The She-Hulk Finale Was Shot Before All Of The Other Episodes [Exclusive]
This article contains major spoilers for the season finale of "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law."
We'd be surprised if you haven't heard a peep about "She-Hulk" and its irreverent, fourth wall-shattering finale by this point. In a show so focused on the duality of Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Manslany) and her newfound gamma-ray green persona, the creatives behind the show knew in their hearts that ending with the typical Marvel third act habits would not do its characters any justice.
With inspiration from John Byrne's equally meta "Spectacular She-Hulk" comic run, head writer Jessica Gao and the writer's room crafted one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's most unconventional endings to date: an entire sequence where She-Hulk busts out of the Disney+ interface into our real world to argue with an entertainment AI, K.E.V.I.N. about the direction of the show.
We chatted with Kat Coiro about the narrative intricacies of the finale episode and she revealed that despite all the chaotic, moving pieces, the finale was actually the first episode they shot.
She-Hulk's finale being shot first helped with its disorienting tone
It's quite typical for productions to shoot out of narrative order, but this is specifically surprising because this episode is packed with payoffs for the rest of the series. Before Jen decides to hulk out and "smash" the internal logic of the show, we find almost the entire cast of supporting characters in one scene (some actors we'd imagine would be very expensive to work with!). She-Hulk eventually finds herself with Abomination, The Hulk, a newly transformed Hulkling, and arch-nemesis, Titania, all sharing the exact same space.
"One of my favorite stories from production is one of the very first scenes we shot in the lodge with Mark [Ruffalo], Tim [Roth], Jameela [Jamil], Tatiana, Jon [Bass], Ginger [Gonzaga], and Josh [Segarra]," Coiro said, "It was so chaotic, and the actors were like, what is going on? I had to tell them it didn't make sense, but that's the whole point. We're creating a finale that doesn't make sense so that she can go and yell at the writers. I was very, very grateful that they trusted me on that journey."
One hidden benefit to the way this scene was directed was that the actors' disorientation very much reflected Jen's and by extension, the viewers. The scene was overstuffed and the stakes felt over the top compared to the humble tone "She-Hulk" normally plays around in. It might be having a cake and eating it too, but this satirization of what a Marvel third act tends to resemble makes the ultimate reveal so much funnier.
Kat Coiro revealed Matt and Jen's relationship was envisioned from the start
When K.E.V.I.N. asks Jen what her narrative demands are for the finale, she asks for more Daredevil, after all, a "woman has needs!" Adding yet another thread, Matt Murdock makes an unexpected return to L.A., too late to help Jen solve her problems at the cabin, but just in time to attend a cookout with Jen's family in a playful, light flannel. From an outsider's perspective, it would have seemed as though this finale appearance was an afterthought after seeing how off-the-charts the chemistry between Charlie Cox and Tatiana Manslany was in their duo episode. According to Coiro, this wasn't actually the case.
"That was already planned, and we actually filmed that before we filmed their episode together." Coiro explained, "We knew that their chemistry was going to be uncharted."
If Coiro and the rest of the creative team made a leap of faith on Jen/Matt, and it was entirely the right call. We're particularly excited to see more of them in the future, perhaps in "Daredevil: Born Again," Matt Murdock's reintroduction into the MCU.
Ultimately, one thing that the finale could have set the tone for the rest of the series is its off-kilter absurdity. Here's the Hulk and his new son at the family dinner table right next to Daredevil. No explanations, just nonchalant weirdness. Throughout "She-Hulk" and its silly interpretations of the broader Marvel universe, this is what they got spectacularly right.