[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, “The People vs. Emil Blonsky.”]
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law really got into the lawyering aspect of the series with its third installment, “The People vs. Emil Blonsky.”
After agreeing to take on Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a.k.a. The Abomination, as a client in the previous episode, Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) had her work cut out for her as she tried to defend his apparent prison break amid serving time. Turning to Wong (Benedict Wong), the defense for Emil Blonsky was strong, but it was the character’s casual nature surrounding the proceedings that made his return pure comedy gold.
For those who may not recall, Roth played Abomination/Emil Blonsky in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, a film that featured Edward Norton in the role of Bruce Banner. But what some viewers may not realize is that the film is still considered part of the MCU canon, allowing for the return of Blonsky and his terrifyingly large alter-ego which was created when the Russian-born former officer in the United Kingdom’s Royal Marines Commandos was exposed to super soldier serum and gamma radiation.
(Credit: Disney+/Marvel)
Hints of Roth’s reprisal were first made in 2021 when the Abomination featured in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. “I honestly didn’t have a clue,” Roth tells TV Insider about Marvel Studio’s plan to bring his character back. “They asked me to do some voice stuff for Shang-Chi and [that] was such fun to do. And, then I got a call and they said, ‘we got an idea,’” he recalls of Marvel’s pitch for She-Hulk.
“I sat down with Kevin [Feige] and Wendy [Jacobson], and they told me what they were up to. And I laughed. I thought it was hilarious, the idea of it,” the actor shares of Emil’s story. In She-Hulk, Emil is serving out a sentence and leading a life that looks reformed on the surface. As he leans into the meditative side of things, Emil tries putting the humanoid monster version of himself away for good until Wong takes him to participate in the fight seen in Shang-Chi.
What Roth loves about Marvel’s projects in recent years, he says, “is how the humor’s the connective tissue. You can have these worlds colliding and all these monsters, but it’s when it’s funny that it really works. And they were taking that gamble on this because it’s a comedy.”
(Credit: Disney+/Marvel)
As Emil tries convincing others of his reformed nature, he explains his plans to create a wellness retreat alongside his seven soulmates, women who show up to support him from the sidelines of his hearing. But as Emil appears to be embracing a more tranquil lifestyle while in captivity, Roth cautions, “or is he?”
It’s hard to tell how much of the truth is coming to the surface in his exchanges with Jennifer and anyone else. “It was always about dancing on the knife edge,” Roth teases. “When I spoke to Stan Lee and Kevin on the set of [The Incredible Hulk and asked], ‘what do you think they would do after?’ And the idea that they told me was he was welded into a steel vault, dropped to the bottom of the ocean, and abandoned.”
“So when, however, he came to be released from that, he’d had plenty of time to think,” Roth points out. Whether that thinking involved scheming has yet to be seen onscreen. Ultimately, Jennifer and Emil were able to win his freedom from prison, but with the condition that he will no longer be able to transform into the Abomination. Is such an assignment easier said than done? “I would say keep an eye on that,” Roth advises.
Stay tuned to see what other legal challenges Jennifer is facing as She-Hulk: Attorney at Law continues, and don’t miss what’s next for Emil Blonsky as the series streams on Disney+.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, New Episodes, Thursdays, Disney+
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