The Ringer-Verse - 'She-Hulk’ Season Finale Reactions

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Ben is joined by the Mint Edition duo of Steve and Jomi to discuss the fourth-wall-breaking season finale of ‘She-Hulk: Attorney At Law’ (02:00). The guys discuss what the episode could’ve been without Jen’s visit to the Marvel writers room (30:00). Later, they look at how the ‘She-Hulk’ season finale holds up against all other Marvel Phase Four finales (57:00). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Steve Ahlman and Jomi Adeniran Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Additional Productional Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I have some good news for you. The hottest take. It's back. Oh yeah. Monday through Thursday, four times a week. You hear from me, Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy, Mallor Rubin, Wazding, Lambrey, Van Lathen, Julie Lipman. Many other ringer staffers. You get one take. You got a defendant to the death. Sports takes. Pop culture takes. Food takes. Airplane takes. Oh, yeah. It's coming back. First episode drops. August 29th. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required.

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe is known for its big spectacles and high-stakes plot lines, but it's often said that Marvel movies all in the same way. Wait, who's saying that? Perhaps this is a result of following some unwritten rule that you have to throw a bunch of plot and flash and a whole blood thing that seems super suspiciously close to Super Soldier's serum at the audience. in the climax. I propose we don't have to do that.

And welcome into the Ringerverse. The Ringers Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Bill Lindberg, a senior editor at The Ringer, coming to you once more from Hell's Kitchen, which some say doesn't sound like a very nice area. I'm here to tell you, Jen's Aunt Rebecca is wrong. It's actually quite nice. This is the Lindbergh and Associates edition of the Ringerverse,

or is it? Just as in She-Hulk, it's hard to tell who show this is, because Kevin has cooked up quite a team up for our She-Hulk podcast finale. We tried to book Abomination, but his rates were too high and his haikus were too terrible. So instead, I am joined today by two non-iradiated icons who need no extended introduction, the Men of Mint Edition, Sunny Steve Allman and Jokinjomia Denneron. Guys, welcome. I can't wait to fight you at the end of this episode.

Thank you so much, Ben. It's great. Abomination speaking fee is. See, I don't think he needs the speaking fees. It seems like his therapy practice is going great. He's putting out best-selling haiku books. But his pro bono? Listen,

passive income is the best income. So my man is, you know, they just send the check. He'll talk for free. But if you're going to send the check, it's fine. My question is, we're sitting here having this conversation. I can only count three walls, guys. The fourth wall is gone. It's completely shattered.

What's going on? Kermynarduner are on the line, too. We got five walls on this Zoom call at least. So just let me know whether you want to throw down in New York or you want me to come out to L.A. We're not naturally violent people, so we're going to need some special effects for the final scene. It's going to get pricey. We can expense it to Spotify, I'm sure. But before we brawl and destroy someone's city, we're going to talk about the MLB playoffs.

No, we're not. No, I'm sorry. Sorry to disappoint everyone. We did that before we hit record. We're going to talk about the groundbreaking, fourth wall breaking, and in my mind, maybe all of our minds immensely satisfying season finale of She-Hulk Attorney at Law. And before we do that, we've got to give you some programming reminders, and we won't even make you sign an NDA. So this Friday, House of Our will be back to break down another season finale. That's right. The Rings of Power is also ending this week. We know who Hulk King is. Now we just got to get to the bottom of this Sauron business. As Gladriel looked into Todd Phelps, that's all I'm saying. Might be worth investigating. On Saturday, Charles and Justin Charity will be here to talk about the premiere of Chainsaw Man. And you can catch Mal and Joe again with Chris Ryan on Talk the Thrones on Sunday as they react to the penultimate episode of House of the Dragon.

The King is dead. Long lives the queen, king. Not sure. Everyone will agree on that. Mal and Joe will return on Tuesday with their House of Our Hot D deep dive, followed by the Midnight Boys, Andor Instant Reaction on Wednesday. And of course, you can read my Andor Instant Reactions at Theringer.com. What a great website. My reaction to Andor episode six was, oh my God. That was so good. That was my reaction. So I just saved you some time. I've got to say, I'm sad that these other series are ending. But I'm glad that Andor is going to get a bigger share of the spotlight for a few weeks because Tony Gilroy, the God, deserves it.

I know you guys are on board too. Oh, yes. Locked in. Yeah. Speaking of which, House of our and or deep dives start next Friday. So get hype for peak Star Wars season on the Ringiverse Feed. But today, the spotlight shines on She-Hulk. So let's get into episode nine, whose show is this?

Directed by Kat Koiro and written pretty brilliantly by showrunner Jessica Gao. Guys, wow. Yeah. That's one word of... Yeah, this one went places I didn't anticipate very funny places that I think were completely consistent with the season and the character in the comics, but still not places we usually expect to see an MCU series go, which I guess was precisely the point. So we will work our way through the whole episode, but the ending will probably dominate our discussion. So let me get your big picture thoughts up front. And just to summarize, spoilers incoming here, as expected, Todd is hard.

Hulk King. He has Hulk blood that transforms him into a Hulk and seems to set up the big brawl between him and She-Hulk and also between Bruce and Abomination and maybe Titania too for good measure. But just when it looks like we're heading for sort of the standard Bean-em-Up Marvel ending that may or may not make much sense, She-Hulk just hits pause, taps out of the scene, titania's through the fourth wall into the Disney Plus menu screen, visits the She-Hulk writer's room, to register her objections to how the finale is going, and then confronts K-E-V-I-N, the MCU's AI Mastermind,

which is like the architect from the Matrix, crossed with Gladys from Portal, with a nameplate that looks a lot like Kevin Feigey's trademark baseball cap. So essentially, She Hulk just rewrites her own ending, and, oh, also, Scar shows up with his Hulk dad, and Daredevil drops in,

and even Wonger makes a cameo in the Stinger. So this was not an extra long episode, but a lot happened here. So give me your thoughts or at least some of them. It was a jam-packed episode, but wall-to-wall was just excellent. There was so much fun, so much, like, you know, again, so meta in a way that, like, personally I loved. And so just like watching, you know, especially the second half of the episode, I was just like, this is great. I love this. This is incredible.

I had so much fun with this finale. What about you, Steve? I rarely have I used the word cacophony, but I really think that this is like the one time that I'm going to really use. Like a cacophony of meta jokes and self-reflective humor that like comes in not even the last episode, but like maybe the last like 15 minutes of this episode that I'm surprised that Marvel signed up on and clearly are gunning for the Deadpool crown for how many in jokes it can make

within a 10-minute stretch. I'm wildly impressed and also kind of flabbergasted that this happened. I loved it. But I was genuinely surprised that this was our season finale. Yeah, there's definitely a brief state of disbelief.

It was like watching fireworks and you're wondering, like, is this the grand finale? Is this it? Is this like the final salvo? or they have more rockets lined up here. They just kept coming and coming. And I was just kind of dumbfounded at first.

And then gradually, it dawned on me what was happening. And I just fell completely in love with this. I mean, the entire season has been somewhat meta and fourth wall breaking, but they took it up a notch. They took it up several notches here for the end. And look, Feige's fingerprints have been all over this series, just as they're all over everything in the MCU. I mean, it is called She-Hulk Attorney-at-Law.

instead of just She-Hulk because apparently a few weeks before it came out, Fagie was watching some footage, and he heard Bruce called Jen She-Hulk Attorney at Law and said, hey, that should be the title of the show. So they just slapped a subtitle on it because he's Kevin Feigey. And as Gow said in an interview with Lifehacker, when the golden tongue of Kevin Feigey speaks, then it becomes canon. The power of the Kevin. I wonder if they always planned on making him a giant Gladys-sized robot at the end of the at the end of the movie for the final boss.

I imagine this one. Yeah. I imagine the first one was like, hey, Kevin, we need you to come down, man. We got a little thing. And he was like, I don't know, man. You know, we got to figure out Blade, Fantastic Four. I don't know.

