SHE-HULK Director Kat Coiro on Breaking the Fourth Wall and Her Dreams for Season 2

Spoiler Alert

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s finale smashed our admittedly high expectations as Jen Walters truly broke the fourth wall entering into our world and putting the MCU and her show to rights. It was a fun and satisfying extrapolation of She-Hulk’s comic book traditions that saw her literally punch her way out of the boundaries of Disney+. Kat Coiro told Nerdist that moment had been in the works for a long time. “That was something that was planned months and months before we shot it,” she shared. “We prevized it and played around with the timing so it would trick people into thinking something had gone wrong with their television, but not trick them so much that they had time to get the remote I’m so happy to see that it worked and that people are saying ‘Oh, I thought my dog hit the remote! What happened?'”

A reporter interviewing She-Hulk outside a courthouse in the She-Hulk: Attorney at Law finale
Marvel Studios

The ambitious action-packed finale was all about balancing the two parts of She-Hulk’s story. First, Jennifer grows ever more sick of the way her final episode is going. That leads her to ultimately break out into the “real world.”

As Coiro explained, it was no easy feat. She said, “There was a lot of thought that went into it. Here’s a character who lives in a world where she knows she’s on a television show. But when she busts through, she’s in the real world. What does that mean? So we changed our aspect ratio, we changed our shooting style. The writers room is populated with real writers from the series that we shot on the Disney lot. The receptionist is the real receptionist at Marvel and so it almost turns into a reality show. I think establishing that realism was very important for making the rest of the show work.” 

Before that excursion into our Earth’s version of Los Angeles, Jen and her friends find themselves in a ridiculously testosterone-filled final fight. Shooting the scene was almost as confusing for the cast as it was for Jen in the show. “We filmed completely out of sequence and we started with the end. I remember being in that lodge with Tatiana, Mark, Tim, Jameela, everybody, and them kind of going, ‘What is happening?’ And me having to say as a director, ‘I know it doesn’t make sense. And that’s the point. We’re building a family that makes no sense so that we can smash it down and break it.'”

An image from the She-Hulk finale shows the hero in her super suit looking confused
Marvel Studios

Coiro continued. “But, of course, usually your job is to explain how it all makes sense. And so it was such an amazing magical chaotic moment of going, ‘Guys, you just gotta trust me here. It’s all gonna come together.’ And that was very, very funny and crazy way to kick off the series.”

The episode ends with a massive new character introduction (literally) in the form of Bruce Banner’s hulking son, Skaar. Since the first episode this had been a popular fan theory thanks to Jen’s powers inadvertently coming from an attack by a Sakaaran ship. And though his appearance was brief, it was exactly what the creative team wanted. “What you see is what was always planned,” Coiro said. “It’s so quick that I think people may think there was more, but it really is the hint of something to come, which only Kevin knows. But it was a fun little way to subvert that very normal barbecue scene that’s about regular family dynamics. And then: don’t forget, we’re still in a world where people can drop in from outer space!”

An image from the She-Hulk finale shows Bruce as Hulk with his son Skaar
Marvel Studios

Though Disney hasn’t renewed She-Hulk: Attorney at Law yet, when we asked Coiro about her dreams for season two her enthusiasm was clear. “I think what’s so exciting about where we’ve landed is that it can go in so many different directions. What’s important—and K.E.V.I.N. says this at the end—is that he fixes the glitch, and we don’t go back to confronting K.E.V.I.N. all the time. I think you need to let the world of the MCU continue as a world itself, not be constantly dictated by an AI.”

Coiro continued, “But that being said there’s a version where she starts a law firm with her GLK&H partners. There’s a version where she goes to space to visit her cousin. There’s a version where she joins Daredevil—because they have such amazing chemistry—on his show. My goal is always to set it up so that it could go in many different directions.” 

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