The Ringer-Verse - ‘She-Hulk’ Episode 4 Reactions

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Ben Lindbergh is joined by Jodi Walker to break down the fourth episode of ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.’ They dive into Wong’s universal approval rating (02:00), She-Hulk’s dating life (10:00), and much more. Host: Ben Lindbergh Guest: Jodi Walker Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Additional Productional Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Boar's Head committed to craft since 1905. What if you made a profile? Hear me out. A Shee Hulk. I thought you hated the name Sheaulch. I do, but I don't know.

I can't stop saying it. It's really catchy. No, if I'm going to date, it's going to be as Jen. Regular, old Jen. I already have to be She Hulk in the office. She Hulk. Shee Hulk. See? A match.

I do not have to be Shee Hulk to get a date. Now give me back my phone. You're killing me. Lovers of lawyers and magicians, evil demons and bad dates, And welcome into the Ringerverse, the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. There are really a lot of things fandom these days, which is why you're yet again hearing the voice of Ben Lindberg, a senior editor at the Ringer. That's me.

This isn't one of those cameo every week type of podcast, but this week, our series of superhero teamups for Sheholt continues in a special crossover event with the Ringer reality TV podcast and Ringer Dish. I am joined by Ringer staff writer Jody Walker and know the Y is not where you think because that's Jody with an eye. Jody, so happy to bring you up to the stage for your overdue debut in the Ringerverse. Ben, I'm so glad to be here, but I do have to say that you literally stole my line,

which in the Ringer reality world would put us in a big fight for the rest of the season. I've been on the other end of the end of the way. that on this podcast, so I'm sorry to steal your line. That's okay, but it is Jody with an eye, and it's not where you think. No. Portions of this week's episode of She-Hulk are about as close as an MCU series has come to The Bachelorette or Bravo.

So we want you on this wall this week. You have the particular set of skills that we need to analyze what went down here, I think. Oh, I'm excited. I'm excited to analyze, as you know, going into She-Hulk. I was very excited for the dating aspect, which we really have not gotten to the extent that the trailers suggested. But excited to discuss. And Ben, while I was watching this or while I've been watching She-Hulk, I've cut and knowing that we were going to podcast together about it at some point,

I kept thinking about a TV meeting that you and I were in together recently. And beloved editor, Andrew Greta Daro, was like trying to give an example of two people who had opposite. at TV Tastes, and he used us as an example. He was like, you know, Ben Lindbergh and Jody Walker might not watch the same TV shows, but here we are watching She-Hulk. There's a little overlap. We have both recapped the Bachelor, Bachelorette franchise for the ringer.com. What a great website.

And now we meet with She-Hulk. So as our listeners, hopefully know by now, this is the phase four Great Lakes Avengers edition of the podcast where I and my great guests use our sling rings to slip onto the podcast while the Department of Damage Control isn't looking. That's not true. Arjuna knows we're here. He's watching and listening right now. But like Wang last week, we're on the witness list and we're here to testify to how

fun She-Hulk Attorney-at-Law is while the other hosts have their hands full with House of the Dragon and the Rings of Power. So this week, we're talking about She-Hulk episode four. But just so you remember who show this actually is, let me run down a few programming notes. So the resilient and tireless Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson will be back on Friday to break down the third episode of the Lord of the Rings of Power. On Saturday, Van Joe and Charles will be potting from and responding to D23 and any big Marvel and Star Wars news that comes out of that. Then you can catch Mal and Joe again on Talk the Thrones on Sunday as they give their reactions to episode four of House of the Dragon and try to help Chris Ryan keep Caraxies and Syrac. straight one of these weeks he'll get it. House of R will have their usual hot D deep dive next

Tuesday backed up by the Midnight Boys on Wednesday and then to bring things full circle another She-Hulk pod next Thursday. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Today we are discussing, is this not real magic? A delightful She-Hulk episode in which writer Melissa Hunter and director Kat Koiro give us a look at She-Hulk's love life. The look that we've all been awaiting, and I say that sincerely, and I know that you do too, Jody, along with some loyering and extra-dimensional demon wrangling and soprano spoilers and, of course, Wongers. So as usual, we will follow a trial-style format here, which means we'll start with some opening statements on our big picture thoughts about the episode before we delve into the details.

