All the time…
This didn’t really work for me, unfortunately. It felt like going meta was just a cheap excuse for not having to come up with an actual ending. I think I need some level of immersion to care about what’s going on within a show, and completely and flat-out accepting the fictional nature of the narrative within the narrative seems to spoil that for me—so I can take a Deadpool-level of fourth-wall-breaking, but this just feels like tipping over the set entirely, revealing everything to just be cardboard. Which wouldn’t even be so bad if it were just revealed for the benefit of the audience alone, but Jen’s interaction with the fictional nature of her universe sort of just negates it, leaving nothing for me to engage with. Or something—this is probably just a rationalization; bottom line is, I wanted to enjoy it, but didn’t.
Does anybody know if there will be another season? Because this seemed like the ending you’d show if you just found out that there’s no point in developing any of the story lines, in order to give things as much of an ‘ending’ as was possible.
Also, wasn’t there an annoying cousin of Jen? Did they just forget about him?
The DJ? he was there. Also this 100% worked on me, this was perfect on every level. And it did have a real ending, it just took a detour to get there.
Ah, I must’ve missed him, then. Seems like he was uncharacteristically quiet, though.
And I fully expect to be in the minority in not liking it, which is perfectly fine. It’s the same sort of thing that makes me miss out on things like Lower Decks and Dark Souls—I seem to be unable to reconcile certain sorts of breaks within fictional universes with my suspension of disbelief (in Lower Decks, the tone with that of the rest of the Star Trek universe, in Dark Souls, the inevitability of repeated deaths). But that’s nobody’s issue but mine, of course.
FWIW it’s at least not a minority of one. I’ve enjoyed this show as the lightweight fun it’s supposed to be but this seems like a weak way to end the season. Fourth wall breaking to a separate box inside, erasing any need for anything before to fit together or make sense is too much of that ingredient.
I read somewhere that She-Hulk will be appearing in the new Daredevil series but, you know, grain of salt and all that.
When I saw Hulk fighting Abomination in a trailer, I groaned. Please tell me they didn’t have Banner come in and save his helpless female cousin.
You really just gotta watch.
The closed captioning gave away a good joke by writing Kevin as K.E.V.I.N before we saw it. I thought the ending was funny but also thought it was a bit of a cop out both because it criticized the ending but never really have us a different, better one and instead just skipped over it entirely and by hanging a Lantern on some issues with the MCU it gives them an excuse to ignore them (when Kevin said this would end like all their movies end I thought for sure he would say, “With a bright light going up into the sky”).
Disappointed that there wasn’t even a glimpse of her neighbor.
Did not enjoy the “Blazing Saddles” ending. Didn’t like it in “Blazing Saddles” itself, either.
There was also a blink-and-you-miss-it visual joke, where just as she spelled it, you saw one of the lawyers obviously scratching out something he’d written down, with an annoyed look on his face. Because he’d put the Y in the wrong place.
Loved Werewolf By Night. The ending was absolutely perfect…it took what was my one quibble with the show and turned it into a wonderful plot point.
I thought the ending was a miss, as well. Not a terrible miss, certainly had some funny moments, but they just didn’t really stick the landing. Cop-out on existing storylines, “Check out how clever we are!” vibe - an overall unsatisfying way to conclude a season.
As far as the show itself…
The good:
Tatiana Maslany was great - adorable, intelligent, vulnerable. The supporting characters (Ginger Gonzaga, Josh Segarra, Tim Roth) were great as well, and were not just props. Even the tertiary characters (Luke, Leap-Frog, the support group, etc) were well-done.
The show hit a great tone, and the overall humor clicked for me. The fourth-wall breaking got better as the season went on, was used to great effect at the end of episode 8 (broke the wall but was too distraught to speak), then went mildly off the rails in the finale.
Daredevil! Great guest-star turn, and the chemistry between Matt and Jen was crackling. It was very nice to see more of the acrobatic Daredevil from the comics as opposed to the gritty brawler from the Netflix series. (His walk of shame / stride of pride was freakin’ hilarious!)
Artwork credits were very well-done.
The bad:
The episodes were too short! I get the sitcom-half-hour dynamic, but once you’ve added the recaps and credits and such, the actual show was only about 20 minutes long. I think they should’ve targeted a content length of 30 minutes, then added the trimmings. Just give it a bit more breathing room.
The legal scenes were not well-done, which is odd for a show subtitled, “Attorney at Law.”
Titania was a weird villain/foil. She seemed to want to pull the show in a Schumacher-Batman campy direction. I’d say the show more survived her appearances than benefitted from them.
The other:
The misogyny from the incel crowd was in absolute overdrive. It was bad. The show anticipated and dealt with this as best it could (“Twitter armor”, reddi - er, Intelligencia, etc) - but still, I’d rather not know that there’s that many idiots out there. (That’s no fault of the show, though - in fact, if I was to sum up the past decade or so in general, I’d probably come up with something like “I’d rather not know that there’s that many idiots out there.”)
The CGI was … not bad. She-Hulk managed to largely avoid the uncanny valley - she had some legit empathy-inducing emotional displays.
Mid-credits scenes, have them or don’t. It felt like there was a lot of behind-the-scenes tinkering going on with the show.
Overall:
The show was very refreshing - it busted a lot of MCU (MTU?) conventions, and was not predictable at all. I hope it gets a second season.
I was a smidge put out that the evil mastermind behind Intelligencia wasn’t a true villain, and no shout-out or call-back to Marvel history, but just Chekhov’s incel.
But they’ve been careful of obvious hooks to Big MCU, so it makes sense from a showrunning perspective, I guess.
I agree with your every point. We are of an accord. Including wanting a second season, though it takes them so long to make these shows it will likely be two years from now, if not further interrupted by an as-yet unannounced Planet Hulk movie. That’s too long! I may be dead by then!
I enjoyed the finale more than it seems most of you did. I agree that it was a bit of a cop-out not to have a “real ending”, but the whole thing was just so much fun I didn’t mind.
One thing that made me sad: when we first got the barest glimpse of the “Jen dancing at law school” video, we saw her wearing glasses, and I was SURE that it was an easter egg and that was a little clip of Tatiana-Maslany-as-Cosima-from-Orphan-Black, dancing with all the other clones in the famous clone dance party. Sadly, when we got a slightly clearer view of it later that turned out not to be the case, which is a shame, as that would have been hilarious.
I enjoyed the “Bill Bixby” style intro.
(paraphrase) “do you mean going after legally, or as She-Hulk?” I would have preferred “yes” to “both”
Brian
I was so ramen with the main actress that I decided to investigate her other work. Now two episodes into Orphan Black and really enjoying it!
Also Tatiana hails from Regina, Saskatchewan in my home country.
That was my favorite part of the finale. For a second there I thought that was Lou Ferrigno in drag.