Here's another $80 million. They just delayed all that stuff. They have time. Yeah. And it wasn't just the name of the show that Feigey affected. It was the whole structure. We've mentioned this before, but Gow said this. too to collider how Jen's She-Hulk origin story was originally slated for episode four and then

episode eight. But during post-production, she said Kevin and everybody at Kevin's level, I don't even know who is at Kevin's level. Who else is at Kevin's left? That's a scary Illuminati to be built. It seems like it's got to have a shadow organization. You know what I'm saying? Kevin's the figurehead. You got, you know, people right there on the level. We don't even know if we're walking down and we see them in the streets. That's different. That's a different level power. Yeah, I mean, I guess Bob Chappek is on Fige's level. Maybe he's above Figuis level. Who else is in that baseball cap? We don't know. Yeah. We don't know. What other robot AIs are there? But she said that everyone at that level,

whoever that may be, wanted to move the origin story to the first episode, and she said she fought them tooth and nail, but lost the argument. She also said, I'm totally happy to have a premise pilot and start with an origin story. I just wish I could have designed it that way. So I don't know if there was any bad blood there, whether she was just explained. how that happened, but she's kind of talked pretty openly about writing things and just having to run them up the FIGI flagpole, you know, to see if it's okay to say something or use a certain character. Like, she's had the Marvel showrunner experience for better or worse, probably better and

worse. And she has kind of come clean about the challenges and the compromises that come with working within that Marvel machine and the conversations that she and Fige have had. She did this other interview. I've read lots of Jessica Gao interviews, as you can tell. She did one in August with The Hollywood Reporter, where she talked about her relationship with him. And she said, I probably fight with Kevin more than any person at Marvel.

But it truly is a testament to what an eagle-less, wonderful person he is, that he constantly puts up with me arguing with him. He really lets me bully him in a way. I'm very mean to him, and he really allows it. So it's really nice because there's no other president of a studio who would really put up with me the way that he does. I find that very intriguing because she's also she should also say that she's the person

that fights with him the most and sticks around it would probably be the caveat there. Yeah, that I guess she got the last word and the last laugh in the finale here. And some Marvel finale's, you know, it feels like the voices of the creators and the writers get sidelined a bit because the series has to serve

some larger purpose in the MCU and there are just too many cooks or too many masters. And in this case, I think it completely pays off because if anything, she channeled those occasional frustrations into this subversive sort of comedy that feels really fresh for the MCU. So she's kind of busting Faggy's Chops a bit, but in a way that makes sense for the story. So I've enjoyed the series since the start.

I know you guys have too, but it's something new for the MCU all along, and they just saved their biggest swing for the end. And I think it completely connected. I would agree. I think that this is a perfectly well-executed, like, not so much experiment, but like a sort of twist on everything that Marvel TV has done for right now. Like, with this and the presentation of Werewolf by Night,

like, we can start to kind of play around with the MCU TV formula in a bit more interesting ways than what we've gotten, probably since Wanda Vision onward to this point. I am kind of intrigued to see how Jen and the She the Hulk universe of it all can exist kind of outside of the MCU meta and maybe if it's not to always self-aware, but if that's always what it's going to be, that's entirely fine. But if she were to ever cross over into a, you know, more established property like a

Captain America or Thunderbolts or anything like that, would that be sideline to, you know, make it a bit more serious? Right. And I guess Kevin is canon now. He is, I think. I wouldn't I wouldn't say go that far I mean I guess yeah like Kevin is canon but I can't imagine like

you know dared over me like all right hey man we got to we gotta talk about this what's going on with foggy man you know when it where's the lecture coming back you know like I can't imagine we go that far when Jen ever says I know a guy is it now going to be talking about Kevin

and then she just goes and fixes the plot yeah oh wow okay every problem that we've ever had on internet is solved now. This is perfect. I mean, I guess Kevin says that they fix this security vulnerability and she can't get back in the building now. But how are you going to stop? She Hulk, really, if she determined to get it. Everybody's got to sign the NDA. He said they patch that. Like, that's not coming back. You're done. Yeah. I want to talk more about the ending and we will and just discuss how this series and the finale compare to previous MCU shows. But let's back up a bit

and just retrace how we got to that ending. And it's clear from the start that this episode is just really going to go for it because it starts with a remake of the 1978 intro to the Incredible Hulk. Actually incredible. Just like complete with the grainy film stock and the solemn network TV narrator and the Savage Shehulk title card and the catchphrase even. Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Like you just, you mentioned Wanda Vision.

And this reminded me of Wanda Vision's homages to old sitcoms or even, I don't know if you guys saw this like about 10 years ago, the greatest event in television history, those shot for shot remakes of 80s opening credits sequences that Adam Scott made for a talk swim. Yes. Yeah. So this was just really creative and also like appropriate because She Hulk the comics character was created out of fear that CBS would create its own She Hulk character as a spinoff of that TV show. And so much of the series has been about Jen distinguishing herself from her cousin and just figuring out how to meld the two sides of herself. And so this is kind of bringing that into relief. And you know what? Like say what you will about this series, CGI.

But I do think it looks better than the old school green paint. Speak for yourself, Ben Lindberg. I was a big fan of some of that stunt woman's work. You like the practical effects. Well, I like the practical effects of Mark Ruffalo and bell bottom jeans. I think that's probably the more effective use of our budget here. So after that, a little change of pace, we find Jen in prison where the roles are reversed from the start of the season. Now she's the one inside Blonsky's old cell.

She needs some legal assistance getting out of there. Mallory, Pug, and Nikki show up. And, man, I'm grateful for those three. Like, what a great trio of supporting characters for this series. I wish we'd gotten more Mallory because René Lee Schultz, is so good. Oh, fantastic.

I think people were expecting, like, maybe this would be a bigger part at some point, just because she's kind of a big name, but Marvel's done that before, you know, in Wanda Vision and other things

where, like, you're expecting maybe a character to turn out to be bigger than they are. And maybe it's just that, you know, those MCU checks clear. Like, it's okay.

You got to pay for that summer house somehow, you know? Exactly. Yeah. So I just, they added so much to the series. Like, you know,

Nikki got the most screen time, but really whenever any of them showed up, I was happy to see them. So Jen says, I was angry, which is how anyone would respond in that situation, talking about Gallagate. And Mallory responds, you're not just anyone. You are an out-of-control Hulk. That's what all the witnesses saw. And left unspoken, perhaps, is that she is a woman and women aren't treated the same way when they're angry that men are. So men are allowed or even encouraged to get angry at times when women get angry.

People say they're out of control. Granted, when Hulk's get angry, they often are out of control, which actually can be dangerous. But as Jen noted in the first episode, she has a lot of experience keeping her anger in check. This was really the first time it spilled over and for a good reason. So she got a raw deal here, which I guess is unsurprising given the rest of the season. Falling on hard times, Jen, at least for the quick moments that all of this plot matters and is real. Right, yeah, exactly. So as part of the plea deal, Jen can't be She-Hulk anymore.

So the shoe is on the other foot or the inhibitors on the other leg. And when the series started, she might have been happy about this, right? Like, she didn't want to be She-Hulk. She might have been happy to just lose that part of her identity. But now it feels like she's lost an important part of herself. She's made so much progress in coming to terms with who she is as She-Hulk. And now that it's taken away and she can't carry heavy. furniture for her mom anymore. I think she kind of, she misses it. And, you know, there's comics precedent

for this, too. Like at various times, Jen slash She-Hulk has been locked in one form or another and in the Dan Slot run. For instance, Tony Stark injects her with nanobots that take away her powers. And Jen says, you took She-Hulk out of the equation, Stark. And do you know what that's left you with? Jennifer Walters, one of the best lawyers on the East Coast. And that's what happens here. Jen wants to take down the intelligentsia, not by any means necessary, as Nikki says, but staying within the law, which is admirable because you could forgive her for wanting to go outside the bounds of the law, given what they've done to her. They certainly aren't sticking to the law. We're doing it by the book, Jen. Come on. Exactly.

So two things. I just, I want to give a shout out to Jen's parents, first of all, because if my parents had to come pick me up from prison, I don't think their reaction would be. people go to prison every day. Like, it's okay. No shot, no shot. How about you just get, like, fired from your job on ceremoniously or something? Like, much less go to prison.

Like, I don't think they'd be this, like, under any circumstances. I think the fired from your job, go to prison combo would not go well for me. Let's just, just to say that. It would not be a conversation. We got dinner is ready when you get home. I know. The car ride home from prison is going to be tough. It's got to be a tough one.

