Greetings and bienvenue, all.
In this installment of my Telly Talk Today series, I’ll be reviewing She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Episode 5, “Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans.”
First things first, though.
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With that in mind and without further ado, as follows is my review of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s fifth episode, “Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans.”
*BE WARNED: MILD TO MEDIUM SPOILERS FOLLOW*
• SUMMARY •
Jen is cooking when she notices a TV commercial for a perfume titled “She Hulk” by Titania. Later, Ched comes in with the perfume, wanting Jen to autograph boxes of it. Jen explains to him that the perfume isn’t her product.
Jen and Nikki go to Titania’s product launch party to confront her. Jen finds Titania, who shows her nothing but disrespect before one of Titania’s fans asks Jen to take a picture of her and Titania.
At work, She-Hulk assures both herself and Nikki that she doesn’t even like the name “She-Hulk” and is over Titania’s appropriation of it. Meanwhile, Pug asks Nikki if she could help him with a scheme to purchase two pairs of Iron Man Three sneakers. He wants one pair to wear and one for his collection. Nikki agrees to help him if he will help her by introducing her to one of his secondhand contacts, a designer who makes high-end clothing for superheroes and who might be able to design something for Jen. Nikki then accompanies Pug to a store in which they are supposed to purchase the sneakers, only for Nikki to realize that it’s just a boba café. Pug insists that it’s a front for a superhero clothing business; and, surely enough, after some banter with a barista, they are taken into a back area where the merchandise is supposedly sold. However, they realize fast that the merchandise is all fake.
Holden Holliway calls Jen into his office and expresses displeasure with the fact that She-Hulk, his employee, is now a subject of litigation regarding the use of her own name. Holliway tells She-Hulk that this is now a firm problem and gives She-Hulk Mallory Book as an attorney to represent her in the litigation against Titania. Book quickly decides that they need to prove that Jen used the She-Hulk name before Titania. She also suggests that She-Hulk needs to get new clothing that makes her look more empowered and attractive.
Later, in court, Titania’s lawyer argues that Titania owns the name “She-Hulk.” Book counters that the media calls Jen by that name, while Titania has only appropriated the name to trade on Jen’s public goodwill and sell products. Titania, as evidence, plays a recording of Jen’s telling the press that she isn’t and will never be She-Hulk. Book replies by showing an interview that She-Hulk gave in which she says that the media gave her the “She-Hulk” name, that it stuck, and that she is She-Hulk. The judge agrees to allow the case to continue, provided that Book can present more evidence that Jen regularly identifies as She-Hulk.
Nikki and She-Hulk later meet with Pug’s secondhand contact, a man named Luke Jacobson. She-Hulk claims that she doesn’t need anything fancy and only wants business suits that will help her in her lawyer job, so Jacobson tells her that she’s wasting his time. Nikki, however, tells Luke that Jen wants suits that will adapt to her human and She-Hulk forms. This is an interesting enough problem to interest Jacobson, who then agrees to make her clothing.
Back at work, Jen and Nikki find Todd, one of the underwhelming men whom she-Hulk had previously dated, as he’s speaking with Mallory.
As Nikki and Jen are speaking later outside, Jen realizes that she used her “She-Hulk” name on her dating app and later identified as such during a litany of the dates that she got as a result of using that app. This proves that she used the name before Titania registered “She-Hulk” as a trademark.
In court, Book shows She-Hulk’s Matcher profile to the judge. She also brings in She-Hulk’s previous dates as witnesses that Jen identified as She-Hulk while matching and meeting with them. Arthur even testifies that he would not have dated Jen had she not represented herself as She-Hulk to him—because Jen simply is not his type. The court rules for Jen, decreeing that Titania can’t use the “She-Hulk” name for profit. Titania warns Jen that they’ll be seeing each other again.
Jen takes Book to a bar and buys her a drink to thank her. Book says that she’s impressed that Jen would humiliate herself to win a case and that Jen deserves better romantic pairings than the men whom she previously dated. However, she still says that Jen needs a better suit.
Jen later returns to Luke, who gives her several designs that he made for her. While she’s changing, Luke notices another open box in his workplace and immediately covers it, grumbling that it shouldn’t have been left exposed and that this is a matter of client confidentiality. Before he covers the box, though, the viewer notices that it contains the yellowed cowl of Daredevil.
• MY THOUGHTS •
o Jen is a trained lawyer. I don’t know what exact plans she had when she went to see Titania at her product launch party, but she REALLY should’ve known better than to attempt publicly confronting an adverse party while being embroiled in litigation against said party.
o I agree entirely with Nikki’s point to Jen early in this episode. Jen has no moral right to argue against Titania’s appropriation of “She-Hulk.” Jen has spent whole episodes whining about how the white patriarchy victimized her by forcing the name upon her. So it seems ridiculous that she’s now upset over losing her rights to the use of the name.
o Equally ridiculous is this episode’s message that Arthur and every other man who dated Jen on the Matcher app are trash—and that Jen deserves men whose interest in her extends beyond her She-Hulk identity. In just the last episode, Jen was droning on about how she herself picks romantic partners based on physical attractiveness. So where does she get the right to criticize members of the opposite sex for doing the same thing?
This has honestly been one of She-Hulk’s major problems from the start—an incessant peddling of the hypocritical message that it’s okay for women but not men to do trashy things.
o This show’s tackling of legal matters has been laughably inaccurate during the past few episodes, but such matters are handled relatively well in this one. The litigation between Titania and Jen is surprisingly realistic, though my one nitpick is that I’m pretty sure a lawyer who was as competent as Mallory Book is implied to be wouldn’t have entered the first hearing without dead-bang proof of Jen’s repeated first usage of the She-Hulk name.
o Now that She-Hulk’s status quo has more or less been cemented, the show has begun to grow a bit formulaic. A semi-serious A-Plot is established, a funnier B-Plot is weaved in, and the wrap-up for the A-Plot’s episodic conflict usually involves a comical tie-in to the B-Plot. The formulaic nature isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I just hope that the show doesn’t get off into a ditch because of it.
o The ending Daredevil tease alone was enough to make me invested in this episode. In an earlier post, I said specifically that my only reason for watching this show was my desire to witness the return of Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock.
Mind you, the teaser was nowhere near perfect. (I REALLY am not a fan of the redesign of his cowl from red to yellow. I’m also not in love with the idea of switching Daredevil’s costume designer from the cool and layered Melvin Potter to some cheeky and stereotypical Edna Mode send-up.) However, I’m patient enough to wait and see what sort of direction this show takes with the new spin on Daredevil before I render any final judgments.
o I’m unsure if the animated ending credits are meant to be canon; but I noticed the sly teases for Deadpool, The Thing, and Cyclops in the segment involving Pug and Nikki at the shoe shop. So I guess it’s up for debate whether this stinger is supposed to be evidence that these characters are already well established in the MCU or simply a tease that their arrival is imminent.
• BRASS TACKS •
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s fifth episode is an entertaining but formulaic installment that, nevertheless, maintains the show’s general focus on Jen’s complicated struggle with her own alter ego.
• MY RATING •
I give She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s Episode 5, “Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans,” two and a half cronuts out of five.
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