She-Hulk Episode 6 is literally called “Just Jen,” and the closest it gets to a courtroom is a conference table. Fresh out the gate, Jen Walters gets invited to be a bridesmaid at a good friend’s wedding, and the hour is all the hijinks that follow, especially once an unexpected guest shows up.
I’ve come to accept this show for what it is on its face. Does that mean I’m going to enjoy it any more? No. It means I get it. It’s trying to be a legal comedy, though it’s not really doing much legally other than some basic stuff that, frankly, any first year writer could come up with for a scene with lawyers in it. Nobody’s digging into anything legal. What you’re left with is a show that’s very much about the character of Jen Walters.
There are bigger issues in this one that I have to dive into, and I’ll say up front that I try my best not to do anything that sounds politicky. For the record, I consider myself kind of an alpha feminist, meaning the early stages of the movement. I don’t think we have to belittle anyone to raise everybody up. I think everyone should be equal and there should be fairness. Where I always get hung up is how one person’s definition of feminism becomes the definition. If a different woman wants all the stereotypes, wants to be a housewife, wants to be barefoot and pregnant or whatever the cliche is, and that’s her desire, then I think we should accept that.
The Superhero Show Some Fans Are Still Waiting For
With all of that said, there are an awful lot of fans out there, and I’m starting with the women, who aren’t happy with the direction this show is going. My idiosyncrasies with the show aren’t the same as my co-host’s, but I do feel like there’s a segment of the fan base of women who just want a superhero show and keep asking where their superhero is.
We had Captain Marvel, which was great. Both sides agree a Marvel movie is always going to do well, but the acceptance by the fans, on any side, was mediocre at best. My co-host put it this way: “Us as women, we have Captain Marvel.” Now there’s Ms. Marvel too. And I shouldn’t paint it all with one brush, because we also have Black Widow, and I love Black Widow, even if the movie was late.
So we do have women superheroes. Her point was the one that stuck: “I feel like this was made up to be this great, powerful woman superhero, and it’s falling very flat.”
Jen Walters, the Whipping Post
The episode starts very simply, with Jen getting an invitation to be a bridesmaid. I didn’t know that was a thing. My co-host did. Whenever she’s been a bridesmaid or a maid of honor, it’s always been a to-do.
So Jen thinks this is going to be great. She gets an outfit from her guy, she shows up as She-Hulk, and I loved every bit of that moment. She’s very strong, she walks up, everyone’s like oh my God, and she looks good. Then she turns back into Jen, and the outfit works either way, as Jen or as She-Hulk, and it makes me very happy to start seeing more of that idea. There’s a part later on where she says all she wanted to do was show up at a wedding and be awesome and amazing, and I was like, right on.
Then the bride literally tells her she’s going to take the attention away. No being Hulky at my wedding. So Jen says fine, becomes Jen again, and as Jen she becomes the whipping post for everyone. It’s super uncomfortable. Can you help us straighten up, the help’s getting angry. The men all got stuff on their shirts and didn’t get a chance to iron them, can you iron? They’re just dumping on poor Jen.
As a writer and someone who’s worked in television, I’m more than happy to say that was probably the writers’ intent. At the same time, at some point we have to stop treating Jen like the odd woman out. I get that you want the personal journey, and I understand character development. But the one thing I liked a lot about the comic book character was Jen being okay with herself almost from the beginning. I don’t mean the very, very beginning, when she was wearing ripped clothes and was essentially the Hulk a little bit. I mean once you got into the modernized version, after John Byrne and a lot of others. What you get there is a Jen who’s okay being either one. She was always okay being Jen Walters.
So I feel like they’re pushing the woe is her, poor victim Jen Walters a little too hard, at least for me. I’m like, guys, I don’t know.
The Daredevil Who Wasn’t There
I’m a little ticked about this one. If you go to IMDb right now, this episode has a big, bold, fat picture of Daredevil on it, with all the stuff from that promo teaser, and people are acting like this is the episode where we’re going to see him. Daredevil wasn’t anywhere in this episode. Charlie Cox was not in the episode. My co-host pointed it out too. She was totally expecting Charlie Cox to some extent, and that was a bummer.
