Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Aug 30, 2022 9:07:26 GMT -8
I was hoping Jen would have a line where she comments on how her cousin used to look like the faded alter-ego of Tyler Durden, but no such luck; that would probably be coloring too far outside the lines for Disney's taste. Well, they did get a Silence of the Lambs reference in there, so what do I know.
Personally, I am less impressed by this episode than the pilot, because here you could really see the contours of an actually good TV show that bothers with such writerly concepts as "allegory" (Jen's anxiety about being hired as a token) and "parallelism" (Jen's desire for Abomination to be reformed as evidence that she can reform) or just like, any interesting ideas whatsoever. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Spider-verse being so good and handling the meta elements with such finesse. Just have the Spider-verse guys write this one, dudes.
Also, I'm irrationally annoyed that the law firm on this show, which in the comics is named after Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, is just referred to by its acronym here. Feels like a slight to me.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 2, 2022 14:17:21 GMT -8
Quiara, have you actually been reading the She-Hulk comics? I'm going to assume you are, because that will make me happy.
My guess is they're not using the full "Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg" name of the practice because having an explicitly Jewish law firm at the center of the series would draw accusations of anti-Semitism. (Not from me, of course, but from some of the louder corners of the Internet.)
Anyway, episode 3! (Yeah, I'm gonna keep doing these weekly updates till I get bored or till CG Jennifer becomes too creepy to take.)
The fact that this episode opens with Intenet reaction comments and videos about She-Hulk and ends with Jennifer engaging in a twerk-a-thon with Megan Thee Stallion, it's safe to say that this is Marvel's most overtly "online" production yet. There are multiple lines and scenes in this show that feel created in a meme generator, in a way I haven't seen from Disney+ outside the new Chip 'n' Dale movie.
It's certainly a distinguishing factor for the series, but not always in a good way. The show is taking more of a comedic tone than most MCU productions, but that can leave it feeling forced and heavy-handed. The meta-humor in particular feels awkward and shoved in at various points in the episode, less an organic part of the story than a necessary box to check in adapting the She-Hulk persona. (The moment when Jennifer pokes her head into camera view to express her excitement that the A-plot and B-plot are converging was particularly unfunny.)
The show remains tethered to the larger MCU, of course, and the episode's best scenes involve Jen defending Blonsky, with Tim Roth clearly having the time of his life. But the story with the shapeshifting Asgardian feels like the writers are pushing too hard to keep the "sitcom" setting - it's a wacky side-plot with the lovable supporting characters!... Except none of the supporting characters on this show are particularly lovable, or even memorable for that matter.
Wong is great, though. Always up for Wong.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 8, 2022 18:26:29 GMT -8
Episode 4! (I'm putting an exclamation point at the end of each episode number to make these posts more exciting. I hope it's doing the job.)
This was certainly the best episode so far, and also the first that really feels like the show we were promised in the trailers. A good balance of romantic comedy and superhero action, plus some pretty funny dialogue (including a few Sopranos spoilers, which is a pretty bold move on Marvel's part). They even managed to show a character reading a Roxane Gay book without it feeling unnatural in context.
Wong continues to get the best material, and Marvel seems to have recognized his popularity (when I saw Multiverse of Madness in the theater a few months back, he got two different applause moments). This is still ultimately Jennifer's show, but it's doing a decent job of doling out elements that tie into the larger picture, which is of course the larger MCU Thing. The little bait-and-switch of introducing a character named "Donny Blaze" (unquestionably meant to remind people of Johnny Blaze, AKA the biggest tax write-off of Nicholas Cage's career) seems like a troll, but it's not a "Ralph Boner"-level troll.
Anyway, visual effects aside, the series seems to be finding its groove. And about time, as we're already nearing the midway point.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 20, 2022 17:45:31 GMT -8
Episode 5: Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans! (That's the title, don't @ me.)
I know Disney will never release them, but I'm curious to see the weekly viewing numbers for this show. I'm guessing a lot of viewers dropped off after the mediocre first episode (if they even watched it at al - House of the Dragon and Rings of Power have eaten up most of the cultural real estate in the past month, and that's before Andor even joins the fray). Which is understandable, what with the TV landscape as incredibly crowded as it is*. But those of us who stuck with She-Hulk have been lucky to see the series hit its stride.
This is the first episode without any major MCU cameos (apart from a quick tease at episode's end, because how could they resist), and it does a good job working as an installment of the series we were promised - a silly, cheeky half-hour legal sitcom with some funny jokes. Many of the funniest lines are reserved for the courtroom scenes, with the cringeworthy fourth-wall jokes thankfully kept to a minimum. Renee Elise Goldsberry is a standout in the episode, making a lighter riff on the prosecutorial role she had for several years on The Good Wife.
Also, in perhaps the most obscure Marvel Comics reference in the history of the MCU, the episode introduced Luke Jacobson, a character from Dakota North. You all remember Dakota North, don't you? There's a Marvel character who desperately needs her own show...
