The latest episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law zooms in more on Jennifer Walters’ love life and shows a fairly new side to the superhero: happiness. However, that changes over the course of the episode culminating in uncomfortable disappointment.
The director of the episode, Anu Valia, spoke with Marvel.com about what it was like to ride the rollercoaster of emotions that She-Hulk experienced in the episode. First let’s do a little background. The last episode ended with Jen meeting a handsome man named Josh (Trevor Slater).
They were seen sharing a plate of fries at the end of the episode, and in the beginning of episode 7 we get a nice rom-com montage of the two going on dates and spending time together. Things are really sweet but it’s hard not to feel like something bad is going to happen. Valia said this was intentional.
“It’s that excitement of this could be something. I don’t want to be crazy, but it could be something. It’s that subtlety of dating, and how vulnerable you are when you’re dating, but also the reality of what a gal does, which is try to be cool. The show really captures the subtly of that. Tatiana [Maslany] does a good job capturing that.”
It’s those subtle touches, Valia said, that really drives home how awkward and exciting itis to date someone new. The director, who comes from the indie film arena, said she wanted to make the shots as uncomplicated as possible. Slater even made a playlist for them to get into the mood.
“I was like, just throw [Tatiana and Trevor] in the car, I’m going to sit-in the backseat, we’re going to put some music on, and we’re just going to drive around. I played music on my phone. They drove and I just was in the back seat. It was just the three of us in the scene. It was like we were shooting a different film or something. It was different, but it was really lovely. I was like, I can’t believe this is part of She-Hulk. It was just a really nice experience.”
She also wanted to make sure that when the couple kissed, they had really earned it.
“What I love about that is it’s like, ‘Oh, this is exciting, maybe we should kiss!’ Or, ‘Oh, we didn’t, god, I’m such an idiot. All of that, you really feel it. That’s another thing that makes me feel very close to Jen because I feel like she’s vulnerable and I don’t want to see her get her heart broken.”
And that brings us to the hardest shot in the episode, according to Valia. The scene were it’s revealed that Josh was just trying to get to She-Hulk the whole time was awful to shoot, she said.
“That scene was really upsetting. And it’s a short scene. When we are filming it, I was like, I don’t want to do any more tapes of this, it’s making me so uncomfortable. But Trevor couldn’t have been more thoughtful and kind.”
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is currently streaming on Disney Plus.
