She Hulk part 1

She Hulk, episodes 1-4

Starring: Tatiana Maslany, Ginger Gonzaga, Jameela Jamil, Steve Coulter, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Josh Segarra

With special guest appearances by: Mark Ruffalo, Tim Roth, Benedict Wong, Mark Linn-Baker, Charlie Cox

Episode 1: A Normal Amount of Rage

Two things that will definitely be a recurring theme that I should mention before we get to the recap. The first is that I'm starting to sense a pattern with the fanboys in that they only notice problems in the movies and shows they don't like, happily ignoring the exact same problems when they are present in the ones they do. I have already mentioned that "Love and Thunder" basically doubled down on the things they claimed to love about "Ragnarok" and yet suddenly they hated it. They complained that Doctor Strange took a back seat in his own movie despite loving "Captain America 3", which may as well have been an Avengers movie. I've been complaining for a while about not being able to see scenes that take place in the dark and been sneered at like I'm the only one with the problem until suddenly everyone noticed it with "Black Panther 2" (where it was really only a problem in one scene). In this case, every single "fan" who bitched about this show pointed to the apparently unforgivably awful CGI. But when the FX people behind "Ant Man 3" openly admitted their effects were terrible, suddenly it didn't matter (until it could be used to justify demanding "Captain Marvel 2" just be cancelled entirely). And basically all of these examples are obviously - to me anyway - coming from white dudebros looking to legitimize their instinctive hatred of something that heavily focuses on women or people of color.

The second thing is that some time in the last couple years I have come to realize that I am asexual. I used to think the label didn't apply because if you've read my recaps I am obviously partial to boys. But then I found a book that compared asexuality to bisexuality and noted that very few people in either group are EQUALLY attracted to both primary sexes. Basically, the Kinsey scale still applies. Grappling with my understanding of this and what sort of asexual I am has helped me be a better fanfic writer (at least I hope) and also made it a little easier to understand shows like this. Because I may not be able to relate to Jen and her obsession with sex, but I understand now that that is because I am lacking that horny impulse.

Chrissy: And I'm here because you expect me to play Jen, don't you?
Diandra: Well, I figured you would whether I wanted you to or not. But if you don't want to...
Chrissy: I didn't say that. Let's do this and see how it plays out.

Okay. Well. Here goes nothing.

We start by seemingly immediately breaking the fourth wall, with Jen talking directly to the camera about power and responsibility. Although as the camera pulls back it turns out she's practicing either an opening or closing argument about how the defendant used resources "for financial gain at the expense of public safety", because they didn't believe there was any sort of expectations of accountability and does anyone know if the Sokovia Accords are still a thing? Because money and power shields people who have it from consequences unless juries like them prove that it DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. It doesn't matter if they were somehow elected president, that DOESN'T GIVE THEM THE RIGHT- I'm sorry. I'll stop.

Chrissy: No, you won't.
Emilio: I mean...that is a perfect example from current events.

The coworkers she has been delivering the speech to disagree about whether that is the best argument she could be making. The guy thinks he should do the closing argument instead. The girl thinks Jen is wonderful and totally going to win this and if he keeps being a dick she will kill him and Jen will get her off.

Emilio: And then she will defend her in court.
Chrissy: Yeah, you beat me to it.
Diandra: Sigh. I'm already regretting this.

Turns out the girl is a para and the guy is another full lawyer, but Jen is listening to the para on this. Possibly because the para is practically fangirling over her. But she notes that Jen was "hand picked" to prosecute "GLK and H" for a reason and she is on track to becoming district attorney. And hey, "if it doesn't go our way, you can just Hulk out?" Jen shoos her out the door and turns fully to the camera like 'yeah...about that random plot point my costar just dropped.' Because until we introduce Gwenpoool into this canon (which we probably will eventually at this point if the whole franchise doesn't collapse and dry up first), Jennifer Walters will be the female equivalent of Deadpool, paving the way for Deadpool to actually be part of the MCU. She says we probably won't be able to focus on this "fun lawyer show" until they explain what that Hulk thing was about, so...let's do the "x days earlier" thing. Or months. Whatever.

In the continuing tradition of all of Bruce/Hulk's character development happening off screen, we go to her driving with her cousin Bruce, who is rambling about this device he made that keeps him in his regular human form and even healed his arm after that whole Infinity Gauntlet thing.

Chrissy: Yeah, because this wasn't annoying already in Endgame when he was like 'guess what? I spent the last few years merging Hulk and Banner and tada!'
Diandra: Yeah, I wonder if they've just decided this is his thing.
Emilio: Probably makes it easier to ignore the change of actors.
Diandra: Yeah, 'oh, did I look like a completely different person the last time you saw me? Funny story...'

He stops talking and Jen is like 'dude. All I asked is "what have you been up to" and you've been talking since we passed that last town.' He holds up a random character trait we're gonna drop here: a bag of Cheetos with chopsticks sticking out of it stuck between the seats. She says it's so you don't get Cheeto dust all over your fingers. Which doesn't explain how she can use chopsticks while driving, but one problem at a time. He notes that that's pretty smart while he uses the chopsticks to pop a Cheeto into his mouth. She says he's not the only genius in the family. He agrees that Chet is pretty smart too.

Anyway, now that they've explained away any weirdness with Bruce, she wants to get back to what is apparently her favorite topic: Steve Rogers. Specifically, his sexual history. Because according to the History Channel, he didn't have a girlfriend before he went into the service and we all know people didn't fool around back then and once he became Captain America he basically went from one hero battle to another before (and after) being frozen for the majority of a century. So...he was a virgin, right?

Chrissy: That depends. Do handjobs and over the pants stuff count? Oh, sorry, I think we were calling it "taking out the trash".
Diandra: I seem to remember something about shoes and couch cushions too, but I applaud that callback. [ETA: I will link to the specific point in the recap if I ever get it reformatted in HTML]
Emilio: I think the couch cushions were for sleeping, but yes, Bucky offered to let Steve shine his shoes and take out his trash, which you both agreed were obviously euphemisms.
Diandra: I still think the trash one is alarming. But yes, headcanon is it wasn't shoes he was polishing.

This conversation is interrupted when a spaceship drops down to hover on the road in front of them. Jen swerves and smashes right through a guardrail and flips down a hill, landing on the hood. Jen crawls out, her shoes coming right off because they were probably high heels held on by a wing and a prayer, and takes a moment to note the bleeding wound on her arm before prying Bruce's door open and dragging him out. He mumbles that he's bleeding and she should get away from him. He dribbles blood right into her open wound where it instantly starts mutating. Her reflection in the car door turns into a green rage monster and she takes off into the woods. Bruce starts turning green too, but we cut to black quickly.

And then Jen wakes up sometime later in the dark and stumbles toward a sports bar by the side of the road. Possibly a different road, but definitely far away from the crash site. She sneaks through the back door and into the ladies room to wash up a little. Four other women come in while she's doing that and gasp that someone beat her up before descending on her to help fix her up. One of them gives her the spare shoes in her purse.

Chrissy: Oh, please, why would any woman carry heeled shoes in her purse? That's where you keep the FLATS that you wear when the heels start giving you blisters.
Diandra: Being someone who can't really wear heels for any length of time without pain anymore and lives in a state with hellish weather, I usually carry a bag with whatever fashionable shoe goes with my outfit that I can change into when I get somewhere I can take off my winter boots.
Chrissy: Yeah, um...honey? We might start in on the asexual thing sooner than you thought.
Diandra: Oh, come on. We can't be the only ones who have more practical reasons for changing shoes that don't involve clubs or bars or whatever.

Jen says she needs to borrow someone's phone to call her cousin Bruce to come get her. All of them pull their phones at once.

And then we have the scene guys think we women exaggerate about the frequency of where a group of guys comes out of the bar while she's waiting for Bruce and start aggressively trying to pick her up. She claims her boyfriend will arrive any second, which doesn't discourage them and the last thing one of them says before she Hulks out and hopefully makes them shit themselves in fear and NEVER DO THIS AGAIN is "what? Are you too good for us?"

Chrissy: Yeah, that is a universal one. You don't have to be...whatever the opposite of asexual is to have experienced that at some point.
Diandra: Allosexual. Yeah, I once had to sidle up to my dad like he was my boyfriend to get a creeper to back off. What baffles me is when this is played off as NOT potentially terrifying. Like...I saw a movie where a guy was behaving like this and the woman was getting excited by it while my internal alarm went off like Jen's just did.
Chrissy: Yeah, that's how you can tell something is written by a man.
Diandra: Shit. I didn't pay attention to who wrote it. That would make sense.

The next time she wakes up, she's in a bed and there's a pile of clothes waiting for her, a Led Zeppelin shirt on top.

Emilio: Isn't that the shirt Bruce was wearing in Ragnarok because Tony left his clothes on the quinjet?
Diandra: Now you're just showing off your superior memory skills.
Chrissy: The fact that Tony had a change of clothes on the quinjet might also serve as evidence that Steve wasn't a virgin, by the way.
Diandra: Of course you would jump right to the presence of a change of clothes as proof that he was prepared for the possibility that he would need them after a post battle quickie with Steve and not because his clothes could get torn and dirty in an actual battle.
Emilio: When was the last time Tony used the quinjet? He probably left clothes there knowing Bruce might rip his if he Hulked out unexpectedly and they are the same size.
Chrissy: Yeah, the fact that they are the same size totally works as a pickup line, by the way.
Diandra: No, it doesn't. Stop.
Chrissy: But yeah, wasn't Steve alone in the quinjet for a while there? I assume Bruce washed any questionable stains off it.
Diandra: You are just determined to work some Steve/Tony plot bunnies in here, aren't you?
Chrissy: You're the one writing Stony porn right now. I'm just trying to help with inspiration here.
Emilio: I mean...Bruce DID say the pants were too tight and then there was that whole America's ass thing in Endgame...
Diandra: [long groan]

[ETA: It turns out the shirt Bruce wore in Ragnarok was Duran Duran. But that doesn't really change anything about that headcanon.]

She wanders around what looks like an island bungalow and finds Tony's broken up Iron Man helmet on a display.

Chrissy: So...Bruce inherited that? Or Pepper didn't want it?
Diandra: Can we just...get past this tangent for now? Please?

She follows the sound of mariachi music into a bunker like basement and she must know who she's looking for, right? Because no woman outside of a horror movie would do this. Bruce is in full BruceHulk form at a lab set up. He turns off the music and apologizes that he thought he could get some work in before she woke up. Also, he acknowledges that he is in Hulk form, but technically this merged BannerHulk version of him is known as "Smart Hulk", which yes, is stupid, but he isn't the one who came up with that. Take it up with the fans. "You never have a choice with these names," he says, which will definitely be a whole theme in this show.

He says by the way, they are in Mexico and he told her parents she's okay. He thought it would be a good idea to take her to the place he spent that five year "blip" merging his personas. In an a bunker lab beneath a beach house that Tony had built for him, while joking that it was just on loan and he would take it back one day.

Chrissy: But he's dead now, so...[sob]

Jen suddenly remembers what happened to start this whole sequence and asks if they really hit a spaceship. Bruce says yeah, it was Sakaaran. Which he realizes doesn't so much answer any questions as it brings up several more, so he quickly brushes off that they were probably delivering a message and he's looking into it, but they really need to deal with her new mutant abilities. He apologies for that, claiming his blood gave her a lethal dose of gamma radiation, but since they have the same rare genetic mutations it just turned her into a giant green rage monster too. In fact, her blood has properties that he was able to use to finish the healing process on his arm entirely. She asks if that means she's better than him.

