Spoilers for all Marvel Cinematic Universe works preceding this one will be left unmarked.
"I did not go to law school and rack up six figures in student loans to become a vigilante. That is for billionaires and narcissists. And adult orphans, for some reason."
— Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a superhero Law Procedural comedy series created for Disney+ by Jessica Gao (Rick and Morty), with Kat Corio serving as lead director, and based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. It is the 8th series and 37th overall installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as the 14th installment in Phase 4.
The show focuses on Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), an Assistant District Attorney who is exposed to gamma radiation when she and her famously angry cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) get in a car crash while they're hanging out. Her genetic similarity to her cousin causes her to also transform into a green, strong version of herself whenever she gets angry or stressed. Fired from her job for being a "distraction" to their cases, Jen is then hired to head up the new super-human division of a private law firm. Now she has to learn to navigate her newfound strength while also balancing out her responsibilities.
In addition to Maslany and Ruffalo, Tim Roth reprises his role as Emil Blonsky/The Abomination from The Incredible Hulk and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, alongside Benedict Wong returning as Wong, Charlie Cox returning as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, alongside new additions like Jameela Jamil as Titania, Ginger Gonzaga as Jen's best friend Nikki Ramos, Griffin Matthews as superhero fashion designer Luke Jacobson, Renée Elise Goldsberry as fellow lawyer at GLK&H Mallory Book, Anais Almonte as a stunt performer, and Josh Segarra as fellow GLK&H lawyer Augustus "Pug" Pugliese.
The nine-episode series premiered on August 18, 2022; new episodes were released every Thursday through October 13, 2022.
Previews: Official Trailer 1
, Official Trailer 2, I'm a Hulk
Go ahead and make these tropes angry. You'll like them when they're angry.
- Aborted Arc: As part of the show's Gainax Ending, a number of subplots are completely dropped in favor of the Rage Against the Author sequence.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: It's fairly minor, but in the comics Walters got her powers thanks to a blood transfusion. Here it's accidental exposure to Bruce's blood after a car crash, since Bruce in the MCU would never allow a blood transfusion (his blood was shown to be toxic in The Incredible Hulk (2008)). How did Bruce get an injury allowing exposure to his blood? He developed a doohickey to keep him from Hulking out so his arm could heal.
- Adaptational Badass: Jennifer Walters was never considered to be unattractive and had several suitors for her human form like James Jameson. However, generally, she was considered to be a mousy and reserved woman. The She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has all of Jen's bossiness and snark as things she enjoys in her human form. She's also played by the very lovely Tatiana Maslany.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway were introduced to the comics in She-Hulk's third series, 25 years after her debut. In the show, they hire her in the second episode.
- Adaptational Modesty: Much similar to the recent changes to Wanda's Scarlet Witch outfit, Jen's superhero suit for She-Hulk has been updated for modern times. Her outfit in the original comics was a very small purple & white leotard. In the TV series, it has been altered to a purple & white one piece T-Shirt and Shorts.
- Adaptational Wimp:
- While they've been outclassed in recent years by bigger and badder villains, the Wrecking Crew of the comics are as strong as any Asgardian, can stand evenly against entire teams of Avengers, and famously beat Hercules within an inch of his life (with the help of Goliath and Mr Hyde). The show's version of the team are clumsy mooks with no true powers of their own, just shiny tools stolen from an Asgardian construction worker, and their humiliating first fight against Jen lasts only seconds.
- Titania in the comics has strength on par with She-Hulk, and this in fact motivates much of Titania's conflict with Jen, with Titania wanting to prove she really is more powerful than She-Hulk. In the show, while Titania certainly has super-strength, it's not precisely established how much (her fight with Jen in episode 1 has her throw a large wooden table, and in episode 6 she's strong enough to send Jennifer flying with blows, but these hits don't seem to injure Jennifer, and when Jen transforms into She-Hulk, it's another Curb-Stomp Battle). At best, it demonstrates that Titania can't take a hit as well as Jen can, as the battle ends with a single punch. Her conflict with She-Hulk is so far completely different and far more of a nuisance than a legitimate threat.