Both has happened to her this season. She lost her job first and then she went to prison. But they're completely unfazed. They just take it in stride. I guess they've had Hulk's in the family before. So maybe they're used to this sort of thing. But I thought that was just great parenting. And I'd like to refer that to my parents, just for future reference.

Bruce is going to need to learn a thing or two from these parents for sure. Well. Also, let me ask you this. When G.LK.N.H. Fires Jen. She's packing up her stuff. Nikki says, screw this place. Pug says, we have. have your back, but they both continue to work there. So any thoughts on this demonstration of

solidarity or the lack thereof? Because I was kind of hoping they'd say, hey, we're with you. You know, like, let's start our own practice. I mean, Jen got to do that job. Here's a thing, right? Steve, I love Steve. Steve and I do a podcast. It was so on. They fire Steve tomorrow. Guess what? I'm clocking in tomorrow. I don't know what to tell you. Wow. Wow. I, I, got work to do. I got bills to pay. I'm sorry. I don't know. After you implied that he might not be one of your

best men at your wedding, now that just might be, man. Hey, man, that's my guy. Hey, Steve, I love you, man. Hey, if you're free, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? I got to go get this work done, though. You feel me? Like, I got I got a 10 to 6. You're going to pay for your own Costco cake if that's going to be your attitude. I don't know, I don't appreciate that one bit.

Like, no, I, I, you got to understand. Like, they got things they got to do. You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, I'm going to miss you. We can hang out, but I'm going to, they still going to pay me, so I'm going to still get paid. You feel me? And if there's any precedent that this show has kind of been establishing is that it might just work out in the end. So maybe that little bit of pragmatism is going to pay off for them if they just like,

okay, we'll hold off on putting the resignation letter in just yet. All right. Good to know. Good to know. We've learned a lot about each other during this segment. Now we know what will happen if I or Steve loses my job. Joby shows up for work. No love lost there.

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The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Borershead committed to craft since. 1905. So Jed moves back into her old room at her parents' place where, like all of us, I'm sure, she grew up with Legally Blonde and Aaron Brockovich posters on the wall. And she's getting her, Carrie Matheson, Charlie Kelly on with the stringboard and the post-its. She's trying to ID Hulk King, but the Intelligensia site is owned by shell platforms that operate outside the U.S.

Isn't that always the way? However, as Nikki says, intelligentsia's made up of exclusively dumb dudes. So there's got to be a way to infiltrate this organization and a way presents itself because Jen's mom gives Nikki a copy of a video of Jen dancing in law school, kind of like the video of AOC dancing in college. And now this will be the entire podcast. Yeah. Right.

Like AOC's opponents thought might make her look bad for some reason and that backfired because it was just a college kid having fun. But the same sort of rationalization. is happening here. So Nikki posts the video on intelligentsia, and immediately Hulk King slides into the DMs and invites her to a private intelligentsia gathering. Just like that.

So it turned out it wasn't actually that hard time. If only it was so scared. I was so scared when I saw Nikki upload in the video. I was like, oh, Nikki, bro, you're not police, right? Like, I was like, for half a second, I'm like, no! Then she was like, I'm doing this to get in. I got us like, all right, Nicky's, she's part of the team. I was really glad that that was just like a, like a, you know, a little bit of a, a little bit of a scare.

I wouldn't put that level of duplicity past Nikki. I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that. Yeah. I would say, like, maybe she could have asked for Jen's consent before posting the video. Probably. She could get messy. Nikki gets messy. That's why she's not a lawyer.

Right? Like, she's not, I mean, she is concerned for Jen, but not so much for her feelings, right? No. When Mallory was like, let's not tell her about all this. And Nikki calls her immediately. I wasn't going to tell you this, but I'm going to tell you this because I was told not to.

By any means necessary. That's the way she rolls. Of course, she gets the end to this private party, but she is a woman or an intelligentsia lingo, a female, which always makes me think of the Ferengi from Star Trek who referred to women as female. So she drafts Pug to pose as an intelligentsia member and try to blend in with the bros.

Meanwhile, Jen shows up at Blankech. Blonsky's for a little R&R, but Blonsky isn't there. And the room where Pug goes for this meeting looks suspiciously like the lodge where Blonsky holds his group therapy sessions. This completely unfazed me because I was like, oh, they're just reusing that set. Like, they're not going to. Low opinion of Marvel's production budget here. It did cross my mind at this point that maybe Todd is the figurehead and Blonsky could be

the mastermind. Were you guys thinking at all that it may have? been Blonsky all along that this is what this was leading up to. Nah, I wasn't thinking about like Steve's level. I wasn't like they were using the set, but I was like, this is, what's going on? Like, what happens to the budget? Well, no, I was fascinated by the amount of plausible deniability that Blonsky actually has with this because if he actually just took a speaking gig for a group that he doesn't know anything

about, that's A, very dumb of him. and B also kind of works because why would he show up as the abomination and not just himself? And B, if he was with the cause of intelligentsia, it might make sense if that heel turn happened. But again, like the plot's gonna, you know, do what the plot does in a couple of minutes later.

But I was very much intrigued by this being like, okay, well, he's speaking in abject terms where like he could or could not know what's going on, which I thought was very cool. ever and fun. Yeah, that part was fun, like to your second,

but the first point, him just taking gigs, listen, all the checks cash the same, honey. Again, I don't think he's in for the money.

I think I don't matter what it's going to go from. The check's clear. I'm there, you know. Just fly me to Atlanta, put me in the green screen. Exactly.

I think, I think ultimately it was just, it was a fun, that's how you get everybody together, right? Ultimately, you didn't need Nikki and Pug to,

to call Jen and be like, hey, we've found Intelligensia because she was already there. Right? It's convenient plot thing. Yes. Which, of course, you know, we know who was behind that ultimately. But it's just a matter of convenience to get everybody in the same spot at the same time. Also, I was very interested in the amount of dialogue that was happening between Pug and the rest of the members of intelligentsia because every once in a while it would get very flirtatious in some ways.

And I was like, is this an incredible, incredible commentary? that's going on with some of these like in cell communities that maybe they might be hiding some things from themselves as well as the world. I don't know. It was, I genuinely took notice of that and I was like, this is very interesting. One of the, I forget,

one of the, I don't know if you heard this, I had subtitles on. So they're talking about how like, oh man, Pucks handsome, good looking dude. And then everybody's just, you know, a little chatter. And then one guy goes, I smash. And the guy goes, what? I was like, oh, okay.

What? I was like, hey, man, listen, live your truth. And it's the incredulity with those guys that I'm just like, hmm, interesting. I love that for y'all, you know what I mean? It was just really fun and to see those interactions. And Pug is just so uncomfortable. Yes. Just at no point in his life would he ever imagine that these would be the people he would

be spending time with, interacting with, and actually try to speak their lingo. He is so uncomfortable. And he's like, yeah, you know, nepotism, you know, shouting out like terms, you know, buzzwords for the guys. They're just eating it all up because they have no concept of what was actually going on. It's just like such a biting commentary on what we like, even going into the show, we knew the conversation was going to be. And like, I mean, even from the first couple episodes, they've played it so well as a through line in this show that it's, It's just, the commentary is just so good. It was so great to see, like, it all come to an end this episode.

Fortunately, Pugs getting coached on the phone by Nikki, at least until reception drops. We know from the previous episode here that you don't get a lot of bars on Blonsky's grounds. So as we soon learn, Todd is Hulk King confirmed. He created intelligentsia. He thinks superpower should go to the right person for the job. However, he defines that. He doesn't think Jen does. deserves to have hers. I imagine he just might feel the same way about any woman who has powers.

There's a guy at the meeting who disparages Jane Foster's Mighty Thor as Lady Thor. And on Jen's stringboard, there's also a nod to the She Hulk villain Mandrill, who is a misogynist, who definitely seems like he would be a frequent poster on the intelligentsia board. So Tadas Hulkking was a twist in a sense, but it was one that I think a lot of people have seen coming for a quite sometimes. So what's your take on the Todd reveal or confirmation? I think it was also a very great, because clearly they've seen Falcon and the Winter Soldier and were pining over the shadow broker reveal because they laid those breadcrumbs pretty well and pretty apparently. Again, I think in the lead up to this like reveal, quote unquote, I think it surprises no one

including Jen and I think that's kind of where the genius and what this initial turn will reveal where like everything starts to become a little rote and starts to become a little predictable because

you know we've been here before we as viewers have seen it all happen before if this my big question of this like if this were to actually be the thing that plays out in the show if this had been the finale if this had been like the thing we're like okay things work out in the end, you know, all the big villains get defeated, would we still be okay with that?