Chrissy: And lo the dudebros all cried out at once in rage.
Diandra: And didn't stop until...actually, they may still be screaming.

Bruce says it's DIFFERENT anyway. At any rate, the state of his arm was apparently preventing him from taking this full BannerHulk form, so that's fixed now. He puts the tubes he identifies as the blood samples in what looks like a microwave in the wall and pushes a button that causes lasers to destroy them. She mutters that that's a bit dramatic. He says it's too dangerous to risk even one other person becoming a Hulk. She says fine, can he just fix her so she can get out of here? He says no, it doesn't go away. And here's where knowing that he actually did unsuccessfully try to cure himself in the movie everyone tried to ignore validates my decision to go back and review that. She asks why he can't just give her that device he was using to stay in Bruce form. He says it was a prototype specifically calibrated to him and he can't just recalibrate it to work for her. Because plot convenience. Anyway, his best solution was to merge the personalities and he's hoping that with enough time he can do the same for her. She says she doesn't WANT to be a Hulk. He says yeah, well, there's no going back now.

Chrissy: Oh, there's the argument against Mutant Registration again.
Diandra: Yep. Registering people with abilities as weapons is all well and responsible until it means treating children and people who don't WANT powers like tools for an army they never wanted to join.

She starts having what looks like a panic attack or possibly crashing from low blood sugar because he takes her back upstairs and makes her breakfast. While she's dejectedly chewing pancakes, he apologizes that she's going to have to make some major adjustments in her life now. Avoid stress. Stay away from people. She says that would be kind of hard given her line of work. He says yeah, uh...she can't go back to work. Or back period until she figures out how to control the Hulk. She asks how long that will take. He pulls out a large three ring binder full of shit he collected in the multiple years it took him to do it. Mostly journals and data charting his progress, probably. He's hopeful having the guide will make the process go "a little faster" for her. She asks how many years it took him. He says about fifteen.

Chrissy: Of course, it didn't help that the process was probably interrupted by aliens attacking the planet every other year during that time.

She yelps in horror and crams an entire pancake in her mouth.

Fast forward to her standing in a cell in the lab wearing some sort of tethered helmet. He prefaces that the transformation is caused by stress or emotional states, so they need to figure out what does that for her. She suggests he play a Pixar movie because there's that scene in "Inside Out" with Bing Bong and... He snaps at her to focus because the triggers are ANGER and FEAR not turning into a sobbing mess watching "Toy Story".

Chrissy: You know this would go a lot faster if you articulated things better the first time around so we didn't have to go through these comedy of errors bullshit routines.
Emilio: Yeah, but that would eliminate, like, half the dialogue of these movies.
Diandra: Yeah, we wouldn't want them to become mindless action movies or anything. [/flaming sarcasm]

Jen says anger and fear are baseline for pretty much every woman. Bruce sighs and punches a button to trigger the back wall of the cell to spring a bunch of rotating saw blades and start moving in. She yelps that this will kill her if she doesn't transform and WHAT THE FUCK MAN? She rips the helmet off and claws at the glass wall yelping that he's a psycho and this is NOT GOING TO WORK. And then suddenly she's in Hulk form and shoving the wall back. "Yes," Bruce yelps, followed quickly by "NO" as she rips the door off the cell and stomps out. "Woah, easy girl," he tries as she growls. She asks why the hell he's talking to her like she's a horse. He blinks, surprised to hear Jen's perfectly lucid voice coming out of the big green rage monster. "This is incredible. You don't have an alter ego. You're the only one in there?" She's like yes, Dr. Jekyll. He's jealous that she has already reached the goal it took him more than a decade to get to. Except he specifically words it as "you don't have another guy to wrestle with for ten years" which explains this:

Chrissy: Oh, I'm sure I can find one.
Diandra: Yes, making a clear argument for why you should be Jen over there.

He asks if she really doesn't feel anyone else trying to take control or anything and she says no, she blacked out the first time because it was so overwhelming, but she's sort of...settled now. Able to stay alert. So obviously she doesn't need anything else here. He says she hasn't learned how to control WHEN she changes, though, so...

Chrissy: So she'll have to stay, what, another hour?
Diandra: Yeah, one of the complaints I kept hearing about this and "Captain Marvel" was that the women don't have to work as hard to "earn" their powers as the men. And while it does feel like we're racing through exposition in this first episode, that argument just smacks of "reverse discrimination" nonsense, so.
Chrissy: And isn't that just skipping all the boring crap to get to the fun part?
Diandra: ...I kind of want to point out all the times you've complained about guys just jumping in headfirst without adequate warm up, but I'm afraid it will only encourage you to make double entendres already.
Chrissy: No, see, you're confusing long winded exposition and training sequences with foreplay again. THAT can be fun. THIS...not so much.

Jen says fine, how did HE turn back into Bruce then? He says falling out of a jet or getting knocked out by a robot usually worked for him. Except for that period where Natasha would "tell me a lullaby". Jen channels every audience member who laughed at the sun getting low thing and says "walk me through how that worked again?"

Emilio: It didn't? For Thor anyway.

Jen identifies the most common element as being him losing consciousness, which is what happened with her too. He says no because he got stuck in Hulk mode for two years one time.

Chrissy: Which he spent on a garbage planet playing gladiator pet monkey to an immortal. You know what? Not important.
Diandra: That's what I've been saying.

She says she CANNOT stay like this for two years. He says she needs to take a minute to consider how dangerous having this much power is.

Emilio: Which is also kinda the point of the Mutant Registery.
Diandra: Controlling it? Yeah. Except the people in charge of it are no better at that than the mutants - excuse me - "enhanced people" they're controlling.

He says if she freaks out, she could cause SO MUCH DAMAGE.

Chrissy: I mean, yes, but I don't see how it could be worse than what you guys keep doing which everyone seems to have accepted as baseline now.
Diandra: Just ask Batman. I mean Birdman.
Emilio: You can't, he's in another universe now.
Diandra: Considering the disaster that was that movie, I expect they will retcon it out of existence.

She promises to be careful. He says she can't be EMOTIONAL. Because any whiff of anger can turn her into a rage monster and "when people start seeing you as a monster, that never goes away." There is an obvious retort to this, but we're going to just put it on the back burner in favor of a scene of him teaching her "dialectical behavior therapy". And yoga. While she is back in Jen form for some reason. He rattles off the textbook description of what it will do for her, ending with it being about accepting her situation. She jokes that she thought the goal of yoga was to make her ass look great and tries to high five him. "Gross, Jen, I'm your cousin."

Emilio: And FDR and Eleanor were cousins. What's your point?

He tries again, telling her to relax and breathe, which just makes her giggle like 'now who's being gross, perv?' He says she's obviously not ready to take this seriously, so maybe they should try again in the morning.

Chrissy: Was she supposed to be in Hulk form for that scene?
Diandra: Yeah, hold that thought.

The next morning, he blares an air horn right in her ear so she wakes up Hulking out. He asks if she still feels like she's in control.

Chrissy: If she wasn't, you would be pushing that button with your prostate right now.

She thinks she's feeling a perfectly normal amount of rage right now ASSHOLE. He notes that she does, in fact, revert back to Jen in her sleep.

Diandra: So yes, obviously that last scene and this one are in the wrong order. This might be one of the mistakes the FX people can point to to demonstrate what can go wrong when they are rushed to produce three to four movies and almost as many whole tv series in a year. Or maybe it's the editors deciding the episode flows better like this regardless of the fact that they didn't film it with her in the CGI suit like she should have been if it was meant to be here. Obviously this is one of the mistakes the dudebros point to as proof that this show is unforgivably terrible, but honestly? I didn't even notice it the first time around. Because this episode moves at such a fast pace that I just sort of rolled with it. And I'm pretty sure there have been worse mistakes in shit they loved inside AND outside of the MCU, so...

Montage. BruceHulk warns JenHulk that she'll need to reinforce all her furniture and make sure never to live anywhere with ceilings less than ten feet high. Which he obviously learned the hard way. Also, she will need two different wardrobes of clothing completely different sizes with lots of spandex despite the fact that she's already been wearing clothes that seem to magically grow and shrink with her because female nudity is a big fat no in a kid friendly series. He picks up a giant boulder and throws it a few yards. She picks up an equally large boulder and throws it a few feet further. He picks up another one and throws it into the sun and she applauds somewhat sarcastically to stop this dick measuring thing from escalating any further. They do yoga and distance jumping and that thing where he bangs on the ground hard enough to cause reverb damage. She does a merry little skip before copying his move and causing a couple trees to fall over and chunks of the cliff to slide into the water. He gets annoyed at her besting him at this point and shoves her off the cliff. She flips him off on the way down and jumps right back up.

She snaps that this is all well and good, but none of this is going to be useful in her job as a LAWYER. He reminds her of the GREAT RESPONSIBILITY that comes with GREAT POWERS like this and yes, I am phrasing that deliberately. Basically, she will need to know how to fight the people who will DEFINITELY be coming after her and probably her friends and family now. She grumbles that her life as she knew it is ruined then. He admits that he's been mostly focused on the downsides here, but there are a few upsides.

Chrissy: Being able to reach high shelves and change your tire without a jack?

Actually because it will be relevant later, he focuses on the fact that their bodies metabolize fast so they can drink a LOT of alcohol and only get a nice buzz without getting pass out drunk.

Chrissy: No, you're right. That's better.
Diandra: Yeah, combine that with Scarlet Witch's ability to summon bottles from another room and you'd have your perfect superhero power set, wouldn't you?

Jen likes this one, so we flash forward to night time with them having downed at least a dozen whole bottles of liquor. Jen notes that he built this bar himself. He says yeah, well...Tony helped. When he wasn't sitting around drinking and complaining about Steve.

Emilio: This sounds like a plot bunny.
Diandra: Yeah, I'm actually not paraphrasing or anything. That's exactly what he just said.

And the camera focuses on Bruce and Tony's initials carved into the bar like WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE WRITERS DOING BAITING US HERE.

Chrissy: Is this giving you inspiration for your story where Steve and Tony apparently spent the Blip fucking in the Matrix?
Diandra: That's not...[groan]
Emilio: I mean, that does kind of work as a description for anyone who didn't see that episode of "Black Mirror" you're referencing.
Diandra: I knew one day I would regret recapping in the same fandoms I write fanfiction in. And here we are.
Chrissy: Well, it's kind of inevitable that these things would provide story ideas. I mean, that's kind of how fanfiction works, isn't it? You spend enough time thinking about the characters and the plots and playing What If and you end up with plot bunnies.
Diandra: Now you sound like you're writing a nature documentary.
Chrissy: RELEASE THE BUNNIES INTO THE WILD, D.

Okay, I'm going to try to get this runaway train back on its track.

Bruce: It was a good time during a hard time...
Diandra: [tackles Chrissy]
Chrissy: [something muffled by giggles and Diandra's hand]
Diandra: I WILL GET THE SPRAY BOTTLE.

Jen thinks they should drink to that and is also probably inspired to go into the discussion that we will get to in the end credit scene. For now, we go to the next morning, where Jen, back in human form, notes that the metabolism thing does NOT help with hangovers. Bruce - still in Hulk form so unbothered - makes her a smoothie and pats her on the head.

