She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Disney+)

[eldaec]

As much as I liked the rest of the series I was not hopeful for the finale.

And I was unconvinced before the wall breaking bit. And then I thought it was bad until they got to glados. But the Glados scene won me over.

The ending was suitably wholesome.

[schild]

Perfect television.

Also, World War Hulk inc.

[Hawkbit]

I have a special love for Thor:Rag and the first Strange. This was really some of the best of anything Marvel has done.

I also enjoyed Werewolf at Night too, which was a really nice diversion from any expectations I had of Marvel stuffs.

[HaemishM]

I will say that they are doing a good job of letting creators push the envelope on what kind of stories can be told in the MCU. The comics have always been able to play with different genres within the broader superhero stories, but these are doing so with major investment. I didn't like Strange 2 and don't think it was very well done, but it was definitely an exercise in letting Sam Raimi be Sam Raimi within the context of Dr. Strange.

This was an incredibly brutal yet fair takedown of the worst of the hardcore MCU/comics nerds and I am here for it.

[Khaldun]

LOVED Werewolf by Night--that was one of the best things they've done.

Finale for She-Hulk was...ok. To be honest, it was very like a lot of the wall-breaking that John Byrne did in his run on She-Hulk, which is to say kind of defensive and peevish and not quite as funny as it thinks it is. I mean, maybe it would have been just fine to do an ending that wasn't the conventional brawlfest spectacular and have her fourth-wall quip at the end "bet you were expecting a giant fight with the LEADER or something", then cut to Tim Blake Nelson as the Leader working as a quant at Goldman and Sachs, saying "I'm smart, I'm not crazy!"

I also think the series in the end showed one of the shortcomings of Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk in the comics, which is that having set up the great premise of a superhuman division of a big corporate law firm, it ultimately wasn't as interested in mining out that premise as it could have been, which is too bad because there's a lot of possibility in it.

I loved the series overall, though.

[MahrinSkel]

Yo, dawg, I heard you like meta so we put writer's in jokes in our climb through the 4th wall so you can...I don't know, fuck it, we're done.

--Dave

[eldaec]

My only issue with the finale was that once they did the big wall break she spent far too long marching around the site, and the writers scene was cringeworthy.

But the glados scene was great.

They probably should have spent those minutes continuing to make fun of Marvel final acts.

Because Marvel final acts are really easy to make fun of.

[Riggswolfe]

For me personally the 4th wall break in the finale was just too much. It took me right out of the show and made me super aware it was all just TV. It was just a bridge too far for my tastes. I enjoyed the series over-all but I just lost all interest in anything going on in the finale due to that whole scene since it destroyed any feeling that this was "real". So I was super aware I was watching actors on a set as opposed to Jen having dinner with her family or whatever.

[Khaldun]

4th wall breaking is a delicate thing. Deadpool handles the balance pretty well in part by giving you an emotional arc in there that's oddly real/engaging and by having other gags that don't depend on self-referentiality exactly. I think the all-time best example of 4th wall breaking that's more extended is Blazing Saddles (though the crashing into the gay musical bit hasn't aged well and was too long even back then) in part because it still finds time for a call back to the weirdly satisfying relationship between Bart and the town and Bart and the Waco Kid and it still lets Bart shoot it out with Hedy Lamarr (at Grauman's Chinese, even).

What I find kind of dumb in fan discussions is now there's people saying that She-Hulk has a superpower that lets her get outside her reality to our reality at will. No, no, no, you dumbfuckers, that is literally the worst way you could possibly process this. All the 4th wall breaking stuff Grant Morrison has done over in DC Comics understands properly that if you take it seriously as a story premise, it can't possibly be funny--it's the most horrifying thing ever. Imagine if you found out you were just the figment of some real person's imagination and everything you did, good and bad, depended on how they wrote your character and yet somehow you were also self-aware and thought of yourself as real. (Which maybe is just something the writer is doing to you for now.) That's pretty much Billy Mumy-wishes-you-into-the-cornfield territory. The only way you can process 4th wall breaking really is that it's a gag or joke, a sort of meta-commentary. (And you can do meta without 4th wall breaking: say, The Princess Bride, for example.)  That's why it's really hard to sustain for an extended time.