Would we still like this? Because like, we're almost at the threshold where this gets out of control and stop. And I was like, like, I certainly wasn't expecting this. And I'm glad for the outcome that we got. But like, you know, would this have been just as remarkable if, this is what we had gotten? Probably not. No, definitely not. I would say almost nothing that has happened in the MCU is quite as remarkable as what happened at the end of the September. episode. I think I mentioned a couple pods ago that I hadn't really spent that much time speculating about who Hulk King was because it almost felt a bit beside the point. It's like Jen says to Kevin later, the story of the series is that my life fell apart right when I was learning to be both Jen and

She-Hulk. Those are my stakes. And I think that was what the series stakes always were. So like it or not, I think the show was pretty clear about what it was. And I saw some wild theories about the batty being Nauri or Titania or obviously we talked about the Blonsky theory or, you know, people were shouting out, oh, maybe it's the leader or just all of these other characters who could have been in theory. But given the themes of the season, I don't think it would have made much sense for Hulk King to be a woman who was just manipulating the intelligentsia or someone who just wasn't connected to the general misogyny and sexism that Jen faced all season. Like, I think that it would have undercut that somewhat if it had just turned out to be either one of the few. email characters in this show or just someone parachuting in from elsewhere in the comics or the MCU.

Like, this felt right. And I think initially it was a misdirect. Like, by the end, I think most of us kind of caught on to Todd. But initially, when you meet Todd and he's just like one of many terrible dates that Jen goes on, I certainly wasn't thinking anything about him or that at the time that this would come back into play, that this was the big bad calling her a specimen. Like, it was creepy. It was a little suspicious.

but I definitely didn't see this coming at that point. So I think they kind of maybe laid some hints that it could be someone more recognizable as opposed to just Todd Phelps or that like Todd Phelps would turn out to be someone else we knew, right? And no, he's just like a douche on a message board, basically. Yeah. So I didn't want it to be Blonsky because I also like I wanted his reform to be real. And it's not Blonsky, but he has fallen off the wagon. somewhat because as we discuss, he's doing these paid speaking engagements as abomination.

And I suppose this explains his supposed inhibitor malfunction in episode seven. But as I said, like, I do have to quibble a bit with Blonsky's motivations for moonlighting as abomination here. Like, does he need the money? Like, have his seven soulmates left? We never saw them after he got out of prison. Like, it seems like he's doing okay. I'm sure upkeep on that property is not cheap because that is a acreage. For sure.

True. I thought the soulmates were funding him, and then they kind of pieced, or at least they're keeping off the screen. And, like, he's publishing his poetry. He has plenty of clients. Like, Rekker basically seems to be living there. I assume he's paying room and board. But why would he want to do this, given the risks that he's taken here? It's like, you know, he's just doing it as a side gig, as a side hustle, basically.

I want to introduce you to a venture con, Blonsky. I think you can get it. I think you could clean up. Yeah. Well, first off, you know, I'm sure you can ask Kevin about this, Ben, but you know how expensive it is to hire seven actresses to just show up and just be there? Probably less expensive than CGI for abomination for a few wear scenes. And they've clearly moved on to another project.

Right. We got to make the call, right? You got to make the call. Like, ah, do you want an abomination or do we want seven? You know, people just sitting here hair and makeup all day. I don't know. We got to pay them. We can probably see.

I probably easier. You know what I mean? So, you know, that's how that's how that happens. So, you know, hey, come get the speaking game. We do need you to be abomination. Nobody came to see Emil Blaski. We want to see abomination. He's like, cool.

Say no, say less. I got you. Again, I wanted to like, no less than 50K, right? To be. Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, well, you know, it's got to be, frankly, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say, yes, anything less than 80.

You know what I mean? Like, it's got to be. That's my floor. Yeah. It's got to be. Got to be. Yeah, I would think so. So Todd injects himself with Hulk blood, hulks up and bulks up, and he says, come at me, bro.

And that's when Jen says, we're not actually doing this. This can't possibly be where the season is going. And then things seem to run further off the rail and get even more messy. But the intelligentsia attacks, like Titania does her usual Kool-Aid man entrance. Bruce shows up and goes after abomination. And at that point, Jen says, what is even happening here? none of these storylines make any sense. Is this working for you?

So at that point, was it working for you? Look, as soon as Titania showed up, I was like, am I tripping? Is this like a dream sequence? Like, what's going on? Like, there's no way that like all of this is coming, like, is happening at once. Like this is just too many coincidences.

You know, even in our superhero, um, superhero content, we can't just accept like, oh, wow, someone so's, also here. What are the odds? Let's have a big bra. And then when Bruce shows up, I was like,

no, last time I saw him, he was in space. There's no way. That he just falls from the sky. At first, I'm thinking like, yeah,

thinking like it's a dream sequence or something. I'm like, what's going on? Like, how are all these things happening? Like, what?

I was like, no, this is not happening. This is not working. Well, the one thing that was working for me was when Todd transformed, he turned into like one of those like inflatable,

used car dealerships things where he was like, his arms were like flailing. But what I did kind of like my eyes kind of glazed over at that because it kind of was like okay well here we go. We've got

all these people like the second of that Titania showed up I was like okay and kind of just shrugged at it because that's where we've been going and I think that like the moment that I kind of became self-aware and like started to think like okay they're doing something a little bit more was literally when

Bruce just drops in from the roof for no reason and kind of thinking, okay, well, how are they going to like dance their way out of this or trying to see what they have to say now because there's going to be a lot of, you know, things to make up for knowing that the past 15 minutes that we had been watching might be erased away. Yeah. Everyone was there except leapfrog and manbowl. Yeah. Would I like to see them make a return. But really, I think the reason that the meta commentary at the end of the episode works so well is that we are all just conditioned to expect this kind of ending. So it was raising some red flags for me and sort of setting off

some alarms, but I was basically thinking, okay, Todd is Hulkking. I thought that. Bonski's in the mix. That makes sense. Like, all right, Titania, sure, it makes sense that she would be back here. It was shaping up to be the usual free-for-all at the end of a Marvel project. And then it was not working for Jen at all. And she presses the back button. She exits out to the Disney Plus Marvel slash screen, which just will have to stay like that forever now, I guess, to match the series. At the very least until like the end of the year. Yeah. And she just swings from the Shehawk box on the screen to the Marvel Studios assembled box, which takes her straight to the Disney lot. And all of this is, I think, clearly inspired by John Burns' sensational Shehulk run.

where Jen would sometimes just climb out of a panel and enter a different panel. And she very often address not only the audience, but Byrne, the writer and artist directly and would kind of question or insult his storylines, which, you know, we saw the fourth wall breaks earlier in this season, but not so much directly talking to the creators, more talking to us. And this is just kind of a lift from Byrne, but a really clever one and one I wasn't expecting to see here. And Shee Hulk just marches straight into the Shehulk writers room, asks the real Shehulk writers why they thought this finale was a good idea. You can see Gao there. You can see Zeb Wells and Cody Ziegler and all the rest. And Shehulk says, what the hell you guys? What kind of

stupid finale is this? The bad guys steal my blood in order to give himself superpowers. Where did you come up with that original idea? Was that from every other superhero story ever? Which is a fair critique. And one of the writers responds, there are certain things that are supposed to happen in a superhero story. And Jen says, why don't we just do things our own way? So the answer is, this is the story that Kevin wants. And it goes on from there with all the writers sounding like they're in the cult of Kevin, praising Kevin's immeasurable value, saying they would murder She-Hulk to protect Kevin. No one can talk to Kevin. How broken were your brains when this happened? because if I had been filming myself,

like, it's too bad we didn't do, like, reaction videos for the finale because it should probably do well on TikTok, Jomi. I just, I think, like, I probably just had a dumbfounded grin on my face while this was happening. And once I realized,

like, what the connection was and who Kevin had to be. Yeah, I mean, as soon as they mentioned Kevin, I was like, oh, big dog.