- The Intelligencia in the comics were a collective of highly intelligent supervillains that counted iconic villains such as Leader, MODOK, and Doctor Doom within their ranks, and were a legitimate threat to not only the Hulk and his allies, but the entire planet. In the show, the Intelligencia are portrayed as a group of highly sexist humans who resort to publicly spreading their offensive views and harassing people they don't like through an online forum. Their only conflict with Jennifer is the fact that they don't believe she "deserves" her power, and they're easily defeated when Jennifer simply convinces KEVIN to rewrite the entire show and retroactively foil Intelligencia's plot before it even begins.
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: Played with, as Jennifer Walters gains Hulk powers and is promptly labelled "She-Hulk" by the media, but is disdainful towards the name—finding it sexist and reductive. The concept is referenced in episode 3 in a satirical nod to real-life backlash against the trend, when several misogynists and chauvinists complain online about the recent proliferation of female superheroes, especially ones sharing hero codenames with male heroes.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Emil Blonsky, aka The Abomination, has a devoted harem of female admirers whom he communicates with via the prison letter writing programme. They successfully campaign for his release and eventually fund his "Wellness retreat".
- Amazon Chaser: We get to see a montage of Jennifer dating a series of these. Only one of them manages to impress her, and he leaves her once she's transformed out of her Hulk form.
- And Starring: Special Guest Star Mark Ruffalo, Special Guest Star Charlie Cox, Special Guest Star Benedict Wong, Special Guest Star, with Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Special Guest Star Tim Roth.
- Artistic License – Law:
- Lampshaded. As Jennifer points out, appointing her as Blonsky's attorney generates a conflict of interest since Blonsky tried to kill her cousin. Luckily, the firm she works for doesn't really care. Conflict waiver signed, and all that.
- Beyond that, the show has a tendency to play fast and loose with the distinction between criminal and civil matters. It's somewhat justified that Jennifer works both, as she was hired specifically to deal with superhuman-related issues that the legal system hasn't yet set precedent for. But, on at least one occasion a judge in a civil case ends the trial by awarding the plaintiff damages from fraud, and sentences the defendant to 60 days in jail for impersonating the judge that was sentencing her, with no jury trial or even the suggestion that the judge should recuse himself from a trial in which he was the victim.
- Jennifer's employer requiring that she always be in She-Hulk form at work would not fly. Legally it would likely be considered the equivalent of hiring someone with a disability under the condition that they deliberately put their disability on display while at work, which is not something you can legally demand from your employees. On the flipside, as LegalEagle observed, the fact that the firm explicitly hired her because she's She-Hulk and advertised her services as such, is actually a much better legal argument in her trademark dispute with Titania than her string of blind dates (the rationale she uses in episode 5).
- Artistic Title: The end credits are humorous courtroom sketches detailing Jen's new life as a Hulk. It also changes a few slides with every episode to something related to the events just shown, like Jen and Bruce bulk buying snacks and spandex clothes, or a Hard-Drinking Party Girl signing a Deal with the Devil.
- As Herself: Megan Thee Stallion, who appears in Episode 3 attending the trial of an Asgardian Light Elf who pretended to be her to get money from Dennis Bukowski. In the episode's stinger, she hires Jennifer as her new lawyer.
- Atrocious Alias: Jennifer doesn't like the fact that the name She-Hulk is a female derivative of the name Hulk and hopes it doesn't stick. Bruce thinks it's hilarious.
- Bait the Dog: The man who was shown in the trailers as being incredibly interested in She-Hulk, as well as Josh's seeming interest in Jen. Cut to the series' airing, where the former rejected her upon changing back to her normal form (as well as later saying in front of a courtroom that he enjoyed dating She-Hulk, but not Jennifer Walters), and the latter is a member of the incel expy group Intelligencia who recorded revenge porn of her without her consent and aired it in front of her coworkers and family to provoke Jen into raging out and ruining her reputation.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: This wouldn't be a She-Hulk show without her indulging in this, and we get plenty of moments of Jennifer Walters doing this in each episode.
- Jen speaks directly to the audience to segue into the extended flashback of her origin story in the first episode, harkening back to the early days of the character.
