House of the Dragon wasn’t the only watercooler show to feature a wedding-party smackdown this week. The sixth episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was all about the institute of marriage. It took Jen out of the courtroom, with her co-workers lawyering the law in her stead. Did you expect to see Matt Murdock? Did you think we’d get an update on Smart Hulk, or the Abomination? Maybe you were at least hoping to get a glimpse of She-Hulk’s super suit? Too bad! Our hero’s got a wedding to go to, and she’s taking us with her.
Jen is right: Weddings do tend to come at the most inconvenient times. She’s on bridesmaid duty for a childhood friend named Lulu, played by the incomparable Patti Harrison. Jen was actually looking forward to attending the wedding as She-Hulk. What better way to impress people from high school and get out of blow-drying your hair, right? Unfortunately for her, Lulu immediately freaked out and demanded that Jen not overshadow her by being “all Hulky” on her big day. So there Jen is, Muppeting about in a Luke Jacobson original that makes her look like a flapper when she’s in Just Jen form.
Lulu continues to be rude, ignoring Jen’s professional accomplishments and then consoling her in a performative way for not having a “boy in her life,” when in truth Jen is not … really bothered … and then Titania arrives. Jen is convinced that she’s there to mess with her. Titania insists that she’s the date of a guest. Lulu calls Jen crazy for thinking everything is about her — and honestly, being paranoid that a villain has crashed a formal event to attack her is the most classic superhero thing that Jen has done so far on She-Hulk. She happens to be right, but in this moment, the show nails that mean-girl psychological warfare that’s as effective as punching. Later in the episode, before another bridesmaid named Heather asks Jen to iron the groomsmen’s shirts, you can hear her say to the girlies that ironing is “such a Jen job” and that she makes her do stuff like this all the time. I just got teenage flashbacks so scary they gave me chills. No wonder Jen loves No. 1 anti-bullying hero Steve Rogers so much. She was totally bullied.
Oh, and there’s Josh! A handsome stranger approaches Jen when she goes to get some air at the rehearsal dinner. Am I wrong to be a little suspicious of Josh? He’s nice and cute and complimentary. But Jen hasn’t learned the superhero lesson to stay vigilant of those trying to get close to her yet, so I’m going to do it for her.
During the reception, Jen gets her groove on to Annie Lennox’s “Walking on Broken Glass” and gets drunk at the cash bar. She drunk-dials her cousin Bruce, whom she hasn’t heard from in either months, weeks, or days. She chats up Josh a little more. She throws up in a flowerbed … and then Titania attacks her. Jen is initially too drunk to turn green. (She forgot how to do it!) Then she does and they take their fight to the dance floor, where DJ In-Ched-able Hulk expertly drops the needle on the “Electric Slide.” Titania slips on ice cubes, not broken glass, breaks her veneers, and runs away to avoid being photographed. We did briefly get some more insight into why Titania hates She-Hulk so much. It seems like she doesn’t think Jen has done enough to earn her status as a public figure and potential superhero. It’s a little gatekeep-y and it’s no excuse for violence, but her argument kind of … makes sense? Jen hasn’t! She’s a good person, but from an outsider’s perspective, she’s nothing but a total nepo baby!
The legal side of this week’s She-Hulk is about the end of marriage. Nikki is tasked with assisting Mallory with the case of the week: a divorce settlement with a comic-book twist. Craig Hollis, who prefers to be called Mr. Immortal, is a Marvel character (and founding member of the Great Lakes Avengers, shout-out) played by Veep’s David Pasquesi. Mr. Immortal’s ex-wives, and one ex-husband named Sebastian, are suing him. Like a superhuman Leonardo DiCaprio, this guy has a habit of ending a relationship when his partners outgrow him — but he does so by repeatedly faking his death by suicide and assuming a new alias. Mallory notes that with multiple cases of forged identity and fraud, he should be in jail. Mr. Immortal’s pithy response is that he will never understand women. Men love to get out of any required critical thinking by claiming that the fairer sex is unknowable, don’t they? Nikki uses her excellent people skills to tailor a settlement for each spouse, and they’re done!
