'She-Hulk' Does Daredevil And Revenge Porn (But Not At The Same Time)

By Tori Preston | TV | October 7, 2022 |

By Tori Preston | TV | October 7, 2022 |

When I said last week that I’d be fine if She-Hulk dropped Charlie Cox in an end-credit scene rather than having a big ol’ team-up with Daredevil, I meant it. It’s not that I dislike Daredevil, either the comics character or Charlie Cox’s performance in the Netflix iteration. Actually, I quite like him, and am as stoked to have him in the MCU as anybody! It just seemed like the promise of Daredevil had started to overshadow She-Hulk the past few weeks, and I thought it’d be better to tease the fans with a cheap gag than risk pulling the spotlight from Jen’s journey.

Sooooo obviously I was super wrong about that. In this week’s penultimate episode, She-Hulk delivered a delightful team-up in more ways than one (INNUENDO!) — one that served as a clear mission statement for Matt Murdock’s reinvention within the MCU while still servicing She-Hulk’s overall heroic evolution. The story starts with a super-suit mishap that injures Eugene, a rich kid styling himself as “Leapfrog” (the episode’s title, “Ribbit and Rip It”, is his unfortunate catchphrase). He hires Jen to sue the suit manufacturer, Luke Jacobson — who just so happens to be Jen’s stylist as well. Luke takes offense to Jen’s act of betrayal and refuses to settle things amicably outside of court, and also destroys the gala dress Jen had commissioned for good measure. So Jen heads to court, ready to exact her own petty revenge on Luke, only to discover that he’s lawyered up with some blind guy fresh off the plane from NYC.

I’m glad Jen and Matt met in the courtroom first, this being (mostly) a legal show and all — and it sets the tone for the whole episode, which is “balance.” Matt and Jen both make strong arguments, and the case is only dismissed when Eugene accidentally reveals that he didn’t follow Luke’s instructions and used literally JET FUEL in his frog booties. Should Jen have figured that out before getting embarrassed in court? Yeah probably, but let’s be real — Eugene was too stupid to know he’d done anything wrong, and Luke was too prideful to go into detail with her about it. Jen had no way of knowing. So now Jen’s down a dress and a case, and to add insult to injury, her opposing counsel turns up at her favorite bar to order her an appletini (get it, because it’s green?!) but… it’s not insulting at all; it’s actually just a really charming pep talk between a lawyer who is secretly a superhero and a lawyer who not-so-secretly could be! Without revealing that he’s Daredevil, Matt acknowledges that Luke has made him some suits in the past and then proceeds to question Jen’s assumptions that she can only help people by practicing law. She fought so hard against Bruce’s assumptions that she’d need to give up her life and become a superhero when she became a Hulk that maybe she overcorrected — maybe there is a middle path where she can be both?

Look, what matters is that Matt stutters a little when he’s trying to say goodbye because he’s totally smitten, and so is Jen, and if you thought the show that has almost exclusively been about Shulkie’s love life wasn’t going to end up with Jen smashing Matt, I dunno what to tell you. But I’m getting ahead of myself! Their next meet-cute is as She-Hulk and Daredevil, because Jen’s client Eugene is SUCH a bonehead that he decided to kidnap Matt’s client Luke to force him to make a new frog suit. After a bit of a kerfuffle where She-Hulk actually fights against Daredevil, before unmasking him and realizing he’s her new hot lawyer friend, the pair work together to infiltrate Eugene’s secret base (with “LILY PAD” emblazoned above it in neon letters, natch) and rescue Luke. Is there a patented Daredevil hallway fight scene? You betcha! But before the reference wore out its welcome, Shulkie smashed her way through the ceiling and took out the rest of the goons. That hallway fight is indicative of what the whole episode establishes, really: That Daredevil, and Matt Murdock, can stand to be lightened up a bit. The humor, the way Jen and Matt keep flirting and ribbing each other, could be chalked up to it being the tone of She-Hulk — not unlike when characters cross over into different comic books and take on a new vibe. But the action also deserves recognition, from the acrobatic flair of Daredevil diving off the parking garage to his use of the batons — all of it felt very accurate to the comics without getting too bloodied and beaten. The show even included little nods to the Netflix show (the hallway fight, yes, but also the Daredevil theme music piping in when Matt reveals his alter ego’s name) as if acknowledging that yes, this is the same guy you know… and he’s also something more.

Basically, this was probably a best-case scenario for taking a fan-favorite character, who already exists in three seasons of a non-canon show not to mention decades of comics, and adding him to the MCU — so of course people online are getting mad because Matt Murdock (GASP) had sex with Jennifer Walters and then did a shoeless walk of shame afterward. One argument I saw is that it wasn’t befitting of his Catholic faith, which is funny because doing things to fuel his Catholic guilt is literally how Matt Murdock expresses his faith, but OK. I hope the pearl-clutchers are few and far between because a) Daredevil slept with plenty of women in the comics AND the Netflix show, and b) so does She-Hulk. Getting frisky IS who both of these people are! The fact that they never hooked up with each other in the comics honestly seems like an oversight that She-Hulk is correcting. Point is, I’m here for it. Good for them.

I suppose it makes a sad sort of sense, though, that I’m seeing more noise online about their hook-up than I’m seeing about the gut-wrenching end of the episode, which added actual REVENGE PORN to the MCU. Remember that gala Jen was supposed to attend? She was earning an award for being a “female lawyer” alongside Mallory Book and a few others, with her family and colleagues in attendance. When Jen begins to give her speech, Intelligencia hacks the video display behind her, saying she doesn’t deserve the power she “stole” from the Hulk and that she’s a “slut” — and then they play footage of Jen having sex with Josh that was recorded on his phone without her consent. Her parents see it, her boss sees it, and despite Mallory telling her not to, Jen… Hulks out. Like “Hulk Angry” Hulks out, like maybe-not-in-control Hulks out. She destroys the screen, then rushes out of the auditorium in pursuit of a masked person she thinks may be part of Intelligencia, only to immediately be stopped by Damage Control.

I have no idea what to expect from the finale, but I have a lot of questions. Is Todd, the smarmy techbro Jen shut down this week, a part of Intelligencia — or was he just sitting next to her boss to complain about her? Will she even have a job after this display, or will she take a cue from Matt and start her own practice? How did Damage Control get there so fast — did Intelligencia call in a tip? What is Intelligencia’s plan, anyway? They already stole a sample of her blood, why are they discrediting her publicly like this? Are we ever going to see Jen punch Josh or naw? The fact that there’s a shadowy cabal isn’t that surprising in a comic book show, but having one be a cover for a commentary on doxxing and online misogyny is — and even if the finale reveals that Intelligencia is doing all this for some dastardly, mustache-twirling reason, it won’t change the fact that revenge porn is the worst thing they’ll likely do this season. We’ve seen a lot of bad things in Marvel movies, we’ve witnessed whole-ass genocides, but the violation Jen experienced on that stage is the first time Marvel villainy felt… real. That was some dark sh*t, and it hit all the harder because the episode up to this point had just been a fun lark. The whole show, our quirky little legal comedy about love and life, has bigger claws than anybody expected.