And then we're back with the meditation scene, but they're both wearing different shirts and it really isn't clear what order everything was supposed to be in here. Can we still blame this on the pandemic? Because that was the cause of a lot of uneven bullshit in movies that came out around the same time, wasn't it? Anyway, he is meditating, but she is just anxiously asking when she can leave because she really does have to get back to her life and her job and she is NOT planning on doing this superhero shit full time. He asks what else she could possibly do now that she's a Hulk. She says she's still paying off loans for her law degree that she has a nice job to show for.

Chrissy: Yeah, not all of us can come into this after an accident destroys all other options. Or as a teenager who hasn't yet...wait, where are we in the timeline? Has the Spider-Man debacle happened yet?
Diandra: [sigh] [pulls up Nerdopedia's massive timeline of all things MCU] No? [opens another page] Yes? I have no fucking clue. The only thing this definitely ties to is "Shang Chi" for reasons we haven't gotten to yet, but I'm not really clear on when THAT is supposed to take place and right now I'm looking at a graphic that seems to have forgotten "No Way Home" completely, so [frustrated noises]. I would guess no based on the order of events that makes sense when it comes to Wong, but that will also be clearer in future episodes.
Chrissy: Being in this fandom is exhausting isn't it?
Diandra: Very much yes.

Bruce rambles about how they need to find a balance between wants and reality and they can't just pretend they aren't among the few people on the planet who can protect it from alien or extradimensional attack and they need to make sure she can handle herself and regulate anger. She gives a speech that probably went right over the angry dudebros heads even though it's hardly something nobody has said before. She says she's REALLY good at controlling anger, actually, because she's had practice doing it when she is catcalled on the street or mansplained to within her own field. "Because if I don't I will get called emotional or difficult or might just literally get murdered." She starts raging and turning green as she says he's projecting his own difficulties because she definitely has more experience with this. He points to this as proof of his point, but she calms and reverts back immediately, saying she is doing this herself. He's baffled by this for reasons she basically just explained. She leaves, saying she loves him, but she's going home.

Fun fact: I recently saw a comedy about ghosts where the female half of a couple is better at haunting people because she can tap into, channel and control anger REALLY well. The idiots who are upset by what they perceive as a woman outpacing a man because girls rule and boys drool or...something...don't seem to get that the old "girls are too emotional to be leaders" thing is just...wrong. We exist in a world where we have to be aware of how anything we do including simply existing in a man's space might accidentally send men into violent fits of testosterone fueled insanity. If I really wanted to send the word count of this recap through the roof, I could go into great detail about my own recent experience with this that caused me to spend a sleepless night worried that I might actually be murdered. Anyway. Let's move on because this will DEFINITELY be a continuing topic with this show.

Bruce follows Jen out to the Jeep they apparently arrived in. She says she's taking it back to LA. He tries to get her to slow down, but she says no, she's gone through his therapy and she can change back and forth at will and she just wants to get back to her life now. He acknowledges that she didn't ask for any of this but seriously, she's a superhero now. Her life done CHANGED already. "Who's gonna protect the world if it isn't people like us?" She asks if he's quoting a comic book right now. Er...yes?

Chrissy: Nice fourth wall you have there. Would be a shame if someone were to...break it.

She says she's not him and she has no interest in being a superhero and joining some "secret government contractor squad" and have her entire life get ripped away. He says that's not what happened to him. "Really? Oh, so you didn't wind up alone, hiding away on some remote beach with no friends, no relationships, never seeing your family and definitely not dealing with a decade's worth of trauma?"

Emilio: Ouch.
Diandra: Yeah, but...fair.

She concludes by saying he isn't a role model: he's a cautionary tale. He thinks the price is worth it to "keep the world safe." She notes that she's not exactly being selfish, she's just choosing to continue helping people the way she went to school for. She struggles to adapt the car to her Jen form, cranking the seat forward and sitting on her backpack when that isn't enough. He steps in front of the car and says she should reconsider. She says she has and she is still LEAVING. She turns the ignition and he grabs the car and yells that she thinks she can say a bunch of mean things to him like that and just LEAVE? She says yes and drives out of the "garage" with him riding the hood until he falls off into a pile of boulders. She stops in a panic when he's buried in rubble, but of course he's fine. He spouts some dialectical speak at her about her doing her best and yet she could still do better until she hulks out and punches him.

They throw each other around a bit and he apologizes that he didn't want to do this before doing the same clap wave thing his Edward Norton self did back in "The Incredible Hulk" to throw her across the clearing. As she's climbing back upright he admits that actually he kind of did because WHY won't she just LISTEN to somebody who has been through all of this already? She yells that they are DIFFERENT PEOPLE. She tries to do the soundwave thing too and fails the first attempt before doing a whole series of smaller waves at him instead of one big one until he winces and falls to the ground with his hands over his ears. She starts walking away and he body checks her into a tree, which she bends to the ground and snaps back at him, flinging all the fruit at his head.

They throw each other around some more and she breaks his glasses and they wind up crashing through the roof of the bar. This neuters the anger and she apologizes. He says she is fixing the damage.

So we cut to her helping put the roof back up. He grumbles that he can respect that she wants to get back to being a lawyer. She turns to the camera and says he didn't mean that. There's a moment when they both do a double take like 'who is she talking to'?

Chrissy: Where did you go just now?
Diandra: Who, me?
Chrissy: Right, your ace ass probably has no interest in seeing that show. I'll explain later. [ETA: I'm told this is specifically referencing Andrew Scott's character somehow.]

Once they have the whole thing back up, she carves her own initials into the bartop while they both eat Cheetos using chopsticks.

Then he escorts her to the car so they can try this again, putting her bag in the back and reminding her that she can call him anytime because he is probably the ONLY person in the world who understands what she might be going through with this Hulk transition thing. She hugs him and apologizes for all the "harsh but very true things" she said about him. He praises her "lawyerly" ability to double down on the very thing she's apologizing for.

Back to the present where we left it at the beginning of this episode, Jen says there hasn't been any crazy Hulk stuff since then. "My family knows, Nikki [presumably the para] knows and you know." Her takeaway is that she was right, he was wrong and she never has to live as a Hulk and we can get back to the promised "fun lawyer show" now. Uh huh.

Courtroom. The defense attorney argues that his client was within his right to "protect his business interests" and be couldn't possibly have known that his "ambitious expansion plan" would result in those deaths.

Chrissy: I feel like there are some details of this case that we skipped over.
Diandra: Yeah, it's...not important.

Jen gets up to give her closing and barely opens her mouth before the opposite wall of the courtroom explodes and Jameela Jamil charges in. Everyone scrambles for cover and security tries to figure out how to respond. Nikki orders Jen to "do your thing" because it's her civic duty. She looks around at all the witnesses, groans that she LIKES this suit, kicks off her shoes and Hulks out. Jameela sneers "who the hell are you?" And the very awkwardly contrived, obvious response to this is, of course, "Jennifer Walters, attorney at law." They fight briefly until Jen punches her into a wall. Then she deHulks, steps back into her shoes, and makes an effort to pull her torn suit and wild hair back into something like order before telling the judge that she's ready to give her closing now.

Unlike some of the other series, we get a mid credit scene right out of the gate. Jen, in human form, is sobbing into her drink at Bruce's bar that Steve Rogers sacrificed so much for his country only to die a virgin. Okay, first of all...are we pretending the whole living through the 20th century thing didn't happen now? He and Peggy probably had sex SOMETIME in those decades, right? Seriously, why do we keep acting like he died in the battle with Thanos? Is that what the official story they told everyone is? Oh, that's it, isn't it? That's what they told anyone who didn't need to know that time travel is a thing that is possible and Cap got really old by going back and living all the years he was frozen? Because that's the only way any of this makes sense. "That ass did not deserve to die a virgin," she exclaims, hiccupping a couple times. Bruce sighs and says he wasn't a virgin. He lost his virginity to a girl in 1943 on USO tour. Jen drops the drunk act immediately and hisses "I KNEW IT! CAPTAIN AMERICA FU-" and we smash to the Georgia Film Office card.

Emilio: He's also been known to take out the trash occasionally.
Diandra: I'm still alarmed by whatever you both think that's a euphemism for.

Chrissy: So as a recently outed Asexual who has written, what, a million (?) words of pretty guys having sex with each other...what do you think about her obvious obsession with Steve's sex life?
Diandra: I mean...yes, it's weird. But I'm pretty sure people talked about how Jen's horniness is actually totally normal and us asexuals are the real weirdos. What I am less certain about the normalcy of is that, like you said, I can totally write about people I don't know but find attractive having sex with each other, but I would be weirded out if one of my friends decided to talk about their sex life. Like...nobody wants to hear about their parents or grandparents or adult children having sex, but for me that extends beyond family.
Chrissy: Well, that explains why you were weirded out when I tried to help with the details of a BDSM fic by relating personal experience.
Diandra: Yes, thank you for reminding me of that. That's great. What I'm saying is...I don't know why I can write and read gay porn without problem, but the thought of actually participating in any sort of sexual act is repulsive, but that's what makes me certain I am somewhere on the asexual spectrum. And when I say that I only realized this label applied when someone pointed out that the Kinsey scale can apply to bisexuals and asexuals, I mean that I am fully aware I am attracted to men. Lesbian porn does jack shit for me. Straight porn sort of does. Gay porn DEFINITELY does. So I'm a heteroromantic sex repulsed asexual maybe. I don't know.
Emilio: You're basically Daniela in "Sense8".
Diandra: I have no idea what those words mean.
Emilio: I'm sure you want to get to the next episode, so I'll explain later, but trust me. You are.

Episode 2: Superhuman Law

So after a brief recap of the last episode, we start with...a news anchor describing what happened in that last scene there while explaining who Jameela is supposed to be. Someone tried to claim she was the bad guy when this show started, but that's an oversimplification. She's just...one of many people with superpowers in this universe. Her name is Titania and she could use that whole speech about power and responsibility from Bruce because she's obviously not interested in using her powers for ANYTHING good. In this particular case she was just trying to avoid a speeding ticket or something and created a whole bunch of destruction. This is exactly the sort of bullshit that led to the Civil War in the comics. But everyone is lighting on the fact that she was stopped by a new superhero, who is dubbed in an interview with one of the witness jurors as She-Hulk.

Cut to Jen going to a bar and complaining to Nikki that that can't POSSIBLY be what they're actually calling her. Nikki just shrugs and says she should "give them what they want." Which apparently includes arriving in Hulk form. She goes along with it, but is still grumbling that it's a STUPID name that she hopes doesn't stick because "I can't even exist without being a derivative of the Hulk?" Nope. Nikki thinks "Hulk" was always a stupid name, so whatever. The other lawyer who was criticizing her earlier sidles up to whine that she only outed herself as a super to "drum up publicity" and this totally smells like nepotism. Then he excuses himself to go talk to a "hot chick", for whom he uses the pronoun "it" in a blatant effort to objectify her.

Chrissy: So how much of that do we want to address?
Diandra: [deep breath] I'm trying this new thing called pacing myself. We'll get to this later, I'm sure.

Nikki returns with a couple free drinks they were gifted because Jen is a superhero.

Chrissy: Good thing that bar is on the other side of the country or Stephen would absolutely be abusing that.
Diandra: And we're back to the Doctor Strange is an alcoholic head canon. Great.
Chrissy: We never left.

