Stream It Or Skip It: ‘She-Hulk: Attorney At Law’ On Disney+, Where Tatiana Maslany Is Big And Green And Defends The Superpowered

Even people who are MCU obsessives can admit that the franchise can get too serious for its own good. Yes, there have been funny movies in the franchise, as well as funny moments during all of the series that Disney+ has debuted to date. But have there been any flat-out comedies? Not really — at least not until a humble L.A. assistant district attorney ended up absorbing some of her cousin’s gamma-ray-filled blood…

SHE-HULK: ATTORNEY AT LAW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We pan back on Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) as she recites a closing argument about abuse of power to her paralegal/bestie Nikki Ramos (Ginger Gonzaga) and her rival at the L.A. District Attorney’s office, Dennis Bukowski (Drew Matthews).

The Gist: When Nikki suggests to Jennifer that she could “Hulk out” while giving her closing argument, Jennifer turns to the audience to fill them in on the fact that she is, indeed, a Hulk.

We flash back to a few months ago, and she’s driving with her cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). He’s wearing a device that keeps him human instead of being Smart Hulk. A spaceship suddenly appears and the car runs off the road and flips a few times. In the process of getting Bruce out of the car, his gamma-ray infected blood gets into a cut on her arm. Suddenly, Jennifer turns green and runs off. Bruce eventually saves Jen from attacking some guys at a bar and takes her to his Mexican retreat.

This is where, as Smart Hulk, he lets her know that she synthesizes gamma rays like he does and, yes, she is now a Hulk. He thinks he needs to teach her how “to Hulk,” as Jen puts it, especially how to control her anger so she doesn’t randomly transform. But she nails the physical stuff and proves that she’s already pretty much herself when she Hulks out, just taller, stronger and greener. She also informs him that, as a woman who, like every woman, gets catcalled at and mansplained to all the time, she’s already pretty good at controlling her rage.

After a montage of training, she decides to go back to her life as an ADA; as much as Bruce tries to convince her that she now has the life of a superhero, she’s adamant that she wants to go back to her old life. After a massive and funny fight, he lets her. But during that closing argument we saw her practice, a superpowered social media influencer named Titania (Jameela Jamil) busts into the courtroom; Jen basically has no choice at this point than to let her secret out.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? She-Hulk: Attorney At Law isn’t like any of the other live-action MCU shows, mainly because it’s trying to lean into its comedic side more than anything. Jessica Gao, the show’s creator, is known for shows like Rick And Morty and Silicon Valley, and this show has more of those show’s sensibilities than anything else. If we compared it to any MCU movie, it would be more on the Ant-Man and Deadpool side of the spectrum.

Our Take: We shouldn’t have been so surprised that She-Hulk: Attorney At Law was as funny as it is. For one, the aforementioned Gao is in charge. Two, we have a Hulk as an attorney. Three, Maslany is fully capable of being hilarious, as we saw in Orphan Black and her guest stint on Parks And Rec. We were happy to see an MCU show that doesn’t take itself so damn seriously for once.

Yes, other MCU properties have funny moments. But for the most part, even the ones that are geared to be a bit lighthearted at times — WandaVision or Loki — are geared more towards action and dead-serious scenes. But She-Hulk is designed to be as meta as possible. Jen talks to the audience about things like the fact that there’s a lot of guest stars or that a plot twist will make for an interesting tag scene. The villains are kind of ridiculous; Jen eventually works for a firm called GLK&H defending the superpowered, and the first one she has to defend is Emil Blonsky aka Abomination (Tim Roth), who swears he’s “worked on himself”. Jen bristles at getting the nickname “She-Hulk” because women always get the modifier in front of a male-centric name.

In later episodes, we’ll see Titania come back, and a few episodes will also feature Wong, The Sorcerer Supreme (Benedict Wong), whom we find out is watching The Sporanos and This Is Us at his Katmandu retreat. It seems like the show might settle into a case-of-the-episode rhythm, which is fine with us. Sure, there will be continuous threats that last the entire season, but the more cases Jen and the superpower division sees, the more chances we get to see funny stuff.

For instance, division associate Augustus “Pug” Pugliese (Josh Segarra) helps Bukowski get money back from a shapeshifting elf who made him believe he was dating Megan Thee Stallion. Everyone’s incredulousness that he thought that Megan Thee Stallion would give him a second look was a funny running joke.

We could say that the show is a treatise on how women still get less respect than men in life and career, even in 2022. We can also say it’s a comment on how being a superhero isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, as Jen would rather practice law as herself and not as a 7-foot-tall green superhero. But all of that isn’t as appealing to us as the fact that She-Hulk doesn’t take itself at all seriously.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode, and not really anything overt in the first four we saw.

Parting Shot: After changing back to Jen, she tries to put together her now-shredded suit jacket and tells the judge that she’s ready for her closing argument. As will all MCU shows, there’s also a mid-credits tag scene where Jen and Bruce discuss whether Steve Rogers is a virgin or not. Bruce seems to have it on good authority that he’s not.

Sleeper Star: Nikki Ramos does a lot with the “best friend” role of Ginger. She’s the one who encourages Jen to “Hulk out” more in life, even when it comes to dating. It does seem like tall, green Jen is a bit more outgoing than regular Jen, and Ginger is funny in the scenes where she tries to get Jen to dee that.

Most Pilot-y Line: In a show that’s pretty funny and self-referential, we could only find what we thought was the least-funny funny line. When Bruce tries to explain to Jen that she’s a Hulk now, Jen responds, “I just got my own office! And business cards!” She isn’t exactly seeing the big picture at that point.

Our Call: STREAM IT. She-Hulk: Attorney At Law isn’t just an MCU show that happens to be funny. It’s a pretty funny comedy that happens to be an MCU show. And we appreciate that a whole hell of a lot.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.