She-Hulk: Lawyer has divided many Marvel fans, with its comedic core and throwaway storylines, and the finale didn’t disappoint by creating more debate between the show’s fans and critics. With a big reveal at the end of the series, the MCU’s biggest Meta moment, She-Hulk took a thinly veiled swipe at the many complaints directed against Marvel in recent years, and it was something the team behind the show were really happy to do.
She-Hulk has come under even more fire than other Marvel shows, calling out for its CGI, story, use of Daredevil… the list goes on. However, in the series finale, Tatiana Maslany’s Jennifer Walters broke the fourth wall in a new way. After leaving her own show and looking for “Kevin”, Jen ended up with KEVIN, an AI robot who, in the context of the show, is responsible for creating the storylines that follow rules, such as delivering a grand finale, tying up loose ends and teasing future projects. However, this scene also leads to a long conversation about how sometimes budgets have to be taken into account, that certain characters may not be available and you can’t please everyone, which is basically Marvel telling fans to just enjoy what they do or move on.
When it comes to delivering that scene and its message, writer Jessica Gao told Variety:
“That conversation between Jen and KEVIN is very much the relationship I have with real Kevin and a lot of it is taken from conversations I’ve had with him. That scene was so much longer in the scripts. If they’d let me in, I probably would have written a 10-minute conversation where my avatar argued with Kevin. This is probably the tightest version of what it could have been. There were a few jabs where Kevin said, “OK, this is a little mean now.”
Our writer’s room opened three years ago. The fact that we could predict what the reaction would be, what a lot of the trolling comments would be, really shows how very tired and unoriginal these trolls are. That really tickled me because the little troll that lives inside me really likes to troll the trolls.”
Tatiana Maslany always expected trolls to come after She-Hulk
It’s not uncommon for a series or movie to receive a high proportion of troll comments on social media, and She-Hulk was hit with many over its nine episode run. However, Tatiana Maslany was more than aware of how some people would react to the show, and it was all right with her to actually give them something to complain about with the series. She said:
“Jessica Gao is a genius and knows about the culture we live in and her position in it as she writes these stories about a female superhero. She knows what that reaction will be. As a cast, it was lovely to send each other these troll responses like “Oh my god, give them a week and they’ll literally see this pop up on the show and become the villains of the show.” It was exciting.
When I read the script, it was so true. There’s so much resistance to a woman who just exists in that superhero space. There will always be. I saw it coming. That’s why I think it’s important. There’s such a right to space held by certain people, and to even exist like She-Hulk is like shitting, and I love that.”
She-Hulk: Lawyer now streams all episodes on Disney+.