Jen says no, she didn't put herself in major debt going to law school just to become a vigilante. "That is for billionaires and narcissists and adult orphans for some reason."

Chrissy: You're literally just describing Tony.

Nikki says she could be an Avenger. Jen points out that the Avengers don't offer a healthcare plan with maternity leave or a pension. Or like...a salary at all, probably.

Their boss comes over and says he needs to talk to Jen, but he'd like to...you know...actually talk to Jen and not this big green Hulk. She shrinks down and the alcohol she just casually slugged goes immediately to her head and sends her crashing to the floor.

Emilio: So either she's a lightweight or we're admitting that Doctor Strange should totally have been drunk during that fight with Gargantos because I think she just drank less than he did at Christine's wedding.
Diandra: Yeah, that...that tracks.

She peels herself back up and says she's fine, smiling dopily at him while he says she didn't win that last case because GLK and H declared a mistrial after that whole superhero debacle. Apparently the argument went something like 'the jury is biased because she saved them from a rampaging lunatic.' She objects to him using the name She-Hulk, but admits she doesn't have a better name for her alter ego yet. But she asks if she was supposed to just let Titania throw that desk at them. Boss says no, she definitely did the right thing...morally. It just majorly screwed up their case and he's going to have to fire her because she's too much of a liability. It takes a minute for this to soak in to her alcohol steeped brain and she yelps into the title card, which switches from "attorney at law" to "attorney for hire".

We're briefly at what is apparently Jen's house. She's crashed on the bed when Bruce calls to check in. And then we montage through her getting rejected from jobs for the liability thing, except they phrase it as things like "distraction" and "sideshow" which I'm pretty sure was the reasoning used to keep women out of the courtroom for a LONG time, but anyhow. Back to the house, Nikki tries to help her find a job but she's looking up totally alternative plans like...becoming a mascot in a Swiss village? Oh, honey. She picks up her phone and we see that her background screen is a picture of Steve Roger's butt in uniform.

Diandra: Okay, that HAS to be weird, right?
Chrissy: .............are you asking me? Do you want to know what my phone screen is right now?
Diandra: No, never mind. Bad example.
Emilio: Should we point out that sticker you have on your laptop with an artist picture of Batman and Superman kissing?
Diandra: [heavy sigh]
Emilio: Because if we're going to talk about that I'd like to resubmit my argument that you should recap those movies.
Diandra: NO.

She picks up the phone because her mother just texted that they are having a family dinner. She groans at the timing and begs Nikki to come with her so she has a human shield. Or someone to talk to. Not really sure what she's hoping for there. Nikki can't because she has a date, so Jen shows up at her parents house alone with a pie. Her parents are Larry Appleton and...actually, I have no idea who her mother is.

Chrissy: Really revealing what sort of shows you watch there.
Diandra: Well, I had to look up Mark's character's name because pretty much all I remember about that show is Balki.
Emilio: Just like all anyone knows of "Family Matters" is Urkel.
Diandra: Exactly.

Mom immediately makes a comment about the sugar in pie being bad for Jen's waistline, like...ugh. I could probably write a whole dissertation on fatphobia and our cultural obsession with women's bodies and What They Should Look Like. Dad assures her that she doesn't have to worry about anyone bringing up her job awkwardly because he already told them what happened so they wouldn't. About two seconds later, she enters the dining room and some idiot named Ched blurts "you got fired" like he heard dad say they should DEFINITELY bring it up. Dad snaps at him that she feels bad enough. She just shrugs. Ched segues this to an announcement that Best Buy gave him a promotion.

Mom says she gave Jen's number to this kid at the store who she was chatting with for...some reason...who said he wants to be a superhero and she thought Jen could mentor or something. Jen begs her to stop giving her number to strangers. Dad wants to act as mouthpiece for the nerds for a minute and ask what happens to all the arrows Hawkeye shoots. Does somebody collect them, or...

Chrissy: Pretty sure we had a show that covered that.
Diandra: I think we established that the timeline is unclear here, so that might not have happened yet, but even if it did...how would they know?

Everyone keeps prattling about nonsense while she gapes like 'oh, god, why couldn't I get out of this?' Until dad's voice says he needs her to help with a couple things before she leaves.

Out in the garage he admits he just said that to get her away from the others and ask how she's really doing. She says she's "okay with not being okay" which is a great answer, actually, but not one any doctor in any field will accept. She says it sucks that this all got revealed the way it did because she'd kinda hoped she could keep it a secret indefinitely but she just COULDN'T let those people get hurt and now it feels like she's being punished for doing the right thing because she was basically fired for saving those people and she can't get another job now. Dad finally cuts in that she didn't tell him she was fired for THAT. Anyway, he reminds her that she isn't the first Hulk the family has had to deal with. Oh, did you deal with the other one? When?

Chrissy: I believe we already established that in this case the answer to that is always "somewhere between movies".

He points out that this is actually less of a big deal because it's not like she destroyed a city. Like that one guy. Or that other guy. Or all the guys put together. Yes, it was a thing she understandably dreaded, but she survived it.

Chrissy: Which is good because if anybody had died we might have had to do the whole Civil War thing all over again and the majority of the people involved with that are dead now.
Diandra: You know, there actually was a second Civil War in the comics.
Chrissy: Of course there was.
Emilio: I'd settle for redoing the first one right.
Diandra: I don't think there ever was a chance of them being able to do the comics justice on that one. Not without doing several "Infinity War" level movies and probably driving Marvel right back into bankruptcy.

So Jen goes back to that bar sometime later, where she is met by the opposing lawyer in that trial that went sideways. He buys her a drink and says he'd like to offer her a job. Because she proved to be a pretty good lawyer right up until she hulked out and gave him the ticket to declaring the whole thing a mistrial. He was impressed and he thinks she could head a whole new department he's decided there might be a need for. He doesn't say what it is before she accepts because she is that hard up. She fumbles a little as she realizes she made that too easy and says she has a condition that she needs to be able to hire her own para. He doesn't give a shit who she wants to work as her para, so...cool.

She gets to the job the first day and he greets her before expositing that more and more "superhumans" are crawling out of the woodwork every day so they are starting a Superhuman Law Division, which...um...is why he needs her to be She Hulk, not Jen. Yeah. Really should have asked a couple follow up questions before agreeing to this.

Chrissy: Yeah, but life is more fun with a certain amount of mystery.
Diandra: Okay, you're not ACTUALLY Jen here.
Chrissy: Aren't I? Are you sure?

He waits for her to Hulk before escorting her to her office, past some startled staff people. Jen tunes him out in favor of talking to the camera about how this SUCKS because she is totally qualified for the job but it turns out they only hired her because they needed an "enhanced" person to run the division and everyone is going to assume that was her only qualification. I mean...at least it's somewhat valid and not 'the boss drops his teeth whenever she wears a low cut blouse and is at least hoping she will fuck him one day'?

Chrissy: Nepotism is also a thing, D.
Diandra: Yeah, so is 'we were flagged for not having enough diversity so we decided we could loosen qualifications just so we could check some boxes even though it meant letting in people from a completely different department.'
Chrissy: ..........and what was that incredibly specific rant about?
Diandra: The AMPAS, I think. Possibly the Hollywood Foreign Press. I just realized how bad that probably sounds, but in their overcompensating for being dominated by white guys for decades they seem to have hired a whole bunch of people who don't even work in the fields they're asked to judge. Which I suppose would only apply here if she was hired to run a hospital or something way outside of her qualifications JUST because she is enhanced and they needed representation and I'll stop talking because I think I've wandered from the point.
Emilio: Like, five minutes ago, yes.
Diandra: Sorry.

Anyway, to go back to that discussion of how clothing works for Hulks...because we can't have women just ripping out of their clothing like we can men, her suit is totally still fitting her with just shortened arms and legs and she's walking around barefoot because she hasn't had to figure out size twenty shoes or something yet.

Chrissy: Yeah, we want our women to be so scantily clad that they might as WELL be naked. Not ACTUALLY naked.

Boss man (I guess his name is Holliway?) asks what Jen thinks about whatever he just said, highlighting the fact that she wasn't listening. She bullshits that she's "agnostic" about it. He thinks that's "interesting" and "unprecedented" and Jen hisses at the camera that she's going to have to worry about THAT for the rest of the year now.

Holliway leaves her at an enormous corner office where Nikki is already standing at the desk. Nikki asks why she's in Hulk form. Jen shakes off her shock at the sight of the office to say that this is the only reason she was hired, apparently. Nikki shrugs like hey, look at this awesome office. Isn't it worth whoring yourself out just a little? Jen is stuck on the fact that she needs a whole She Hulk wardrobe just so she can work. Nikki notes that they're paying her enough that she can afford that, so...lay back and think of Vera Wang or something.

Chrissy: You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you?
Diandra: Pfffttt. Yeah, I know nothing about clothes. Or shoes. And I'm pretty sure I own exactly two pieces of jewelry that cost more than a meal at Applebee's.

A guy tentatively sticks his head in to present Jen with a welcome basket and tell her he will be working in her division too. I think he says his name is Paul, but the closed captioner claims it's "Pug". He takes a weird moment to point out the map he included in the basket that highlights "the best bathroom for pooping."

Chrissy: You installed cameras in the toilets didn't you? Pervert.
Diandra: No, despite the similarities, we aren't quite in "The Boys" territory here yet.

Jen goes to meet with Holliway again, who tells her her first case will be a parole hearing for Emil Blonsky, AKA Abomination, who has been in an ultra-max prison since the movie everyone tried to ignore because Bruce had a different face. Jen stutters and says she KNOWS who Blonsky is. But we need to remind the audience, so we'll come back to this. Holliway says there's a lot of controversy surrounding his possible release. The case is high profile and high publicity generating enough that GLK and H are offering to do it pro bono. Jen says she can't do this because the fact that he tried to murder her cousin creates a conflict of interest. Holliway brushes that aside because Blonsky knew who they were hiring when he signed a waiver and asked SPECIFICALLY for her to defend him. Jen splutters that she would really rather take ANY OTHER CASE but this one. Holliway says she can either take it or quit, but allows that she should at least meet with Blonsky before she decides.

Jen goes directly to the prison, apparently, where a guard tells her superpowers are NOT allowed inside. She deHulks and follows a guard who looks kind of like Denzel Washington's kid to a cell, where he warns her NOT to step over a yellow line or touch the glass and they still can't guarantee something bad won't happen, so. She signs a paper stating she understands and accepts these conditions and he asks who they should notify in case she is injured or killed. "That bad, huh," she tries to joke. She asks if he's going to threaten to eat her with some fava beans and chianti but the guard is not amused.

Emilio: Oh, look. We're back to questioning how other things actors in the MCU have done can exist in the MCU.
Chrissy: I believe the last time this came up we agreed that everyone will be in the Marvelverse eventually, so it's best just to ignore it.
Diandra: Although Jen of all people would totally point out the weird resemblance Hannibal Lecter has to Odin. And probably lust after the Human Torch because he could be Cap's twin.

