She-Hulk Pointedly Smashes Lazy MCU Tropes With Finale — Plus, Who All Returned? And Who Was Introduced?
You absolutely knew where She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was heading with its season finale. But Marvel knew you knew.So what you got instead was a closer that redefined “fourth wall-breaking,” brought back some familiar faces, and then introduced a brand-new, potentially important one to the MCU.
Following a cold open that wonderfully aped the Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno-led Incredible Hulk TV series of 1977-82….
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We pick up not right where Episode 8 left off, at the FLOTY gala, but some time after, with Jen locked up at the DODC. Mallory, Nikki and Pug come to visit, not to hear Jen’s thoughts on how to take legal action against Intelligencia, but to discuss her own defense strategy, having violently Hulked out at the event.
Jen agrees to an ankle inhibitor like the one she negotiated for Emil Blonsky, but the damage is already done: She loses her job and can’t find another one, so she moves out of her apartment and back into her childhood bedroom. Then in a bid for some privacy, she goes to crash at Blonsky’s retreat.
Nikki meanwhile uses a video of Jen twerking at college (courtesy of Mama Walters) to curry favor on the Intelligencia site and score an invite from HulkKing himself to a gathering that night. Knowing that that the incels are expecting a “bro,” Nikki coerces Pug into attending the meeting and acting his worst. There, with Nikki offering guidance through his iPhone AirPod, Pug learns that GLK&H client Todd Phelps is HulkKing.
Just as Todd introduces their guest speaker for the night, Abomination, Jen roams Blonsky’s retreat ands heads to the barn — which in fact is the site of the Intelligencia gathering! Blonsky shrinks back down and explains to his lawyer that it’s simply a paid speaking gig, but their talk is cut short by Todd juicing himself up with some of Jen’s stolen, synthesized blood to “Hulk out” into a big, green, female-hating machine. Things get crazier and crazier as Hulk himself crashes through the barn roof, Titania smashes through a side wall, and Blonsky returns to his Abomination form. As a melee ensues, Jen remarks to the camera this frankly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. “Is this working for you?,” she asks us, before the screen suddenly changes into a facsimile of the Disney+ Marvel hub. She-Hulk then climbs out of the tile for her own show and swings down into the one for the Marvel Assembled series.
She-Hulk strolls the Disney lot and into the production offices for… her show. She finds the writers room and confronts the scribes (real-life head writer Jessica Gao included), asking, “What kind of stupid finale is this?” She-Hulk grumbles that the Hulk Todd twist borrowed from “every superhero story ever,” then asks, “Why don’t we do things our own way?” One sheepish writer explains, “This is the story that K.E.V.I.N. wants.”
Jen marches off to meet with this K.E.V.I.N. (who if you didn’t have closed-captioning on, you surely assumed was Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige), and after signing a long-ass NDA and muscling past some guards, enters a cavernous room filled with screens playing Marvel clips. There, she comes face to face with K.E.V.I.N., a “giant A.I. brain” whose name stands for “Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus.” (Even Grant Ward has to appreciate that acronym.)
For budget reasons, She-Hulk shrinks back down to being Jen (off-camera, since the VFX team has moved on to other projects). She then launches into her “closing argument,” noting that “it is often said that Marvel movies all end the same way,” unleashing “plot and flash” and in this instance “a whole blood thing that is suspiciously close to the Super Soldier Serum.” Jen proposes that K.E.V.I.N. drops the Hulk Todd twist, gets rid of Bruce (even though K.E.V.I.N. says they were about to explai—), and shrink back down Emil/hold him accountable. Jen then starts rattling off the MCU’s reliance on “daddy issues” (for Tony, Thor, Loki, Star-Lord….), before K.E.V.I.N. announces that the error that allowed her inside has been fixed. “Now get back to the show,” K.E.V.I.N. says. “See you on the big screen” — though he claims to just be teasing about the latter part.
Returning to her rejiggered, daytime version of the finale, Jen assures Todd that she will be suing him into oblivion… has Blonsky sign a new deal that will send him back to the DODC… and welcomes back Daredevil/Matt Murdock. Matt in fact winds up staying with the Walterses for a week after, starting off with a family BBQ where he is peppered with questions about his and Jen’s future, his law practice and more. Cousin Bruce then shows up for real, back from Sakaar, to introduce everyone to his son, Skaar (played at least in this instance by Wil Deusner aka DC’s Stargirl‘s Joey Zarick) — effectively adding a lot more fuel to the World War Hulk movie fire.
A mid-credits scene then reveals that Blonsky summoned Wong (traveling without Madisynn, alas) to spring him from the DODC and hook him up with a room at Kamar-Taj.
What did you think of She-Hulk‘s walls-smashing season finale? Which return delighted you most? And were you shocked to first meet Skaar on the small screen? Weigh in below!
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