When we last left Jen, she was getting served papers regarding Titania taking the trademark of her name. In this entry we see her and Jen going to court against one another which has tiebacks to the comics as they ended up fighting in one during the first major She-Hulk Run. We know from the trailers that Titania will return once more and I think she could be revealed as being the one who hired the wrecking
crew.
We’ll talk about Todd more later, but I think she will be set up as the main villain for several reasons. Firstly she’s been all over social media for the show and she’s popped up in several Twitter posts and promo videos. Secondly, her name has been splashed throughout at least one news report every entry. Thirdly, her origin story ties into She-Hulk, and in the original Secret Wars, she was created through Doctor Doom experiments involving Jen.
Her first fight was also against Jen which started a major rivalry between the two similar to what we are gonna be getting here. Titania is very much the opposite to Jen as she’s a superhero with no skill that has a marketing team behind her so she can secure the fame she craves. Jen has actual powers and abilities but she wants to be left alone. So though this episode ends with her being defeated I think she’ll try every way that she can to make sure she takes She-Hulk down.
She-Hulk Episode 5 Recap
Jennifer goes to Titania to stop using her name, but she straight-up refuses. Guess we’ll see her in court then, right? Titled Mean, Green and Straight Poured into these Jeans it’s the shortest entry we’ve had so far clocking in at 30 minutes with the intro and credits. This title refers to Jens’s dating profile for She-Hulk which is used as a way to prove she was happy with the name before Titania took it. Now whereas we normally get news reports opening episodes, this entry begins with an advert for Titania’s She-Hulk.
I kinda feel like the entire thing might be a play on Gwyneth Paltrow’s range of beauty products Goop and you might remember that there was a bit of a kerfuffle online cos she was selling a candle that smelt like Tony Starks fingers. Anyway, the ad has a similar style to Gwyneth’s but I’m guessing this is just the usual style for ads like this so let me know below if you know a one that it’s closer to. The advert boasts about Strength which is of course She Hulks’ main ability and she’s pretty much stolen her entire image.
Titania Is Using The “She-Hulk” Name
Titania is everywhere including on billboards and ads on podcasts. We hear Jen Listening to the Pro Say podcast which in real life is a legal one that discusses the law. Jens’s cousin Ched shows up asking for She-Hulk to sign some She-Hulk products which show how Titania has entered every aspect of her life. Hilariously this includes the title sequence which is a cool fourth wall-breaking thing in which Titania thanks the audience. This signing ends up showing up in the credits scene with us getting a quick shot of a titania card that says signed by she hulk on it which is being sold by Todd.
Titania is a snake oils salesman which in case you don’t know was coined during the wild wild west when con-men would travel from town to town selling tonics that apparently cured all ailments. Now the term means someone who sells valueless goods that don’t do what they say. The color of that is pink represents titania and the rest of the products are Green which represents She-Hulk. The snake venom one is of course vicious whereas the green ones are connected to beauty symbolically showing how the two differ. Jennifer goes to Titania to stop using her name, but she straight-up refuses. Guess we’ll see her in court then, right?
The Marvel Shoes
Back at the office, Jen shows how attached she is to the name and even though before she’d tried to focus on being Jen. However, She She-Hulk opened many doors for her including the job she now works at. Pugh goes to Nikki to ask if she’ll stand in line with him for some Iron Man threes which are sneakers that we’ve seen advertised throughout the series. These pop up in the credits image and we see Pugh buying them.
However, there are also lots of different characters here some of which are really interesting. We get Frogman ones who will be popping up in the series, there are some cyclops one referring to the X-men, Deadpool, The Thing, Captain America, Spider-man, Captain Marvel ones, and ones that also belong to Storm. We learn Pugh has a drip broker called Alonso which may be a nod to Marvel Producer Victoria Alonso.
Also might be a reach but a drip broker could be a play on the power broker aka Sharon Carter. However, I think it’s just a nod to the costume creator from the Incredibles and we get the same sort of sassy attitude. Realizing that she can get Jen some info she decides to get her some superhero clothing which Jen focuses on the Titaniacs. Nikki tells Pug that she would go with him only if he takes her to the Superhero Costume Designer.
The Avongers
Pug and Nikki travel to Beau-Ba which is a front for superhero clothing. Though the guy at the front plays it down it’s eventually revealed with a bit of racism that he actually sells Superhero stuff but it’s not exactly what they had in mind. This includes a Hulk towel with the character wearing a Borat thong. Some avengers…sorry avingers boxers and mugs, a toy Thor hammer and some Captain America shields. We can see aren’t official due to the colors of the rings being wrong. This is why the guy was worried they were cops because he’s actually selling counterfeit goods.
Cut to the secret door to see them rocking that sweet Avongers merch. Anyway, Pugh is going full Captain America in Endgame as he’s carrying not only the shield but also the hammer as well. Nice just getting some focus on the side characters and this was one of the most fun parts of the season so far for me. Elsewhere Jen is called in By Holliway to ask why his new staff member is out advertising booty boosters.
