‘She-Hulk’ Head Writer Jessica Gao Credits Marvel’s Kevin Feige For Encouraging Her Toward Unconventional Ending

SPOILER ALERT: reading further will reveal a key plot point in the season finale of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”.

The first season of Marvel’s “She-Hulk” concluded last week, containing the big revelation of yet another Hulk — this one a baby named Skaar.

The season finale also boasted a very unconventional ending for a project set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe; Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) didn’t smash a foe, but instead smashed the fourth wall, using the Disney+ platform to wind up at Marvel Studios, where she discussed how the season should end with a robotic AI named K.E.V.I.N.

Anyone guessing that was a not-too-subtle nod to Marvel’s president and chief creative officer Kevin Feige can take a seat at the front of the class, and in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter the series’ head writer and executive producer, Jessica Gao, explains how Feige was instrumental in the eventual ending.

According to Gao, she wrote 20 different versions of the ending, all of which featured a more typical MCU-style conclusion, until a conversation with Feige convinced her to take a big swing.

“Kevin was the one who said, ‘There’s no reason to do a big Marvel ending. You’ve made a show that’s completely different than anything we’ve ever done before, so there’s absolutely no reason to treat it like a typical Marvel movie,’” Gao explained “That’s really what got wheels turning about going really out of the box and doing something that was more true to this show, as opposed to what’s true to a typical Marvel project.”

There was one element about the ending, however, that led Gao and Feige to clash: Gao wanted the robot to be wearing Feige’s trademark baseball cap, something Feige insisted simply didn’t make sense.

“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,’” Gao recalled. “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.’”

Before things grew even more heated, however, visual development supervisor Jackson Sze stepped in with the ideal solution.

“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,” Gao added, “and that was the perfect compromise.”