Streaming on: Disney+
Episodes viewed: 4 of 9
What is the responsibility of those with powers? How can superhumans be held to account for their actions? And, most importantly, was Steve Rogers a virgin? These are all questions that new MCU show She-Hulk attempts to answer — and it does so, in style.
The first episode sets up the premise at breakneck speed. Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) is a lawyer, and an excellent one at that. With her first fourth-wall break — taken directly from the comics, delivered here in a brilliantly meta, impactfully intermittent way — we flash back to the incident where she receives her powers, and then the trip she takes to Bruce’s (Mark Ruffalo) remote Mexican lab to learn how to manage them.
Bruce’s main priority is teaching Jennifer how to regulate her emotions and impart his years of wisdom learned about being the Hulk. However, it turns out she’s surprisingly adept at keeping her cool and managing her transformation, cannily pointing out that, as a woman who simply exists in the world, anger and fear are things she already deals with far more than he does. While this can feel a little on the nose, the core idea of Jennifer being more equipped to deal with her inner big-green-rage-monster is true-to-life and backed up by her daily experiences — from her misogynist co-worker to some terrible first dates and a variety of unwanted approaches from men — which prevents the character from feeling like a carbon copy of her cousin.
Maslany is dripping with charisma and comedic timing, which come through just as clearly when in Hulk form, indicating the strength of her mo-cap performance.
Ruffalo is great as always, as is his and Maslany’s familial chemistry, and Ginger Gonzaga is a delight as Jennifer’s BFF-slash-paralegal Nikki — but the star is, of course, Tatiana Maslany herself. She’s dripping with charisma and comedic timing, which come through just as clearly when in Hulk form, indicating the strength of Maslany’s mo-cap performance. And about that CGI — much maligned when the show’s first trailer dropped, Jennifer’s gigantic green persona looks, while iffy at times, far better overall here. The biggest question about her Hulk appearance isn’t the quality of her chartreuse skin — it’s why her monstrous inner self comes complete with an intense smokey-eye and blow-dry.
Once we get into the show proper, She-Hulk really hits its stride. This is an MCU series that really embraces the medium — four episodes in, it starts leaning into a case-of-the-week format, with Jennifer and the Superhuman Law Division handling misdemeanours of the mystically powered and magically trained. There are threads linking each episode — this is not a full-blown procedural — but She-Hulk's ability to introduce new stories and characters that expand the Marvel world in a fun, small-scale way is incredibly promising. Though we know more Loki is coming, She-Hulk — free, for now, from the shackles of feeding into the larger Multiverse saga — feels like Marvel’s first real opportunity at a show that could run and run for multiple seasons.
