'She-Hulk' finale review: Tatiana Maslany's MCU show caps off a great season with a gonzo finale

Tatiana Maslany-starrer 'She-Hulk' is the first Marvel show in the post-Disney+ era to not only stick the landing but go more meta than even Deadpool could dream of. Previously, MCU shows made by Marvel Studios have either been disappointments from the start ('The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' and 'Hawkeye') or unravelled in the finales after showing some amount of promise ('Loki' and 'WandaVision'). 'She-Hulk' has had a couple of uneven episodes and jokes that did not land, but it pays off the promise of its self-aware, fourth-wall-breaking, and 'legal comedy drama' aspects big time in the finale, titled 'Whose Show Is This?'. It pokes fun at the superhero genre and its timeworn tropes, MCU, and the MCU's architect Kevin Feige himself.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

How writers used trolls to comment on the popular response to female superheroes

At the end of the last episode 'Ribbit and Rip It', a shady group called Intelligencia made its move against Jennifer Walters, the real identity of She-Hulk. In the comics, Intelligencia is a dreaded coalition of some of the biggest supervillains on earth. So, of course, in 'She-Hulk' it had to be a group of normal human men outraged over She-Hulk's very existence, and her being, well, female. An offline group of online trolls, so to speak.

Earlier in the season, too, the show commented on how online trolls hate She-Hulk, the superhero, and wish the Hulk to remain male. The show's writers smartly anticipated the backlash the show will get in the real world from trolls (who regularly complain every favourite male pop culture character is being turned into female or feminine or gay, and heap abuse on the cast and crew of such shows or movies), and included them in the show's humour.

How the finale inverted the typical superhero story's conclusion

I have had a few issues with 'She-Hulk', mainly the CGI of the superhero itself -- which, incidentally, does not improve in the finale. But the show has regularly surprised at the lengths it is willing to go to differentiate itself from the run-of-the-mill MCU shows and movies. Only 'WandaVision' comes close, and it, too, devolves into a mess at the end. In the 'She-Hulk' finale, the ensuing events appeared to lead to the BIG CGI FINALE that we have come to accept in superhero tales. One is that the hero(es) and the villain(s), usually polar opposites of each other, will clash in the finale, levelling multiple buildings in the process.

In 'Whose Show Is This?', Jennifer was barred from turning into She-Hulk ever again. She yearned the find out just who targetted her and defamed her by capturing her intimate moments by pretending to love her. She decided to take the assistance of Tim Roth's Emil Blonsky, better known as the Abomination, as he only understood what she was going through. But at the retreat, she found out that Blonsky was invited by the Intelligencia in his Abomination form. And lo and behold, Jameela Jamil's Titania also turned up. Oh, and Hulk himself dropped from space to earth.

Looking at this, She-Hulk got out of the show, literally, as we were treated with the UI of Disney+ (the joke might not work for Indians who watch the show on Disney+ Hotstar, which has a slightly different interface). Going out of the 'She-Hulk' button the superhero went straight into the docu-series 'Marvel Studios: Assembled', which details how the MCU shows and movies are made. There, she went to the writer's room and announced her grievances about the cliched conclusion her show is being given. She was directed to the room of KEVIN.

If you thought it was Kevin Feige, you were wrong. Or perhaps right. Perhaps Feige's human form is just an illusion and the real Kevin, with its successful algorithms, is a robot like 'She-Hulk' says. In a chamber, she interacted with the said robot KEVIN and convinced it to change the ending into a quieter one. Instead of nighttime, it became day. And She-Hulk saved the day without the assistance of her cousin.

This is the craziest way any MCU show or movie has ended, and that is saying something.

What happened at the end?

Apparently, She-Hulk and Daredevil are an item now. Oh, and Hulk brought back his son, Skaar. In comics, Hulk does have a son called Skaar from an alien called Caiera the Oldstrong, conceived during Hulk's time on Sakaar, the planet we visited in 'Thor: Ragnarok'. In the show, Skaar appears to be timid and friendly, but in comics, he has a desire to kill his father for complicated reasons.