Later that night, Nikki spends some more time with Miss Mallory. The paralegal’s crush is DOA, however, because Mallory has a husband and an 11-year-old son. The two then browse Intelligencia, the website “for manbabies” that tipped Mr. Immortal’s exes off. It looks like some of the ickier corners of Reddit, or 4Chan, or other, worse websites that I don’t know the names of because I want to sleep at night. Nikki notices a whole section for members devoted to She-Hulk, and after making a fake profile, finds dozens of posts organized by a user called #HulkKing about how to kill and “Cancel She-Hulk.” Yeesh! Mallory tells Nikki not to show the “Cancel She-Hulk” page to Jen, but she does anyway. I don’t think She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is the type of superhero show where a villain kidnaps a woman, but I’m a little worried about Nikki getting home safe after revealing this potentially dangerous information. It’s also more than a little sus that Mallory discouraged her from warning her bestie.
At least we know from the next and last scene that the unseen villains are potentially too busy preparing the next stage of their evildoing to apprehend Nikki. While Jen and Josh sober up over shared fries, we zoom out to see that the two are being watched by scientists. Not only do they have surveillance footage of Jen at the wedding, proving that Titania’s appearance wasn’t the only “coincidence,” but a bunch of science-y charts and graphs and a message from #HulkKing asking if the next phase is ready to go. One of the scientists takes the needle that the Wrecking Crew broke on She-Hulk’s skin in a previous episode and replaces it with a new one. Double yeesh! There is a Big Bad lurking in the background of this fun law show after all.
Legal Pad
• In Marvel comics, “Intelligencia” is the name of a supervillain group whose membership has included M.O.D.O.K., Ulysses Klaw, Doctor Doom … and Samuel Sterns, a.k.a. the Leader, who was played by Tim Blake Nelson in The Incredible Hulk. Could he be the Wrecking Crew’s boss who’s literally out for Jen’s blood? At Kevin Feige’s D23 song and dance, we learned that Nelson will once more play the Leader in the upcoming Captain America: New World Order, and he’ll be pitted against Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, Sam Wilson. I’m gonna use some deduction skills and make the call right now, based on what we may have learned today and the title of the film, that Cap 4 is going to be about internet nazis.
• Also, if we’re on Boss Watch, Titania’s earrings literally say “Boss” in this episode.
• Mr. Immortal’s alias when he is in a same-sex marriage is Arnie, which happens to be the first name of one of Marvel Comics’ first gay characters. Arnie Roth was first introduced in the ’80s as Steve Rogers’s childhood best friend who defended him from neighborhood bullies before Steve became Captain America. If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because certain elements of Arnie’s backstory were folded into the MCU’s take on the Winter Soldier, a.k.a Bucky Barnes. Barnes is played by Sebastian Stan, which happens to be the first name of Mr. Immortal, a.k.a. Arnie’s ex-husband, on She-Hulk. Coincidence? Follow for more tinfoil-hat tutorials! There are a number of fans who use Arnie as evidence that MCU Bucky should be canonically bisexual, so it’s not 100 percent out of the question that the She-Hulk writers caught wise and gave it a little nod.
• Another one of Mr. Immortal’s exes, the Baroness Cromwell, is a Marvel Comics nod as well. Lily Cromwell is sometimes called Baroness Blood and is, you guessed it, a vampire.
• I know it’s annoying that Jen wasn’t allowed a plus-one to the wedding, was put on cleanup and ironing duty, and was partnered with a senile dog instead of a groomsman for the ceremony … but as far as we know, she didn’t have to organize or attend a bachelorette party, shower, dress fitting, or any other wedding events outside of the 48 hours we see in this episode. That’s not bad, bridesmaid-wise! I’d rather steam some shirts than be on a group text with people I only tangentially know any day.