- During the scene after fixing the bar, Bruce begrudgingly says that he respects her decision to return to her former life. When Jen turns to the audience with an aside comment, she does a Double Take, as this is chronologically the first time she's done this, and she is caught off-guard by it. Bruce then turns and glances at her in confusion.
- Taken to the extreme in the finale where she literally leaves her show, goes to the Marvel offices and demands they change the script.
- Call-Back:
- When the Abomination is shown transforming in his cell, he takes on his redesigned look from his recent appearance in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. His cell was also briefly glimpsed in the background of Wong's sling-ring portal in that film.
- The saws inside the testing chamber in the first episode have the Stark Industries logo on them.
- The leaked video of the Abomination's fight with Wong is footage taken straight from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
- Casting Gag: This isn't the first time Josh Segarra played an attorney in a world filled with superhumans and vigilantes.
- Chekhov's Gun: In the first episode, flashbacks show Bruce using an inhibitor device to keep the Hulk at bay, until the car crash puts an end to it. After opting for a Split-Personality Merge, the inhibitor is passed to Emil Blonsky in episode 3, as one of the conditions for his parole.
- Clothing Damage: Downplayed. Despite making a big deal of spandex being Jen's new best friend and needing separate wardrobes as Jen and She-Hulk, Jennifer's clothes don't take all that much damage when she changes. A few seams might tear, but that's about it. Granted, Jen's transformation isn't as extreme as Bruce (for instance, Jen's muscular mass is less prominent than Bruce's when both are transformed), and is implied that Jen started to wear clothes a couple of sizes bigger just in case.
- Comfort Food: Bruce makes Jen pancakes to help her deal with being a Hulk.
- Continuity Nod:
- Jennifer cites conflict of interest as the reason she cannot defend Emil Blonsky, as he tried to kill her cousin one time.
- When Wong hires Jen's services, he briefly asks her if the "book" she follows is the Book of Vishanti. He's less than pleased when she clarifies that she's referring to the Constitution.
- Wong mentions, during his consultation, that making everyone in the world forget something can be messy.
- After getting one-upped by his cousin one time too many during her training, Bruce decides to punch Jennifer off a cliff similar to how he punched Thor offscreen during The Avengers.
- Bruce asks Jen if she's sure it doesn't feel like "there's another hand on the wheel." In Thor: Ragnarok, Bruce described his relationship with the Hulk normally as like each of them having a hand on the wheel, but after Hulk spent years on Sakaar, Bruce states it felt like "he had the keys to the car and I was locked in the trunk!"
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus in the second episode shows a news article with the title "Why there is a giant statue of a man sticking out of the ocean."
- In episode 8, Matt Murdock mentions that the Sokovia Accords from Captain America: Civil War were repealed at some indeterminate point in the past.
- In the finale, a member of the Intelligencia complains about there now being a female Thor.
- In the finale's mid-credit scene, Blonsky asks Wong about whether they had Wi-Fi. Clearly they do. They're not savages, unlike Blonsky at one point
- Cosmic Retcon: Thanks to She-Hulk taking up her grievances with the writing of her show's finale with the writers and producer, all elements tied to the theft of her blood are completely written out of the story, and Todd doesn't get to become a Hulk.
- Creative Closing Credits: The end credits are all drawings depicting characters doing things that follow up on the events of the episode, done in the style of courtroom sketches. Most of the images are the same, with only a handful being changed each time to reflect the events of the episode, as a reward to viewers who pay attention each time.
- Creator Cameo: Showrunner Jessica Gao and writers Zeb Wells and Cody Ziegler appear when Jen visits Marvel Studios in the finale.
- Cringe Comedy: Jen going through a litany of awkward dates as She-Hulk, then having those same awkward dates testify for her so that she can legally use She-Hulk as a title. She also has the privilege of her dating site profile being read in public, which can't be a good feeling.
- Deconstructor Fleet: Being a comedy first and foremost, the show pokes fun at the tropes established in the MCU and details the life of a superhero...who doesn't really want to be one. The deconstruction of the MCU itself is a major plot point in the finale, with Jen doing the smashing!