Jen walks into the room with a glass cell (because of course it is) and Tim Roth squints at her, greets her with "Namaste" and slouches in a chair in the middle of the cell. She notes that he isn't what she was expecting and absently steps over the yellow line, setting off some loud alarms. She backs away and tries to brush that off. Emil says yeah...he doesn't do the whole supervillain thing anymore because he went through something like the same process Bruce did (also off camera and between movies). Jen asks if he "can't" or "won't" turn into Abomination then. He says he chooses not to. He gives his briefly dropped bio again: Russian born, British raised, military yadda yadda, on loan to the Americans and oh, he has several "soulmates" now thanks to the prison pen pal program and they are inspiring him to want to start over in life.

He addresses the "elephant in the room": the fact that they both remember he tried to kill Bruce. He says it wasn't personal. He was just acting under orders from her government. She says those orders didn't cover the destructive rampage through Harlem. He blames that on the super soldier serum they gave him. She's like 'wait a minute...what? Your actions were all done while under the influence of a highly experimental drug?' He babbles that he was a soldier, hired to take out a threat and he thought he was the good guy. And now he's in prison and the "threat" is one of the heroes who saved the universe. Jen says okaaaaay, but...the parole board needs to hear about him feeling remorse for what he did if they're going to let him out. He picks up a notepad on which he claims he has written Haikus to each of his victims and Jen visibly wills her soul to leave her body as she says he really doesn't need to read any of them. He starts to anyway, so she interrupts to advise that he just speak from the heart "instead of trying to gauge what you think they might want to hear." He says this IS from the heart and he really just wants to move on now and forget the entire thing.

Chrissy: You and a lot of other people, apparently.
Diandra: Yes, I just want to PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENED, just like that series with the people on the moon or that movie about the anthropomorphic duck.

Jen agrees to consider it.

She does this by going home, poring over whatever casefile has already been put together and calling Bruce. She tells him she got a new job, but it has the condition of her first client being the lunatic who turned himself into some sort of lizard hulk and tried to kill him. She babbles that she couldn't do it without talking to him and she knows he doesn't hold grudges and he's always talking about people deserving second chances and Blonsky seems like he's being genuine about being reformed but she can totally not take it if he isn't comfortable. He tries to cut in at least a half dozen times as she's rambling, then just sighs and says she's obviously talking herself into taking the job and he's happy for her. Also, Emil wrote him a letter a while back that included a haiku and he really thinks they can bury the hatchet. "That fight was so many years ago. I'm a completely different person now. Literally." Jen looks at the camera and says "ha" for anybody who didn't get that. She asks if he's really okay with this. He says yes, but is she okay with this whole going public thing? What did they call her? She says She Hulk and he laughs and says he loves it, actually. She asks if he'll come to LA any time soon and he says he has "some things" he needs to take care of first and puts his feet up on the desk that turns out to be located inside a space ship flying who the fuck knows where because WHEN IS THIS? Is this going to be covered by "Secret Invasion" or is it just another whole thing he does between installments?

When the call drops because the magic making it even possible runs out, I guess, she calls Holliway to accept the job and assure him that all personal conflict has been resolved and she is absolutely confident she will win the case. Holliway tells her she might want to turn on the news before he hangs up. She does and because news reports on television don't start until a character is watching, the reporter is just getting to the story about footage being leaked of Abomination - who escaped from prison apparently - participating in an underground fight club. The footage behind her is, of course, the scene of him fighting Wong in "Shang-Chi", so here's your time marker.

Chrissy: Except we're still not sure where this was relative to anything BUT "Shang-Chi".
Emilio: Not even that because the end credit scene there had Bruce with his arm in a sling.
Diandra: Yes, yet another example of timeline inconsistency that I'm sure the people who were already determined to hate this show were quick to point out despite overlooking every other one in the Infinity Saga.

And this time the mid credit scene is just Jen helping out at her parent's house, this time in Hulk form. Holding up a car while Ched the idiot changes a tire. Mounting a tv, which Ched righly notes he could have done. Or Jen could have done without Hulking. Carrying several five gallon bottles of water.

Chrissy: Anyone seen "Encanto"?
Diandra: Yes. I can see the parallel. Do NOT start singing.

Episode 3: The People VS Emil Blonsky (or: The Wong Stuff)

We'll just skip the previouslies here.

Jen marches right back into the supermax prison and demands to know why Emil failed to tell her he may have majorly violated his parole by breaking out of prison and there is RECORDING of him doing it. Also, obviously he was lying when he said he doesn't turn into the Abomination anymore. Emil reminds her that he worded it as he CHOOSES not to, but in this particular case he made an exception. She says well, that loophole involved committing a new crime and fucking his chances of parole. He argues that he was FORCED to do it by the Sorcerer Supreme and hey, it must count for something that he voluntarily returned to his cell, right?

Snap to Nikki filling Jen in over the phone about who the hell this sorcerer guy "Wong" is.

Chrissy: Although you really should know already because he's in everything now.
Diandra: [grumbling]
Chrissy: Yes, we are all aware of your jealousy issues, Stephen.

We get a close up of Nikki's phone, where she's reading what is probably Wong's LinkedIn page. According to his employment history, before he was the librarian in Kamar Taj, he was...a Target sales associate. Also in Kamar Taj.

Emilio: It gave him a lot of experience dealing with difficult people.

Jen asks if she can get a hold of him. Nikki says she sent him a "thirst trap" picture of herself with a bunch of books. Um...what?

Jen says they NEED to talk to him because he might have ruined her first case. Then she takes her hands off the wheel of the car she's driving so she can turn fully to the camera and acknowledge that the audience is probably excited to see Wong now, but she just wants to make sure they don't expect a big cameo every week now. Even though all three episodes so far have had another big name from the franchise. This is her show, damnit.

To punctuate that, we go to the title card. For, like, a second.

Then we do the montage guaranteed to make the dudebros mad. Mostly because it's literally just holding up a mirror and showing the world how ridiculous they look. News reports about people questioning her qualifications, YouTube videos about Hulk being emasculated featuring comments like "no more female superheroes" and "why everything gotta be female now???" and "someone find a reason to cancel #She-Hulk". I mean...those are definitely real. Culled from the announcement that they were doing this show, probably. My favorite response when they announced that they were doing a show about this comics character from the 80s, by the way, is "what's next? Spider Woman?"

Chrissy: Uh...her name is Jessica, thanks.
Diandra: And she was in Age of Ultron, yeah.

In the continuing parade of self-awareness, one guy complains that they can't just make their OWN female superheroes and a lady shrugs and says she'd "smash" that.

Emilio: There are two kinds of people...

Jen goes back to the office in Hulk form with an enormous, ill fitting suit. Nikki is watching a news interview with the lawyer who put Emil away and Jen grumbles that she doesn't care what they're arguing now because due process says Emil deserves a hearing at least. Holliway calls her into his office and Nikki chases her, rambling about how the phone has been lighting up all day because she's famous and she NEEDS to respond somehow. Jen would prefer to focus on her actual job and not this crap, thanks.

Holliway is in a meeting with the asshole (Dennis) who accused her of using her superhero powers to gain cred. He immediately protests that he can't have HER on the case. Jen says she would like to know what it's about at least before refusing to do it, which she definitely will. A black lady Holliway identifies as Mallory Book, who is also in Jen's department, comes in and Dennis perks up and says he could definitely work with "a 10" who "could be my next fianc�e."

Chrissy: Aaaaaaaaand there goes all subtlety.
Diandra: Yeah, this guy's basically a cartoon character. Sadly not unrealistic though.

Mallory doesn't flinch. She just says she's happy to have nothing to do with whatever this is and backs out the door.

Holliway says ANYWAY, yeah, this guy says he is being defrauded by an ex girlfriend and he wants to sue. Dennis elaborates that he paid for her to do a photoshoot in Bali, bought her a car... The para (?) in the corner asks why he's engaging this specific division. Holliway says because she is a "shape shifting Light Elf from New Asgard." Dennis grumbles that he thought she was Megan Thee Stallion, who I was only vaguely aware existed before this show brought her to my attention. Just like I could probably name a Kardashian if pressed, but I wouldn't be able to pick her out of a crowd photo. For people like me, Jen identifies her as a multiple grammy winner and giggles that he really thought she would date HIM and need him to buy her a car. Dennis snots that this is WHY he didn't want Jen on the case.

Apparently sensing that the writers needed a new direction to this scene, a portal opens suddenly and Wong steps out behind Jen, saying he got her message. She stammers a thank you for providing this escape hatch and excuses herself, walking Wong back to her office.

Back in her office, Wong admits that he did, in fact, break Emil out of prison even though Emil really didn't want to go because he "required a worthy opponent" for part of his training to become Sorcerer Supreme. "And as Sorcerer Supreme I insist that he not be punished for my actions." He nods and gets up to leave like this is all she needed and she protests that SHE isn't the one punishing Emil. The parole board won't release him now that they've seen this video. Wong is like 'well, I'm not erasing everyone's memories AGAIN'. She's like 'what? Nobody asked you to. What do you mean AGAIN?'

Chrissy: Nothing. I didn't say anything. Don't tell Stephen I said that.

Wong offers to send Emil to the mirror dimension. Jen doesn't know what that is, but they're not doing it anyway. "Shadow dimension?" Wong offers. She takes a breath and says she just needs him to show up at the hearing to explain it to the board like he just did for her. He agrees to "reserve sorcery for strategy b" and taps his nose like he's secretly signaling the umpire. She asks him not to do that.

Chrissy: Ugh. How is Stephen able to get away with this shit?
Diandra: Because I'm cuter.
Emilio: More like you are a pushover when it comes to him. He makes puppy eyes at you and you let him do whatever he wants.
Diandra: Like I said...cute.
Chrissy: Right. But in my defense...have you gotten a look at his ass?
Emilio: Yes. The whole world has seen his ass at this point.
Diandra: Hey!

RIP my Google image search history

So the para, whose name apparently really is "Pug", is asking Dennis for details of his case. Dennis says he spent $175,000 on the imposter, which Pug claims is "a whole house in parts of the country." Yeah, the shitty parts. Trust me. I was house hunting recently and I saw homes for more than that that had no appliances or floor coverings and in some places were missing whole chunks of walls. I'm pretty sure the only one I saw that was LESS than that had an apologetic note that they couldn't provide more than the one picture where THE ENTIRE SIDE OF THE HOUSE WAS MISSING because it was deemed unsafe for the realtor to enter.

Pug assures him he'll get to work on it and opens a video of the Light Elf getting into a fight with someone at a party disguised as Megan while Dennis leaves. Dennis comes back in about three seconds though and says he wants to drop the case because he's pretty sure deep down he knew it wasn't really Megan Thee Stallion and he just doing this because he's embarrassed he got caught. He makes noise about learning his lesson and "it's just money." Pug blinks at him, confused until his phone rings and he hears Dennis complaining about somebody towing his truck. He yells for security and then we cut to outside his office where "he" smarms at a couple women about how much he loves being a chauvinistic prick before turning into the Light Elf we saw for about three seconds on the video and running away.

Jen tries to slip past some reporters outside the prison, but one of them recognizes her and asks about the "rumor" that she was "rejected by the Avengers". Sigh.

Inside, Emil's cell drops into the room where the parole board is convened. A bunch of women who look like they wandered off the nearest hippie commune gather on the other side of a window and Jen identifies them as those "soulmates" Emil mentioned. Emil asks where Wong is. Jen doesn't know, but thinks it's weird that a guy who doesn't have to worry about commute time is late.

Chrissy: Sorry, Stephen sets the bar kind of high for unnecessarily dramatic entrances. I'm just trying to keep up.