They got, they got big horse on the line. Okay. That's what I'm talking about. Like, this is, you know, I didn't expect us to get to the, you know, we'll talk about that last part.

I didn't expect it to get there, but I was like, oh, man, they go get Kevin Flage involved. Like, we're going to, like, is he going to show up in the hat and like a suit? You know what I mean? Like, what's going on? I was really excited as a,

when they mentioned him at that point. Stan Lee style cameo in. Exactly. Right. And I'm curious as to, you know, the people that might not be as tapped into the, you know,

industry, Marvel lore as we are, where people might not know who Kevin Faggie is, or people might not, exactly understand what they might be trying to say here. Obviously, this is a like takedown of a big boss in Hollywood that would, you know, probably be making a lot of movers and shakers upset where they to not get their way. But I was, I genuinely didn't think that this would be where we'd land because seeing all

of the writers like staunchly defend this entity that might, may or may not like have like some screenwriters in Hollywood with an axe to grind against it. Like I'm curious as to how they might have gotten away with this. And a couple of more things that we'll talk about later. But like, again, I was like feeling very shaky with how they were getting away

with saying everything that they were. Right. Yeah. Because there is a conversation that goes on not just specifically about Marvel, but also specifically about Marvel about just the input from above and obviously like actual algorithms, right? Yes.

have an input on which shows get greenlit and which shows get renewed. And, you know, what your actual title is. Are you actually a showrunner? Or are you just someone who's in the room with a lot of suits who are telling you what you can and can't do or what you have to insert in your script somewhere. So there are actually some sensitivities around that topic because data and just, you know, people who are at the top of the executive food chain, they do have a lot of input. And there's always, of course, the tension between art and commerce. And there have always been notes from the studio. And that's something that writers and creators have always had to live with.

But some of that stuff has gotten more intrusive and more Big Brotherish lately. So this is kind of a commentary on that. And the fact that the writers are just complete Kevin fans, right? They don't resent Kevin's intervention here. They're like, we love Kevin. We will kill you if you try to do anything to Kevin. You can't even speak to Kevin. That's how special Kevin is.

So they've kind of drunk the Kool-Aid themselves here. And I know that, like, mostly it seems like people at Marvel really do like and respect Kevin Feigy, like, including Jessica Gao, even if she's clashed with him at times. So I think this is meant to mimic that, but it is kind of touching on some things about how art is created in 2022. It's wild. Yeah. So when the writers said Kevin, the captions spelled out the capital K-E-V-I-N, whereas when Jen said it, it was just regular old Kevin because she just thinks. it's a guy named Kevin and soon we see why there was that difference. So she crashes Marvel HQ.

She signs an extremely long NDA. Oh my God. This one, I genuinely, this is where the gut laughs came because I was like, everybody's got to sign the NDA. Yep. It's, it's funny because it's such a good bit because, you know, we like, if you've been online, if you talk to, like, if you've been in the like the Marvel subreddit or anything like that, you know about the Marvel snipers, you know what I'm saying? man, like you, you can't say anything about anything.

And so to see, like, the NDA and she's scrolling and she's scrolling and she's scrolling and she's scrolling and she's scrolling, sign it. And the guy is like, yeah, I still had to sign the alarm. Everybody signs the NDA. It's such a fun bit. It's such a great bit. I was dying at that moment. I was having so much fun to see him that. Evidently, it was a real life Marvel receptionist, at least at the time, who has since been.

promoted out of that role. But it sounds the alarm. And then Jen has to fight her way past some Marvel security guards. Not sure if those would be goons or henchmen. We'd have to ask Daredevil. But she fights her way into the studio to see Kevin. And I know some people had speculated that maybe Awesome Andy would show up, Awesome Android. Instead, we got a different robot here, one who has very strong portal vibes and goes by Kevin because it's knowledge enhanced. visual interconnectivity nexus. Love a good acronym there. Yeah, you might think, like, how did they get the green light for this?

Now, actually, it was sort of indirectly inspired by Feigey himself in a way. So, Gal talked about this to Marvel.com, and she said, I think I probably wrote like 20 versions of a finale that went all over the place, and I started feeling like, well, this is a Marvel show. I better give them the classic Marvel ending, big villain fight, big finale. But it never felt right because I was. was trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And she said that Feige, quote, really opened my mind to the idea that it's okay to not do that because I was trying to do what I thought was the Marvel

expectation of what the show had to be. He was like, why? No one's telling you to do that. You don't have to do that. You can do something completely different. We should be doing something completely different because this show is so different from anything that Marvel has done. It was getting that permission from him that really made me think, oh, it just changed everything. Now, when he said that, I don't know that he anticipated where she was going to go. I think if he did, he might have said no. Yeah, stick with the standard Marvel ending, please. Those have worked great for us.

So this is probably not quite what he was expecting, although evidently, according to Gal, the only note that Feige had was not about him being a robot AI, but was the robot shouldn't have a real hat on its head. apparently initially they had like the actual black baseball cap on the head and he was like why would he have a hat on his head like that's not something a robot would do I guess he hasn't played stray lots of robots have hats on their heads of all of the things Kevin of all of the things I need to give a note on well here's the thing right see this is why Kevin Feig's why he's jeans this is why he's on a different level who's who's putting a hat on a robot you know what I'm saying who's the guy

who's like the robot's got to have a nice little cute you know that or not you know when we hear all of these things about, you know, Blade loses a director and, you know, XYZ project is getting delayed and the VFX studio is saying this. To know that Kevin can put his foot down on a real baseball cap being put on a robot, I think that's why he signs the big checks. Yep. I really think that's why they keep him around.

Ultimate power, baby? Ultimate power. That's what it is. Yeah. That's what it is. No, this is, I mean, now we know, like, why did Edgar write leave Antman? And probably he wanted to put a hat on a robot's head. It had to be the only reason.

It had to be the only reason. He wanted all the ants to have hats. And Kevin Fag was like, it's just not going down like that. No, just had no hats. So during the scene, Jen just asserts control of her story and rewrites her ending. She doesn't want Todd to get powers because she says the powers aren't the villain. He is. And she doesn't want Bruce to swoop in to save the day because this is her story, not his.

But this is just generally, I think, the funniest scene in the series, like maybe one of the funniest scenes in the entire MCU. So I'll throw this out. Like, which joke did you enjoy most? Like, which was your favorite Marvel trope takedown in this Kevin Convo? Two stood out to me plain as day. One was, can you please change back to Jen? And she says, why? And it says, you are very expensive.

and the VFX team has already moved on to another project. And after he says that, you hear the Wakandan drums play right after that. So I was presumed to be Wakanda forever. I am shocked that that joke got past what with all of the stories of unscrundled VFX artists in this industry at the test of Marvel. Yeah. Yeah. Like you think that they might want to cut that because that is a now biting joke at Marvel's

expense. And then the second one where it's been the daddy issues joke where they list Tony Stark's daddy issues, Thor, Loki as well, and then Kevin we have not been good

with that. Iron Man daddy issues, Thori daddy issues. Loki, same daddy same issues. Starlord, two daddy's, two issues. Yeah. That was great. That was great. For me, like, I think that the daddy issues, like, I had like a whole, like top five, like, ready.

Like, the daddy issue is definitely, like, one of the funniest one. The, the, hey, Kevin, we're going to get the X-Man? And he, like, looks at the camera. So good. A thumbs up. Yeah. Short of a Mephisto reference, that wouldn't have been any better. Right.

Sure, like, that was great. And then I think the one that, that. got me the most was just like, hey man, is this how we got to end the show? Like, this is what y'all be doing up here, man? And he's like, well, you know, we make movies, some better than others, but I leave that up to the internet. Near perfect products. Near perfect. Some are better than others. I leave that debate up to the internet. I leave that debate to the ring of verse. Yeah. Right.

Ben, I'm curious if anything said out to you because like this really was chalkful. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I liked all of it. It was all great. But other than what you've mentioned already, I enjoyed just the Daredevil riff, you know, would not mind seeing Daredevil again. A woman has needs. And then like big old wink. Yes. Kevin says historically we've been light in that department. You said, just kind of acknowledging some of the shortcomings here. This is like, you know, the horniest Marvel show probably. Like that's a low bar. Country Mile. Horny. It's the horniest Marvel show for sure. And then she doubles down on it. She said, that's what Hulk's do. We smash things. Bruce smashes buildings. I smash fourth walls and bad endings.