- Deus ex Machina:
- Played for Laughs. Jennifer breaks the fourth wall in "Whose Show is This?" and goes to Marvel Studios HQ to demand that her season gets a better ending, which conveniently wraps up a number of her problems in the process.
- In the final episode, pre-retcon, Bruce comes back from space just in time to save Jen from Todd-Hulk. She points out how much this sucks when she's talking to K.E.V.I.N.
- Didn't Think This Through: Bruce secures Jen in a room with an advancing wall of buzzsaws to induce her to transform, to get a measure of her emotional triggers through a helmet on her head connected to the ceiling by wires. He didn't think that Jen would panic and remove the helmet, meaning he didn't get the data he set up the experiment for in the first place. He also admits he didn't have a plan for if Jen couldn't transform to save herself (though he might have been lying about that to stress her out for purposes of the test). He also did not have a plan for dealing with a pissed-off She-Hulk after she changed and stopped the saws.
- Die or Fly: In the first episode, Bruce puts Jen in a sealed room with buzzsaws coming at her to induce her to transform. If he had any plan for what would happen if she didn't, he doesn't reveal it to either her or the audience.Jennifer: Bruce! It kinda feels like if I don't transform, I'm going to die!
- Dissonant Serenity: When Jennifer freaks out at being potentially crushed by buzzsaws in a sealed room in the first episode, Bruce simply flashes a big goofy grin with a thumbs up to encourage her.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- The Intelligencia posters closely resemble the misogynists and incels who make a habit of harassing and doxxing women they feel threatened by. The group itself is also a clear stand-in for misogynistic Internet Trolls who complain about female-led superhero properties, disparaging not only She-Hulk but "Lady Thor" as well.
- The forum's layout is a clear Expy of Redditnote , and the Intelligencia members who leak Jen's revenge-porn sex tape at the awards show do so with a video extremely reminiscent of Anonymous' video announcements.
- Dramatic Irony: Jen posits three questions, "What is the responsibility of those with power? Do they merely have an obligation to refrain from the misuse of that power? Or do they have a duty to protect those without it?" in the first episode's opening minutes, at which point the audience already knows that she is going to get Hulk powers and these very words will apply to her, although she doesn't know it. Seemingly averted when Jen reveals to the audience that she has already become the She-Hulk several months earlier. Nevertheless, the remainder of the episode will show Jen's reluctance to accept the idea that she is obliged to become a superhero like her cousin.
- Easter Egg: The hidden QR codes make a return once again; as in the previous shows, scanning them will take you to an online comic starring the titular hero.
- Effortless Amazonian Lift: Jen's first successful date as She-Hulk ends with her carrying the man to her bedroom.
- Even the Girls Want Her: In one of the trailers, a woman comments to Jen, "Girl, your ass looks crazy right now.", and in the first episode, Nikki says, "Hulk you is a total snack."
- Everybody Lives: Despite it being a Marvel show, no one is actually killed off during Season 1. Even when Mr. Immortal "dies", he immediately comes back to life!
- Fantastic Legal Weirdness: Part of the series involves a law firm's "superhuman law division" taking up cases dealing with someone with superpowers, whether it be Light Elves using their Voluntary Shapeshifting powers to commit fraud, a leader of a magical sect wanting to enforce a NDA on a former member, or someone with Resurrective Immortality who had been repeatedly killing himself to get out of his previous marriages.
- Flipping the Bird:
- Jen gives her cousin the finger as she's falling off the cliff he pushed her down.
- Stage magician Donny Blaze argues his case by proving to the judge that his magic is done only in "spooky fun" and isn't hurting anyone. This includes producing a bunny on his desk. After Blaze wins the case, he proclaims, "I also have a bird!" and flips off his opponents Jen and Wong as he leaves the courtroom.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Madisynn recounts having to negotiate for her soul with a demon named Jake.
- Foreshadowing: In the first episode, Bruce destroys Jennifer's blood samples so that nobody else can use them. In the finale, K.E.V.I.N. and the Marvel Studios staff retcon out the elements tied to Jen's blood getting stolen so that Todd-Hulk can't exist.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Jen's to-do list has a number of humorous entries, including two hours to organize her to-do list.