[Sky]

This was an incredibly brutal yet fair takedown of the worst of the hardcore MCU/comics nerds and I am here for it.

"It's not like in Rapefest Quark Zoom, where they subvert the clichés by embracing them. And then undermining them by making them all true."

[MediumHigh]

This show had 1 good episode and decided to say "and yes we fired whoever wrote that episode" 

[Cyrrex]

This show had 1 good episode and decided to say "and yes we fired whoever wrote that episode" 

So what you are saying in your usual coded way is that I absolutely need to watch this show, gotcha.

[MediumHigh]

This show had 1 good episode and decided to say "and yes we fired whoever wrote that episode" 

So what you are saying in your usual coded way is that I absolutely need to watch this show, gotcha.

Not really coded. The show has some flashes of good moments like she-hulk twerking, getting straight to business with that random tinder date, and the entire episode between she-hulk and daredevil... which is surrounded by an island of uninteresting main plots, subplots, and characters. Ultimately the show relies on you feeling sorry for an upper middle class lawyer in her 30s and her nonexistent love life. If you feel sorry for her, kudos, but I really don't.

[schild]

does class and job have anything to do with feeling sorry for someone for their love life?

i'm not sure i'm understanding, did you root for the guys who ran the website in the show?

[Surlyboi]

You know he did.

[eldaec]

I don't think you really feel sorry for main character, so much as find her more relatable than other Marvel heroes.

Except at the end of the second to last episode. Then you probably feel sorry for her. Unless you are a bit weird.

[Cyrrex]

MediumHigh is like the Bill Kristol of movie and TV, if I remember correctly.

[Riggswolfe]

Not really coded. The show has some flashes of good moments like she-hulk twerking, getting straight to business with that random tinder date, and the entire episode between she-hulk and daredevil... which is surrounded by an island of uninteresting main plots, subplots, and characters. Ultimately the show relies on you feeling sorry for an upper middle class lawyer in her 30s and her nonexistent love life. If you feel sorry for her, kudos, but I really don't.

The show does ask you to emphasize with someone who is more normal than many of the other comic heroes. Is she dirt poor and barely surviving like Peter Parker? No. But she has struggles that are relatable particularly to women. I mean, the whole bit with her expected to be She Hulk in the office is a metaphor for how women are expected to look a certain way on the job even if their colleagues aren't held to the same standard.

I wouldn't call her upper middle class either. Sure, her family has a nice house but this is TV. That's never a good way to judge since everyone on TV has a nice house or a huge apartment even if they talk about how they can barely afford food or whatever. She starts the show as a DA, hardly a job that will make her rich. She makes more at her new job but it's no accident that when she loses it she almost immediately moves in with her parents.

[Threash]

It's a TV comedy, everyone is always one fuck up away from being fired and instant destitution the second they lose their job. That's just how things work.

[Sky]

The shit you guys come up with when you watch tv is endlessly fascinating.

[Khaldun]

Shorter MediumHigh: I liked it when she fucked guys and shook her ass, not so much when she was a human being.

[Sky]

Shorter MediumHigh: I liked it when she fucked guys and shook her ass, not so much when she was a human being.

I mean...

To be fair I think phase 4 is more a return to what Disney brand really is which is mostly a family friendly thing for family and small children than any intentional sabotage. Like she hulk should be raunchier and little more dead pool (seeing how she was deadpool before deadpool) but that's not a Disney brand. This is a weird fact that is marvel fans of characters liken thor and the hulk are more sources comedy than the super serious characters. Which is funny because giving Thor and Hulk the funny treatment works waaay better than giving every character in my bad the same energy. Save for Ms Marvel... thats just a kid show and I didn't grow up watching disney channel originals.

