She-Hulk S01E05 Review: Influencer Wars

She-Hulk, Attorney at Law, Season 1, Episode 5: Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans

After spending the first four episodes with cameos from the wider MCU, She-Hulk's fifth episode is the first one to have the show's central cast attempt to stand on their own and... I'm not sure they really succeeded? Admittedly, the plotline of this episode is another one that really didn't interest me at all. Reinventing She-Hulk's nemesis Titania from a brawny meathead into a catty social media influencer is a very questionable decision, and I'm really not sure it paid off. 

The main plotline is that Titania has been trademarking the name She-Hulk for her line of beauty products, and Jen has to fight her in court. It's... it's nowhere as interesting as the show thinks it is. Sure, there are a couple of funny moments, and I guess using last episode's Tinder profile (and the montage of Jen's terrible dates) as a way out of the solution is kind of cute. Jen and the lawyer representing her, Mallory Book, end up doing another 'humiliate the client to exonerate her' plotline, which feels a bit too similar to the same trick Pug did to win the douchebag lawyer case against the light elf in episode 3. Mallory's an all right foil to Jen, and a surprisingly serious character compared to the rest of her kookier workplace buddies. This does make her kinda boring, though. 

And... I don't know. Maybe I'm just old and grouchy and not quite 'hip' with the younger audience who probably appreciate the social media and dating app jokes and whatnot, but it's just... well, not really doing a whole lot for me. The show never quite delves into being straight-up bad, but I really did find it hard to pay full attention to the show.

The B-plot of this episode is Nikki and Pug going around to look for the 'drip broker', someone who sells bootleg superhero merchandise. Which eventually leads to obvious Edna Mode expy, the kooky Luke Jacobson. Who's fun, yes, and it seems like he's taken over Melvin Potter's role from Daredevil as the resident superhero outfit creator for anyone not associated with Stark Industries. (Hey, he's literally making Daredevil's suit!). We don't quite get to see the full She-Hulk outfit that he gives Jen at the end of the episode, but it's coming. 

There is, I suppose, the running theme of Jen finally appreciating the moniker 'She-Hulk' as something that's not a derivative name shoved on her by random reporters, and finally making the atrocious appellation into her own. With how so many superhero shows and movies are so loath to acknowledge superhero monikers and really like to make fun of it, it's actually pretty nice to devote an episode for Jen to embrace the name She-Hulk and actually defend it. Makes sense if they want the character to be called She-Hulk in-universe too, and not have it be a name Jen refuses to be associated with. Unfortunately, while it's a good story in and of itself, the trial over beauty product copyright just isn't strong enough to carry the half-hour. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Mallory Book is Jen's rival within GLK&H in the 2004 She-Hulk run. Luke Jacobson is a very minor character from the obscure spy-themed Marvel comic Dakota North. 
• Daredevil's helmet -- coloured yellow instead of red, in honour of Daredevil's first comic-book appearance -- can be seen in Luke's shop.
• "Iron Man 3" is the title of an MCU movie, one of the few MCU entries that use numbers in the sequels. 
  
• The credits show Pug flaunting his sneaker collection. Including the Iron Man ones and some obvious Avengers, we get a surprising 'cameo' of many superheroes and supervillains that have yet to appear in the MCU (thanks to copyright issues). Most notable are ones based on Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Deadpool, The Thing, Dr. Doom and Nova. 
• Existing MCU shoes that I can tell include Falcon (albeit a comic-book based one), Quicksilver (also comic-book based), Captain Marvel, Green Goblin, Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Black Panther, Ghost Rider and Captain America. 
• Titania calls She-Hulk 'Shrek' when she enters the courtroom. There's a lot of memes in the build-up to She-Hulk that refer to Hulk and She-Hulk as 'Shrek and Fiona'.