Can we talk about Wong? Wang, the MVP, maybe, of the Marvel Universe. right now. This is Jen's show, but let's start with Wong, both Benedict and the Sorcerer Supreme himself, because in this episode, Jen addresses the audience and says, you look happy. I guess you saw that Wong is back. God, everybody loves Wong. It's like giving the show Twitter armor for a week. And maybe it's like giving the show podcast armor too, because I was happy to have him back. And it just made me appreciate what Wong and Benedict Wong have brought to the MCU. Because based on the logline for She-Hulk, you wouldn't think Wang would be an obvious fit for this series, but here he is. And his usage rate recently is really something.

He is just dominating phase four, or as Benedict Wang has rechristened it, Phase Wong. So since Dr. Strange, which introduced both of the Benedicts to this universe in 2016, Wong has been in Infinity War and Endgame, Shang-chi, No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness, plus What If, She-Hulk, where we're getting to see a whole new side of him. He's still an A-plus straight man, but he is increasingly cuddly. He has a pet name now bestowed on him by Madison. We know much more about him. He worked retail before he mastered the mystical arts. His drink of choice is the G&T. When he's not saving the world or many worlds, he likes to kick back and watch some sopranos and this is us. So he's just a great glue guy, but he has transcended science.

kick status and just established himself as a major character separate from strange. So give me more Wong, as far as I'm concerned, has he earned his own spin-off series in your mind? Is there any amount of Wong that would be too much Wong for you? In my experience, no. Jen is right. I am thrilled to see him when he arrives every time. I think like the forethought of the writers in that fourth wall break to say that we are, you know, literally smiling at the screen as Jen says it to us is pretty incredible. And to have the forethought to know that that is Twitter armor and everyone will be happy to see Wong.

You know, it's not the first time that people have ever been happy to see Wong. So, but I just found that I really liked that fourth wall break. It felt particularly Zach Morrissey to me, which is kind of the sort of fourth wall break I'm looking for. So I thought that was a lot of fun. I don't know about a Wong spin-off. You know, I am, I don't know if I have, like, the MCU. I don't know if I'm equipped within the MCU to make that kind of declaration, especially because I'm just enjoying him so much here.

Like, I think that this is actually an incredibly obvious fit as they're going for this kind of sitcom style where, like, you need a straight man in order to have good comedy. But you're right. Like, we are seeing these other sides of him. But he's really fitting into this archetype so perfectly, which I often call the panic grumpy dream boy of a sitcom. And, like, he was, like, exactly that. He was Nick Miller this episode.

Like, he was just, he was Sam from Cheers. He was, like, the perfect grumpy sort of foil to these other sort of sillier characters. I can't get enough. No. Those are great comps. Yeah. I would like to see him.

I think I don't want him yet to get like a fully branded Wong spinoff because I think this is such a good duo that like it makes a lot of sense to just have them together throughout to me. Yeah, right. He's a great supporting player. Maybe you don't want to mess with that success and overexposed Wong if that's even possible. But maybe you keep him with Madison just get a great buddy comedy team up. Maybe you get sort of like a goggle box scenario where they're just sort of watching TV and we're watching them while they watch TV. I would go for that. Maybe they're mixing each other drinks. There's so many possibilities. And in the meantime, maybe we can get Wong on the Sopranos Hall of Fame episodes of the Ringer Prestige TV podcast. He's showing up everywhere. Incredible idea. Yeah. He's pre-spoiled anyway at this point. So second question, second opening statement. This week, Jen gets on the apps. She makes a matcher profile, first for herself and then for She-Hulk. and She-Hulk's pickings are a lot less slim, it seems.

So what's your take on the dating desirability of Jen vis-a-vis She-Hulk? I think within the world that Jen lives, the world of the MCU, yes, Sheik-Hulk is going to be a much more novel, probably desirable profile for a gentleman to stumble across. I think within this world that we live in on the apps that I'm. I have seen that Jin and She-Hulk are going to have just as hard of a time. It's not great out there for any 30-something woman dating, whether she be Hulk or whether she be lawyer. But I thought that was like a fun twist that she, you know, but then it didn't turn out

great when she went on the date. So it's like, what are you looking for? Matches or success? Right, exactly. She-Hulk gets a lot of interest, but she still has to wade through the dregs of humanity even so. And yeah, I mean, there are a lot of lawyers out there. There aren't that many hulks.

