She-Hulk Finale Ending Explained: A Fourth-Wall Smashing Rewrite – Armessa Movie News

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Episode 9 of She-Hulk.

After a season that played out like the offspring of Ally McBeal and The Incredible Hulk. MCU fanatics are already filled with a giddy sense of anticipation at what the show’s creators will serve up on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law if a second season is (hopefully) green-lit and rolls around sometime next year. In recent years, the MCU has embraced and reinvigorated reliable genre staples like magic, time travel, and now, the multiverse/concept of parallel worlds. Hopefully, in future Marvel outings, She-Hulk will become a key character and feature prominently in upcoming Marvel releases. Tatiana Maslany knocked it out of the park, and over the course of 9 episodes Jennifer Walters became one of the most fascinating, relatable, and likable characters in the MCU — and one in charge of her own story.

Jen’s been put through the wringer over the course of her own solo series. To recap: she’s now a hulk, a well-respected lawyer, has a rival in Titania, and has a new love interest in Daredevil. She’s been monitored by a shadowy organization only known as Intelligencia. She’s finally embraced her She-Hulk vigilante side. Oh, and Intelligencia has potentially ruined her life in the painful penultimate episode.

She-Hulk’s finale, “Whose Show Is This?” might be the most innovative installment of MCU on the small screen since WandaVision. First things first: Intelligencia’s entire plan hinged on She-Hulk losing complete control, they baited her, Jen took the bait, and now she is in jail. We are treated to a dream sequence involving The Savage She-Hulk, grainy footage of a retro-style She-Hulk who wants you dead. Jen wakes and her legal team — consisting of Mallory, Pug, and Nikki — offers her a plea deal. Her life is now turned upside down, she loses her job and apartment, and she has to move back in with her overbearing parents. Oh, and she can no longer transform into She-Hulk. Feeling screwed over, she seeks out Emil (Tim Roth) at his retreat for supervillains for a mental health day. If only.

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Not a Safe Haven After All

Billionaire douche Todd Phelps (Jon Bass) has been a recurring bit player for a while now, and we discover why he has an interest in She-Hulk — because he is HulkKing, founder of Intelligencia, and is joined by a small army of woman-haters. Apparently, Intelligencia’s membership is made up of casually sexist idiots. Worse still? Emil Blonsky has agreed to life coach these men. Todd can’t wait to tell Jen he paid Josh to steal her blood, which he promptly injects into his own arm, Hulking out. Things get predictably crazy with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) showing up, as well as Titania (Jameela Jamil) smashing through a wall. What? Why is she here?

None of this makes any sense, right? This isn’t the finale Jen needs or wants. Explosions, action set-pieces? Nah, no way. Not really conducive to her personality, is it? So Jen chooses to break the fourth wall, only now she breaks it down literally and climbs via streaming platform into our world. Seriously.

She-Hulk Takes Charge of Her Own Story

It’s so entertaining for a Marvel protagonist to reject the obligatory CGI end-boss-battle most other movies/shows nearly always culminate in. Despite her identity as She-Hulk, it would be completely out of character for Jen to engage in this kind of epic brawl when she approaches battles, both legal and other, without the situation devolving into a senseless bloodbath. She’s not only calling out the show’s writers for violence-as-a-solution, but she’s also chastising us at home for not demanding another kind of ending. Had Jen participated in the retreat war, it would only have been a betrayal of her character, and it is her consistency we’ve all grown to love this year. She is finally at ease with the She-Hulk persona and all it entails. It takes guts to take responsibility for your own story and steer it in the direction you need it to go.

She-Hulk, in full superpower regalia, makes her way to the God of the MCU to challenge her formulaic and predictable season finale. After storming into Marvel HQ and berating the writers’ room for embracing tired tropes, she finally reaches the man she needs to talk to. She meets with K.E.V.I.N. (Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus) and they talk algorithms and content and audience expectations before she requests her own ending. A new formula for this episode will work better if it is done Jen’s way, and the familiar MCU action sequences take a back seat. He agrees, and they make the necessary changes/editing. Oh, and she’d like to see more Daredevil (Charlie Cox). So would we!

The ingenuity of the finale episode was on par with something Charlie Kauffman might conjure up if he had a propensity for superheroes, Marvel, and the expansive lore surrounding each individual off-shoot of the MCU. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is still in its infancy and this development was exciting for hardcore purists and newcomers to the MCU. Could it potentially hint at a multiverse storyline in the future, or was it an amusing anomaly? The Ultron-like Kevin Feige was sinister and interestingly weird. Fingers crossed we see him again as a world-dominating force… oh, wait!

Ultimately, Jen gets the pragmatic, happy ending she needs after a pretty fraught few months. Todd is arrested, Emil is sent back to prison for breaking the conditions of his parole, Daredevil reappears, Jen introduces Matt Murdock to her family, and Hulk debuts his surprise son, Skaar. Meanwhile, She-Hulk will both practice law and deliver vigilante justice from here on out. After all, it is her story.

The first season of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is available to stream on Disney+.