Mr. Immortal and the Fascinating World of Mediation
While Jen is off at the wedding, her cases are being covered by Mallory, so Mallory and Nikki have to handle the case of Mr. Immortal.
The actor who plays Mr. Immortal is David Pasquesi. If you remember back to The Book of Boba Fett, he was the mayor’s majordomo, the sycophant, the Twi’lek who was always being super polite. Same actor. I loved being able to see him not in makeup, just being kind of himself.
We find out he doesn’t like confrontation. Nikki and Mallory are going off on him a little bit, and he gets up and goes right out the window. Then he’s on the ground getting up, stretching, dusting himself off. Come to find out, this guy likes to get married. My co-host counted it for me: ex-wife one through four, then ex-husband one, so that’s five people. Mr. Immortal was busy. But if you’re immortal, how many times are you going to get married?
It’s a good B plot. It really is. I feel like it’s about as close as we’re going to get to an actual legal comedy in the vein of The Practice or Boston Legal, where it’s supposed to be a ridiculous premise. My problem is that every show that has done this, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Legal, gives you the goofy, crazy B plot and then some somewhat normal, even-keeled story, because you’ve got to balance the thing. We don’t get that. We get Jen Walters wedding hijinks and Mr. Immortal legal hijinks.
By the way, there’s never a court case. It’s a conference meeting. You get to see the fascinating world of legal mediation.
Nikki’s the bright spot. My co-host would like to see more of Nikki and Jen doing stuff in a courtroom together, because Nikki’s so smart, and even Mallory was impressed with the way she handled Mr. Immortal.
It all gets resolved somewhat lacklusterly. The guy’s been around for a hundred years or whatever, he’s got tons of money, they separate it all out with the exes, and zero legalese or court casing has to happen. I feel like this was a missed opportunity.
Mr. Know-It-All’s Class for Writing
You have the initial attempt at mediation, where nobody is coming to any kind of middle ground. Then you get them in court. While they’re in court you have ex after ex coming up to say how horrible everything was, and then you get him to give a really bad testimonial for himself.
What Ally McBeal, The Practice and Boston Legal did very well is they made defending the guy who’s a jerk, or the person who’s wrong, their professional duty. So what you need is Mallory, utterly disgusted by this guy. Don’t change anybody’s motivations. Add the scene in. And while she’s utterly disgusted by him, it dawns on her how to defend him.
As a writer, I don’t know what that defense is, because I don’t write legal dramas, just like Jessica Gao admitted she doesn’t. However, I’d sure as heck be on the phone calling some lawyers, trying to find out some circumstances under which this might work.
Then you get to her unbelievable closing, where she really lays it all out. Before the judge can come to a decision, the exes all decide they’re going to accept the deal, because somehow Mallory makes them understand and feel his pain. The last line would be something where she looks over, you see the line of people, and she says, “Because if you lived forever, wouldn’t you?” Boom. It’s this big moment. I don’t know what the rest of the speech is, but you hit it really good, and that would have been so satisfying.
Instead, what you get is a bunch of people beating up this guy. I’m not saying he’s a good guy. Trust me, the guy’s a dirtbag, and the way they’ve outlined him in the episode, I understand where everybody’s coming from. I feel like the high ground is a better place to go. This feels like an unhealthy amount of feminism, and I love feminism, I’m all about equality. This feels like we’ve got to beat down this guy because he’s a guy and he’s part of the patriarchy.
My co-host felt the same way. She thought they tried to keep it lighthearted with the comedy, but it just kept beating the same thing over and over. It wasn’t a shining moment.
Titania Finally Gets a Motive, and Then Trips
Back at the wedding, Jen meets a really nice guy named Josh. I guess he’s also one of the groomsmen. They get a chance to talk, and I think she’s so exhausted from everything in life that she doesn’t really notice at first that he’s flirting with her. Then she kind of starts to get the idea.
Come to find out, Titania is at the wedding. A convenient angry villain. Apparently she’s dating one of the groom’s or the bride’s cousins or something in order to get in, and she’s totally there to mess with Tatiana Maslany’s Jen Walters.
This was both an enlightening scene and a frustrating one. Titania punches Jen. Back in my day we said she stole on her. When she wasn’t looking, she punched her and knocked her out. Jen gets up and says no, I promised, I’m not getting into a fight. And Titania’s yelling at her, you’re going to get up, you’re going to turn green, because you don’t even like this stuff.
