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Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I don't think the finale was the strongest episode of the season, but still I liked it a lot. I felt like the reason that she pointed out similarities in Marvel movies/shows was not to say that the whole MCU needs to change, but just that her show was going to have a different ending. All of the plot lines were resolved (Blonsky was breaking the law, but just to give paid speeches as the Abomination. Todd was no longer able to hide behind a pseudonyum and was sued. Bruce had been on Sakaar getting his son. Titania did not really need any kind of ending, she was just around to pester Jen). The 4th wall break just got rid of the clichéd Hulk Blood plot and fight, and added Matt.

But, most importantly, Tatiana Maslany is wonderful. Perfect casting, and I hope she is in a lot of MCU stuff going forward.
 

ThornGhost

lofi posts to relax/study to
(he/him)
My friend keeps telling me about all the new Marvel shows on D+ and I'm now pretty sure being connected to the franchise is more of a liability to my interest rather than a benefit. There's some fine line between "we can use the Marvel IP to greenlit experimental/interesting stories" and "these experimental/interesting stories are weighed down by the Marvel IP" and it just feels like the latter is becoming more and more true.

There is a possibility space that extends around the entire Marvel franchise and while it may extend farther out in some aspects than a non-connected film/show, it also lies much farther inward on other aspects that would drive mainstream audiences away if that line was breached. It was harder to recognize those lines in earlier stages of the franchise, but they've become all too clear now.

Call it what you will: fatigue, boredom, changing tastes. I have no idea what would ever bring me back to be interested in these films.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I hit that wall with Star Wars. I actually got in to the Mandalorian, but I was not excited about Boba Fett. Then I ended up watching part of it because people were talking about it, and it turned me off of Star Wars shows altogether. I don't want to watch Show Y just so I know what is going on in Show X.

But, that's ok. Lots of people are still excited about the new Star Wars shows, and that's great for them. There are plenty of other things for me to watch too. I'm still in to Marvel, but if I fell off of that it would be ok too.

And yeah, the connected quality of these series is definitely a balancing act. Too much will turn off some people and too little will turn off others. It's just impossible to make everyone happy, and the longer something runs the more true that is. If you're bored of Marvel, take a break. Maybe you'll come back later and be happy that you have a bunch of stuff to watch, or maybe not and that's ok too.
 

ThornGhost

lofi posts to relax/study to
(he/him)
Yeah, I don't want to yuck anybody's yum here. If y'all are having fun that's great, I was just trying to articulate something I've been thinking lately.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Boba Fett plain wasn't very good except the episodes at the end where it turns into The Mandalorian and a Mando/Boba crossover for a bit. Andor is very good though. Just, in itself, as a show.
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
I feel like you have to be SUPER CAREFUL when it comes to Meta/4th wall humor because of how easy it is to go from anarchic "FUCK YOU, BOSS" biting the hand that feeds you, "I can't believe they got away with that" joy, to masturbatory, "HOW LAME AND DUMB WAS THAT AM I RIGHT GUYS" agony.

I feel like Disney in particular is almost completely unable to do that kind of stuff, because well, they're Disney. They are the fucking iron grip. The Disney brand name on the product is often more important than the names of the lead actors and directors. There is literally Zero chance anything is "gotten away with" in a Disney film, because that shit JUST DOES NOT HAPPEN with Disney. These are the guys that fuckin buried a daycare center alive because of a painting of mickey on the wall, you honestly think anything critical of them happened by accident?

I know I'm biased as fuck on this, because I live literally 20 minutes from Disney's wicked black heart of darkness, and have spent 20 years screaming fie and damnation at my hated mouse-eared foe.

But this didn't feel like even a relaxed "okay guys we hear ya we'll tone it down," which is the very most I could possibly expect from something like this.

It was a "HOW LAME AND DUMB AM I RIGHT? FUCK YOU! YOU'LL BUY IT! YOU'LL BUY ANYTHING!!!"
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
I will stop complaining about Disney the IRL entity when talking about Disney movies and shows, the day I stop seeing the repercussions of Disney's innumerable sins with my own two eyes every time I drive to work.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I don't think the meta stuff 100% landed (especially, I agree, the stuff poking fun at Disney, it obviously can't have any teeth) but I did like the concept that in response to a false narrative, Jen responds by literally seizing control of the narrative herself. The execution ended up being a bit rough though.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
But, most importantly, Tatiana Maslany is wonderful. Perfect casting, and I hope she is in a lot of MCU stuff going forward.
Oh 100%, Jen was delightful. Pretty much all the casting was spot on. Granted, that has generally been one of the consistently strong things about the live action Marvel TV shows, Iron Fist notwithstanding.

Honestly, I really want to like the fourth wall smashing finale, but I just have a hard time looking past the jab at special effects when, again, Disney/Marvel has overworked its effects animators, rather needlessly because they have All Of The Money. But also, there's just the fact that the ending where Jen wins and there's no blood plot and Blonsky accepts responsibility and all that IS the better ending but it's not the ending to the story we've been watching. Like, if the writers or Management decided that made for a better ending they could have just wrote that story instead!

