Is She-Hulk Marvel’s Fleabag Moment?
Marvel’s newest show She-Hulk: Attorney At Law captured its audience almost immediately by grabbing and placing us directly in the center of all the superhero action.
Jennifer Walters, passionate lawyer and cousin to Bruce Banner, talks to the audience right in the beginning of the first episode, breaking the fourth wall. Deadpool is one of Marvel’s most well known films to break the fourth wall often, but its content is quite different from the MCU’s Disney Plus original shows. It was a surprise to see, but without it She-Hulk would fall victim to a popular problem amongst Marvel Television shows- inconsistent pacing. Within the first few minutes of the episode, the whole hulk related backstory is explained in a fun yet detailed way. This quick dive into the superhero side of the story makes room for all the “fun lawyer” shenanigans that will make up the rest of the show.
In other MCU TV shows, the early episodes tend to be a bit slow. This could be seen specifically with Loki, a show that quite literally went from 0 to 100 real quick. The early episodes dragged on, which was unfortunate because Loki is an interesting and cheeky character. The blandness of the first couple of episodes went away almost immediately and were followed by an ending that was chaotic, if not a bit messy. Loki isn’t the only Marvel show to fall victim to this pacing problem, of course. Other examples lie in the early episodes of WandaVision, as well as MoonKnight and even Ms. Marvel, particularly in the middle.
She-Hulk has kicked off to a stellar start and let’s hope that it continues that way as the show progresses. With all the hulk stuff out of the way, the rest of the show will be easier to process and hopefully create a smoother story structure. Star of the show Tatiana Maslany brings the right amount of snark in her short quips to the audience. The fourth wall breaks immediately brought to mind the British show Fleabag, which was a series that was uniquely fast paced- something that Marvel struggles with. Perhaps this is Marvel’s own version of Fleabag, one with more Hulks and less sadness. If it is, I can’t wait to see where it leads. It’ll be great to see other Marvel shows take up this type of tone in the future (trust me, Loki could have been immaculate with a bit of fourth-wall breaking. I’m sure that smug God has a LOT to say to the audience.)
New episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law stream on Thursdays through Disney Plus!