[Series Review] SHE-HULK - Nightmarish Conjurings

Jennifer Walters really wants to just lead a normal life, but thanks to her cousin Bruce Banner she is forever connected to superheroes and those with powerful abilities, and being a giant green monster is not conducive to having professional or personal relationships that are normal. She’ll tell you that herself in SHE-HULK, the 4th-wall breaking legal comedy from Marvel Studios.

SHE-HULK stars Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Jameela Jamil (The Good Place), and Ginger Gonzaga. The show was created by Jessica Gao who’s written for shows like Silicon Valley, Robot Chicken, and Rick and Morty. Top that off with Anu Valia and Kat Coiro as directors. Essentially, this is a very female driven show and you can tell.

I was lucky enough to see four episodes in advance and in one episode we see the dating life of Jennifer Walters and how she struggles with being single in her 30s on top of being able to transform into a green monster. Superhuman or not, this is a show about the female perspective made from a female point of view. I won’t lie, the trailers for the show, mostly footage from episode 1, don’t do this comedy justice. This is not a show about Bruce and Jennifer catching up. This is truly Jennifer’s show with Maslany giving an excellent performance with a range of emotions. While Jennifer’s life is frustrating, and at times upsetting, this show still has to be funny. Jessica Gao, from years of experience, is more than capable of writing a funny show and that is exactly what SHE-HULK is. It’s funny, and even though its main story is about a woman who can throw boulders 100 yards if she wants, it is still relatable.

(L-R): Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk/Jennifer “Jen” Walters, Ginger Gonzaga as Nikki Ramos, and Drew Matthews as Dennis Bukowski in Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Ginger Gonzaga might become everyone’s new favorite best friend playing the part of Nikki Ramos. She’s so lively and upbeat even in times where things seem dire. She’s the kind of friend who shows up to your house after you’ve been crying all day with wine and two pints of ice cream, one for you and one for her. Gonzaga and Maslany play off of each other like they’ve always known each other. If they aren’t friends in real life you could have fooled me. These two are each other’s “Ride or Dies” and that connection is palpable.

Speaking of women sticking up for each other, there’s a scene early on in episode one that takes place in a women’s restroom at a bar. According to Gao, it was nearly on the cutting room floor, but she felt it was an important scene to establish the show early on. In a media call for the show she stated, “Women are so often depicted as being catty, and bitchy, and that could be true outside of the bar, but the moment you are in the inner sanctum of the bathroom, women just wanna help each other.” It is a great set up for the show and establishes that this is a showcase to see women portrayed in a positive lighthearted way.

Diversity has had a big push at Marvel over the last few years but one thing they’ve been missing has been a showcase for funny women. Sure there were funny one-liners in shows like WandaVision and Florence Pugh’s delivery as Yelena Belova/Black Widow is chuckle worthy, but Marvel has never deliberately set out to make a film or show about funny women in a positive light. Hiring someone like Jessica Gao to head a show with a cast of very funny women, and directed/executive produced by Kat Coiro (who has a background with shows like Modern Family and the romantic comedy film Marry Me) was a great call and it makes SHE-HULK feel different from anything that’s come before it from Marvel Studios.

Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer “Jen” Walters/She-Hulk in Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.

I don’t want to neglect some of the men involved in this show as well. Mark Ruffalo has been playing The Incredible Hulk now for a decade and the character has evolved over time. Now he gets a chance to show Professor Hulk in a lighthearted way that matches the tone of the show. Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky/Abomination is brilliant and it is no surprise that Roth eats up scenes like they are nothing. He’s been doing it for decades now. I’ll keep my mouth shut and leave a few surprise castings and returns up in the air, but I will say that one familiar face in particular creates some of the best scenes in the entire show when he becomes acquaintances with a girl who loves spoiling tv shows.

Oh, and lets talk about those VFX. Recently many people have become aware of the work that visual effects artists are being asked to do for Marvel and the crazy demands that have to be met in order for these shows and films to come out on time. While I’m all for slowing down the workload for these artists and paying them more, let’s leave that discussion for another time. Regardless of the real world work dynamics, I’m happy to say that I have zero qualms when it comes to what SHE-HULK looks like visually. If I had to sit and nitpick I’m sure there is something to critique, but I was never pulled away from the story because of wonky graphics or skin colors on screen. In fact, I’d tell you that this show doesn’t have nearly as many computer effects as other shows but I don’t know if that’s true or not, I just didn’t notice them and in the world of special effects, that’s a good thing.

Of course, as a female driven show, there are going to be those skeptics who have already written it off as part of the “M-She-U” or whatever buzzword they want to use this week, but this is a side of Marvel I’d personally love to see more of. It showcases the mundane and looked over sides of superhero life while also being a funny female-forward show in the same vein as Ally McBeal or Fleabag.

SHE-HULK’s 9-episode season begins streaming on Disney+ beginning August 18th, 2022 with its first episode with new episodes dropping weekly.