MCU TV: Werewolf By Night

[Jim_Campbell]

Didn't want to start a new topic, but couldn't see an appropriate thread to tack this onto!

That was fucking great!

Also, my wife wants to adopt 'Ted'.

Kinda sorry I didn't save it for actual Halloween, now, but... we didn't have anything to watch last night. :-)

Thoroughly recommended for those with a Disney+ sub.

[Jim_Campbell]

(Actually, while I'm here and on the general MCU TV subject — how great has She-Hulk been?!)

[IndigoPrime]

Really fun series. Maslany predictably excellent. Dreadful CGI on the lead. And I absolutely fucking hated the [spoiler]ending of the current episode, which also soured the show for my wife, who said it felt "rapey"[/spoiler]. A pretty big misstep for me, but then basically all these Marvel shows have failed to stick the landing.

[Tiplodocus]

Yeah, She Hulk has been a lot of fun.

[Jim_Campbell]

A pretty big misstep for me

Hmmm. I'm not sure I agree — it was certainly a gut punch, but it seemed in keeping with the meta-commentary that's underpinned the series. The show is heavily women-led and I thought the message here [spoiler](that even if you're pretty much impervious to physical harm, these incel troll fucks will find a way to hurt you)[/spoiler] had a ring of truth to it, unpleasant and depressing as that truth might be.

Where they go with it for the finale certainly has the potential to go awfully wrong in numerous ways, but I'm hopeful that the writers will pick their way through the minefield.

[IndigoPrime]

I'm hoping they'll turn things around, but there were countless alternate ways the story could have gone, even with the path they'd gone on. They went this specific way, because of course they did. For my wife, who'd bloody loved the show until that point, it was a gut punch. A not-a-fucking-gain. I felt it soured everything too. It was the obvious path, well trodden, and while I get the bit in your spoiler, I find it frustrating that this was the way the show decided to head – not least because of the insanely abrupt shift in tone.

A lot for me hinges on that final episode. I sadly find it unlikely the show will recover for me, personally, and that's a great shame.

[Funt Solo]

As an innocent abroad, can I ask what was problematic?

The episode where they had the therapy sessions was exploring concepts around dating, then ghosting someone. This most recent episode was exploring consent  - specifically around the public sharing of intimate material.

My naïve sense is that depicting things like that (things that happen to people in real life) in a fantastic setting allows us to be debating them or thinking about them in a way we might not be able to if it was more clearly the topic. You have a view that it's not okay - but apart from picking up that clear view, I'm missing the reasoning. Why is it not okay?

[AlexF]

I'm a bit late to this chat, but wanted to echo that I thought She Hulk was pretty great overall, and had fun with Werewolf by Night - although much of it has evaporated from my mind.

She Hulk seems to be widely trashed online - is that part of a 'we must hate any genre programming that foregrounds women' movement? Or are people just getting sick of 4th-wall breaking bits (personally I'm still a fan of that kind of thing, even with the total extreme version of that in the final episode)

[IndigoPrime]

They slammed it for all the obvious reasons. The series dared to tell it like was as a woman, highlighted the structural repetition within the MCU (and brilliantly subverted it in that finale, I though), and poked fun at the haters, to the degree they basically got all of the criticisms baked in before the show had even aired. Notably, many people are also pissed at the fourth-wall breaking, because that's Deadpool's thing – presumably confirming that they've never actually read any of the key She-Hulk comics.

The structure particularly seems to have baffled people. "But there's no overriding arc!" Really? Did you actually watch the show? It's a pretty basic – but important – six-part series about identity, in the background of the shitty way in which women are often treated, regardless of status. It's not hard. But presumably because it doesn't align with certain people's idea of what the MCU should be (it's no coincidence the same people also got angry with Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel), it got a shitty reputation.

I thought it was curious that was the angle Ryan George went for in his Pitch Meeting, which has a great ending with the meta part, but was cringeworthy earlier on. Predictably, bros are high-fiving each-other in the comments and saying this very average entry in his series is the best ever, because chunks of it align with their hate for a nice little series that did what it set out to do.

The worst thing about the series for me (and this is the same with Ms. Marvel) is Feige inferring both characters are being rolled into films now. That seems a waste. I've been deeply disappointed with Phase 5 MCU movies – I thought the most recent two were dreadful. But the TV shows have, with the odd exception, been very good indeed. Using them as entry points to movies that are increasingly adverts for other bits of the MCU seems like the opposite of what Disney should be doing, but I guess the movies must still be pilling in the cash.

[Hawkmumbler]

WBN was unexpectedly competent, though I wish they had leaned far heavier into the Universal and Val Lewton influences rather than just filming it the same way as all the rest of these movies and slapping an Instagram noir filter over it.

[The Legendary Shark]

I just wish there was more of it (WbN) - either a full-length feature film or a t.v. series.

As for She-Hulk, I mostly enjoyed it immensely. Usually, I'm a big fan of breaking the fourth wall but the ending here went a bit too far for my tastes. It didn't ruin it for me or anything, but did leave me feeling dissatisfied.

[The Legendary Shark]

However... if they did somehow expand on that ending, folding it into the multiverse and having the robot be an aspect of some multidimensional entity who creates pocket realities for some reason, or something, then I might be tempted to come around. As it stands, though, yeah - a disappointing ending that felt a bit like a cop-out. "Competent and strong female hero turns out to be fictional." Hmph.

[Pyroxian]

However... if they did somehow expand on that ending, folding it into the multiverse and having the robot be an aspect of some multidimensional entity who creates pocket realities for some reason, or something, then I might be tempted to come around. As it stands, though, yeah - a disappointing ending that felt a bit like a cop-out. "Competent and strong female hero turns out to be fictional." Hmph.

I thought the point was that they're _all_ fictional.

[The Legendary Shark]

Maybe so, and maybe that's fine, but I felt it wasn't good enough. She deserved better.

[Pyroxian]

Maybe so, and maybe that's fine, but I felt it wasn't good enough. She deserved better.

True, but I imagine they're lining her up for the Avengers 2024 films, and I'd be surprised if she (or at least Jen) doesn't show up in the new Daredevil series.