I do hope we see more, though. But please, hire some good legal drama writers for at least one episode. Give us just one good courtroom drama but superheroes episode in season 2, just one is fine!
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Boba Fett plain wasn't very good except the episodes at the end where it turns into The Mandalorian and a Mando/Boba crossover for a bit. Andor is very good though. Just, in itself, as a show.
That’s good to hear. I still need a break though. It’ll still be there when I’m ready for more Star Wars.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
The jab at special effects was especially heinous. If Jen were a real hero she’d have led the effects people on strike and just ended the show.
I will stop complaining about Disney the IRL entity when talking about Disney movies and shows, the day I stop seeing the repercussions of Disney's innumerable sins with my own two eyes every time I drive to work.
I’m fine with every discussion around Disney involving at least a little spitting in their eye. The people they employ bring a lot of joy into the world but it doesn’t counterbalance the immense damage they’ve done to art and culture, let alone the human cost.
 
The jab at special effects was especially heinous. If Jen were a real hero she’d have led the effects people on strike and just ended the show.
Instead, she kinda brutally beats up a few innocent rent-a-cops on her way to confront GLADOS. But instead of following through with the Portal joke and having her put GLADOS in its place, she acquiesces and falls in line? And then at the very end, she still gets upstaged by Hulk? It feels borderline nefarious. I'm getting kinda tired of Disney lampshading their own shittiness and then doing nothing about it. It honestly feels worse than if they didn't even acknowledge it to begin with. Like, y'all know you should be better and are making an active, public decision to not be. Very frustrating when the rest of the show was otherwise so good.

...all that IS the better ending but it's not the ending to the story we've been watching. Like, if the writers or Management decided that made for a better ending they could have just wrote that story instead!
That's basically how I feel about the finale. Like, there was a lot of ripe, fertile ground to explore with Jen and her icky cis-white-male-boomer boss that was begging to get openly discussed/resolved. And instead she just gets fired off camera? And it never gets addressed again? Except for her paralegal who is like "I hate this guy, but Imma keep working for him because he pays me well" which is just like, the opposite of where this felt like it could have/should have gone.

I think I'm gonna just pretend the finale never happened. Might as well, since that also seems to be how the show itself handled things lmao.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
But instead of following through with the Portal joke and having her put GLADOS in its place, she acquiesces and falls in line?
Her goal was to change the ending to her show, and she did that. I don’t think that anything in the series hinted that Jen wanted to change or destroy Marvel.
 
Her goal was to change the ending to her show, and she did that. I don’t think that anything in the series hinted that Jen wanted to change or destroy Marvel.
I'm not saying that’s the case. But think about it. It's beyond weird and irksome that they'd make a parallel that calculated, cold, inhuman Marvel Mandates are to blame for her problems, and then she's just like yeah we're still cool I can work with this. Like, imagine if Sauron came swooping into a Batman film, and he turned out to secretly be the cause of all of Batman's/Gotham's woes, and Batman at the end was all like oh, ok, you might be a genocidal incarnation of evil but I can work with you, I'll trust your word at face value, have a nice day.
 

jpfriction

(He, Him)
Really surprised they didn’t ADR in a line from Madisynn yelling offscreen for some popcorn or something in that stinger

Finale was fairly weak and confused me
a bit can’t say I understand why finding her cyber bully necessarily made it okay for Jen to break the terms of her parole but then they didn’t really specifically explain what she was arrested for to begin with. Easily the best of the marvel shows to date regardless. Looking forward to more, hopefully with more courtroom stuff.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Overall I liked She-Hulk, but I would have much preferred a version that just told the story they claim they wanted to tell instead of faking out a worse story, doing a bunch of meta jokes, and then skipping to the wanted ending without earning it.
 

Daikaiju

Rated Ages 6+
(He, Him)
Overall I liked She-Hulk, but I would have much preferred a version that just told the story they claim they wanted to tell instead of faking out a worse story, doing a bunch of meta jokes, and then skipping to the wanted ending without earning it.
Tell me you've never read She-Hulk...
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
About the meta stuff in the finale: I don't agree with a characterization that they should've told the story they wanted to tell, rather than go meta with it. They did tell the story they wanted to tell, and the way they wanted to tell that story was to have Jen break the fourth wall and do it herself. It's similar to comments I've seen on Twitter about how they wrote a bad ending on purpose in order to make fun of it, but that's still ignoring what the actual writing did with respect to Jen's role in the story.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I agree with Yangus. That said, it was a big swerve and I can understand that turning people off. It worked for me though.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
But for a while, particularly in the John Byrne run, it was and even in Slott's run, while there's less fourth wall breaking, it's very meta. It establishes Marvel Comics are legal documents.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
I don't know what that has to do with my opinion that the season finale was disappointing from a story perspective.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I just mean there are a lot that do. Note that I did misread the intent of your last post as "I didn't know that was her thing" but before Deadpool, it really was.
 
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