The finale of She-Hulk (appropriately titled, ‘Whose show is this?’), saw her breaking the fourth wall in a very ‘savage’ way. The break was really witty and creative, and will surely have huge repercussions in the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It all happened when She-Hulk decided to end her series, in her own way. What was it exactly? Let’s explore.
The Fourth Wall Break
During the finale, a bunch of things happened all at once. Todd is revealed as the main antagonist, Todd turns into Hulk-Todd, Hulk-Todd attacks She-Hulk , Titania appears, Hulk comes out of nowhere and starts fighting the Abomination, and between all this chaos She-Hulk is left confused. Unhappy with how the finale was shaping out, She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) decides to break the fourth wall for MCU.
The way she does this, left the Marvel fans’ jaws open. She pauses the scene and smashes through Disney+’s Marvel home screen and swings out and dives into the tile of Marvel Assembled. Marvel Assembled is a Marvel documentary series that basically covers the Behind-The-Scenes action of various Marvel movies and tv shows.
The Writers Room
She-Hulk wants to meet the ‘geniuses’ who came up with the idea of her show’s finale. Once in Marvel’s LA office, she enters the “Writers’ Room” for the She-Hulk tv show. There she finds all the head writers discussing the various possibilities that they have for a potential season 2 storyline. One of them goes so far so as far as to state, ‘How about the entire season 2 is a one-long dream sequence?’
To this seemingly foolish idea, other writers gave their nod. She-Hulk realizes that these guys are not the real minds behind her show’s finale story, and she demands to talk to Kevin (Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel Studios). The writers shrug off her request and tell her that nobody can meet Kevin (which surprisingly was spelled as an acronym K.E.V.I.N. in the subtitles). She-Hulk doesn’t listen to them and storms out of their room.
Iron Man Armors
She-Hulk then comes before the Marvel Head’s office and is greeted by a receptionist. However, if one looks closely, one can see various Iron Man armors in the background. This instantly reminds me of the opening sequences of Iron Man III, where Iron Man (aka Tony Stark) blows off his various suits. After the passing of Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame, fans have really been missing their favorite armored hero.
Therefore, one can always feel a giant missing hole in the subsequent projects. In a time like this, this kind of subtle nod to the much-beloved character is nothing short of a treat for Marvel fans. The receptionist asks her to sign a long and detailed Marvel’s Non-Disclosure Agreement. She-Hulk signs it, but to her surprise instead of calling into Kevin’s office, the receptionist sounds the alarm.
K.E.V.I.N.
Fighting a bunch of not-so-skilled guards, She-Hulk makes her way to the Marvel Head’s room. Once inside, she is amazed to see giant LED screens playing scenes from past MCU movies. Expecting to see marvel’s head honcho – Kevin Feige, she instead is greeted by a robot called, K.E.V.I.N. (equipped with Kevin Feige’s iconic cap too). According to it, K.E.V.I.N. stands for – Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus. The robot clearly was inspired by the look of the main robot antagonists of classic movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Wall-E.
The robot declares that all along it was its job to decide the storylines of various Marvel projects and how they shall be connected to each other. According to K.E.V.I.N., it alone is the most advanced AI entertainment algorithm on the planet. This clearly is a nod to regular fourth wall breaks by She-Hulk in the comics book too. In one of them, especially Sensational She-Hulk #50 (1989), She-Hulk attempts to break out of the comics into the real world and search for a writer for her comics storyline as the original one was dead. The comics can be freely downloaded by the viewers by scanning the QR code on the door of the Writers’ room.
Marvel’s VFX and X-Men
Once coming face-to-face with K.E.V.I.N., She-hulk complains to it that she does not want a big messy climactic battle at the end of her show (like other Marvel movies and shows), instead, she wants the finale which she sees fits. K.E.V.I.N. cuts her between and asks her to first transform back into her Jennifer Walters form, as they had a ‘tight budget’ for VFX. This was a direct shoutout to the audience’s numerous complaints about the bad CGI of the series so far. Jennifer and K.E.V.I.N. in their arguments, also drop subtle hints for upcoming movie projects like – Captain America: New World Order and a potential World War Hulk movie.
At another instant, She-Hulk asks K.E.V.I.N., ‘And when are we getting the X-Men?’ Saying this, she turns to the camera, winks, and gives a thumbs-up. She knows that audiences are dying to hear an answer to that question. Although the AI does not reply to the question, it indeed was really smart humor played by the show’s scriptwriters. Kudos to them! Ever since the Fox-Marvel merger and with some recent developments from Marvel (the animated series X-Men ’97 and the inclusion of Wolverine and Deadpool in Deadpool 3), fans have been wondering when they will be seeing X-Men in the main MCU. Let’s just hope that it happens soon enough.