- Gainax Ending: "Whose Show is This?" goes completely off-the-rails. Jennifer Walters, deeply unsatisfied with how her season finale is shaping up, breaks the fourth wall and travels to Marvel Studios headquarters to ask for a new ending. She runs into K.E.V.I.N. who then complies with her requests to fix the ending, but tells her that it will only work once.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Todd and the other members of Intelligencia. They do not like She-Hulk, just because they think she didn't "deserve" her powers...and because she's female hulk.
- Hollywood Law: The series runs on it. The creators billed it as "Ally McBeal meets the MCU". They lived up to that. They have a lot of fun courtroom scenes but not a lot of law.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: In the first episode, as Bruce helps Jen get used to her Hulk form, she spends a lot of time not Hulked out. The petite Tatiana Maslany is ludicrously dwarfed by Ruffalo's CGI Hulk.
- Hypocrite: Jen is very upset at Man-Bull and El Aguilar for damaging her car while they are fighting each other, yet she doesn't hesitate at all to throw someone else's car at Daredevil during their fight.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Jennifer admits to her friend that she wants to be an average, "off-the-radar" attorney. After helping Jen get a handle on her transformations and her strength as She-Hulk, Bruce tries to encourage her to take up being a superhero, but Jen is not interested, wanting to return to her career and use her degree (and pay off the "fortune in student loans" it took to get that degree).
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The title of each episode is taken from a line of dialogue spoken at some point in the episode.
- Informed Ability: Jen is supposedly a brilliant lawyer, but the show's Hollywood Law and weak writing make this hard to believe. Especially in episode eight when she gets beaten handily in court because at no point did she bother to check that Leap Frog had actually followed his suit's instructions despite him clearly being an idiot.
- Job Title: "Attorney at Law".
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Bruce says that he was "a completely different person" when he last fought the Abomination, a nod to how Bruce was
recast between The Incredible Hulk (2008) and The Avengers (2012). - When Daredevil introduces himself after they fight in Episode 8, Jen is quite confused as to who he is, and just shrugs, and even earlier in the episode, when Matt enters the courtroom, Jen breaks the fourth wall completely and, in a snide tone, asks who he is. This is a nod to the infamously troubled history of the TV and film sides of the MCU, as, prior to Spider-Man: No Way Home having Murdock in it, the former side have always wanted the latter side to acknowledge their events, but have almost never done so. Consequently, it also makes a lot of sense that Jen, despite being a Fourth-Wall Observer, would have no clue as to who Murdock is, and his series would not be on her radar, hence her being blindsided by his addition.
- The rants against She-Hulk delivered by various He-Man Woman Hater characters in the show are obviously in anticipation of the type of criticism the show itself will receive from this demographic.
- Bruce says that he was "a completely different person" when he last fought the Abomination, a nod to how Bruce was
- Lighter and Softer: The show is lighter and softer than most other Marvel properties, focusing on Jen's professional and romantic life rather than fighting supervillains. In fact, no one is killed in the whole series. Its half-hour format, usually reserved for sitcoms, is a departure from Marvel's hour-long dramas. Even when Daredevil shows up, his depiction is lighter and more mellow than he was on his own series and its spin-off.
- Local Hangout: Jen, Nikki, and Pug frequently hang out at a bar called the Legal Ease (a Pun on legalese).
- Logo Joke: Much like the other Disney+ Marvel shows, there's a thematic change to the Marvel Studios logo: its background shifts to a light green color.
- Magic Pants: Lampshaded - in the first episode Bruce tells Jen that spandex is now her best friend. In subsequent transformations throughout the episode, only her outerwear ever gets destroyed, with blouses, skirts, and pants that are clearly not made of spandex nevertheless fitting perfectly both before and after.
- Musical Nod: In episode 8, the opening notes of the Netflix Daredevil (2015) theme song begin to play when Daredevil introduces himself to Jen.
