She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - Episode 3 - Review
We are now two episodes done for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and while Jen may think she has things under control, her new client is proving to be a bit more than she can handle. With the inclusion of two MCU alumni, does this provide a push forward for the series?
Kicking off the episode by Jen finding out that she has a secret baby with Emil Blonsky was not something I was expecting to see, but it made sense for the tone of the show. It connecting back to the events of the last episode though, made more sense, it was at the end that we got the news that the Abomination had broken out of the prison, in order to take part in a cage match in Hong Kong. Of course, that was the events that we saw in Shang-Chi and here we got the other half of that encounter, specifically that Wong broke him out, in order to test himself as the Sorcerer Supreme. This kicked off a bit of a slapdash effort in order to find Wong, who has next to no social media presence these days, though we did get a glimpse as to the life he led before he joined up.
Bringing Wong in was an interesting choice, because we rarely get to see much of him, without Stephen Strange around and you can see why here. Now that he is the big man in charge, he is kind of a selfish tool and I don’t mean that in a bumbling and charming way, but as in he does what he wants and expects no issues from it, even when confronted about the legality of his actions. What it does lead to is a weird confrontation between the Abomination and his parole board, who eventually grant him the pardon he wants, clearly ignoring everything he did, crying prison guard aside. That is the main story, but the show also delivers as fun, if somewhat random side story, where an Asgardian shapeshifter was fleecing people from their hard earn money, by pretending to date them. While I am sure some viewers will appreciate how often they said Megan The Stallion in the show, it wasn’t really a story that needed to be told, if only because it didn’t add much to the plot.
Across the show though, things were moving way to smoothly, which is why its hard pivot in the last few minutes, was something that came out of nowhere. Now, we have seen Bruce react poorly to his blood getting lose, most notably in The Incredible Hulk, but even in the first episode of the series. Given that the show never touched on it, or any of the real dangers to Jen and her new abilities, it can be easy to forget that aspect, so having some guys jump her, in order to steal the blood, may seem random. One aspect of the encounter that I didn’t gel with, was that she didn’t turn into She-Hulk right away, given that fear is something we saw trigger her in the first episode. Now you can say that she has a handle on her ability, but this is the first time that we saw her, outside of time in Mexico, actually get into an encounter not of her own free will. Who is this mysterious person after her blood, I would love for it to be Rick Jones, but the show ends before we get any more details, so it will have to wait.
There were quite a large number of visual effects shots in this episode and sadly, something clearly gave way, because they don’t look all that great at times. The scene with Emil and his transformation into The Abomination, it looks so bad, the effect of the transition was fine, but the final visual was clearly rushed, as it just didn’t look right. The same can be said with the fight in the last few minutes, if only because each aspect of the fight seemed cheap and that started with the weapons used by the baddies.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law seems to have found its grove, it offers some laughs, while driving a mystery in the background, the problem is the mystery is so random, it feels tacked on. This week had three guest stars and only one of whom was interesting to watch and sadly it was the one I least expected it to be. The conversion of Emil into a mild-mannered Abomination was weird and while there is a lot of time between the events in Harlem to now, no one seems to care. The side-story, while intriguing, wasn’t all that exciting to watch, because it revolved around time in a court, without the She-Hulk. With things moving forward for Jen, including new dangers, the show is doing well, let’s just hope it can keep that momentum.
The Score
8.0
Review access provided by Disney
The Pros
+The story is finally moving forward, offering new characters and threats
+It was a guest star loaded show, which is nice to see…
The Cons
-…though none of them seemed to portray the characters we knew
-Many of the visual effect shots feel incomplete, evoking a sense of game level graphics at times
