She-Hulk

[XtremeOne1]

Overall, I was pretty disappointed in this episode. I was excited Titania was finally showing up again and of course all her scenes were awesome, and we got Renee Elise Goldsberry but I felt they didn't do much with any of it. I'm sure Titania will return, so that's good.

I didn't like the costume designer storyline at all. If you're just copying the Incredibles and doing a worst job of it, what's the point? But at least we got that at the end...

I do wish they cared a bit more about plot, because this was the first episode did kinda was like...'I'd like a plot now, some sort of overarching storyline' . Mabybe because Titania came back and we learned nothing about why she'd attack a courtroom. She's a celebrity, apparently? So why risk all of that? What was the point? To make that's a giant plot hole and something Jen should be asking. Instead she felt kinda passive this episode, being lead by others until it was time to embarrass herself.

[sambadaemon]

It was outside the show, but I believe the writers said she burst through the wall because she was "escaping" from traffic court next door.

[Spectral Knight]

Wasn't there reports that parts of Episode 1 was meant to be much further into the series, and there was quite a bit of re-editing, which might explain why that court scene fight (and lack of actual conflict) sort of came out of nowhere, and was handled oddly.

[_Rick_]

Jessica Gao (the showrunner) talked about reworking the pilot in an interview.

The episode order was slightly different — we changed things up a little bit in post. Most of the pilot that you see was actually Episode 8. We waited until the very end of the season to really reveal her origin story.

Anyway, the traffic court information was revealed by a journalist in episode 2 when talking about the incident. Another channel was also reporting that Titania's lawyers used the defense of it being "an unfortunate misunderstanding" and "the result of an extreme case of low blood sugar". It was the same news compilation that had the guy naming Jen as "She-hulk".

I think this show has been a bit meh. There's potential but it tends to always fall a bit short. Also, they clearly need someone who has better understanding of how to write the court scenes. They are a bit too ridiculous.

[Milkshake08]

Agree that this was the weakest episode so far. There were funny bits, but the courtroom drama was over the top in ways that stretched my patience a bit. Gotta remember that in the MCU, maybe courts work different and that's the excuse we can use. What a weird way to present Titania, but I like it because I generally dislike the character so making her unique in that she's a bratty influencer makes her stand out more in the MCU. I hated ALL the designer parts. That part of the episode was trying way too hard, and even the actor was struggling to deliver the piss poor dialogue in those scenes. But glad she's gonna have fitting clothing now.

[Blackcyclops]

Its my favorite episode purely for the “Iron Man 3s” line…a sneakerhead reference in a MCU project? Talk about realism lol

[Spectral Knight]

Mentioning clothes, one of things that has bothered me is the CGI.

Not for Jen herself, who despite early complaints tends to look okay, but for those awful suits she wears when hulked up at work - they look like they're made of clay or something. There's no sign of movement or stretching in the cloth, and the folds look almost fixed and it's really distracting in how fake it looks.

I get cloth dynamics can be tricky, but if any production house could get it right, I'd expect Marvel to work out this can be convincing.

I think the problem isn't helped by the court room / office setting where action is fairly slow paced so your eyes are drawn to the unrealism. When there's been action scenes in E1 and E4 the fast cuts and changing camera scenes hid those sins completely.

[sambadaemon]

Mentioning clothes, one of things that has bothered me is the CGI.

Not for Jen herself, who despite early complaints tends to look okay, but for those awful suits she wears when hulked up at work - they look like they're made of clay or something. There's no sign of movement or stretching in the cloth, and the folds look almost fixed and it's really distracting in how fake it looks.

I get cloth dynamics can be tricky, but if any production house could get it right, I'd expect Marvel to work out this can be convincing.

I think the problem isn't helped by the court room / office setting where action is fairly slow paced so your eyes are drawn to the unrealism. When there's been action scenes in E1 and E4 the fast cuts and changing camera scenes hid those sins completely.

This bothers me, too. They have a 6'7 body double for the mo-cap stuff. why not use her for those shots and deep-fake Tatiana Maslany's face over it?

[Cable]

The Nielsen ratings are beginning to come in and in its first week She-Hulk missed the Top 10 Original Streaming shows. This doesn't necessarily mean the show is doing bad but it is not a good sign.

It is the first Marvel show to not make the chart in its opening week but it is worth mentioning (and unfortunately I have seen outlets reporting on this not mention it) that the metric Nielsen uses, millions of minutes viewed, is unfavorable to the show. There are pros and cons to different ways of measuring shows and one of the cons of this one is that it is an advantage for shows with longer runtimes. Viewing one episode of an hour long show will double the ratings of viewing an episode of She-Hulk. We will have to wait for final season ratings as the higher number of episodes compared to the other MCU shows will somewhat balance this out.

[EphemeristX]

If you go by minutes per episode, it's on par with everything outside of WandaVision, Loki, and Hawkeye. It really is the fact that these are 30 minute (or less!) episodes.

[WorldWideWade]

Also they skew in favor of shows with multiple seasons. If people decide to binge rewatch all 4 seasons of Stranger Things, all of that counts towards that shows ranking. It's why shows like Friends and the kid show Cocomelon consistently get on the Top 10. People (or children) just watch those shows on loop.

House of the Dragon is also getting a lot of buzz and attention but will likely not get in the Top 10 for similar reasons.

[Cable]

Also they skew in favor of shows with multiple seasons. If people decide to binge rewatch all 4 seasons of Stranger Things, all of that counts towards that shows ranking. It's why shows like Friends and the kid show Cocomelon consistently get on the Top 10. People (or children) just watch those shows on loop.

House of the Dragon is also getting a lot of buzz and attention but will likely not get in the Top 10 for similar reasons.

Yes but every previous MCU show has still made the top 10 for Original streaming shows.