One of the board members starts by expositing that they are considering parole now that Emil has completed the minimum amount of his sentence, but in light of that video...let's just get this over with, shall we? Jen says she has a witness who can clear Emil of any charges regarding that, but...uh...maybe Emil should give a statement first. Emil blinks at her. A sympathetic lady on the board goes with it and asks if Emil feels he's been rehabilitated. Emil stutters that he feels great "remorse" and "shame", so...yes? He's been really focused on redeeming himself anyway and believes he has changed. The guy who thought they would get this over with quickly sighs and asks if he even has a place to live were they to release him now. Jen says he has a whole plot of land, actually. Lady asks if he's going to farm. Jen says uh...no...he's going to open a "meditation retreat" with those hippie chicks waving behind the glass over there.

Emilio: Oh, yeah. That's not at all alarming.

The lady asks with what money he's going to fund that business. Jen stutters that he has the financial support of all seven of those...uh...women he's in a...committed...relationship with.

Chrissy: Is this plot of land in Utah, by any chance?

Emil jumps in to recite all the women's names and declare they are all his "better eighths." He blows kisses at them and they wave and smile like lunatics. Jen clenches her teeth and says they don't need to go any further into THAT. She asks if the board has any other questions and they all raise their hands like schoolchildren.

We skip right to another witness, probably the next one down Jen's list of four, a counselor, who says Emil started a reading program that has helped illiterate prisoners learn to read. The next witness is, according to her list, the librarian, who talks about how he does yoga and meditation with the other prisoners. Uh...did they accidentally switch scripts? Or names? The prison guard sobs about how Emil saved him from a bad marriage. We go back through them while they make final ridiculous statements. The "counselor" says the library is now more than "just a quiet place to shiv someone". The "librarian" says the prisoners are making toilet kombucha instead of the usual toilet wine. And the security guard just cries some more and says "I release you Linda." "Proud of you, Carl," Emil says to this last one, who wheezes that he loves Emil.

After this little comedy routine, the guy on the panel asks if Jen is done because they still haven't addressed Emil's escape. He plays the video of the fight with Wong on the glass of Emil's cell. Jen is like 'yes, and the witness involved will explain if he EVER SHOWS UP.' A portal opens and Wong jumps through from what looks like Kamar Taj, landing right in front of the microphone. He apologizes, but his excuse is just that he "lost track of time."

Chrissy: We should make this quick because Stephen gets really cranky if I leave him like...uh...that for too long.
Diandra: Are you really going to make us play 'guess what headcanon I've got going right now'?
Chrissy: Apparently not or you wouldn't be speaking at all right now.
Diandra: ...............[sigh]

Jen sighs with relief and presents Wong to the board as the reason Emil left the prison briefly and they will understand once they hear what he has to say.

But first we're going to check in on the other case for...reasons. The Light Elf's lawyer demands all charges be dropped seeing as "Runa" is the daughter of an Elfin diplomat to Asgard. The judge notes that diplomatic immunity only applies in the place where the diplomat is posted and New Asgard is in Norway. Runa tries to use the "Asgard is not a place" loophole to claim that wherever the PEOPLE are is... The judge cuts off this stupid argument to say that Thor's inspirational speeches don't hold sway in a court of law. Pug says it's a simple case of fraud and Runa is a scam artist and his client should be compensated for the financial and emotional damage regardless of how much of a raging asshole he is. Except for that last part, obviously. He doesn't say that out loud. Runa's lawyer argues that they were in a consensual relationship involving role play. Furthermore, anyone who isn't a raging moron would have known she wasn't really Megan Thee Stallion, so he had to have been playing along with the fantasy until it "no longer suited him." Pug argues that a lovesick man is absolutely an idiot who would believe it really was someone who would never date him outside of the fantasy world conjured by his incel brain. Or words to that effect. The judge finds it hard to believe anyone would be this gullible, so they will go to trial where "Mr. Pugliese" (oh, that explains the name) will have to prove that he is. He leaves the courtroom, then seems to come right back in the manner exactly like Dennis did the law office earlier to announce that he received new information that changes his ruling. The lawyer snaps that impersonating a judge is ILLEGAL and KNOCK IT OFF RUNA.

Emilio: Really making the argument that entire subspecies of gods are tricksters, not just Loki.
Diandra: Yeah.

Back with the A plot. Wong agrees that he gave Emil no choice but to leave his cell, but he ABSOLUTELY had a choice to return and he refused asylum at Kamar Taj. He insisted he needed to pay his debt to society and complete his sentence, because he's that kind of upstanding guy. Uh-huh. Jen concludes that a criminal wouldn't leave when forced and insist on returning, so clearly he is reformed and trying to do the right thing. The skeptic says even if that's true of Emil, isn't he a thoughtless raging monster when he becomes Abomination? Emil says he can address this one and takes his shoes off before hulking out over Jen's protests. Chaos erupts. A dozen guards rush in and Wong assures them they won't need to use force. Abomination carefully puts his shoes on the floor in front of him, tells the board he's in full control like a magician performing an act, and puts a blanket over his shoulders so he isn't naked when he shrinks back down. Because again, only the female shapeshifters have clothing that works by magic so we don't have to contend with their nudity.

Jen scrambles to get control of this narrative again and says this actually proves that Emil could have escaped any time he wanted to, but didn't. And he has spent the years since The Incident wrangling his powers under control like her cousin and national hero Avenger Bruce so he can reenter society without risking a relapse. The lady says they will adjourn so they can deliberate their decision. The skeptic turns to Wong, who he notes just admitted to committing a crime by helping a prisoner escape. Wong is like 'aaaaaaaand, I'm done here' and portals out. Jen awkwardly straightens the microphone he knocked over like 'yeah, we were kind of hoping you wouldn't notice that.'

Chrissy: Trust me, you do NOT want to arrest me and make Stephen the Sorcerer Supreme by default. He would bumble us right into an interdimensional war within hours. And speaking of Stephen, I'm sure he's grateful I kept that as short as possible because that harness - excuse me, "pilates machine" - really chafes.
Diandra: ............Dormamu.
Chrissy: Oh, good, you remember the safeword. Too bad nobody can hear you in the dungeon under the sanctum.
Diandra: Ugh, WHY do I keep inviting you to do these recaps?
Chrissy: [points at Emilio giggling so hard he is nearly falling out of his chair] That's why.

Jen is met by reporters outside, who ask one legitimate question and two ridiculous ones. How will she handle it when Emil goes on the rampage again after he's released? Is she one of his lovers/groupies? Did she get her powers from a failed mafia hit?

We skip ahead to her at the bar with Nikki later, grumbling about how the protesters around the prison had written "monster defending a monster" on her car. Nikki suggests she could make it all better by giving an interview. Jen is hoping to go back to being a "normal anonymous lawyer" when the case is over. Uh...no. This is what Bruce was trying to tell you. Nikki says as much before checking her phone and yelping about a headline wherein someone has decided Jen must be having Abomination's baby. Jen snarks "that's who the father is?" Pug joins them at the table and Nikki slides a drink toward him because he clearly needs it. Jen leans toward the camera to note that they are "connecting the A and B story." Pug asks how they managed to work with that guy for so long. Nikki says she fantasized about all the myriad ways she could kill him. Which Jen notes he DEFINITELY didn't pick up on because he thought Nikki had a huge crush on him. He is "terminally deluded". Yeah, that's...pretty typical. I once had a guy become CONVINCED that what I thought was obvious annoyance masked by forced pleasantries was flirting. Pug gets a metaphorical lightbulb and asks if she could say that under oath for him.

Courtroom. Dennis whines that he gave Pug a whole list of "my boys" only for him to decide to call HER while Jen swears in on the witness stand. Pug hisses at him to just trust him. He starts the questions by asking Jen to describe her relationship to his client. Jen says they worked at the DA's office together for years and she spent a lot of time working cases with him. Pug asks if he ever shared details of his dating life. Jen says yes, "prolifically and unprompted." Pug asks how she would describe him in that context. Jen says "self-absorbed, chauvinistic, conceited. He once described himself as a New York 10 and an LA 11." Runa snorts. She continues about how he used to call his office the Dennisphere when Dennis tries to object for "relevance." The judge is like 'hey, fun fact...objecting is a thing you're supposed to leave up to your lawyer, who is the one asking the questions that you're objecting to of YOUR WITNESS. Sit down, Sparky.' That being said...he asks Pug to get to the point. Pug says the argument is that a man of "reasonable intelligence" would not have thought he was actually dating Megan Thee Stallion, but does Jen think HE would actually believe that? Jen says yes, absolutely. He has a sense of entitlement that borders on pathological and he is delusional and egotistical enough to believe he really was dating Megan Thee Stallion.

Chrissy: I wonder if the original script had blanks like "name of whatever famous person will agree to do this goes here".
Diandra: I'm sure.

So the judge rules in favor of Dennis, who gets the $175,000 he spent because he is a moron. Runa gets 60 days in jail for impersonating a judge. Because we're not adding insult to injury by punishing her any further JUST for taking advantage of the yutz. The actual Megan Thee Stallion (apparently. Again, I have no idea who she is) chortles from the viewing area that that's what she GETS for imitating her.

Outside the courtroom, Pug thanks Jen, who is like 'no, really, I should be thanking you for that.' Dennis whines that Runa will only get a slap on the wrist and wishes there was a way to take away her powers.

Emilio: Anybody have a number for the TVA?

Jen looks at the camera and asks if that slimy dolt just gave her an idea for her own case. "That will stay between us."

Back to the prison. Everyone has gathered again and the Skeptic announces their decision. Emil is released on condition that he never turn himself into the Abomination again, which they will ensure by making him wear an inhibitor. If he violates these conditions at any point, he goes right back in. Emil is okay with this and thanks Jen, saying he is indebted to her now. She says she'll be happy with him just staying out of the news. "I don't wanna read any more stories about either of us."

Chrissy: And that includes the fanfiction some weirdos wrote about how I got pregnant.

Emil says actually...they're going to write stories about her no matter what she does now. It would be better if she went along with it and took some control of the narrative than just sit back and complain.

So Jen goes on a news program for an interview. The anchor introduces her as She Hulk, which she immediately corrects with her actual name so this is already going well. The anchor is like 'uh huh...so tell us how you came up with that superhero name.' Jen says she didn't, some rando on the news did, but since it stuck she's just going to have to live with it now, apparently. The anchor says they have to take a break and when they come back she will be sharing diet and exercise secrets. We don't see Jen's face, but we can imagine the horrified look as she says "I'm sorry...what?"

Jen returns home and some guys try to jump her as she's walking down a dark alley. She Hulks out and tosses the guy who grabbed her from behind off. A couple more guys come out with weapons that seem to be surrounded by some sort of alien tech and one sneers that she better be able to back up those powers she struts around. She's like 'I what now?' They start waving their weapons around, trying to look intimidating, and she just frowns and asks if they robbed an Asgardian construction worker. The talker says yeah, actually. They fight...sort of...and one looks like he tries to inject her with something before she throws him off. They all retreat back to the car and the talker asks if he got "it". He says no, once she hulked, he couldn't pierce her skin. He holds up the syringe with a bent needle. The talker grumbles that the "boss" is not going to be happy with them.