- Mythology Gag:
- Jen's contamination that gives her powers hails from being in a car crash with the Hulk. It was a similar crash that created the Freudian Excuse for David Banner in The Incredible Hulk (1977), as his wife died in that crash and drove him to the experiment that created the Hulk.
- The Tagline for the series is "You'll like her when she's angry", a play on Banner's famous "You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!" warning.
- On the above note, the original D+ Day teaser has Jen utter the famous phrase in a retro 70's-style lawyer commercial, mimicking Bill Bixby's inflection. Bruce himself is also wearing the exact clothes of his David Banner counterpart. The season finale shows this in full, as Jen and Bruce re-inact the entire 1970s Hulk TV show intro as part of a dream sequence, including a stunt actor in green paint as She-Hulk instead of a CGI version.
- Another connection to The Incredible Hulk (1977) is the inclusion of Daredevil, who also featured in the TV movie "The Trial of the Incredible Hulk".
- A news reporter asks Jennifer if she got her powers as a result of a botched mob hit, a reference to the circumstances behind her blood transfusion in the comics.
- Jen becoming the face of her firm's superhuman law division is influenced by Jen's tenure at Goodman, Leiber, Kurtzburg, Holliway & Book during Dan Slott's beloved mid-2000s-era runnote .
- Bruce relates his and the Hulk's relationship while on Sakaar as Hulk being at the wheel while he (Banner) was locked in the trunk. When Amadeus Cho acted as the Totally Awesome Hulk, this was how the comic depicted Amadeus' mental struggle for control over his own Hulk form.
- Nikki points out that Jen has a "savage Jen Walters" look that she can make use of in court, nodding to the earlier comics being titled "Savage She-Hulk" before the more well-known Sensational title was used.
- A decidedly adult and hilarious example, Captain America famously ended Avengers: Age of Ultron with the iconically cut-off "Avengers . . . as-" tagline right before the credits rolled. During the stinger of her first episode, Jen laments that Steve died a virgin. When Bruce corrects her by noting that Steve hooked up with a USO girl, Jen joyously shouts "CAPTAIN AMERICA FU-" before being cut off by the end credits.
- Jen addressing the audience is borrowed from John Byrne's run on her comics title. Bruce reacting confused to one of these moments is similar to a scene from a Hulk comic from that era, when Jen, as a guest star, broke the fourth wall as she used to do on her solo title.
- In the second episode, when Jen calls Bruce to discuss her taking Emil Blonsky's case, Bruce tells her that he's moved on, as "I was a different man then. Literally!
- The title of a news article about a man with metal claws who got into a bar brawl can be seen in the second episode.
- At the start of the episode two, Jen as She-Hulk gets some drinks, then her boss asks to talk to her in her Jennifer Walters form. Jen switches back, and is immediately super drunk. This happened when She-Hulk accepted the job at GLK&H in the comics, with the condition being that she work as Jennifer, not She-Hulk. Jen switched back with not enough alcohol in her bloodstream to bother She-Hulk, but enough to put Jennifer Walters under the table.
- The show inverts Jen's hiring condition at GLK&H. In the comics, she was to work primarily as Jennifer, not She-Hulk. In the show, she is to work primarily as She-Hulk, not Jennifer.
- Jennifer losing her job because her case got declared a mistrial is also taken from the start of the Dan Slott run, where Jen left a case in the middle of her closing argument to save the world with the Avengers, and the defense argued that the jury was swayed not by the evidence, but by their gratitude towards the superhero attorney.
- Jennifer using her She-Hulk dating profile and having the men she went on dates with testify in court, and being horrifically embarrassed by the whole thing, recalls an event from the comics. Mallory Book was defending The Leader, and her strategy was based on the concept that gamma power can be likened to an altered emotional or mental state, similar to being drunk or on drugs, thereby reducing The Leader's legal culpability for his actions. To support this, she called She-Hulk as a witness to testify about her— love life, as She-Hulk and Jen. The first took a very, very, very long time. The second... not so much. Jennifer was mortified, The Leader crowed that seeing She-Hulk humiliated so was Worth It even if he lost the case, and Mallory did it mostly because she considered Jen her rival at the firm and wanted to knock her down a peg or two. In the show, Mallory is proud of Jen for going through with something so harsh to win the case.
