She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - Episode 7 Review

You can smash everything, but can you smash your feelings

​Let's face facts: the world of superheroes is majorly populated with people, good and bad, who need to receive proper help for managing their mental illness. Whether that be therapy, medication or a rigorous treatment program, many of the dangerous criminals and a good bit of the dangerous heroes in these worlds could benefit from someone just checking in with them and approaching their problems at the root. Honestly, that's what made Spider-Man: No Way Home so incredible. It approached supervillains form an angle of "how do we help them" instead of "how do we stop them." It presented a clear message of the need for healing, that people aren't damaged beyond repair if one tries hard enough, and that even the most challenging people don't need to be beat into a pulp as punishment for things not necessarily within their control. It was an incredibly progressive approach to the superhero genre, and I've been waiting for more content that approached things the same way.

​In steps She Hulk Episode 7, wherein Jen is off to visit Emil Blonsky after she is contacted by his parole officer regarding a malfunction to his inhibitor. Parole officer is nervous about potential Abomination happenings and wants the comfort of a Hulk. Meanwhile, Jen is waiting on a text from Josh. The episode opened with a montage of the two of them sharing a few dates and becoming increasingly intimate before Jen finally decides to

ahem

wait for it

SMASH.

Anyway, Josh is ghosting her, which sucks and has her super stressed out. So off to Blonsky's ranch she goes, where she eventually meets Man-Bull and El Aguila, who promptly destroy Jen's car in a "fight." Turns out they're actually just working through some stuff, and Blonsky invites Jen to spend the day on his cell-receptionless ranch and maybe work through some stuff of her own. Jen scours the land looking for even the smallest bubble of reception before finding it in the woodhouse, where Blonsky is holding a group session. Here we again see Man-Bull and El Aguila, as well as meeting Porcupine and the Saracen for the first time. As Jen sits in the corner quietly obsessing on her phone, in walks Wrecker, who if we remember from episode 3 tried to steel Jen's blood. Jen goes Hulk and starts to fight, but Blonsky talks her down and invites her to join the group. From here, Jen not only confronts Wrecker on an emotional level, but also confronts herself. We see Jen say out loud what the show has been dancing around for the whole season so far: that she feels overshadowed by her green persona and just wants to be comfortable as Jen. While it took 7 episodes to get to this point, we do finally get a small bit of growth and resolution in Jen, as her new found friends give her some actually well constructed advice, both in regards to She-Hulk and to the whole Josh situation.

​It's then revealed in a flashback that Josh (predictably) is tied to the whole HulkKing hate community. Gotta be real, saw it coming.

​My favorite thing about this episode is how confined it was. There were two sequences of extremely brief action. The rest was very personal to Jen and let Tatiana Maslany really go to town on digging deeper into the character. It never got extremely emotive, but there was definite growth and healing shown. As I mentioned earlier, I LOVED the approach to supervillains in No Way Home and have been yearning for more. While done more comedically and a bit more superficially, this episode scratched that itch for me a bit. We saw Jen re-encounter a villain from a previous episode, who she accepted an apology from and moved past. We saw a Hulk confront themselves, which is typically a hyper-violent scenario, but was handled calmly and with love. It was cool, and the writers honestly did a solid job giving Jen good advice. Some of it was a bit cliched, but it was honestly decent advice for someone dealing with the issues Jen found herself in.

I do say, I find it amazing that we are only two episodes from the end here. I'm assuming the identity of HulkKing will probably be revealed toward the end and roll into season 2. Just seems like not a lot of space for an antagonist to come out of the fog. It's looking like the main villain of season 1 is just going to be Jen's own insecurity and acceptance of her new persona, which I'm good with on the whole. I think She-Hulk is doing a lot of legwork in establishing a new format for superhero content, and while it has some rough edges, I do feel like it's succeeding in breaking new ground. It feels different enough from the big set pieces and huge conflicts of most superhero media while still providing the occasional action piece to keep things feeling comic-y. I think as time goes by and we see more "sitcoms in superhero universes" be developed, we'll see the subgenre truly take form.

Episode 8 premieres October 6th. Just two more to go!