Mid credits we get the scene that every dudebro became fixated on in their ranting about how unforgivably bad this show is in their entirely unbiased and worthy opinions. Jen meets Megan Thee Stallion in her office to sign her on as a client. To celebrate, they dance around the office to hip hop music, which involves twerking. Megan says Jen is WAY more fun than her last lawyer. "I will kill for you, Megan Thee Stallion," Jen says earnestly. Megan is like 'oooooookay, take that down a couple notches and we're good.'

Emilio: To be fair, there were a few problems with that episode.
Diandra: Yes. None of which are ever cited in the dudebros' spittle flecked arguments. You want to argue that the whole B plot had some questionable writing and cartoonish characterizations? Okay. But that doesn't make the ENTIRE SERIES unforgivably, unwatchably bad. And I'm not even sure that's the argument any of them are actually making because as I said, they are so fixated on those few seconds of twerking that I suspect they didn't even watch the rest of the episode.
Chrissy: I'm pretty sure there's a trend wherein trolls light on something to complain about despite none of them even having seen whatever it is they're supposedly angry about.
Diandra: Probably. Like all the parents who objected to The Golden Compass being in their kids' school library despite not knowing what the book was even about because their little pearl clutching sticks up their asses club claimed it was about killing God or some bullshit since it was written by an atheist.
Emilio: [pats Diandra on the back] There. Did you get that out of your system?
Diandra: Sorry. Let's just...go to the next episode. I'm sure we'll come back to this at least a couple more times.

Episode 4: Is This Not Real Magic?

We begin this one with a shitty magician doing an act on stage, which you would think nobody would bother with anymore in this universe where people can perform actual magic. And yeah, the audience is so unimpressed some of them are actually yawning. So he calls up a volunteer, a ditzy woman who totters up on stage with a full martini and introduces herself as "Madisynn with two ns, one y, but it's not where you think!" Get used to that line, you'll hear it at least two more times. The magician - Donny Blaze, apparently - produces some roses for her to juggle along with the martini. Then he is prompted by his friend Discount Morgan Freeman from the wings to "do the thing". He pulls out a sling ring and mutters "please please please" while making the portal opening gesture. There's a couple aborted sparking attempts before a portal opens behind Madisynn.

Chrissy: So literally anyone can do that now?
Diandra: Yeah, I'm sure Stephen is thrilled about this.

The audience actually applauds and Madisynn looks at the scene behind her and Valley Girls an "ew".

We go to Kathmandu (actually Kamar Taj), where Wong is settling in in front of a TV playing the opening theme of "The Sopranos" when Madisynn drops practically in his lap and casually drops an apparently still beating bloody heart on the floor. "What happened to all the goblins," she asks. Wong is like '........who the fuck are you and where did you come from?' She starts giving him her life history like the dingbat she is. He interrupts to ask if some cut rate magician sent her here. She says nah, he sent her to another dimension and she had to get help from a talking goat, who "helped me escape a lava pit in exchange for six drops of my blood."

Chrissy: So do you think the writers were competing for who could write the most ridiculous scenario here, or what?
Emilio: Clearly.
Diandra: I'm just alarmed by the implications for Doctor Strange 3 now.

Wong says he'll send her home if she can give him her address. She gets distracted when she sees the tv screen frozen with the identifying episode title and number and yelps "wait, this is the one where they kill Adriana! It was so sad!" She flops on the couch and he splutters that she just spoiled it for him because he hadn't seen it yet, then growls that Donny Blaze is going to PAY for this.

Chrissy: Always fun when the writers and directors who put moratoriums on spoilers whenever a movie drops decide to speak directly through characters.
Diandra: Yeah, but it's interesting that they chose a show that ended more than a decade ago. Like...there has to be a point at which it goes from spoiler to general knowledge. I wasn't bothered by the fact that I knew in advance when, exactly, Doctor Greene would die on "ER" because it was my own fault for watching it YEARS after the show was over.
Emilio: And since we're talking Marvel in particular here...a better example is probably whether or not you know about Iron Man dying.
Diandra: Yeah, if you got this far without knowing that, you've probably been on a deserted island or some remote village somewhere or in a coma. Anyway. I'm not unsympathetic because somebody spoiled the ending of "Knives Out" for me, like, hours before I saw it because it was still in theaters. THAT was a dick move. But at some point, you have to figure avoiding them is impossible.

After the title card, Jen notes that the fourth wall audience looks "happy", probably because Wong is back.

Chrissy: [opens her mouth]
Diandra: [braces]
Chrissy: Yeah, people are usually happy to see me.
Diandra: [slowly unclenching] That's...that's it?
Chrissy: [to Emilio] Didn't I already make a crack about how happy Stephen usually is to see me?
Emilio: I think so.

Jen says everyone LOVES Wong and his presence is "like giving the show Twitter armor for a week." Her dad comes in the door suddenly with a shovel in hand because he heard about those guys who jumped her in the alley I guess and thinks he can give her a better security system. With a shovel? Are you putting land mines in the front lawn?

Emilio: Why do I think that's something your dad would actually do?
Diandra: Yeah, maybe.

He lists the contents of the box in his other hand: new locks, cameras, security system and pepper spray. She notes that none of that requires a shovel and asks what that's for. "Digging holes," he says stonefaced. "Let's just leave it at that."

Emilio: That is DEFINITELY something your dad would do.

She says he doesn't need to do this. He says he can't just do NOTHING when four strange men attack his daughter.

Chrissy: Totally unrelated hypothetical question: where would a guy be able to dig four very large holes without being noticed?

She reminds him that she's a Hulk and she'll be fine. He asks what the police said. She mumbles and he realizes she never called the police. She says she was a prosecutor long enough to know those guys will never be caught. He asks what happens if they come back. She basically says she will give him a use for the shovel.

At work, Jen pulls up her schedule for the day and blows past all important actual work, mostly related to the cases in the last episode, going right to "finish dating profile." She drops a headshot of herself in normal Jen form and pats herself on the back for having finished something today. Nikki ambles in to announce that her TV interview is playing again and she should watch. Then she becomes distracted by the way that suit fits Jen's Hulk form and mutters that they need to find her new clothes. THEN Wong appears through a portal, saying he has a legal situation and he needs her. Jen gladly latches on to this plot development, going back to her desk. Wong says he's having trouble with a "magician", which he pauses to make sure she gets his contempt for that label from his tone and the air quotes he's making. Apparently Donny Blaze WAS a student at some point, which explains how he would have a ring and any clue how to use it, I guess. He was kicked out after he "summoned three kegs and his former fraternity brother Ky Dog to Kamar Taj." And now he's doing cheap magic shows in LA, but as the usual "human magic" doesn't work on an audience that is aware of the existence of actual magic, he's started using what little he learned from them in his shows. Sending audience members into other realms for shits and giggles with only rudimentary understanding of how interdimensional portals even work, so reckless endangerment basically. Both to people and the universe or reality in general. He needs to be made an example of to discourage any other unapproved idiots from trying to practice mystic arts.

Chrissy: Why does it sound like this is a thing that should have been part of the Accords?
Diandra: Yeah, all the shows and movies since "Civil War" have been able to get deeper into the nuance of it and demonstrate why both Steve and Tony were right.

Jen asks if Donny signed an NDA or anything. Wong says uh...no. She asks if there was any sort of contract at the beginning of training. Wong spins some crap about students pledging loyalty and servitude, but basically this is the problem we have with armed forces or police in this country. Certain groups join up specifically to get the training they have zero intention of using for anything good.

Chrissy: It's also an argument for the Mutant Registry existing, I think. Training and accountability?
Diandra: Correct, but that's basically the Good Guy With a Gun argument, so you can see how it doesn't ever work the way it should.

Jen asks if they get that "pledge" in writing. He says no, they answer to a higher power and abide by the "metaphysical laws of the spacetime continuum."

Emilio: Hence Stephen's crack about getting him a metaphysical ham on rye.
Diandra: Ooof. You're a walking encyclopedia.

Jen is like 'cool, but we have to try this in front of a judge of the American legal system, so...' She asks if he can at least leave his info with her this time. He hands her a blank "business card" that fills itself out right in front of her face, except it just says "Wong, Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts", which is unhelpful if she wants to actually get hold of him.

Chrissy: Just contact Stephen.
Diandra: I am NOT your personal secretary.
Chrissy: Be sure to use my full title when you ask for me. He loves that.
Diandra: Sometimes I really hate you.

Bar. Jen is working on both Wong's and Emil's cases and Nikki is impatient for her to get back to the dating profile. A creep comes over to ask if he can buy them drinks. Jen points out that they are working. He says he'll be at the bar "when" they change their minds. Jen mutters at his retreating back that it's guys like him that make the whole dating thing less than appealing. Yeah, see also Dennis. Nikki thinks there are plenty of non skeevy guys out there she could be dating and asks to see her dating app account. Jen hands her her phone, open to it and Nikki yelps that she's using her corporate head shot as her profile pic. She starts swiping the screen and says after doing that about 500 times "you'll get about a third of those as matches."

Chrissy: Really not selling this.

Jen whines that this is not helping. Nikki ignores her and suggests she should make a profile for She Hulk. Jen says no, she already has to play She Hulk while working so she's going to date as herself, thanks.

The next day, presumably, Jen and Wong go to the "Mystic Castle" to tell "Cornellius Willow" to cease and desist. Cornellius is apparently the Poor Man's Morgan Freeman, who is Donny's manager. They argue that nobody can OWN magic, which...the argument isn't that it is corporate property or something. You cannot make this argument to excuse impersonating a police officer. Donny taunts Wong that he's just scared he'll be better than him.

Chrissy: Excuse me for a minute while I consult my lawyer on the specifics of justifiable homicide.

Wong snots that as Sorcerer Supreme, he is above petty competition, but it should be noted that he is undeniably better at everything than Donny, so....pppppppbbbbbbbtttttttt.

Donny and PMMF demand he prove that. Wong starts conjuring something in his left hand and Jen stops him like 'THIS IS NOT HELPING'. She hands Donny the cease and desist, which he promptly makes "disappear". Jen notes that it is sticking out of PMMF's shirt. PMMF indignantly says it is NOT, while obviously stuffing it in Donny's shirt. Jen shrugs that she'll see them in court. Donny's phone dings with an alert from the dating app Jen is using because I guess they work when two people who both have the app are in close proximity? I've never used one of those things. I have no idea how they work. The closest I got to having an app that functioned like this was the COVID alert app that would alert you if you had been exposed. But since that required other people to a) report that they had COVID and b) give enough of a shit about people around them to also have the app on their phone, it never did anything but take up memory on my phone.

Jen goes on a date she found via the app. We catch up to them at a sports bar where he's telling her he has been banned from the entire city of Winnipeg and he hates LA because everyone is so fake. He's totally a New Yorker. She asks how long he lived in New York. Fourteen months. But he hated his job and quit to become an "entrepreneur". He's not sure what field specifically he's going to work in, but he'll find something. Because he's an entitled white guy who will have no trouble finding a job. Some women walk by and he blatantly checks them out. Then he asks what she does and completely ignores her answer, checking his phone, in case it wasn't painfully obvious what sort of slimeball he is. He grunts noncommittally like he's pretending to be paying attention while she talks. She says she runs the superhuman division of her firm because she has superpowers. Hulk powers, specifically. He keeps making "uh-huh" noises without looking up from his phone. The bill arrives and they both play chicken over who is going to pay. Then he takes his keys out, thanks her for paying and runs, telling someone on the phone that she's "a six, maybe" before he's even out of earshot.