- Daredevil's new costume features hints of yellow, a reference to his infamous first costume from the comics.
- The episode where Daredevil appears also marks the first appearance of Leap-Frog, who Daredevil fought in the comics (although in that case it was Eugene's father Vincent who donned the costume).
- Another Wolverine reference happens in episode 8, with Nikki grasping her makeup brushes between her fingers and saying "Snikt" (the famous Written Sound Effect used for his claws).
- When speculating about the possible twist near the end of the season, Jen wonders if it might be that "there's another Hulk, but this one's red."
- Jennifer's encounter with K.E.V.I.N wasn't the first time She-Hulk met her creator. In an issue of John Bryne's run, Jen actually met John Byrne himself.
- In the finale, Jen asks K.E.V.I.N. when they are getting the X-Men in the MCU. The Disney+ series Wandavision previously teased this by casting Evan Peters (Quicksilver in the X-Men films) as a stand-in for Pietro Maximoff.
- Never Trust a Trailer: In the trailers, when She-Hulk says that she’s "not proud of this", her phone shows news footage of her stopping Titania. In the show itself, it's in reference to her creating a dating profile as She-Hulk after Jen strikes out.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: After Jennifer saves the jury from Titania in episode 1, she fails to win the case due to the defense calling for a mistrial, stating that the jury would've been swayed by Jennifer being a superhero who just saved their lives. The resulting publicity also costs Jennifer her job at the DA's office, and she's unable to find employment because of the "media circus".
- Oh, Crap!: Bruce has this reaction when he sees an understandably pissed Jen ripping off the door of the test chamber after she successfully transforms in his little deathtrap. He goes from cheering her progress to panicking as she comes at him in Unstoppable Rage.
- The Perry Mason Method: Matt Murdock succeeds in winning the Luke Jacobson case by simply asking Eugene Patilio what kind of fuel he used to power his Leap Frog suit's jet boots. This causes Eugene to casually confess that he used jet fuel, which explicitly wasn't a part of Luke's clearly defined instructions. This proves to the Judge that Eugene's injuries were purely due to his own incompetence and gets his claim laughed out of court.
- Previously on…: Each episode starts with a recap showing Jen getting her Hulk powers and then major events leading up to the episode. Jenn even pauses an episode and asks if they already previously on-ed about Wrecker, then interrupts herself to demand they do another previously on for him.
- Race Lift: In the comics, the Wrecking Crew is usually three white men (Wrecker, Piledriver, and Bulldozer) and one black man (Thunderball). Here, Wrecker is Latino, Piledriver is Asian, Bulldozer is black, and Thunderball is white.
- Red Herring: Emil Blonsky serves as a red herring villain. The show repeatedly teases him as a Falsely Reformed Villain. In the end, he does show up at the villains' gala, but he has no idea about their villainous actions.
- Repurposed Pop Song: "Big Energy" by Latto is used for the show's 30-second ads. The song makes its show appearance within Episode 9 while Jen effortlessly fights against the Marvel Studios guards.
- Role Called: The title mentions She-Hulk's job, "Attorney at Law".
- Serkis Folk: Jen, Banner and Blonsky are depicted via motion-capture when transformed. The same goes for Todd when he transforms, and Skaar in his brief cameo.
- Sequel Hook: Several:
- Jen finally embraces her double life as both a lawyer and a superhero, and vows to go after people who harm and harass the innocent. She also officially starts a romantic relationship with Matt Murdock.
- Blonsky is sent back to prison for violating his parole, but is freed by Wong, who takes him Kamar-Taj.
- Hulk returns home after having spent most of the season on Sakaar, and reveals that he has a teenage son named Skaar.
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: As with her cousin Bruce, Jennifer Walters' clothing does not change when she does, resulting in damaged or destroyed clothes. The first time she becomes She-Hulk in public, Nikki suggests she take off her shoes first, which she does, and the rest of her clothes rip at the seams upon transformation. Jen has to resort to wearing large men's suits to work until she could get clothes that can fit both her forms.