So you find out she’s jealous. She went from being the strong, super-powered influencer in the spotlight to suddenly playing second fiddle to She-Hulk, who doesn’t even want it. That’s her point of frustration, and we finally get to understand her motivation. That part is eye-opening.
The rest is ridiculous. When Jen finally turns into She-Hulk, they have maybe a two-scene exchange. She punches her once in the face and kicks her into the bigger room. Titania gets up, you think you’re going to get a big epic fight, and she trips and falls on her face. I’m assuming because she’s super strong, she tripped and fell super strongly. She comes up all discombobulated, cartoonishly, with her veneers broken and her eyelashes falling off, and gets laughed at by the rest of the wedding. She gets real nasty about it, something like, “Are you showing this to your 11 followers on Instagram?” Then she takes the top of the cake and leaves.
The bride shows up all drunk, She-Hulk’s at my wedding, woo, and Jen finally gets to enjoy herself.
The Button the Episode Didn’t Earn
The episode ends with a brief button. You see a lab and some lab workers, and you see the bent needle from the mugger who tried to stab She-Hulk in the shoulder in Episode 2 or something. Now they have a big daddy needle. This one’s clearly much stronger, and it’s got holes in it for absorbing your blood.
I would have been okay with this entire episode except for the end. I’ve turned the corner. I’m accepting the show on its own merit. Yes, it has faults even there, but I’m accepting it as not being my typical superhero show. My problem is that you suddenly drop a superhero button. Mind you, that’s very Marvel, and we always look forward to those. But you have an episode that doesn’t come close to touching this topic, and you’ve done a poor job so far of laying everything out.
My co-host was a little confused by it, and she talked it through on camera. When he closes the case there’s a radiation symbol on it, so are they looking to inject her or to extract? I think they’re looking to extract. Then she answered her own question: after you collect the blood, the blood is the radioactive substance.
The CGI Showed Up
Credit where it’s due. The minute She-Hulk walks out, they’re in the sunlight. We watch Corridor Crew like everybody else. I know what goes into VFX and why they hide things in shadows and darkness. I feel like this is the episode where, when they were planning out the budget, they said there’s no hiding here, put all the effort into these scenes. Every moment that She-Hulk is in the sun, it’s really good. I really liked the CGI on this. We were sitting there going, oh, this is awesome.
The hair is still the complaint from the first episode. Jennifer Walters has curly hair. She’s a curly girl, it’s a real thing, and if you have curly hair you have to have poof sometimes. Then she turns into She-Hulk and has a diametrically different hairstyle.
The Verdict
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Episode 6 lands at a 4 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
I did something I don’t normally do and gave the rating right in the middle of the review, the second I got to that ending. My co-host gave it one better than me, and probably just to spite me.
She had the sharper version of the problem. There are a lot of women producers, executive producers and writers on this, and she thinks they’re going for a very strong female thing and falling so short it’s almost chauvinistic. “I would have thought this was written by a man who didn’t know how to write strong women,” she said, “because I was very disappointed.”
I’m sure right now there’s a woman watching this going, no, that’s what we go through. And yes, the insecurities of being at a wedding by yourself are real. But Jen was made to be humiliated by the other bridesmaids. Ironing the shirts. Cleaning up after the rehearsal dinner. Walking down the aisle with Jonathan, one of those weird, shaky Chihuahuas with the tongue hanging out. She’s supposed to be this great friend to the bride, and she is literally the stepchild. She’s Cinderella.
I’m a storyteller first. That’s one of the reasons I’m able to step out of my body and say, okay, I’m going to accept this show. It’s not going to be monster of the week and it’s not going to be fight of the week. It’s going to be a different kind of show, and I’m okay with that. But now I get to judge you on the merit of the show you tell me you’re trying to be. And currently, She-Hulk, you’ve fallen short.
If you hated the episode, that’s cool. If you liked it, that’s cool. All of this is subjective and your mileage is always going to vary from mine. Tell me what you thought of “Just Jen” in the comments on the video above, and keep it respectful, because everybody’s allowed their own thoughts and opinions there.