Diandra: And I suppose he thinks he's a ten.
Chrissy: They always do.

Courtroom. The judge has a hard time understanding how magic tricks can be dangerous enough to qualify as "gross negligence". Unless she has some witnesses... Wong hisses "no" at Jen. She asks if he wants to win this case. He sighs heavily and takes out his sling ring, hesitating before reluctantly opening a portal. Madisynn stumbles through and yelps "WONGERS!" which I totally need to see Stephen taunt him about at some point in the future.

Chrissy: Try it and die.
Diandra: Nah, you love me too much.
Chrissy: You sure about that?

She toddles over and throws the arm not keeping her margarita from spilling around his neck. She asks if he is in court for some sort of traffic ticket and advises he claim he was texting 911 because they can't prosecute that. Jen says even if that WERE true, that's not what this is about, so if she could just go over to that witness box while Wong prays to whatever diety that'd be great.

The judge tells her she can't have that drink here, so she hands it to the bailiff, promises to tell the truth and flops into the chair. Jen asks her to state her name and she does in the same cutesy method she did earlier. Jen, through calming breaths and gritted teeth, asks her to just spell it out. That over with, she has Madisynn walk them through the night she participated in that magic show. She says sure "he handed me some roses that didn't smell like anything and then he pushed me into a fire land." Jen asks how she escaped this terrifying experience. Madisynn says she can't discuss the pact she made with that demon named Jake to avoid having all her loved ones' souls reaped. "I hate drama." Jen mutters at Wong that this might have been a mistake. Wong is like I TOLD YOU SO.

Chrissy: It's okay. I'm used to people ignoring me and doing stupid bullshit anyway. [glares at Diandra/Stephen]
Diandra: So that last forgetting spell didn't work then?
Emilio: Speaking of which...where are we at on the timeline? Has the Peter Parker thing happened yet?
Diandra: Pffffttttt. Who knows? Certainly not the writers.

Anyway, the demon opened a portal to "Wongers' house" and they became "besties" right away. Wong has his head in his hands and is probably regretting some life choices right now. Jen asks Madisynn to describe her emotional state during this whole "saga". Madisynn says it was fun at first. Then it was scary. Then it was fun again. "Then spooky but in a fun way." Donny's lawyer moves to dismiss charges based on that testimony because hey, it was all in good fun, right? Besides, magic cannot be copyrighted. Why are we trying this tack and not, say, arguing that Donny is basically saying you can get the guy who parks cars at the hospital to do a heart transplant? Or operating a vehicle without having even finished driver's ed? Because that's kind of the equivalent here, right? Messing with something he is barely trained to do just because he took the intro class? Jen says they're arguing about "magic" that is harmless like card tricks and sawing assistants in half, not real magic that can send bumbling idiots into other dimensions where they have to make deals with actual demons. Donny and his handler object to the term "real magic" by doing a magical costume change, unknotting a rope and producing a long line of scarves. The judge has had about enough of this shit.

Wong gets up and makes a speech about this being about these men trying to wield god like powers and risking doing something that will alter whole dimensions and quite possibly "destroy all life within the known and unknown universe."

Chrissy: Yeah, this is where the order of things is kind of important because the Illuminati executed their Stephen Strange for this.
Diandra: And the versions of Stephen who didn't get stopped destroyed their whole universe, yes. Still don't know where that puts this on the timeline because everything I've seen suggests it is AFTER "Multiverse of Madness", which would make sense because that's when it aired, but that would be the ONLY way it makes sense.

The judge says she'll review the facts and make a decision in the next few weeks. Jen asks if they can have a preliminary injunction in the meantime to stop Donny from doing this dangerous bullshit. Donny yelps that this is his art, his LIFE and they can't just take that away. Why do I feel like they're working overtime to explain why we should have been on Tony's side of the Civil War?

Donny, with the help of his lawyer, makes a rabbit appear on the desk and the cute, fuzzy animal might have an influence on the judge deciding that he can, in fact, continue practicing magic. Donny produces a "bird" as he's leaving the courtroom, flipping them off arrogantly. Wong asks if it's too late to just send him into the mirror dimension. "He probably won't even die." Jen says much as she would love to take him up on that, it would ruin the case.

Chrissy: Ask me again in a couple weeks. Assuming we get that far without him doing something stupid that causes an inversion.
Emilio: Incursion.
Chrissy: Yeah, that.

Madisynn asks "Wongers" if they can get some frozen yogurt and watch "The Sopranos". He grumbles fine, but "no more spoilers". "Whatever," she snots. "I was over it after Tony killed Christopher anyway." Wong splutters.

Emilio: Assuming everyone's timeline is wrong and this is still sometime after "Shang-Chi" but before the other stuff Wong was in...this might explain why he was too busy to be involved in the Spider Man thing.
Chrissy: AND too tired to deal with Stephen's shit.

Back home, Jen is talking to Nikki on the phone while going through paperwork when Nikki points out that it's Friday night and she's in her pajamas doing WORK. Jen lies that she totally isn't and she has to get back to all the plans she has because the dating profile is getting all sorts of hits. She hangs up and checks the app, which tells her there are no matches. She sighs, Hulks out, and makes that profile for She Hulk, telling the audience that she is NOT proud of this. She starts getting pings of matches within seconds.

So we montage through a string of dates she gets as She Hulk. The first guy is a musclebound jerk who yells at the restaurant staff. The second is a pretentious "filmmaker". The third is a fanboy, who wants to gush about her fight with Titania and asks if she has any other superpowers like speed or invincibility. She says her skin is impenetrable as far as she can tell. He just looks at her like she's a lab experiment.

And then we get the actual nice guy, who says he's a pediatric oncologist, but he's tired of talking about himself on first dates and would like to hear about her.

Chrissy: Ding ding. We have a winner.

"Also, should we split some fries?"

Chrissy: Okay, this smells like a set up. If my skin wasn't impenetrable, I'd totally wake up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney or something, wouldn't I?

Meanwhile, Donny has gone back to using the sling ring every chance he gets, apparently. He opens a portal and the dingbat who has volunteered this time says she's not getting in that "weird fire hole" because her friend did it at his show last week and got "stranded in a parking garage in Paloma." He gets annoyed at the way she's getting the audience to laugh at him and conjures a dove in his hand instead to try to get them back on track. It flies around the room and lands in her hand, depositing what looks like a chicken egg. This gets a round of applause, but then the egg hatches to reveal a tiny gremlin. It's cute for a second, then grows to full size, jumps out of her hand and snarls menacingly at the audience. Donny scrambles to "fix this", opening a portal and kicking the gremlin and bird through. He claims this was part of the show, but since he completely fails to close the portal right away, dozens of gremlins start coming back out and everyone starts screaming.

Wong is apparently done with "The Sopranos" and is now curled up on the couch, clutching a pillow to his chest while watching "This Is Us". Aww. A portal appears next to the TV and Donny jumps through to beg him to come fix this mess he made.

Chrissy: Not to say I told you so, but I TOLD YOU SO YOU FUCKWIT.

Wong snarls at him to call his lawyer before raising shields and going through the portal.

His lawyer is still in the middle of that date, having now brought him home. She completely blows off the phone call because this guy is actually interested in what she has to say and her feelings and SHE'S TOTALLY GETTING LAID HERE. He accidentally spills wine on his shirt when she goes to kiss him and takes the shirt off. He notices some on the couch and goes to grab something to clean that (presumably) while she gapes at his muscles. She tosses his shirt behind the couch the minute he's gone. He comes back with a rag and she goes to kiss him again. This time, she's interrupted by Wong opening a portal over the couch and yelling that she should ANSWER HER DAMN PHONE. Then he looks at the guy and the position they are in and grumbles "never mind. I see." Anyway, Donny opened the wrong portal (which implies there was a right one) and now he needs her help. Jen stammers at her dumbfounded date that she'll be right back and follows Wong, who grumbles that he feels like her dad.

Chrissy: [coughs pointedly and kicks Diandra's chair]
Diandra: What? [reads the words Chrissy is mouthing] "I'm the only one who is allowed to call him daddy"...oh, come on!
Chrissy: Good boy.

Everyone has been cleared from the room, but the demons are flying around crazily. Wong says he needs to repair the portal and he needs her to take care of the gremlins while he does. She throws one on the ground and stomps it. It shakes that off and flies away again. She asks if they can't die or something. Wong opens another portal to a snowy environment and she catches a handful and lobs them through while babbling about billable hours.

Donny and PMMF watch from behind some seats as Wong closes the portal to the demon realm and turns the edges into an eldritch whip to catch demons and sling them through the other portal. Jen starts muttering about how she finally had a good date and of course THIS SHIT had to interrupt it while she throws demons through the portal. Wong snaps at her to focus.

Chrissy: I can multitask! Unlike SOME people.
Diandra: Blow me.
Chrissy: Only if you're good, Stephen. You know how this works.
Emilio: Who are you right now?
Chrissy: Uh...I think I forgot.
Diandra: Yeah, you're really proving that confusion of which VERSION of a character we are role playing is no match for you getting confused over which of the dozen or so characters you have decided to play you currently are.

The demons grow to the size of a small dog and she complains some more about how she could be having a good time right now instead of getting covered in demon goo at a third rate magic show. They successfully get all the demons through the portal and Wong starts to close it. Jen holds up one last demon in front of Donny and PMMF, asking if they will agree to the C&D NOW before she sends this asshole back to his own dimension. The demon snarls and they agree.

Back at her place, the guy who is acting too perfect to be real is reading Bad Feminist on the couch when Jen drops in right on top of him. She plucks a demon claw covered in goo from her hair, picks him up and carries him to the bedroom like every bodice ripper ever in reverse.

The next morning, she is getting breakfast (back in Jen form) when Nikki texts that Titania is making the news again. Jen turns on the tv in time to hear the newscaster talking about Titania having been set free with all charges cleared this morning to the delight of her slavering fans. Muscles comes in warily, not really sure who this woman is and what she's doing in She Hulk's house. She says this is just what Jen looks like sans Hulk persona. He's like 'oh...okay...cool...I'm gonna leave now and you should totally not take it personally that I'm gonna do it so fast I leave skid marks on the floor.' She watches him go dejectedly.

There's a knock at the door and a delivery guy announces that he has a "special delivery" for her.

Chrissy: Yeah, that would work better if you looked more like the guy who just left. And also were naked. With a bow tied around your...
Diandra: Okay, that's enough.

She says she recognizes process servers. He shrugs and presents her with documents filed by Titania (LLC). She's suing for "misuse of a trademark". Because she's claiming she trademarked the name "She Hulk" first. Jen slams the door and turns to the audience, noting that that was a "bummer" ending to this episode, but maybe the mid credit scene will be fun.

The mid credit scene is "Wongers" and Madisynn watching "This Is Us" while she quizzes him about what sort of alcoholic drinks he likes. He says he tried vodka mixed with yak milk once and "never again." She asks if he has that here because she'd like to try it. He says yes, actually, there's still some left in the fridge from the wedding. Okay........................what?

Chrissy: That's only because Stephen won't drink it. I keep the good stuff in a secret locked cabinet so he can't get at it.
Diandra: [sigh] We're really not getting off this headcanon anytime soon, are we?
Emilio: Nope.

So because I will probably be able to rip through a couple of the next episodes faster, I'm going to consider this the "halfway point" of this series. See you in part 2.