‘She-Hulk’ Episode 5 Review — ‘Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans’ Gives Us Courtroom Battle with Titania
She-Hulk really is the Marvel lawyer show we were promised, with a courtroom battle happening basically every episode now. Last week’s cliffhanger signaled the reintroduction of Titania, and Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans doesn’t disappoint.
While we don’t spend as much time with Titania as I would have liked, that’s mostly because any scenes with her are viewed through Jen’s lens. As a result, Titania comes across as comically unlikeable, a riff on the absolute worst kind of influencer out there.
It seems that, since Jen defeated her in the opening episode, Titania has decided to get revenge by trademarking the name “She-Hulk” and exploiting the name’s popularity to sell her own brand of cosmetic products under the shameless guise of female empowerment. She comes across as snooty and mean, clearly feeling that her standing as a popular influencer means she’s better than everyone else. It’s an entertaining foil for someone as humble and nice as Jennifer Walters.
The A and B plotlines in this episode complement each other very well, as both do revolve around She-Hulk to varying degrees. Both allow the show’s supporting characters to stand out, with Nikki and Pug doing some hilarious investigative work in the B-storyline, while the main story finally allows Renée-Elise Goldsberry to shine as Mallory, the ultra-professional lawyer who doesn’t seem to know what to think of Jen or She-Hulk (Hamilton fans rejoice!).
Surprisingly, this episode doesn’t have a single fight scene, and I have to admire Marvel’s restraint. So far, every episode has found an excuse to squeeze in another fight (after all, the audience expects that from a Marvel production), but this one sticks to its guns and continues with the lawyer theme, even if the subplot is a little more focused on the superhero side. Unfortunately, this is also the first episode that doesn’t contain a post-credit scene, which is disappointing. But when the show is this funny, I’ll let it slide.
Spoilers ahead…
I was hoping the episode would start with a loud and in-your-face introduction to Titania, and I am so glad it did. We’ve been waiting for Titania to return for a month now, so this was exactly what we needed. You immediately get the sense that she’s a glamorous socialite, and that sense is backed up when Jen and Nikki meet her at her fan event. She immediately comes off as snooty and spiteful, pressuring Jen to take a photo of her with a fan even though she came there to confront the influencer.
Jameela Jamil, who sees herself as a force for good on social media, has mentioned how fun it was to play someone who’s the antithesis of everything she stands for as a public figure, and you can see she’s taken inspiration from her real life experiences. It makes for an entirely believable and entertaining performance.
Renée-Elise Goldsberry is also excellent as Mallory Book, who delivers some fairly harsh truths to Jen when representing her in the lawsuit case. Mallory is clearly an excellent lawyer and keeps a cool, professional relationship with Jen throughout. It’s not stated whether she dislikes Jen under a misguided belief that she used her She-Hulk identity to get her current job, but it would explain a seeming lack of respect on her behalf at first.
Thankfully, her respect for Jen grows as she is surprised by how willing Jen is to throw her personal reputation under the bus by wheeling out all her recent lowlife dates in the courtroom for everyone to see. When Jen offers to buy her a drink after they win the case, she accepts, and though she is a little alarmed by Jen’s eagerness for them to become friends, it’s clear she does like her.
One other thing about the courtroom case: it did suck to see Arthur publicly admit that while he thought She-Hulk was amazing, Jen just wasn’t his type. It had been fun watching Jen slowly slide under the table through sheer embarrassment at the other witnesses, but Arthur’s brutal admission that he didn’t fancy her cut deep. You could see that hurt all over her face as she embarrassingly acknowledged it. Clearly, some more work will be done to increase her self-confidence over the rest of the season.
Meanwhile, Nikki and Pug spent the first half of the episode trying to find a tailor for She-Hulk. I’m fascinated by Josh Segarra’s performance. Pug seems to operate in this space between robotic bro, nice guy, and an extremely professional lawyer. I have no idea how they cultivated his personality, but I’d love to know how Segarra and Jessica Gao settled on it. I can’t think of another character in film and TV quite like him; he feels remarkably unique. That the man can go from geeking out about his sneaker collection (two pairs of Iron Man sneakers!) to a highly professional lawyer is hilarious and endlessly entertaining.
Eventually, they track down the superhero tailor, a fairly stereotypical fashion designer named Luke Jacobson, played by Griffin Matthews (The Flight Attendant). Matthews is hilarious and hits all the notes that you’d expect in the role, with Nikki and Pug struggling to convince him that he should dedicate his time to creating a suit for She-Hulk. As expected, the man is incredibly busy and seems to be juggling multiple balls at once, so it takes a lot for them to convince him to take her on as a client.
I appreciated that he was eventually persuaded to take the job by the challenge of having to design a business suit that can grow and shrink to fit both Jen’s human and Hulk forms (presumably that extra suit he designed is the purple and white costume She-Hulk wears in the comics). His need for a challenge adds an extra dimension to his character. It’s not much, but it helps ensure he’s not just a stereotype.
Then, we get the reveal in the final shot that he’s designing the new Daredevil costume! Finally, we get two of the big answers surrounding Daredevil’s upcoming guest appearance on the show. We’d wondered why his suit looked different to the red one from before, and we’d also wondered what he was doing in LA considering he’s a New York-based superhero. But it seems he’s just in town to pick up his new suit, and he’ll head back to Hell’s Kitchen after fighting some bad guys with She-Hulk in the next week or two.
Hopefully, we’ll get Daredevil’s cameo very soon. I can’t wait to see what She-Hulk has in store for us next week.
Josh is a huge a fan of Star Wars, superheroes and video games. He spends most of his time wondering who would win in a fight between Boba Fett and Star Lord.
