She-Hulk S01E07 Review: PORCUPINE!

She-Hulk, Season 1, Episode 7: The Retreat

A bit better than the previous episode, although I'm not sure if it's thanks to the random, colourful group of obscure Marvel supervillains that showed up which I will readily admit is pretty fun. "The Retreat" is basically a bottle episode, focusing almost entirely on Jen. We get a brief scene of Nikki in the beginning and Josh in the framing scenes at the beginning and the end, but otherwise it's all Jennifer Walters and the rest of... 'Abomaste'. Did I get that right?

And well, it still feels like the episode ran on for a bit longer than it needed to be, and there were moments where I'm not sure if they're kinda mocking the process of therapy, which media really likes to do... or it could just be the mutated bull-person and the guy in a porcupine battle-suit with a gas mask that's making the process inherently funny. 

And, well... the 'main plot' elements basically can be boiled down to a single sentence. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Josh is actually secretly evil, probably working for Intelligencia, gets close enough to Jen to make love sleep with her (as Jen insists on the terminology) to get her asleep so that he can get the blood sample that the Wrecking Crew weren't able to get. But for Jen and for the majority of the episode, they think Josh is just a dipshit who got close to have sex then ghosted her. 

Again... very American humour, but at least the comedy for this episode works a bit better than the wedding episode. The setup isn't particularly interesting, but once we get Jen and Emil meeting each other at the Wi-Fi deprived retreat, Jen quickly discovers 'Abomaste' that in her anxiety-ridden wait for Josh's reply. We get a bunch of colourful supervillains like Man-Bull (the result of a science experiment gone wrong, and has a lot of rage at people who wants to stab him), Águila (self-identifies as a swashbuckler, not a matador), Porcpuine (refuses to leave his spiky suit) and Saracen (he identifies as a vampire, but might actually be one). 

And... there's a lot less 'haha what a dumb concept' maliciousness here, because... well, I don't know. Maybe it's my love for the Superior Foes of Spider-Man run, or anything that DC comics does with the Rogues, that makes me love anything to do with a group of bumbling C-lister supervillains. Except these guys, at least from what little we see of them, aren't even supervillains and are just a bunch of weirdos that are working through their issues with Emil. A lot of it is treated for laughs, of course, but thanks to not focusing on just a single topic, the comedy in this episode flows a bit better. 

It even has some point, because Wrecker comes in. Jen demands the show do a 'Previously On' on him, which is nice since I don't recognize him without his hoodlum costume and his crowbar. But Wrecker is here taking 'radical responsibility', and Emil's wonderful dad voice ends up causing Jen to take a sit and share... and basically it's an outlet for Jen to earnestly share her insecurities. That everyone is only interested in She-Hulk and not Jen, and it's a very earnestly delivered by Tatiana Maslany. The C-list supervillains are all pretty charming and supportive, first by almost going off and murdering Josh where he lived, and later on just being a bunch of supportive people who convinces Jen to delete Josh's number. 

This one... I kinda liked. It moved a bit faster-paced and the wacky sights along the way felt more like a superhero comedy show than just a generic comedy show. Tim Roth's Emil Blonsky might not be what people expected from the character (and I'm kinda sad that he's not heading the therapy as Abomination) but it's actually a pretty pleasant episode to watch. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Jen refers to the process of transforming into a Hulk as 'Hulking Out', the franchise and the fandom's term for it. 
• In addition to Abomination and the Wrecker, we get the following villains:
• Porcupine has been a couple of villains over the years, but the most well-known one is Alexander Gentry, who created the Porcupine battlesuit for the U.S. military but received only laughter for his efforts. He ended up becoming a supervillain and facing off against Ant-Man.
• Águila (Alejandro Montoya) is a mutant that's able to channel energy through his sword, and became a villain of Iron Fist and Luke Cage.
• Man-Bull (William Taurens) is a scientist who kidnapped people to experiment on,  but eventually tested his creations on himself. He menaces Daredevil. 
• Saracen is an immortal vampire that lived underneath the Vatican and fought Blade.