She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Season 1 Episode 6 Review: Just Jen

A self-contained wedding episode nearing the end of a nine-episode season sounds insane of She-Hulk. That’s because it is insane.

And yet, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Season 1 Episode 6, “Just Jen,” does not care how out of pocket or “inconvenient” this approach to plotting comes across. Instead, it’s determined to use all the sitcom tropes at its disposal.

The result is a conflicting episode that would perplex any lawyer tasked with making a case for its validity in this line-up.

Where In the World is Matt Murdock?

It should be addressed (because I can feel the anger from here) that Daredevil was never officially in this outing. That fact is baked into the framework of how many series operate and is actually the only direction that makes sense for this episode.

The helmet tease may seem like the perfect lead-in for the next episode reveal, but that’s never how these things work.

Most shows will establish a clue to a big player at the midseason mark and toy with viewers for several tension-building episodes before revealing anything of promise. Hence the accurate timing of this wedding episode.

Plus, we know Jen meets Daredevil in her super suit. It’s safe to assume if she’s not ready to put it on, Daredevil is not ready to appear. But Matt Murdock is a different story as the linchpin to Jen’s dueling lawyer/superhero life, and his presence feels imminent.

Now, if Matt and these evil trolls do not reveal themselves soon, She-Hulk is in trouble. So let’s hope the show doesn’t take this gimmick too far.

Sorry, What Lawyer Show?

A lack of Matt Murdock is not what causes this careless bottle episode to invoke anger.

For a show bold enough to put “Attorney at Law” in its title, She-Hulk features next to no lawyering for Jen Walters.

It seems this project is going out of its way to keep her from taking the stand. From legal troubles to surprise weddings to sequestering her in Stark’s private lab, Jen has had one prominent outing in her new position at G.L.K. & H.

Six episodes into her lawyer show, that’s a rather pathetic showing.

Instead of leaning into her premise’s fun hybrid lawyer/superhero aspects, the plot is finding increasingly bizarre ways to segway from them and into cringe comedy.

There’s no significance to the wedding, no one there beyond Titania with a previous on-screen connection to Jen, and there’s almost no moving the needle of her character development. So as fun as this storyline is, what is the point?

Yet, Nikki and Amelia’s b-storyline moves the plot forward and features a fun case-of-the-week with a lawyer doing lawyer things.

While there are no excuses to justify why Jen had to give up this relevant storyline for a random wedding brawl, her two work besties are capable of upholding the law in her absence.

This team-up between Nikki and Amelia is precisely the workplace shenanigans we want to see this show embrace. Not only does the banter flesh out surface-level side characters, but it effortlessly weaponizes the judgment these women share for men.

There’s nothing like a good takedown, and witnessing these two professional courtroom killers use their different approaches to strip Mr. Immortal of his dignity is a sweet victory.

That is the energy She-Hulk needs to embrace as its main attraction, especially when the storyline ties into a much darker, emotionally moving revelation about Jen’s internet trolls.

Self-Contained Sillies

Jen has not lost her touch. That much is evident as she once again expertly utilizes the fourth wall to toy with the audience.

Her self-contained wedding comment makes this episode more digestible and is arguably a make-or-break dialogue addition. Sometimes acknowledging why a show is doing something ridiculous makes it easier to go along with, even if you disagree.

And it looks like Nikki may be in on the joke as she smiles when Jen speaks to us and later looks directly into the camera when Amelia advises her not to tell Jen about the death threats.

The comedy continues to hold the most power in this relationship, with Maslany effortlessly maneuvering the most cringe plot lines and these dumb superpowered men bringing up the rear with their antics.

But this sitcom has taken a liking to using Jen as a punching bag, and I take issue with it. At a point, the constant need to point out how lame, single, and unattractive people find Jen stops generating laughs.

“Marvel, you good?” — Netflix

As a great poet once said, “My favorite thing about the movie is, like, it feels like a movie.”

And he may have been on to something because a TV show should feel like a TV show, and beyond a handful of successes, Marvel has yet to prove it knows what an episodic series should feel like.

She-Hulk is the latest project to succumb to sporadic pacing and bizarre plotting. To rub salt in the wound, instead of ensuring this rare nine-episode run counts for something, it embraces filler episodes that do not move this story forward.

The lack of lawyering is a crime. But the constant inability to understand how a basic TV show operates is a significant problem for Marvel Studios.

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New episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law stream Thursdays on Disney+.

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