She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is now over and done, and while my reviews have been for the most part jokes to be fair, I really did have genuine complaints that I sprinkled throughout them to try and give substance to my boredom and joking-ness. However, after simmering on the topic for a few days, I think I know what is truly the worst part about She-Hulk. It’s the writing.
She-Hulk was a show about a lawyer. That was its premise. A lawyer who happens to be the cousin of Bruce Banner (the Hulk). A lawyer who somehow, conveniently, becomes She-Hulk through a lackluster origin story. It’s actually one of the worst superhero origin stories I’ve seen in Marvel, because it’s just too ridiculous.
She-Hulk wants to be a comedy, but it simply lacks the comedic flair that makes a comedy funny. It relies too much on lecture-humor, as I like to call it. It relies too much on trying to relate to younger generations that it misses the mark on what younger generations find funny. It’s like bad BuzzFeed humor, I guess.
She-Hulk immediately pitches to us a show that’s not entirely sure what it wants to be: A lawyer courtroom drama, a comedy, a sitcom, a slice-of-life lawyer sitcom comedy show, a superhero show, a show with deep messages, etc… It’s like several writers sat down at a table and couldn’t decide what to do, so they all just started throwing stuff together and made a script at the last-second.
I’m not the type of person to believe that all TV shows need to be serious. It’s okay to have comedy; I obviously don’t see an issue with comedy. However, the comedy of She-Hulk is simply not well-written and it diluted any substance the show could’ve had.
She-Hulk relied far too much on cameos, which genuinely began to feel purposeful, as if the writers knew that nobody would watch it without those.
Why did shows like Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight, the most recent Marvel projects, not seem to garner this much criticism? Ms. Marvel was a female-led story, right? Moon Knight placed heavy emphasis on Leila’s role, right?
So, perhaps the deflection tool many people have been using to defend She-Hulk (basically that all of its ‘haterz’ are men that hate women) doesn’t really apply to this scenario. It’s just a case of bad writing. Ms. Marvel was funny and serious, and it knew how to blend a proper story. Moon Knight was deep, dark, funny, and serious, and knew how to blend a proper story.
With any story, you need to give viewers a reason to keep coming back. She-Hulk didn’t provide that. Each episode felt disconnected from the last, despite being in the same plot. Each episode felt like it was rushed and that it was missing fundamental story-telling aspects. And then when the story started to go somewhere, it went nowhere.
The message of She-Hulk is also terrible. I’m not sure what the ending was trying to say, but just because you don’t like something in life doesn’t mean you can just run away from it and change the story. If that was how life worked, nobody would have problems. Jen never really got a chance to face her problems and she never really got a chance to deal with real-life consequences. That’s not good writing, even for a comedy.
Even comedies pitch their characters in tough situations and makes them face those consequences. Let’s be real, She-Hulk didn’t do that.
Besides, Intelligencia was hyped as the big bad guy along with Titania all season long only for the two villains to be tossed aside as though they were just plot pieces. That’s not good writing either.
I hope and pray that this show does not get renewed for a second season, because it really does not deserve one with the terrible writing we were given.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