She-Hulk Is Given A Lawyer
She-Hulk is given a lawyer to handle the lawsuit and this is where her side of the episode really gets going. Now Mallory Book is a really interesting character in the show to take focus on. Though Marvel never fully leans into everything from the comics, there are a lot of things that they could be doing with her if we look at the source material. In the comics, Mallory was a next-level lawyer that was nicknamed the face that never lost a case.
She was extremely formidable but due to all the chaos that Jen brought into her life, she ended up starting to hate her. She ended up becoming the Chair of the Fourth Wall Enterprises which….bit on the nose but they had a sinister plan. Book and the group wanted to create their own version of She-Hulk that they could control. Again this could tie into the DNA plot and she might end up working with Titania to try and secure this.
This could tie in with the wrecking crew and bring together all of the plot lines instead of us just having fractured ones on the show. She does tell Jen she can do better and the pair drink together eventually but I feel like there is a rivalry that’s gonna build between the pair. Anyway, Jen brings up both Doctor Strange and Thor who both use their real names which is why they can’t be copied.
I’m sure Hulk probably has the name locked by now but either way, She-Hulk hasn’t been trademarked which has allowed Titania to take it. There are lots of hilarious cases of this in real life with a guy in the UK taking the name Singhsburys to play on Sainsbury before he got sued and changed it to Morrisinghs instead of Morrissons. There are also about a million different plays on KFC but Titania has straight-up jacked the name making it a different story.
The “She-Hulk” Court Case
They connect the A and B storylines after Mallory suggests she get some proper clothing and Titania calls her Shrek. At this point, Mallory ends up arguing her case to the judge and she goes through how She-Hulk was first mentioned by the public which we saw in the news report that opened episode 2. Mallory wants to put these into the record-tying back to this moment.
Now Titania argues that she’s not the sham hulk and she talks about how she has tonnes of testimonials. Titania’s side argues that She-Hulk was only interested in the name once it became successful and we see footage of her leaving court saying that she doesn’t want it. However, Mallory plays the news interview from episode 3 that was advised by Blonsky. At the drip broker, we get a nice little line on the blood which of course is how She-Hulk was able to be born.
Initially, ma man drip doesn’t wanna do it but he realizes that there’s a challenge in it having to fit both her and Jen. Back at the office, Shee Hulk gets a bit of a surprise with a returning character, Todd. Though Jen regrets going on that date she realizes that because her dating profile had her name on that she can use those she met as witnesses. One of the things she’s looking for is a sturdy king-size bed and she, of course, broke the one in episode 1.
We once more get the return of the dates including David Otunga who in case you don’t know was a wrestler that used to be a lawyer. He used this as part of his character and we hear the others go through their experiences. The guy she hooked up with belittles her and says that he wouldn’t date Jen which knocks her confidence a bit and in the comics, this got to the point that she used to prefer to remain in she hulk persona. In the end, Jennifer wins the case, and her name She-Hulk back.
The Daredevil Reference
Back with the Drip Broker, she gets given a suit along with something else which will likely be her comic book accurate costume. The episode ends with the drip broker putting away a special costume and this of course belongs to none other than Daredevil. Now Daredevil coming back is probably the aspect of the show that I was looking forward to the most. Anyway he of course came back for No Way Home in his Matt Murdock persona and we now have him in a new costume that’s slightly more in line with the comics.
It’s sort of a best of both worlds where he gets the yellow that was originally part of the boxing leotard that he wore but it’s infused with the Netflix design. Matt’s father was a boxer which spawned that original look and it then evolved. Obviously, he’s very much gonna be an example of how Jen can live both a life of crime fighting whilst still being a lawyer and he’s more of a role model to her.
Interestingly the show has flipped things up from the comics. In those, she was happier in her She-Hulk persona, preferring that over accepting whom she viewed as being plain and uninteresting. Here though Jen is more interested in being herself and the She-Hulk stuff is an afterthought. Over time I think she’ll learn to accept both sides similar to how Bruce did and though his advice was initially ignored in episode 1 I can see it coming back around.
Daredevil will of course be popping up in Echo before going onto his main show in Born Again. This is of course based on the Frank Miller graphic novel but it’s also very much a meta-joke on how he’s now back with Marvel and going in a new direction.
From here we roll into the credits and this is the first episode where we don’t get a post-credits scene. Now though this was super short I actually enjoyed it the most out of the episodes so far. I do want more from the series at the moment but I think this was short and sweet and it had some cool little moments in it. Obviously, the big thing everyone is gonna be talking about is the last few seconds of the entry but I think what came before that was pretty fun. I think this was put there so everyone comes back next week and though I’m not completely gripped by the series I will indeed be back for that.
Also Read: She-Hulk Episode 4 Easter Eggs: The Book Of Vishanti, Ghost Rider, And Mephisto