And it seems like, you know, in sci-fi or fantasy, what do you want to do when you want an alien or a Hulk to look clearly non-human but still conventionally attractive? You give them green skin. It's just a tried and true tactic from the Orion's on Star Trek to Ula in Star Wars to Gamora and Guardians of the Galaxy and now to She-Hulk. but I think it goes beyond the greenness. Are you at all familiar with the 2021 video game Resident Evil Village? You know what, Ben? I'm not. No.

That's okay. Until they give me and Steve Alman a ringer-verse video game podcast, which I'm sneakily soft pitching right now, hashtag gamerverse. This brief summary will suffice. But basically the breakout figure from that game was a well-dressed vampire. named Lady Dimitresk, or Dimitrescu, as the Romanian say it, large swaths of the internet wanted Lady Dimitrescu to step on them, which would be pretty painful, given that she's nine foot six and roughly 450 pounds. Shehulk is shorter but heavier, so I would not suggest

being stepped on by her either, not literally, but the point is that she is large and in charge, and a lot of fans respond to that in a certain way. And maybe Resident Evil Village is the most recent example, but this is not a new phenomenon because as I have made my way through most of the John Byrne run of Sensational She-Hulk, which is the main comedic inspiration for this series, I have been marveling, no pun intended, at just the sheer thirstiness on display in the letters section from readers of that comic, which was full of what today we would probably call She-Hulk simps, I suppose. And as Nikki says, no judgment. And I mean that, I mean that. I I absolutely see the appeal of She-Hulk as your comics crush and Burns' portrayal of the character really leaned into that, as I'll explain a little later.

But you would not believe the love letters and the lust letters that the seemingly, mostly male readers sent in. I'm looking at these letters. Like, you realize that your name and address are going to be printed along with these things. Address? Yeah, they printed their address too. Wow. In case She-Hulk wanted to write back. Exactly, right. This was like the late 80s, early 90s equivalent of being horny on Maine was writing in to tell Marvel.

That's what I was going to say. You know what? I actually can totally believe what you're saying. It is not at all surprising to me that those men were not thinking that they were being disgusting creeps. Include your full name and address and tell Marvel how hot you think she Hulk was. Legions of men did that. So I would say she was matching with much of the Marvel audience at that time. third big picture thing here, Bruce has been off to Sikar for a while now, Abomination and Blanckear out of the picture this week. A new legal case comes up and gets resolved within this one episode. We don't get any clues about the boss, the mysterious boss who sicked the wrecking crew on Jen last week. And as we near the season's halfway point, Titania, who's set up as an adversary in the premiere, is once again mentioned and positioned for the first. for a bigger role, but not yet seen.

So do you think the series is striking the right balance between episodic and serialized stories, or do you wish it were leaning more toward one or the other? I will say that I do not think it is striking the right balance. What I like about what the show's doing is I think in a lot of ways it really is like mimicking this sort of sitcom setup where there are like, you know, there's an A story, there's a B story, and there's a C story.

And I think they're making each of those stories fun. I really like all of the law stuff. I loved the Wong and Jen stuff in this episode. I thought that blended the superhero and the law together in a really nice way. The romance stuff, I felt like felt a little squeezed in because we haven't seen it yet. So where I feel like it's failing is that it's trying to fit so much in. And in a normal sitcom structure, you get 21. episodes. And I think everyone watching this knows that we're not getting 21 episodes. And so it's just

kind of hard to imagine how all of this is going to get like wrapped up and fulfilled. And so in that way, I wish that they would maybe focus on one serialized storyline and then and then, because I actually, I think the episodic stuff is going well. I just think it's not totally balancing with the through lines. And I frankly think the fact that we have not met Titania yet is like a little bit unforgivable. That has felt the most wedged in when she just, or I guess we have met her. But that was the most abrupt thing in episode one to me that I just kind of feel like that's the show's biggest failing. But I like a lot of what they're doing. I just don't think it's balancing in the right way for such a short run.

Yeah, I agree. I like all the pieces. They don't always fit together so seamlessly. And I was going to say the same thing. I don't know if it's the reshuffled episode order or what with the premiere initially supposed to be toward the end of the season or maybe in the middle of the season. But the Titania rollout has been kind of confusing. I mean, she shows up at the end of episode one and then essentially disappears until it seems like episode five. And presumably she isn't even the real big bad, the boss, though she could be, I suppose.

