ease, the bar they go to, which by the way is the one set piece I’m really happy continues. It’s one of the things that makes me feel like we’re watching a legal something, because all the greats had that bar the lawyers hang out at at night.
Matt buys her a drink, they talk, and she’s immediately breaking the fourth wall at us like, y’all getting this? I was too, right out of the gate. I don’t care what anybody says, I’m okay with this, especially because they established flat out that he’s going back to New York. He came out here on a favor for Luke, because Luke builds his suits, and you don’t tell your tailor no when he’s being sued by a green woman.
Then he puts a little coda on it. He basically explains to her that this is a good thing. You work in the confines of the law as Jen Walters, and when the law doesn’t work, and she finishes it for him, I can do more as She-Hulk. She’s starting to understand the balance that can exist between her two worlds. I loved it.
She Finally Suits Up
He gets a call and has to go, and he tells her next time he’s in town they should have dinner. Shortly after, she gets a call from her client. He’s freaking out, he’s under attack from someone. She’s about to leave her place and she realizes, wait a minute, I’ve got the outfit now. It’s time to play superhero. Matt Murdock put it on the table and she’s going to go ahead and answer it.
She opens the closet and all you see is her hands, and Mrs. Know-It-All got really excited right there. After Episode 1, and maybe Episode 2, she hasn’t really gotten what she’s wanted from this show. Agreed. I’m down.
Leap-Frog’s driving a car, someone’s chasing him, windows are being broken out, and you don’t see who’s attacking him yet. She-Hulk lands in front of the car, puts her leg out, the car hits her, and Daredevil comes shooting out of it. He rolls, jumps up, lands, and you get that moment from the clip that was released last week, where he stands up and you see him in the gold and red.
They fight, and it’s a gloriously fun fight. And of course she catches him. I’ve always told people: I’m six foot seven. I’m a big boy. People say, you’re too big to catch me, I’m faster than you. I don’t have to be faster than you, bro. All I’ve got to do is catch you once. Catch you sleeping once. That’s what She-Hulk did. She caught Matt sleeping for two seconds, bam, knocks him into a car, picks him up, and he’s going wait, wait, wait, wait. She yanks the mask off, and the first place she goes is, if you’re pretending to be blind, that’s problematic. Lawyer first, even there.
He explains it to her. Your client kidnapped mine. Leap-Frog is the bad guy, an idiot with a not-so-secret lair called the Lily Pad. It’s literally a warehouse with giant pink neon letters that say Lily Pad. He’s terrible.
So they go and do their thing. Leap-Frog’s yelling that she’s his attorney, and she tells him she’s helping him avoid more nonsense right now. They fight off the bad guys, she rescues Luke, and Luke says everything’s forgiven and he’ll make her stupid dress.
Matt’s leaving in the morning, so they figure, why waste time. She-Hulk and Daredevil hook up, and I’m okay with that. It’s the break this poor girl needs. She knows what’s going to happen. He’s leaving. They connected on a level that’s very visceral, and it’s very superhero, to be honest: you really don’t know if you’re going to get tomorrow, so let’s go ahead and enjoy today. That’s not necessarily a philosophy I subscribe to, but I get it.
Stop Saying the Things I’m Thinking
The next day Jen walks out, breaks the fourth wall, and she’s surprised. Why are you guys still here? Very Ferris Bueller, which I liked, because she immediately became us. Then Nikki shows up with the dress and Jen’s looking at us like, are we doing the gala now? Oh my God, is this the penultimate episode?
That’s the lampshading I was talking about. You stop that. Stop saying the things I’m thinking.
You do get that nice moment of her coming out in the dress, and I have to say I really like what they’ve done with her hair. If you go back and look at the reviews we did, I was focusing a lot on her hair and her man hands. She didn’t have man hands this episode, and the hair is much better.
The Gala
They made it sound like she was winning Female Lawyer of the Year. Come to find out they’re giving it to five or six of them. Mallory was one, and Mallory is great.
Then it’s She-Hulk’s turn to say something, and the screen behind her changes. It’s a giant LED wall, and it’s those idiots from Intelligencia. We’re going to show you the real She-Hulk, she’s not what you think she is. Text messages, everything off her phone. Remember, Josh copied her phone. That’s where all the images come from.
And then the guy says a line about her, and dude, you can tell a woman wrote this script. No man would ever get away with writing that line. Not nowadays. That’s how I know. I know there are a lot of women out there who are going to say, well, yeah, because that’s what we have to deal with. It totally is. I get that and I respect it.
She turns around and they’re showing her sex tape, because Josh recorded it. You see it building and building and building. Mallory, everyone, they’re all going don’t do it, don’t do it, because they all see what’s about to happen. And she smashes the LED wall.
This has become an allegory for women’s rage. I get it. This is the anger, the ire, that women everywhere feel in these situations, when they’re being slut-shamed or body-shamed or whatever else. A lot of people are going to try to politicize this moment. I felt it. It didn’t insult me. I felt her pain in that moment.
Mrs. Know-It-All put it this way: that’s what it looks like when you finally have the strength to let that rage out, cathartically. Women will understand this. It’s the ugly cry after the worst day of your life, because everything that happened to Jen may have happened to us. She’d just had enough. And for the thing they used to be something as vulnerable as that tape Josh made.
We went around on who else in the MCU would’ve lost it. Falcon could have lost it. Bucky would’ve lost it. I’d even say Natasha.
