Episode 1 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law follows attorney Jennifer “Jen” Walters as an accident with her cousin Bruce Banner transforms her into She-Hulk.
She-Hulk Season 1 Episode 1 Recap: A Normal Amount of Rage
Jennifer Walter (Tatiana Maslany) is a deputy district attorney for the city of Los Angeles. After nervously practising her closing speech for court with paralegal and best friend Nikki Ramos (Ginger Gonzaga) and her fellow lawyer, Jen breaks the fourth wall as she addresses viewers directly, narrating her backstory.
In a flashback to a few months ago, Jen went on a road trip with her cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), aka “The Hulk”. When a spaceship abruptly materializes before them on the hill roads, it sends their car barrelling over the cliff as it tumbles down and crashes into the woods.
As the car flips and crashes to a stop, Jen’s hand bleeds from an injury while she attempts to extract a supine Bruce from his upturned car seat. While rescuing him, his inhibitor device keeping him in human form is damaged. When Bruce’s blood trickles onto the exposed skin on her injured arms, it seemingly transforms Jen into a female Hulk as she turns colossal and green and darts into the woods.
Blacking out from the incident, a very tousled and disoriented Jen wakes up that night in the woods and approaches a pub nearby. After some friendly women in the washroom help her clean up and call Bruce, a few men begin harassing Jen outside, setting her off into the Hulk as she again blacks out.
Waking up the next day, she finds herself in Bruce’s beach-house lab in Mexico where he had spent the blip, recovering and conjoining his Hulk-Banner identities. Bruce explains that after the Sakaaran Class-Eight courier craft hit them, the wreck led to his blood entering her system and leading to a lethal gamma radiation exposure for her.
However, their rare genetic composition enabled Jen to synthesize the gamma radiation into her anatomy, thereby transforming her into another “Hulk”. Hulk terrifies an already-frazzled Jen with the possibility of requiring 15 years to settle into her new “Hulk” identity.
However, Jen’s version of the Hulk leaves Bruce in the unknown when he realizes she does not have to deal with an alter-ego and can switch between Jen and Hulk at will. Banner spends the next few days preparing his cousin in her new form as he takes recourse to dialectical behavioural therapy and yoga to help her maintain her calm.
To Bruce’s disappointment, Jen refuses to take on the glorified superhero mantle. Instead, she wishes to return to her life of professional law that she spent money and years building. A childishly violent fight subsequently breaks out between both Hulked-out cousins.
Bruce grudgingly decides to respect her decision and bids a reluctant farewell to Jen. Heading back to her life as a lawyer in the city, present-day Jen returns on screen, revealing that only Bruce, Nikki, and her family are privy to her Hulk secret.
As Jen prepares herself to deliver the closing speech in court, a powerful and mysterious woman (Jameela Jamil) crashes through the walls of the courtroom as the architecture begins to crumble and people escape.
Compelled by Nikki to turn into the Hulk as part of her civic duty to help people in need, Jen hesitantly transforms into the Hulk and helps contain the volatile situation, enabling security to detain the woman. She reverts to human form, ready to deliver her closing argument.
The post-credits scene features a drunk and rambling Jen and Bruce sitting by the bar in Banner’s Mexico safe house, ludicrously discussing Captain America’s virginity.
She-Hulk Season 1 Episode 1 Review
Featuring a glorious return for Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, the newest Marvel series sets off to a promising start with Jennifer Walter’s superhero trajectory.
Exploring a refreshingly convincing sibling bond between Bruce and Jen, the show exposes newer delicate sides to the hitherto raging savage character of the Hulk.
Jen’s breaking of the fourth wall is a quirky addition, establishing an intimate connection with viewers and making them feel a first-hand engagement in the exciting world of superheroes.
She-Hulk’s new addition to the MCU is unique in her unwillingness to be cast in the superhero mould. Jennifer Walter’s character also becomes a promising new female role model as she essays a fiercely individualistic woman and rightfully exposes the anger and frustration women deal with in life regularly.
Rating: 3.5/5
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is now streaming on Disney+.
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