The She-Hulk: Attorney at Law finale was one that included tons of self-referential humor, fourth-wall-breaking, and more. However, series head writer Jessica Gao had to fight for some of the more outrageous things included in the episode.
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The ending for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law that ended up being used was a highly self-referential one. In true breaking-the-fourth-wall fashion, Jen Walters literally makes her way onto the Disney+ welcome screen and into the Marvel: Assembled series, where she confronts Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, only to discover he is actually an A.I. known as Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus (K.E.V.I.N. for short). The two then argue for a better season finale for her show.
In the scene, K.E.V.I.N. can be seen with a small brim above its lenses, a nod to the baseball hat Kevin Feige always seems to be wearing. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gao jokingly called back to a meeting that she had with several people, including Feige himself, in which she threatened to walk away from the show if a hat didn’t get included.
“In the first draft, I described the robot as an Akira meets a HAL 9000-like AI brain/robot, and the script specifically said that it’s wearing a little black baseball cap on top,” said Gao. “And real-life Kevin said, ‘Well, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would a robot wear a hat?’ And I said, ‘That’s the logic issue you have with this, Kevin? And not that [She-Hulk] breaks the ultimate fourth wall, comes to Marvel Studios, fights her way to meet you, and you are an actual robot, but it’s the fact that the robot should not be wearing a hat?’
Gao went on to recall how the two continued to jokingly argue, with the writer eventually saying she would storm out if she wasn’t allowed to put a hat on, to which Feige played along, accepting her resignation.
“And he said, ‘Yeah, it doesn’t make a lick of sense. So it shouldn’t have a hat,'” said Gao. “So I was incensed, and in this big meeting, in front of like 20 people, I said, ‘Kevin, if you don’t let me put a hat on that robot, then I quit.’ (Laughs.) And then there was a split second pause, and he just went, ‘Thank you very much, Jessica. You’ve done some great work for us, and we really appreciate everything.’ (Laughs.)”
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Thankfully, things worked out, with Gao crediting Jackson Sze, the Visual Development Supervisor at Marvel Studios, for chiming in and saying they could likely create some sort of design element for the robot that looks like a hat.
“And then sweet Jackson Sze, who was head of the vis-dev team and ever the mediator, very gently suggested that they incorporate something into the design of the robot that would make it look like it was wearing a hat, and that was the perfect compromise. And Kevin was like, ‘Oh, well that’s fine because that makes sense.’ And I said, ‘OK, great. As long as that makes sense.'” joked Gao.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is now available to stream on Disney+.