And sometimes Matt Murdoch. And then you just like, there should have been a star in her eye. Like, yes. Yeah. What else? I guess they referred to the climax being in the daytime instead of the angsty nighttime, as it often has been. Also expensive. Right.

And then she refers, you know, they talk about the Bruce introducing Scar and Jen's says we don't need to hear any of that, save it for the movie. And Kevin says, see you on the big screen. Fakes her out. She says, really? No. He's like, man, no. That was another one where I'm like, okay.

That's another one. Yeah, that was great. That was so good. Yeah. Tatiana Maslali, like, really nailed this scene. I couldn't imagine why they're not going to keep her around for more of that because she's absolutely crushing what Jen is right now. In the X-Men line, when she, like, gave the thumbs up and sort of like stuck her tongue down.

And smile. Oh, man. So good. I mean, even before that, that bit where she's like, all right, I'm going to take a C. While I got you. And he's like, oh, wait, you're sitting down. Yeah. That whole sequence.

I think it was like three, four minutes. That whole three, four minutes sequence is some of the best things I've ever seen out of the MC. Yeah, truly. That was a near perfect product. So I will hand them that. And it's also, it's like, it's kind of a heat check and a flex by Figey and by Marvel in general. I mean, I think it's a sign of. success when you can own up to your mistakes or your shortcomings. And Marvel knows the nitpicks

and the complaints that people have about the MCU, but it also knows that it owns our souls forever. So why not insert some self-deprecating humor, just like signal that, okay, we've heard your sometimes in some cases legitimate complaints, not so much the complaints that this whole She-Hulk series has been built on from the trolls and the toxic fans, but people who are actually evaluating these movies, pick it up on. some patterns, some things that they don't do well always. And they're just like, hey, we've heard you, you know? Like, I don't know whether they will correct or change those things beyond Sheeulk itself,

but at least they've given us this moment of acknowledgement. No more logoless baseball caps, though. That's clear. Right. So Jen gets the ending she wants. She tells Todd that she'll see him in court. Daredevil drops in out of nowhere, like literally out of nowhere. I don't know what he's going to know what he's from.

It's like not from a tree, the clear blue sky. Yep. He missed all the action, but he and Jen get to giggle and flirt a little more. Blonsky goes back to prison for 10 years, supposedly, for violating his parole, doesn't seem too broken up about it. He says it's the karmic price he has to pay for his actions, and maybe also he knows he's not really going to pay that price, as we will see soon. And then we get this little lunch scene where Jen's family grills Matt Murdoch about his income. And he and Jen almost seem like a couple. Plus, Bruce shows up with Scar anyway.

So I guess Kevin got his way with that one. That was the only one where I was like, wait. So I have a question. Like, how soon after do you meet somebody do you go, hey, man, come to my family barbecue? Well, again, I've thrown all like seemingly logic out the window now because knowing that this is Jen's happy ending, she's writing it all. So she's like, all right, well, come on over, Matt Murdoch. Stay with me for a week.

We can have a cute little dinner with my extended family with a barbecue, and then my cousin can come down from space and then show us his big green kid. And don't ask any more questions about that. And, like, you know, did you guys a favor dropping that bombshell? And we'll see you in the next project. Like, I think that's Jen really being like, okay, let's tie a nice bow on this for me. It's almost like a Wanda vision situation. She's like manipulating.

what she wants. Because I think the genius of the like predictable ending is that it kind of might have come to the same like, you know, illogical conclusion of like, okay, well, all of these things just convalessed together and we have a happy ending

for Jen. But now it's Jen making that incredibly convoluted happy ending for herself. So in the end, I'm happy about it because Jen was happy about it. Yeah, you got to be happy for Jen. Like, you know, cabin Matt Murdoch, you know.

But to say that this doesn't make any sense, sure. Just saying, it's a little early. I would have waited like, you know, at least a couple months. Sure. Yeah. Like, how'd you guys? And what was your first date like? Well, you're not going to believe this, mom.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It's nuts. What this man can do in a hallway, let me tell you. I take back what I said about the parents before. My praise of the parents just having so much chill when they picked Jen up from prison, not as much in the meeting the boyfriend. Soon as she gets a boyfriend.

Yeah, it's trouble. So in a way, we got the big blowout finale that fans might have expected. You know, you expect them to pull out all the stops and have a bunch of crossovers. And we got Hulk and we got scarred. We got Wong and Titania and Abomination. Everyone shows up. The gang's all here. Not porcupine, but everyone else.

And Wong even shows up in the stinger to spring Blonsky from prison and make a joke about PTV and how busy he. he's been in phase four, more self-referential humor. I love that so much because I literally went back. I watched that scene like four times. It was so great. He's like, Blonsky singing's because I was like, took you long enough. Sucked into another TV show, huh?

And then Wong like shrugs. He's like, we're in the era of peak TV. Now we know that Wong like is binging the Sopranos and watching This Is Us, right? Like he's, you know, he's actually watching television. But at the same time, Wong's like, in like half the, half the marble projects nowadays. Like, it's just, it was just so perfect. I must, must admit the glaring omission of Madison here. I know.

That no show. One of the few disappointments. Big snub here. And I'll be demanding a bit of a refund in the next She-Hulk or Hulk adjacent project for Madison. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here. so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors.

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enjoy the fresh flavors of spring, save at Whole Foods Market. So even though we got the traditional finale or the trappings of the traditional finale in some ways, like the episode had those high profile appearances, but obviously didn't stick close to the typical script, just completely torn up. And in that sense, Shehulk kind of got to have its cake and eat it too. Of course, as Portal taught us, the cake is a lie. But the show was the truth. And I have a few big, questions for you to end on. So, first, we've been pretty high on this episode, as people can tell. How does this series and this finale stack up to previous MCU seasons and finale? And let me go this way. I actually did a little math here. Sure. And I compared the IMDB user rating for each MCU show's

finale to the average rating for each show before the finale. So I basically figured out, at least by this metric, like, which show had the best or worst received fineries relative to the reception to the overall season. You know, you might be out of the baseball game for a second, but you do still find the stats, Ben. Bringing some Symmetrics to this show. I'm about saying, the Sabre metrics are you.

And you'd expect fineries to score better than pre-finally episodes, but that hasn't really been true for the MCU series. The ratings are roughly the same, which maybe speaks to some of the issues with endings that this episode made fun of. So let me just tell you what the number of sale. I'll go in order from worst received finale to best received finale.

Okay. And you tell me whether this matches your evaluation. Okay. Got it. Worst received finale, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Correct. Correct. Correct.

Yes. We have a winner. Yeah. I'm with the wisdom of crowds on that one. All right. Next, moon night. Yes. That's right.

I'm sliding with that. Yeah. Yeah. I can't argue too much. Next, Wanda vision. Ooh. Hmm. All right. I think I'm bristling here. I can understand. I see the vision. No. I see what's occurring. There were no consequences for Scarlet Witch there. But I mean, people, interestingly, the people who voted, which might not be representative of everyone watching, were kind of low on the early episodes of Wanda Vision, which I was most high on. I kind of enjoyed that. And then it kind of transitioned back to more normal Marvel stuff. And everyone, I guess, was like, all right.

Right. This is familiar. We like this, but they weren't as high on the finale specifically. Are you telling me that IMDB uses Dominion voting machines? Is that what you're saying? Oh, please. Oh, please. Right. After Wanda Vision, we have Loki. Now, remember, this is not a referendum on this season as a whole, just on the finale relative to the season as a whole. How did you feel about the Loki finale? That's way too low. Way too low. That's incredibly way too low. Yeah, I think I'm with you there. Yeah, it goes Loki and then Hawkeye. I enjoyed the Hawkeye finale.

I like the Hawkeye finale. Yeah. Yeah. Put some respect on Loki's name. Yeah. And then, no, again. Yeah. Miss Marvel next.

I'm going to. I'm about all that. I know. Let's just get Loki higher. Let's get Loki a little bit higher. And lastly, what if? People liked the last couple episodes of what if we're counting that. Wow.