But this is a nine-episode season, not the usual Marvel-6 episode season. So there's a little more runway and leeway. And normally by this point, we would expect the series to be ramping up for the finale. And we'd be fretting about how are they going to tie everything up? And there's a little less time pressure here, but still a lot less maybe than in a typical sitcom with fewer serialized elements. So, yeah, I'm with you. I think it could maybe fit together in a more natural way. It is like kind of a running joke in the Byrne comics that they're just too many subplots and they're just constantly juggling them and trying to come up with a way to make them fit together.

So we're seeing sort of the same thing here. I just, I think that I have been looking at Jamila Jamil's like, you know, bangs as Titania for so long in these promos that I, there are a lot of things that I expected to kind of be a bigger deal within the series that we've either just barely touched upon. And I know it is longer than your normal MCU show, but it's not your normal MCU show. And that was kind of the whole point. I think I just want more of it. I just, I want more runway on it. And I know that we simply do not have the dollars to create 21 episodes of She-Hulk. No, we don't have the VFX artists.

You want to kill them all? Run them into the ground. I do not. No, I want to protect the VFX artists. So I don't know how to balance my needs and what. wants for this series. Yeah. And I'm fine with it being mostly low stakes. I'm not really stressing about, oh, who's the big boss and will they have enough time to introduce the big boss? I mean, I'm curious, but I'm enjoying this in a lower stakes way, a less anxiety-inducing way. It is kind of

clever that they're maybe shoehorning in some of these big ideas and big concepts to come in the guise of this sitcom sort of stealthily. So I think I admire that. But, but. But I don't want it to get in the way of just enjoying time with Jen and with Sheiholk and synthesizing those two sides of herself and being the best lawyer she can be. So there are a lot of moving parts here. I do enjoy all of them individually. So I hope that they kind of come together and gel well from here on out. The playoffs are here. And you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts.

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Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order. Dot sweetgreen.com. So let's go to the evidence stage. Our little brief episode recap accelerated here.

We open on Donnie Blaze, who is. is played by Reese Coyro, who is cat's husband of entourage fame. Donnie is a second-rate magician. He's kind of a Tony Wonder type who has a show at the Magic Castle in L.A. or excuse me, the Mystic Castle. Don't want to infringe on the Magic Castle's copyright, because copyrights are in question here. And most of Donnie's act is pretty tired,

but he can do some quote-unquote real magic, which he picked up during his one-weigh, week at Kamertage, where he got a sling ring and a very rudimentary grasp of interdimensional portaling before he was banished for summoning three kegs and his former frat brother, Kai Dog, which hopefully isn't short for Kaisilius. And as the big finish for his show, he sends a somewhat over-served volunteer named Madison King to a goblin dimension. Madison, who is played by Patty Guggenheim from the sitcom Florida Girls and is also afford a girl here, basically goes through literal hell and makes a deal with a demon and

emerges in Camertage holding a bloody heart just in time to spoil Wang's watch of Sopranos Season 5 episode long-term parking, which is number one on the ringer's epic length Sopranos episode ranking. So Wang vows vengeance on Donnie. And I wonder, what is the worst spoiler you have ever experienced. Did you take the perpetrator to court? Can you identify with Wong here? I cannot. I'm a real softy about spoilers. I generally don't care at all if I'm spoiled unless it is like some, you know, huge thing that I'm so invested in. But I don't know if you feel this way, but in some ways, like being a TV journalist, it's like you're going to get spoiled on some things. You have to know what's going on, even if you can't always be like watching everything live.

And so spoilers don't really bother me. I will say the worst spoiler I've ever had is me spoiling myself on the Harry Potter series because I was so truly like unmoored by spoiler alert Dumbledore's death that like I wept so hard reading that as an adolescent was just like just so upset that when it came to the final book I was like, I got to know what's going on at the end of this or I'm not going to be able to like make it through emotionally. so I read the epilogue and then I went back and read the beginning, which I think is like probably a sin that could get me kicked off the ringerverse and so maybe I shouldn't have told you. But if the line cuts out, I just want to say I had a great time. So yeah, that's probably my worst spoiler. Do you have a worst spoiler experience? Yeah, I'm with you. I'm not the type to get too worked up about spoilers for the most part. So reality, Steve, do your worst. But I will say that the most legendary instance of spoiling on ringer slack. And I believe, I believe, leave this predated you're joining us, but this occurred immediately after the release of Solo, a Star Wars story, when a former staffer whose name, I'm redacting for the purposes of this podcast, spoiled the cameo at the end of the movie. So spoiler warning, four plus years later, Darth Mall appears in a scene at the end of Solo. So this person who shall not be named,