The Monster Bruce Warned Her About
When She-Hulk loses it, this is probably the closest she’s been to an actual Bruce Banner style Hulk. Jen’s voice isn’t the one screaming. It’s that visceral monster Hulk roar. She sees these dudes recording on their phones with masks on, bandanas around their faces, looking shady, and her rage just goes. They do this super hyper close-up as she turns around, and you can tell she’s ready.
She leaps off the stage. They’re outside running away, and she comes bursting through the wall, very Hulk-like. That’s when those special superhuman police people show up with the laser guns pointed at her. They make it look like she’s looking at us. She sees the fear in everybody’s eyes, because now she’s a monster.
What did Bruce say? That was his big warning. When people start seeing you as a monster, that never goes away. Mrs. Know-It-All pointed it out in the moment, and I looked at her and said, this is it.
I don’t know this for a fact. I’m talking as a former showrunner who was developing pilots and series. There’s always a moment in the writers’ room, when you’re writing a script, where you go: this line right here, this is what this whole thing is about. I believe that in the plan Jessica Gao laid down, this moment, her coming to terms with her Hulk self and with what women everywhere have had to deal with, was the one where Jessica said this is what the series is about, and we need to hang everything on getting here. That’s why the penultimate episode in most series is where you get all the big plot twists and the big climax. This is definitely that.
Nothing in This Episode Was Earned
Mrs. Know-It-All made the point that her rage isn’t just about what happened in that room. Her phone was completely exposed, so anything that happened at the wedding is on there too. Everything from these past episodes that we’ve complained about, all these tiny little things. Now it makes sense to her, not that she agrees with how slow it was progressing.
If I ever do a watch through again, and I probably will now that we’re moving in the direction we’re moving in, I’d insist you have to binge this show. We’ve been talking about doing a thing called Binge Watchers, where we eventually talk about a series as a whole, because there are a lot of shows we’re not covering week to week, like Rick and Morty. After House of the Dragon we’ll probably end up doing some sort of series wrap-up too.
I feel the same way she does, but my other big issue is that they never once telegraphed all of this. You can argue, what about the end scenes, the cutscenes. Fine. That feels lazy. Those feel tacked on so you can say they’re relevant. Give me the Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs that build up to this thing and I’m down. They didn’t do that. So I feel like nothing in this episode was earned.
I still like the episode. I would’ve liked it better with more connective tissue, more threads that led us here. Right now there are maybe these big threads where you go, oh yeah, Luke is a thing, and yes, she’s clearly been dealing with adversity.
And I’ve got one more. At the very end, when she walks out like Ferris Bueller, she makes this backhanded, jokey comment. What is this, the major plot twist? Is this where you find out there’s some weird clone version of me, or something red? Don’t do that. Don’t take the Easter eggs you’ve been dropping and make them a thing we’re now made fun of for seeing. That was not okay for me.
We still don’t know. I do think we’re going to get some kind of weird clone thing. The point of Intelligencia was to get her to reveal that she’s actually a monster, if you will, because she’s been wrapping herself in civility to this point.
The Verdict
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Episode 8, “Ribbit and Rip It,” lands at an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index, under protest.
I’m really torn, because this is an excellent episode and I also want to penalize it for showing up here at the end. The episode deserves a six out of ten for making us wait this long. I’m giving it an eight because I genuinely liked it. It fired on all thrusters and it gave me everything I’ve been asking for to this point. Whether or not it connects to the other parts, I’m holding it on its own merit. It’ll probably suffer when I do the series grade, but I want to be honest and fair to this episode, because I did enjoy myself.
Mrs. Know-It-All gave it an eight too, so it’s mutual. She just wishes it had come sooner and that we’d had more of these.
Where This Has to Go
Mrs. Know-It-All is speculating that Daredevil will be back next week, because he’s going to represent her. I’d love to see that.
I’d also love a major cameo we know nothing about. Give me Val, who’s approached everybody else, even though Jen isn’t going to be part of the Thunderbolts. Give me Val saying, hey, you help us out, your cousin has worked with us in the past. You could do something very interesting with Val helping get her out of trouble, and then Jen having to deal with the blowback.
Because they made a point of sitting on Holliway as he was leaving during all the red alert emergency stuff. He looks back over his shoulder and she makes eye contact. She’s going to have to lose her job. I don’t know how you wrap this up, so there’s got to be two seasons. Next season she does something that legally makes her awesome again, and Holliway needs to be fighting to get her back. That’s when she needs to really put the screws to him and get good money.
That’s what will elevate her to the next level, because she’s been mediocre to this point, and helped along in spite of it. Oh, now you’re a superhero, great. And she’s going, okay, whatever, I’m still the same mediocre person I always was. I think this is the beginning of her actual journey to being the She-Hulk I wanted from the very beginning. The very self-confident one, the attorney who should be walking around that office throwing her literal weight around, saying look, man, I’ll take my big green butt somewhere else.
Just for fun, in my brain: what if, because she lost her job with Holliway, she had to represent Titania? Somehow Titania feels for her because of the shaming, and that’s where they bond. Give me anti-hero buddy cops, where Titania and Jen have to work together.
Mrs. Know-It-All would like to see her not go back to Holliway at all and start her own law firm for superheroes. You can totally do that, and then have someone want to acquire her firm, in a way where it’s She-Hulk, Attorney at Law, brought to you by. You run your own business, we just want to be part of it. Now they’re funneling clients to her and she’s still autonomous, because Jen is very, very self-reliant in the comic books. She represents who she wants. I think that’s going to be a huge point for her, because at GLK&H she’s been taking clients she has no interest in taking. Mr. Immortal. Leap-Frog.
Let me know what you thought of the episode, and where you think the finale takes her. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