*For the moment! Given recent news from streaming services like Netflix and HBO Max and the continued struggles of cable, the Peak TV wave may finally be cresting.
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 14, 2022 13:57:37 GMT -8
As predicted, I fell off these weekly reactions after a spell. But the season wrapped up yesterday, and I've got some closing thoughts.
Put plainly, She-Hulk is the single messiest and most uneven production yet to come out of the MCU. Complete clash of tones and storylines, of Avengers meets Ally McBeal meets (occasionally) Rick and Morty, with very little actually coming together. The first episode was the show's nadir (though the wedding ep was a close second - stop trying to make Titania happen), due to its near-total failure to establish a compelling premise or central character. The show improved somewhat when it shifted to legal sitcom mode, though a lot of the humor in those episodes (especially the 4th-wall jokes) felt really forced. The final stretch, with its attempt to tie in a larger arc that was both comic-booky and politically relevant (She-Hulk vs. 4Chan trolls!), was the show at its most muddled and self-confused.
But despite the show's glaring issues... I was never really bored? It certainly held my attention more than Moon Knight or later episodes of Ms. Marvel, with the big, wide swings yielding some of the most outlandish results in the MCU. Similar to Thor: Love and Thunder, except on a smaller scale and thus less burdened by lofty expectations. (One key advantage that the Marvel shows have over the Marvel movies is their range of experimentation, though so far, most haven't lived up to the potential.)
The She-Hulk season finale is a shining example of what the series has gotten so right and wrong. It is relentlessly ridiculous and mercilessly meta-textual, leading to one of the strangest and funniest reveals in any MCU production ever. Yet it also feels like the writers throwing up their hands and acknowledging that they've written themselves into a corner and gotta go for broke. In essence, it encapsulates a lot of the problems with Phase Four MCU, though it's a little more honest with the audience about it.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Oct 15, 2022 8:05:58 GMT -8
So, this might sound like a weird question, but I fell off after episode 2 - does the show actually enter an episodic Ally McBeal mold, which a distinct set of non-Jen characters who play off each other?
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 15, 2022 16:16:10 GMT -8
Sort of. The first three episodes are the show getting all introductions out of the way. The next three episodes are the Ally McBeal lawyer comedy promised in the trailers (complete with Wacky Subplots in which Jen's coworkers take on Hilarious Cases). The last three episodes are the show remembering it's part of a larger cinematic universe with plenty of other IP to set up and play with.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Oct 16, 2022 18:57:33 GMT -8
As predicted, I fell off these weekly reactions after a spell. But the season wrapped up yesterday, and I've got some closing thoughts. Put plainly, She-Hulk is the single messiest and most uneven production yet to come out of the MCU. Complete clash of tones and storylines, of Avengers meets Ally McBeal meets (occasionally) Rick and Morty, with very little actually coming together. The first episode was the show's nadir (though the wedding ep was a close second - stop trying to make Titania happen), due to its near-total failure to establish a compelling premise or central character. The show improved somewhat when it shifted to legal sitcom mode, though a lot of the humor in those episodes (especially the 4th-wall jokes) felt really forced. The final stretch, with its attempt to tie in a larger arc that was both comic-booky and politically relevant (She-Hulk vs. 4Chan trolls!), was the show at its most muddled and self-confused. But despite the show's glaring issues... I was never really bored? It certainly held my attention more than Moon Knight or later episodes of Ms. Marvel, with the big, wide swings yielding some of the most outlandish results in the MCU. Similar to Thor: Love and Thunder, except on a smaller scale and thus less burdened by lofty expectations. (One key advantage that the Marvel shows have over the Marvel movies is their range of experimentation, though so far, most haven't lived up to the potential.) That more or less sums up how I feel about The Rings of Power. That's pretty much how I felt about it at the start, and it's how I feel now. I was rarely bored or irritated watching it, but at the same time it never drew me in enough to distract from its fairly glaring shortcomings in terms of pacing, characterization, and lore (changing lore by itself isn't a bad thing by any means, but the specific changes made here don't work for the most part). There's too much being hinged on empty mystery boxes that the audience knows are foregone conclusions. Prequels require a great deal of creativity and skill to execute properly, and Rings doesn't have either of them in spades. And the frustrating thing is I can think of many ways they could've improved the show too, with just a few tweaks. So it goes. (lol, just realized I hijacked the She-Hulk thread. My bad).
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 19, 2022 15:40:50 GMT -8
(lol, just realized I hijacked the She-Hulk thread. My bad). Oh, no worries. I haven't been watching Rings (or House of the Dragon - been completely averse to the recent fantasy vs. fantasy battles that have been dominating the socials), but it seems to be generating more sustained discussion than the MCU has lately, and from the clips I've seen, has a much better visual palette.
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