who had not been in the Star Wars Channel before, just Kool-Aid manned into it the morning after the movie came out and right off the bat just immediately posted about Darth Mall. And the place just erupted. The outrage was very real. And then this person defended themselves on the grounds that getting offended about spoilers in a Star Wars Slack channel was like getting offended by nudity at a strip club. And then they doubled down and said that everyone was just angry about being late to the movie when it was, again, the day after it came out, So the backlash was so swift and forceful that they were basically forced to depart in disgrace. Depart the channel, not the ringer.

The outrage wasn't that real. It sounds like that did eventually come. I mean, the fact that I missed this drama honestly hurts my feelings. Like that, that just sounds electric. It was. It was almost worth the spoiler, I think, for the people who were spoiled. And, yeah, correlation does not equal causation. They left after this incident.

I'm not saying it was related. But that is, I think, part of why I am so fond of solo is maybe just the memories of that slack kerfuffle that happened. We should do a dramatic reenactment of that Slack exchange on the podcast sometime. Just legendary. People still talk about it like me right now. Okay. So Wong shows up at GalkNH via his usual method of bypassing security and sling right in. And he says he wants to make an example of Donnie to prevent other unlike.

licensed practitioners from drawing on the mystic arts. More on that in a moment. Meanwhile, Jen has set up her dating profile, but she's so devoted to her job that she uses her corporate headshot as her profile picture, much to her friend Nikki's disgust. And the last time that I online dated was so long ago I didn't even use an app. Sorry, single listeners. I'm off the market. So I haven't seen what's out there these days, but Jody, what's your sense of where the corporate headshot ranks on the list of dating app profile photo phopas? I would say that it's pretty gendered. I am a cis-hut woman, and so I can really only speak from the cis-het woman online dating experience.

Which is pretty rough, according to Nikki. It's pretty rough out there. For Nikki, although it seems like Nikki was suggesting that she is queer in this episode, which I don't think that we had heard before. that was exciting. I think for a man, generally, a corporate headshot is fine. For a woman, it's pretty, I don't think that you are supposed to use your corporate headshot.

I think it is akin to a man who's all of his photos are selfies in his car. And that's, like, pretty common. And you're just kind of like, why are you always taking, and no offense, there's no judgment to anyone who may be listening, who all of their selfies are in their car. I am simply giving the advice that if all of your selfies are in your car, someone might be wondering why that is.

And it's kind of the same thing for a headshot photo, which is like, okay, well, do you, why do you only have a headshot photo? I want to see you having fun. I want to see what you're up to. I want to know that you have friends and not just a job. Although, as Jen goes to show,

it is important to have a job. So, yeah, I'd say it's a pretty big fobopat. I'd say Nikki was right to be that upset about it. Yeah, well, the friends are smiling just out of frame, right? But they're laughing too. I don't know where it ranks compared to like the shirtless mirror selfie or like, aren't men like having profile photos with fish a lot? Isn't that a thing?

No, see, that's why I bring up the car photo because there was enough hubbub around the fish photo. that I think that men stopped using the fish. Or use it more sparingly. Every photo is not with the fish. I'm still going to appreciate. Exactly. It became a cliche. I am trying to get out on the cutting edge here

and tell people that as a pretty current dater, there are a lot of car picks. And I get it. The light is good. You're alone. You have a second. You need a picture for your profile. You own or rent a car, presumably.

You own or rent a car. great news, but you've just, you've got to find other opportunities to take new selfies. And I have some, I have some remarks about the She-Hulk selfies as well, but I can save those for later. All right, pro tips. Now, Nikki wants her to set up a profile for She-Hulk, but Jen refuses until a terrible date and a lack of matches changes her mind. And as soon as she puts her superhero side out there, she is just drowning in matches. And I noticed her She-Hulk profile says she's looking for men from 30 to 45 and between 5-6 and 7-11. So I am in the target demo.

