She-Hulk: Attorney at Law – Episode 1 Review

By Ben Wright (@iamzavagno | www.xgeeks.co.uk)

This review is spoiler-free.

From Jessica Gao, the genius behind ‘Pickle Rick’, comes a new Marvel TV show that is hoping to pack a lot of punch and if this first episode is anything to go by, the MCU patriarchy is in trouble!

I know for certain that some fragile masculine egos will not take to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, because Gao is not afraid to call it as it is. Speaking of which there were some great feminist and social commentary moments that I really loved, and I think the writing approach in terms of Jennifer Walters, in this regard, is such an exciting road to travel down! I hope that the show continues calling these moments out as I feel its messaging, we need more of.

As for the show’s star, Tatiana Maslany (Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk) was simply faultless and every element of her performance, from the comedic beats to action moments, is a joy to watch. Maslany feels such a natural fit for this character, and I am super excited that we’ve still got another eight episodes, and hopefully more in the future, to follow to see her push the character on further.

We already know that Mark Ruffalo’s (Bruce Banner) involvement will be in a minor supporting capacity, but he does feature very heavily in this first episode. The chemistry he has with Maslany felt very organic and the two clearly had a good time whilst on screen with each other. We also get a brief bit of exposition about his current transformative state, a question which was posed in the post-credit scene of Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings. We also got Ginger Gonzaga (Nikki Ramos) for a few brief scenes, but all the signs are pointing to another great character!

In terms of negatives, it was very minor. There were a few pacing issues that were a little wobbly. We also had a brief scene and first look at Jameela Jamil (Titania), towards the end of the episode, which I think the less said about that the better, but it’s still early days! One janky moment at the end and some slight pacing issues were the only real negatives, but they aren’t detrimental to the overall positive reaction I had to this first episode.

While I do think the show has plenty of room to develop and improve on certain things, I did enjoy this first episode and am very eager to see more! It just didn’t ‘WOW’ me with its opener as much as recent shows like Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight did.

SMASH the patriarchy and become Queen of the courtroom? All in a day’s work for the hugely talented Tatiana Maslany in this enjoyable first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.