Let's get Loki a little higher. I would bump a little higher. Yeah, I would love to, yeah, definitely on this ranking. Yeah, I think more or less in line with how I feel, but a couple, couple departures. I think we learned a lot about IMDB's voting system just now. Well, yeah, I mean, according to the early voting, She-Holks finale would slot in somewhere in the middle of this list. But honestly, like, She-Hulk's user ratings are just stupidly low and probably skewed by the real-life intelligentsia review bombing it. So we should probably just disregard that.

I think this might be my favorite of the MCU fineries. And I don't know if I'd go this far, but it actually just might be my favorite of the MCU series in general, just to date. Like, I might be a bit biased because I covered the series most closely and that gave me a greater appreciation for it. But it just, it totally nailed the assignment. I get that the assignment wasn't up everyone's alley necessarily. But like, this is what the show said it would be. It's what it was supposed to be. I feel like, you know, there were highs and lows, obviously.

There was a little low for an episode or two, but for the most part, I feel like it just completely paid off. And it's either Loki or this for me, I think. I would say that it's very hard to judge this finale as a finale because it very much is a literal tear down of the MCU literal machine as we know it and less so about what's going on with Jen right up until the very end, because the lesson is simple. Jen spells it out for us. She knows what she's learned. She's going to be figuring that out

in the last five minutes. And I don't think that it's cheap. I think it's very clever and ingenious how it's done. But of a finale and a series of consequences that we're used to, this is unlike anything

we've ever seen before. And if we were to judge, if we were to give the, and by the metrics the scale, sort of. And by the metrics that we're used to, we could give the season finale of She-Hulk to the episode prior, where she meets Daredevil

in a spectacular fashion and hooks up with him and has an amazing sort of like final act of you know team up and like great like self proclamation and then there's like just a little bit of a bonus track that we have for this season for the end but it's tough to put this on the level of what we might call a loki season finale which I think might be my perspective number one I won't speak for everybody else but uh this really is something special and I think this would go very much high in the top three or five at the very least.

Like definitely let's let's let's, you know, bump, uh, bump, uh, bump what if a little, a little bit lower down that list. And I think we're fine. Yeah. I think, apologies to the watcher. Yeah.

Yes. Listen, Jeffrey Wright was cool. Man was doing this thing. It wasn't him like that. Let's, this, let's have some respect. Now, in my, in my personal rankings, I, I wouldn't, I would, I would put this on a same level as Loki, honestly, the Loki finale. I think they both do the same thing where you're like, all right, we're getting ready

for a big fight, let's get this thing cracking. And then there isn't one. You know, like, I mean, and Loki, you know, you have the, the, the, the, the, the Sylvie Loki, you know, little battle, but that's like, you know, small chops compared to what we saw in the previous episode with, you know, old Loki doing the whole you know, magic thing to get Eliath out of there. Like, it's Jonathan Majors just cooking. Like, 10 straight minutes.

And they're like, this, I'm locked in. You know what I mean? And it's like a different, like a much different version. But you think, all right, we're getting ready for the big fight. No, they literally take you to Marvel Studios. And you have like some of the best three minutes in, honestly, like, the MCU, right? And so. Kevin is the king of this episode.

Right? You have to, so for me, I want to put on that level. In terms of like a series as a whole, I think it's definitely like in my in my top three. I think I really, really, really enjoyed everything that the series did. You know, like I liked like waking up or not waking up. I watch it at midnight because I'm a midnight boy, P-Pu. But I'm just having like the 30 minute, you know, a little, little romp, little fun. Oh, this is nice.

Oh, look, a cameo here. Oh, this is great, you know, while also enjoying the characters and the story. So, like, this was a really fun series. And, yeah, definitely, like, one of my favorite MCU, Disney Plus series to date. Second question. Bruce is back from Sikar. Scar enters the MCU. We had, Jen mentioned Red Hulk, right, in an earlier episode.

So they've laid all the groundwork here. What are your expectations and hopes for future Hulk content? not She-Hulk, but just other hulks because they're clearly signaling something here. I got three words for you fellas. World War Hulk! Yeah!

I mean, yes, obviously that's what we're all thinking and hoping. Do we think that this is like, I'm not going to call this like Mando and Groku showing up at the end of Book of Boba Fett levels of irresponsible for breadcrum laying for another thing. But I think that this is a genuinely

huge thing. to just say in the final moments of a finale. It's unhinged. And kind of just like unceremoniously cut away from. Because again, to the uninitiated, no one will know what that means. I have a son. Okay. What?

Yeah. Right. And he's all grown up. Yes. And he looks surprisingly like like Rocky. I don't know. Like he's got a very distinct face. I want to know who that actor is.

By the way. terrible haircut scar awful hair cut I mean he's in his teen years he's rebelling he's probably it's you know it's business in the front party in the back but you can see all of it at the same time

I'm an out of touch millennial and even I know that that hair styles is in nowadays that's nah no no no but like even like because he's got like a one up top right the first half he's got a one you know lined up that but the back it's not like it's not even brad it's nasty like nah man you got to fix that

knows how Sikar haircuts are doing. Maybe that's the style of Sikar. Yeah. Who knows what space Stanley is cutting people up in nowadays? He got to come back. He got to come down to Crenshaw. We don't get him right. Don't worry about him.

Don't worry about all that. So even if we still can't get a standalone Hulk movie, it seems like we're clearly heading for some sort of Hulk ensemble here. I guess Young Avengers could be another possibility for Scar at some point. But we're clearly building up to more Hulk. content. And I noticed that in the writer's room, when they're breaking the finale and they have the note cards pinned up, someone wrote on the whiteboard, Inchettable Hulk. So whatever else we get, I hope that happens. I hope Chad picks up the vial that Todd dropped and just gives himself a little

dose, you know, to join the family business. I thought that was a Hulk made of cheese for a moment. Could be. Inchitable. I don't know. Those writers are pretty creative. All right. Well, third question, we didn't get confirmation of a second season, as we did at the end of Loki, but we did get some set up for one. At the end, Jen is interviewed on the steps of the courthouse, and when she asks whether she's coming for evil-doers in the courtroom or as a superhero, she says both, which, of course, that's been the theme of the season. We've been building to her, accepting that she can be both all along. Of course, the reporter then asks her what she's wearing and calls her the difficult diva of law, so the world may still look at her in a belittalienable. sense, but she seems to be fully at peace with herself. And I guess you could say that that concludes her character arc, and we don't need more.

But I'd like to see her just doing her thing as a fully functional lawyer and superhero. So are you hoping for a second season, or would you want Jen to just be the new Wong and just show up in the Avengers, show up in the Fantastic Four, show up in Secret Wars or wherever? I think that She-Hulk has provided a much-needed flavor and spice to what the MCU has been giving us for the past X amount of years post endgame. And I think that this is something that, again, I don't want to sound reductive to say that she doesn't deserve her own movie because, of course, she does. Tatiana Mislani's been crushing it in this show and is more than worthy of it. But the idea of like Jen probably popping up wherever she wants and doing anything that she wants is kind of more appealing to me rather than being the utmost centerpiece. Again, she's entirely worthy of it. But to know that she can be a sort of like additional part of whatever we like whatever the Marvel machine throws at us to know that she could probably and hopefully show up in Daredevil, to show up in all of these other projects whenever somebody would need a lawyer.

or whenever, you know, Matt Murdoch might get a little lonely from time to time. Exactly. But like it's entirely, to know that that kind of versatility isn't going to be tied down to just a film franchise or just one thing is very appealing to me. So I hope she shows up everyone. I'm, you know, thinking about it, like, do I want to see her, like, in a Rome show or with other people? Porque no los dos. Yeah, exactly. Sure.

Like, let's run it back, you know? Like, I would like to see. season two, you know, more excitement, bigger, bigger stakes, you know, bigger, you know, just like the whole thing. And then to see her, like, drop in other places, like, obviously, I love to see her Daredevil. You know, she's not getting her own movie. Kevin made that very clear. So to see her in other movies, you know, that would be awesome.