If I weren't a married man, it might be time to shoot my shot. In the A plot, Donnie and his hype man, Cornelius, scoff at Wong's cease and desist. So the parties take their dispute to court where Jen tries to get an injunction to stop Donnie from running the risk of causing a ripple so great it reverberates through every dimension and potentially destroying all life within the known and unknown universe. And honestly, if the danger is that great, I feel like Camartage needs to keep these things locked down. Like, Wong gives a sling ring to Peter Parker's friend Ned.

America Chavez steals one from Dr. Strange. Donnie evidently walked away with one after a week on the job. Like, I've had internships with way tighter security than this. Like last day, hand over your lanyard and your badge, you're locked out of the building and the computers. No chance that I could have kept a sling ring. So like, how many mystic arts washouts are walking around with these things? Like, let me ask you this. If you had a sling ring, let's assume that you're not going to use it for nefarious purposes or to debut your magic act.

But what's the minimum distance you would use your sling ring to travel? Like, let's say you're going to get groceries. Are you using the sling ring? I think I would probably use it about the same way I currently use, like, the difference between walking or taking public transportation. It's like, I'll walk a mile. But if I can avoid getting on the subway by using my sling ring, absolutely I'm using my sling ring. Yeah. I feel like my sling ring bar would be really low.

Like, I'm in the kitchen and I need to cross a couple rooms to go to the bathroom, sling ring. Just like, I live in a high. rise, so no way would I wait for the elevator, just sling ring. Like, it's fast, it's low emissions, presumably. If you know what you're doing, you won't go to Goblin World. So unless I needed the exercise, I don't see the downside. It takes a few seconds to sling it up. But beyond that, I feel like I would get very lazy and dependent on my sling ring very quickly. You're making some really solid points, Finn, especially about there is no, time pass is no slower than when you were waiting for an elevator. And if I could avoid that, absolutely.

So Wong uses his sling ring to teleport Madison in from the club to testify to Donnie's irresponsibility. She doesn't make for the most credible or damaging witness, so the injunction isn't granted. Donnie can go on messing with the mystic arts for the time being. He tries a new trick, which works great at first. He summons a dove, which lays an egg, which hatches into a demon. Uh-oh. The demon is. kind of cute at first, but one demon is enough or maybe too many. He tries to send the demon back to its dimension. Instead, many more demons enter, and now the nightmare scenario is at hand. So, Donnie goes to get help from Wong. Wang, in turn, drops in on Shee Hulk at an inopportune

moment, which is where the A and B plots intertwine. So Jen by this time has gone on a string of awful dates as Shee Hulk, because even though she's Shee Hulk, Men still suck, I guess, but she's finally found a hunky, seemingly sensitive, pediatric oncologist and brought him home. And just as things are heating up, Wong interrupts one kind of Hulk smashing and makes her do a different kind of Hulk smashing. So fortunately, she does get to do both, ultimately, because after she helps Wong clear out the demons and intimidates Donnie into honoring the cease and desist, she heads home and just, thrills anyone with a lift and carry fetish by taking the doctor directly to bed, or so we assume, because Disney, the modern day Comics Code Authority, keeps that action off screen. We get to see the demon stomping, but not whatever is happening in the bedroom, sadly. So I hope she had fun,

because the episode ends on a less fun note. The doctor is disillusioned when he sees Jen in her human form, Jen is disillusioned with this Too Good to Be True Guy's reaction to seeing her human form. And then, to make matters worse, Jen gets served and discovers that she's on the other end of a legal claim because Titania, long absent Titania, who has somehow been cleared of all charges, despite being caught on camera, breaking into a courtroom and almost killing a jury, has trademarked the name She-Hulk. So, Jody, back in May, in response to one of the trailers, you wrote an impassioned piece for the ringer.com. What a great website

entitled Let She-Hulk Be Huge. So having seen her in action as a lover and a fighter, are you still disappointed that she's not even more massive? I am disappointed, Ben. Yes. I have certainly gotten used to

it. I think they have done a good job with a short amount of time. I'm not like bothered by the VFX. I simply think that there was an opportunity here to have a female superhero be absolutely huge and not attractive

in a socially sort of like acceptable, customary sort of way. And listen, I can hear my Twitter armor clattering to the ground. I hear all your cries of camera. from all of your homes. I know that this is what Sheeulk looks like. Air has looked like in different variations with different artists. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that like there is, there's an opportunity to make her bigger. And to cries of canon, I say there's a reason she looked like that in the comic books because it's a reasonable way for a woman to look. But, you know, that she keeps her very feminine figure, her very tiny waist when she grows into Sheeholt.