[_Rick_]

If you go by minutes per episode, it's on par with everything outside of WandaVision, Loki, and Hawkeye. It really is the fact that these are 30 minute (or less!) episodes.

Were the minutes per episode for She-Hulk reported somewhere? I can only find the top 10 number for that week on the Nielsen website. Since the show didn't make it, we don't get to see the numbers there so it's hard to tell if it is indeed a problem with the shorter episodes or something else.
It should be noted that the first episode was actually 37 minutes so it wasn't that much shorter than most MCU entries. I think Cable is right, we need to wait for the numbers for next week.

Regardless, I think it's embarassing. She-Hulk is not a minor character and the 1st episode had Mark Ruffalo front and center. We shouldn't be comparing it with the lesser Disney+ entries and coming up with excuses. If the problem is the run-time then Marvel should have released 2 episodes right out of the gate as they did with WandaVision (the first episode was actually shorter than She-Hulk's).

[EphemeristX]

Also they skew in favor of shows with multiple seasons. If people decide to binge rewatch all 4 seasons of Stranger Things, all of that counts towards that shows ranking. It's why shows like Friends and the kid show Cocomelon consistently get on the Top 10. People (or children) just watch those shows on loop.

House of the Dragon is also getting a lot of buzz and attention but will likely not get in the Top 10 for similar reasons.

Yes but every previous MCU show has still made the top 10 for Original streaming shows.

Nielsen is by minutes. If you have a show that is 25 minutes of content, it's going to show up on Nielsen differently than one that has 47 minutes of content. That's just how the math works with Nielsen's streaming ratings, since they use a raw "minutes viewed" barometer. We've only had one other half hour D+ show, and that was WandaVision, which benefitted from being the first D+ show, involving a character the MCU fans already knew and loved, and a very strange and intriguing premise. Other reports are saying its first episode's 4 day total was around 1.5M households, which is what Hawkeye did in 5 days, while WandaVision and Loki did 1.8M and 1.6M over five days respectively. Ms. Marvel's 5 day was 775K.

[XtremeOne1]

Nieslen ratings for streaming shows are a giant mess, with hardly anyone knowing what really is successful. Its why Netflix is like "A billion minutes of our shitty movie were streamed! Its beloved" When with Netflix, someone might watch 30 minutes of said movie and shut it off but it still 'counts'.

From what I understand, it sounds as if She-Hulk is doing well, and I can only imagine its numbers will rise with the most hyped cameo coming on the scene soon. It's also a very easily binged show, with episodes being about 20-25 minutes, so I can see numbers also rising at the shows eighth and nineth episode.

But as EphermeristX pointed out, even now, the numbers are hardly bad. It's just hard to really gauge it.

[sambadaemon]

Well,

Spoiler: show

He was nothing like how I would have imagined him, but I enjoyed this Mr. Immortal. And screw that bride, Jen should have Hulked out as soon as she asked her to be a janitor.

[XtremeOne1]

This was definitely better than last week. Not as self contained as Jen promised, which was good. The humor hit better and I felt their was plot movement(the end, Jen's character, Titania, the website). We also had Jen calling Bruce, which seems to be setting something up. Also drunk Jen is just the funniest. And that guy she met at the wedding was hot and into her, so i hope he comes back.

One thing is...I've never laughed at the cousin character once. Have no clue why he's recurring....Do we need a non-Bruce cousin?

Spoiler: show

So with Mr. Immortal are we just going to accept that mutants are just kinda...there. It seems all these people with powers are popping up left and right now....which seems like mutants to me

[sambadaemon]

This was definitely better than last week. Not as self contained as Jen promised, which was good. The humor hit better and I felt their was plot movement(the end, Jen's character, Titania, the website). We also had Jen calling Bruce, which seems to be setting something up. Also drunk Jen is just the funniest. And that guy she met at the wedding was hot and into her, so i hope he comes back.

One thing is...I've never laughed at the cousin character once. Have no clue why he's recurring....Do we need a non-Bruce cousin?

Spoiler: show

So with Mr. Immortal are we just going to accept that mutants are just kinda...there. It seems all these people with powers are popping up left and right now....which seems like mutants to me

Spoiler: show

And he's been around for quite a while, too. His spouses account for at least 20+ years.

[EvilMonkeyPope]

The Lodge 49-ification of the MCU continues with

Spoiler: show

David Pasquesi as Mr. Immortal.

Patti Harrison was underused.

[Spectral Knight]

Mr Immortal was a total surprise for me, and I LOVED it. Totally barmy - when he chucked himself through the window was an actual full on laugh out loud moment. I don't care that his origin wasn't explained, I just thought the legal hilarity of him being sued by (ex?) spouses.

I was actually bored of the wedding stuff with Jen - unlike Xtreme, I'm actually bored of drunk Jen. I'm actually bored of Jen lacking in self-confidence, and her being a walk-over, and I just want her to Shulk up and deal with all of these petty annoyances and boss the joint (and not just Titania).

[Cable]

After all the discussion last week, She-Hulk in its second week now did make the Nielsen Top 10. It apparently did just need two shorter episodes to reach the numbers of the longer episodes.

[sambadaemon]

Huh.

Spoiler: show

Has Blonsky ACTUALLY turned over a new leaf? He seems sincere, if a little corny.

[Cable]

Awesome that this episode was written by Zeb Wells. Probably why we got such comic book deep cuts.

[Blackcyclops]

Awesome that this episode was written by Zeb Wells. Probably why we got such comic book deep cuts.

Imagine going back to 2002 and telling yourself Man-bull would be on your TV fighting El Aguila…

One of the very first back issues I bought was the 80s Handbook with El Aguila in it. I legit thought he was a big shot lol

[sambadaemon]

I didn't know until today reading El Aguila's wiki page that he's a mutant.