I'd love to see me, you know, meet up in Deadpool 3, have a meta off, you know? Yeah, I mean, in the comics, like, she shows up all over the place. She teams up. She's in the Avengers. She's in Fantastic Four. Like, she's in Secret Wars. Like, she could do all that. She can be in Daredevil. But I would like to see a second season. Like, I don't see why not. The show seems like it's built to last. Like this is, you know, constructed for the long haul like any procedural. You could just kind of keep this going with new cases at the week, new cameos and crossovers. You know, we haven't really seen her as a superhero full-fledged full-time or at least half-time in this series yet. So I think there's plenty more material. here. And it seems to me that the people who are in charge of the show know what they're doing and have deserved more rope. So I say renew. Please renew. Yes. Give that the Kevin Green Light. Yes. What do you think the legacy of this series beyond the series itself will be of anything? I mean, we touch on this a little. Like, you know, is Kevin Cannon now? Like, will other shows feel free to poke fun at Marvel in this way? Or will this just be She-Holks thing? Which, you know, in the the comics. Like, she's been doing this sort of thing for decades. It doesn't mean that other heroes have to do it or other books. It's just, it's kind of her brand. It's her trademark. So that could continue to be the case. But I do wonder whether, you know, now we've broken the seal a little bit. Like, okay, we can make fun of Marvel. We can make fun of the bus. Like,

that's apparently fair now. So will others try to take a run at that? Or will it just not fit the ethos of other series or other movies or, you know, is a blockbuster a little bit different? in that respect from this semi-low-stakes MCU series. I don't know. I think, I mean, I'll never forget where I was when I saw Kevin for the first time. Who, by the way, now that, like, my brain processes it, we don't know who played Kevin, do we? Like, they, it wasn't a little card for Kevin at the end there.

Question. It could have been anybody, right? It could have been the man himself getting to Boof for 15 minutes. You know what I mean? but that that scene I mean I guess like for the entire show like the run has been very consistent about like what it wanted to talk to us about

it was basically like you know hey women can be superheroes too and they don't have to it doesn't have to be this BS way it doesn't have to you know we don't have to take the crap from the people online like this is our like we can do the same way you know and I think that that's important for you know for creators creatives to see

For everybody to just like, yeah, we can have this. There's not to be some big referendum on anything. It doesn't have to say anything about anything. We can just have it as it is. And I think that that's really important because, again, this show was awesome. You know, and that it speaks for itself. So I'm really glad. I think that's really, when we think about Shio, it could be like, yeah, man, this show, like it knew what it was going to face.

The backlash was going to face. And it fought it to a point where you're like, yeah, this is dumb. Like, what's the point of all this? conversations. It doesn't make any sense. The misogynist, the people who are just hating to hate, all that is useless when you know the show you're making and how well you're doing it. And so

honestly, I think that's what we take away from this. You talk about this breaking the seal and maybe signaling a shifting tide of like if it's okay to make fun of Marvel now. And maybe this will shake up the formula and maybe we don't have to see the same thing possibly over and over again with, you know, some of these TV fineries and all of these other things. My mind immediately goes to what Deadpool 3's ceiling would be, knowing that that is

possibly going to be Marvel's first R-rated endeavor and probably, you know, hoping to push the envelope even further. I think this was a very interesting and very, like, rewarding test case for like, you know, Marvel looking a little inward and kind of becoming, you know, its own worst critic for itself because it's kind of the best case scenario for everybody because we're still having fun. This is a very low stakes and like breezy and fun season of television that I hope goes on forever because we don't need to exactly have, you know, that R-rated, you know, razor sharp biting commentary about, you know, the Hollywood industry and how powerful Kevin Fahey can be. when instead it's just this cute robot with a little artificial, artificial baseball cap, and it's kind of just poking fun at itself. I love this, and I think the legacy that it probably will endure is the fact that Marvel can still have fun with itself. Yeah, yeah, and that's been one of the things that set it apart at times from DC, from other properties, right?

And you've had other things come along, like the boys and Invincible and these things that kind of tear down those superhero tropes themselves, right? but now Marvel is kind of doing that itself, you know, subverting itself in a really entertaining and funny way. And I do hope that a little bit of that rubs off on future projects. And, you know, I hope that She-Hulk can continue to double down on that in various ways. And that'll just be the She-Hulk signature. That's something that sets her character, you know, it sets her books apart. Maybe it can set her appearances in the MCU apart. And I also think, and I've noted throughout the season, like, there are a lot of things that this season,

introduced or hinted at where maybe it was kind of joky, maybe kind of not, but we might look back and think, oh, wow, that was like the first time that happened. I mean, I know, like, you know, mutants come in and miss Marvel, but here you have mutants left and right. You have vampires. Like, you have scar coming in. You have, like, Scarlet Witch comics in the background in this episode. Like, there's just a lot of stuff here that I think establishes a precedent that, yeah, they might have just been kind of having fun in the writer's room when they tossed that in there, but they also had to get the go ahead from the real Kevin. Also, first canonical mention of by name, the X-Men.

Yeah, not just a hint. We've had a few hints, but. The word itself. Wow. Yeah. No more. No more of that. No more.

No more music teasers. Yeah, no more. No more dancing around it. We just set the thing. Yeah. And, you know, like with She-Hulk and Rings of Power ending this week and with the peak content tap just turning off or at least, you know, tapering down a bit, can I just say like how hashtag blessed we've been by the TV gods for the past couple months? Obviously, it's been a boom time for the ringerverse. We've been busy around here.

I'm grateful to everyone who has supported our several hours of audio a week during this period. But just speaking as a fan of these shows and these franchises, like, I've enjoyed all four of the shows that the podcast has covered intently lately and, you know, to varying degrees. But I found that they just went well together. Like, they overlapped in time, but not that much in content or tone in my mind. Like even the two fantasy shows scratch different itches. To me, they're complimentary. I'm sure others like only one or the other.

But that's okay too because it's been a big buffet where you don't have to have everything. You can just sample what you want. and there's always something there for you. Plus, these shows are trying to do different things, I think, because they're at different stages of the franchise life cycle. Like, the fantasy shows were really reestablishing these dormant franchises and trying to lure people in with what they liked before. Like, hey, remember how much you liked Game of Thrones before the final season?

You know, did you love the Lord of the Rings movies? We haven't had new Rings or Thrones for a while, so let's ease people in and just play the hits. Whereas we've all been so buried in MCU and Star Wars series, that She-Hulk and Andor are like, let's switch things up. Let's expand our understanding of what the MCU and Star Wars can be. So there's just been a little bit of everything, a little bit of like, this is why we have liked these things in the past, a little bit of boundary breaking and redefining. And it's just nonstop.

I mean, just look at this week alone, this episode of Andor followed up by this episode of She-Hulk. Like, we're just, we're spoiled right now. That's all. I just want to just give thanks, gratefully. It really is. Some might call it choice fatigue, but like, we really are like just that happy and satisfied with all of these things. Like we are now a every day, a week pod, repeat now because of all of these great choices that we have. It's amazing.

Listen, you didn't even mention the best show that's on right now, man. Star Trek's Lower Decks. This is the first time that we've overlapped and we've been able to talk about that. Yeah. Our favorite. Lower Decks. It's great. It's great TV.

A new episode coming on tonight. I can't wait. I can't wait. We got to do a pot about lower decks at some point. Oh, 100%. We'll just grab the mics when no one's looking. We got to do a Star Trek episode. All right.

Well, this has been a blast. This episode was this conversation was, I usually sign off by saying we're taking a one week recess, but this time we'll have to take a longer break before we talk about She-Hulk again. However, we will have plenty of other content to cover. So I'm sure you'll hear from all. us soon. Jomi and Steve, thank you so much for being my co-councils today and for hosting a couple of the She-Hulk episodes this season. I'm sorry you didn't get Daredevil Week. I know you wanted it. Oh, that's fine. The merger between the two brands is complete. Yes, we're stronger together

with our powers combined. We are Captain Podcast. So thank you to producer Jonathan Kerma for letting us write our own ending to this episode. Thanks to Arjuna Ramgapal, the Kevin of the Ringiverse, for arranging this crossover for our finale. And thanks to all of you for following this feed and listening to our She-Hulk coverage, which it's been my privilege and pleasure to lead. I really appreciate everyone welcoming in me as a host and letting me know that you like pods.

And I hope to be back. As Jen said, I'm not running from my problems. It's a mental health break. So please stay tuned to this feed for more Mal and Joe on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday, Charles and Charity on Saturday, and so much more indoor next Wednesday and Friday for the final time, Obama stay. Feels like every product claims real protein these days.

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