- Shout-Out: The show runners have said they wanted this series to be the MCU's answer to Ally McBeal. Including its "law".
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the comics, Jen Walters' mother has been dead for several years—presumedly killed by mobster Nick Trask—before her daughter's fateful blood transfusion in Savage She-Hulk #1. In the series, both her parents are still alive.
- Statuesque Stunner: She-Hulk and her Arch-Enemy Titania are far more slender and lithe than most iterations of their characters, but still tower over most everyone else.
- Student Debt Plot: Played with. Bruce encourages Jen to use her Hulk powers more often after she realizes she has them. She resists, saying she wants to go back to law and have a regular job so she can pay off her "mountain of student loans." This allows the plot to progress as it was as she keeps being a lawyer, but cuts off a potential plot line of Jen being She-Hulk more often.
- Take That!:
- When told that she could be a superhero, Jen states that that job "is for billionaires and narcissists, and orphans, for some reason."
- The finale, where Jen complains about the climax being a high stakes giant battle against an Evil Counterpart and demands it be changed to something more original, is a dig at the formulaic nature of most superhero movies in general, and the MCU in particular. The climactic encounter with K.E.V.I.N. (a parody of Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige, here depicted as an A.I. who uses algorithms to decide story beats) turns into Jen listing off common MCU story cliches and criticisms, such as the abundance of heroes with daddy issues, the lack of sex, and the habit of teasing future storylines at the expense of the current narrative.
- Take That, Critics!: Jen's in-universe detractors directly mirror the misogynistic internet backlash the show has gotten for its feminist leaning protagonist, as well as backlash levelled towards the MCU (and by extension the comics) for including more female superheroes in general—with Jane Foster as the Mighty Thor being directly referenced.
- Talent vs. Training: Jennifer gets the hang of her Hulk transformations and keeping her mind intact when she transforms a lot quicker and easier than Bruce did. Bruce is dumbfounded that she masters everything he tries to teach her almost as soon as he starts the lesson — her career as a lawyer required her to master a level of mental discipline before she gained her powers (both for the profession itself and because she was an attractive woman working for or with many sexist men) that Bruce's career as a physicist did not.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Although Jen's various dates are all taller than average, they're dwarfed by her She-Hulk form.
- Temporary Name Change: The show has humorously change the opening Title Card in several episodes:
- In Episode 2, after Jen is fired from her job, the title is changed to She-Hulk: Attorney for Hire.
- In Episode 5, after Titania claims she owns the name 'She-Hulk', the Title Card changes to She-Hulk by Titania.
- In Episode 6, after Lulu tells Jen she doesn't want Jen to appear as 'She-Hulk' at her wedding, the Title Card is changed to Just Jen, which also serves as the Episode title.
- In Episode 9, after Jen went on a rampage at the end of the previous episode, it's changed to The Savage She-Hulk.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The "Featurette" trailer has Jen insisting that this series is not dependent on cameos, before remembering "Bruce... and Blonsky... and Wong." While they've all been confirmed at the time, they literally appear in the series Once an Episode in that order.
- Transformation Discretion Shot: Most of the time Jen transforms to and from She-Hulk, it happens offscreen and just shows people reacting. Presumably this is to cut down on CGI cost since she transforms pretty frequently. There are also a few on-screen transformations as well. Lampshaded in the finale, when K.E.V.I.N. asks her to transform back into Jen form to save on CGI budget, but only offscreen since the VFX artists are working on the next project.
- Unusual Euphemism:
- Jen and her date decide to "Split fries to go" before it cuts to them in an apartment room.
- In the penultimate episode, Jen hooks up with Daredevil, then spends a few minutes wondering why the hell the episode still has ten minutes to go when it "already came to a very satisfying conclusion".
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Episode 3 features Rena, a shapeshifting Light Elf from Asgard, who is sued by Bukowski after he discovers that she had a Gold Digger relationship with him while pretending to be Megan Thee Stallion. In the episode, she takes the guise of Bukowski to try and trick Pug, Pug himself, and the judge in the trial.
- That’s what Hulks do. We smash things. Bruce smashes buildings, I smash fourth walls and bad endings.note
