Welcome back to another week of super-powered legal hijinx! And, despite Jen’s assurances last week, more cameos!
We open in a seedy theatre where Donny Blaze, a third-rate Criss Angel wannabe, is performing bad sleight of hand magic. The meager audience is bored. After all, in a world where eyeball monsters from parallel dimensions can portal in and wreak havoc, a guy with flash paper in his palms isn’t that exciting. Desperate to save his bombing act, he asks for a volunteer from the audience, and party girl Madisynn stumbles up to the stage. (As she helpfully explains, “Two Ns and a Y, but not where you think!”) Blaze takes out a sling ring from his pocket and creates a dimensional portal. The audience applauds as Madisynn gets zapped away through the “fire hole,” although it’s unclear if the applause is for the trick or for him getting rid of the party drunk.
Cut to the Kamar-Taj, where Supreme Sorcerer Wong is catching up on The Sopranos, when a portal opens and Madisynn drops in carrying a human heart. After a moment of confusion, Wong asks if a cut-rate magician sent her here. No, she replies. The magician sent her to a fire dimension where she gave a goat six drops of her blood and then things got hazy and then she came here. After Madisynn spoils the ending of the Pine Barrens episode (Come on Wong, that episode is 15 years old), he vows to call his lawyer to put an end to Donny Blaze’s use of mystic artifacts.
That lawyer, of course, is Jennifer Walters, the Sensational She-Hulk. She welcomes us, saying how we all look happy, you must have seen Wong. Everybody loves Wong! ‘It’s like getting Twitter armor for a week.” Look, I appreciate that this show has gotten an irrational amount of Twitter hate from the trolls (who were apoplectic about last week’s twerking scene), but I don’t know how much more mileage they can get out of constantly lampshading it.
Mark Linn-Baker arrives, in full-on Dad mode, ready to beef up Jen’s security after last week’s attack. He also brought a shovel to dig some holes, no questions asked. And he’s just adorable, giving off maximum concerned Dad energy. Jen, naturally, tries to calm him down by reminding him she’s a Hulk, so she’ll be fine. Still, I have a feeling that the many security cameras he’s putting up will play a part in the weeks to come.
Jen is setting up a profile on her Matcher dating app when Wong portals in. He’s furious that Donny Blaze, who got expelled from magic school at the Kamar-Taj for portaling in a keg party, is now using the mystic arts in his magic act. Jen says it should be easy enough to get him to stop. After all, he signed an NDA and a non-compete agreement, right? No, he just gave his word, and that’s all you need, right? Unfortunately, American courts work on contracts, and Blaze claims you can’t copyright magic. The judge, charmed by his crappy illusions, agrees and does not grant an injunction. (He brought a bunny rabbit to court! How can he be bad?)
After court, Jen works on her dating life. Matcher isn’t going too well for her so far. She goes on a date with a loser guy who has been banned from Winnipeg, considers himself a real New Yorker because he lived there for 14 months, checks his phone when Jen talks, and lets her pay for the drinks. Basically a walking compendium of bad date behaviors. Frustrated that Jennifer Walters and her corporate headshot aren’t getting enough nibbles, she creates a dating profile for She-Hulk. She takes some flirty selfies for her profile pic and immediately gets some interest.
After weeding through some duds, like the dude asking her how much can she bench, she goes on a date with a hot doctor named Arthur. He’s nice and listens to her, and also did we mention hot? They get some fries to go and head back to Jen’s place where things are about to get very TV-14 when they get interrupted by Wong.
It seems that Donny Blaze has made a mess of things. Audiences were getting bored with the “teleporting sorority girls through the ol’ Fire Hole” trick, so he tried something more advanced and -whoopsies- unleashed a whole bunch of flying demon babies which are now terrorizing the magic club. Wong needs She-Hulk to, uh, smash some demons while he closes the portal. This is a fun scene, with Jen stomping on demons that refuse to get squashed, while Wong magics them away. After the demons are dispatched, Blaze finally agrees to comply with the cease and desist order. Jen then gets portaled back to her date, landing right on top of him. She carries him off to the bedroom before the rating goes to TV-MA.
The next day, a very happy Jen Walters is making breakfast in the kitchen when Arthur walks in. He’s a bit shocked, asking who she is. Jen explains that it’s just her, changed back to human form. He mumbles excuses and heads out, leaving Jen hurt. But, to be fair to him, it would be a shock to go to sleep with one person and wake up with someone else.
A big part of the She-Hulk comics (at least in the popular Dan Stott run) is She-Hulk accepting the Jennifer Walters side of herself. Strong, sexy, powerful She-Hulk views Jennifer as mousy and weak, and many of the plots lean on her learning to use Jennifer’s traits. Here, it seems to be pushing in the opposite direction, with Jen increasingly relying on She-Hulk to get what she wants. It seems to be setting up a similar dynamic, where she has to learn to fully integrate her two sides 0 just like Cousin Bruce told her.
The episode ends with Jen being served with papers. She’s being sued by Titania! (Remember Titania? She-Hulk’s nemesis that we saw for one scene three weeks ago?) The super-powered influencer has trademarked the name “She-Hulk” and is suing Jennifer for copyright infringement. (Ironic twist on the episode!)
So, a fun episode. They’re getting the right balance between comedy, action, and the courtroom. The fourth wall breaks feel more integrated and less like afterthoughts, bracketing each episode. The writing is a little sharper this week, even if there were a few too many “dating sux, amirite?” jokes. Still, I think it’s heading in the right direction. I look forward to Titania deposing Jen, and hopefully, that means we’ll see more of Mallory Book (since I assume that GLK&H isn’t going to let her defend herself.)
Random Observations:
- Jen’s phone chimes that she has no new Matcher dates. “Why is that an alert?”
- The credits seem to imply that Wong finally sent Blaze to the mirror dimension as he was threatening. Good, it’ll give him time to work on his card-palming.
- The mid-credit scene shows Wong and Madisynn back in Kamar-Taj, binge-watching TV and Madisynn trying to broaden Wong’s alcohol horizons and promising him bottomless G&Ts. They’re a cute couple! Can’t wait to see drunken Madisynn wielding the Eye of Agamotto. I can imagine her tearing open the fanfic of time and space because she was wearing the same dress as someone else at a party so she went back in time to change.
Rating 4 out of 5