So it needs edgy swearing, raw sex, and gratuitous violence to be good? I think schild nailed it, you're the type She-Hulk is very blatantly poking fun at.  (Not sure how DP is not a Disney brand, since it's developing the 3rd movie and the first two are on Disney+)

[SurfD]

He's literally the "Is this what you want" guy she completely smashed the 4th wall to call out.

[HaemishM]

Should we change his name to MediumIntelligencia? 

[MediumHigh]

does class and job have anything to do with feeling sorry for someone for their love life?

i'm not sure i'm understanding, did you root for the guys who ran the website in the show?

To sum that up.

Captain Marvel gets to fight alien imperialists who enslave entire world and commit genocide.
Wanda gets to deal with the emotional trauma of losing her husband and her brother within a 2 year period. And also being used and experimented on by literal nazis.
Black Widow gets to fight the ghost of the cold war and our petty desires to "win" the game of thrones at any cost + her guilt associated with playing her part in the game.

But she hulk is a comedy. So she gets to fight slut shamming. And internet trolls. And getting ghosted after a one night stand.

I don't need her to be edgy, I don't need her to kill people, or save the world. I'm perfectly fine with her being human and having human problems. But she got the short end of the stick when it comes to an actual conflict, she only gets to be fun sometimes and her "drama" was done better in shows that don't require superpowers to tell. I felt the same way for Iron Man 2, in fact this is very comparable to Iron Man 2. There are plenty of examples of doing a man suffering from high ego and self destructive tendencies + daddy issues better, but the kids bop version of alcoholism wasn't it. I feel the same way about the internet trolls coming for she-hulk like I did Justin Hammer stealing stark tech.

Also Jessica Jones did it better and managed to be the more fun character despite literally dripping in self destruction, alcoholism, and abuse.

[HaemishM]

Also Jessica Jones did it better and managed to be the more fun character despite literally dripping in self destruction, alcoholism, and abuse.

 

[MahrinSkel]

Unfortunately, I find myself having to argue that he has a point. That climb through the fourth wall trivialized the stakes of the entire series. It was cute, but the jokes were so meta that they were only really funny to a few hundred people, all of them working for Marvel. And then they just deus exed into...shit, I don't even remember except it was generic happy ending bullshit.

Literally if it had been 8 episodes and ended on a cliff hanger, it would have been better.

--Dave

[Velorath]

Yeah, it sucks when sitcoms trivialize the stakes of the series.

[MediumHigh]

Yeah, it sucks when sitcoms trivialize the stakes of the series.

*cough* Wanda Vision *cough*

[Velorath]

Yeah, it sucks when sitcoms trivialize the stakes of the series.

*cough* Wanda Vision *cough*

Did you actually watch WandaVision?

[schild]

Unfortunately, I find myself having to argue that he has a point. That climb through the fourth wall trivialized the stakes of the entire series. It was cute, but the jokes were so meta that they were only really funny to a few hundred people, all of them working for Marvel. And then they just deus exed into...shit, I don't even remember except it was generic happy ending bullshit.

Literally if it had been 8 episodes and ended on a cliff hanger, it would have been better.

--Dave

don't be such an unfun bitch

4th wall or not the show did not have a generic happy ending and brought world war hulk into the picture

[MediumHigh]

Yeah, it sucks when sitcoms trivialize the stakes of the series.

*cough* Wanda Vision *cough*

Did you actually watch WandaVision?

What i wanted to say is that WandaVision did being a sitcom better. Did it first. And still managed to have overall conflict in its story.

[HaemishM]

I think classifying Wandavision as a sitcom is an extreme bit of reductionism. It was not a sitcom.

[Threash]

Specially when the sitcom plots didn't have to actually lead anywhere.

[SurfD]

What i wanted to say is that WandaVision did being a sitcom better. Did it first. And still managed to have overall conflict in its story.

If you managed to completely miss that the "sitcom" elements of WandaVision were there as a form of lampshading on the series as a whole, you have basically shot any credibility you ever had here.