It's like, let's, I just want to see some veins. I want to see her be jacked. And she is slender. She is slender in her Hulk form in a way that makes like very little sense to me. Her arms are sveled, sveled arms. Broad shoulders, spelt arms. Give me a bicep, give me a tricep that could kill me, step on my neck, et cetera, et cetera. Right.

Yeah, this was an opportunity. This is not Natalie Portman bulked up. for Love and Thunder, which she did, but you can go bigger with She-Hulk, like, go bigger, go home, right? So as you noted in your piece, I did have one point on the canon. So, yeah, She-Hulk's dimensions are more or less modeled on how John Byrne drew her, which was along the lines of an 80s bodybuilder bombshell, like kind of a Corey Everson or Rachel McClish-level physique, you know, jacked, but not nearly He-Hulk jacked. So, yeah, she could be bigger, but one of the tensions of that sensational Shehulk run in which

she didn't do a lot of lawy is that she was often drawn in a very pin-up cheesecake-y kind of way, which may account for some of those smitten letter writers I alluded to earlier. And there are some famous issues. You know, there's one where she appears to be jumping rope naked in response to reader demands, though it turns out that she has underwear on, which you can see when she stops jumping roper. There's another one where she's holding a beach ball and imitating the Vanity Fair cover photo of pregnant Demeemore.

And Byrne often has her draw attention to how skimpy her clothing is in these comics. For example, in Byrne's last issue of that run, She-Hulk says, breaking the fourth wall, referring to Byrne, he never let me wear anything that didn't show me off like an errone. video. And in another one, she says, I've done enough gratuitous lounging around in my skimpies. In another one, she refers to Byrne trying to get her into a wet t-shirt. And there's one post-burn issue where she says, any excuse to get me into a bikini. And this was during the time in the early 90s when Marvel actually published several swimsuit issues, which at first featured mostly female superheroes. And guess who was on the cover of the first one? Yeah. She-Hulk. So sometimes the character seemed to sort of embrace it in kind of an empowered exhibitionist way. You know, in Burns' last issue, she says, a little gratuitous cheesecake never heard anybody. But then she also says in that same issue, I happen to know from the fan mail that there are a lot of women out there reading my title and they'd like something a little less obvious.

And every now and then, they'll kind of turn the tables and feature a shirtless buff superhero dude. but it's pretty rare, pretty imbalanced. And I actually came across one of those letters last night in Sensational Shehawk, issue number 39. And it's sort of a sad appeal from a woman named Katie in South Bend. And probably her whole name and address was there if you want to look her up and see how she likes the current series. But she wrote, I was very surprised to see in the fan mail that most of Shehulk's readers are men. There's nothing wrong with that. but it did explain why poor She-Hulk kept having her clothes blown off her.

How embarrassing it must be in the middle of combat to suddenly lose your clothes before your enemies. For a compromise, let She-Hulk layer her clothing, like most girls do, so if need be, she can lose some clothing without being totally undressed. Cute bathing suits, tight jumpsuits, or even slightly torn tops, don't offend me a bit. It's when she has to fight bad guys in her lingerie or less that I wonder, if She-Hulk is a comic fantasy book for men only. So that's pretty depressing. And the answer supposedly written back from She-Hulk was that getting mostly naked works to her advantage in a fight because it distracts her enemies. And she goes on to say that the comics code wouldn't allow her to get totally naked, so don't worry.

And, you know, meanwhile, in those comics, supervillains are constantly objectifying her and falling for her and trying to force her to marry them. it's this kind of uncomfortable thing where you have a male writer and artist drawing this female superhero in sort of an exploitative way. And even though it's pretty tongue and cheek and winking and joking, it still undercuts the character. Like in issue 37, a villain is erasing Shehulk from the page. And she says, hey, are you nuts? You think people buy this book for the stories? So it's 2022. And this is an episode written, directed, and show run by women. So it's not surprising that they don't go down that road. But, you know, she may not be as big as you would like as maybe both of us would like.

But I guess it could be worse if they were drawing inspiration from the original. So it's progress, even if maybe it's a missed opportunity. Definitely sounds like it could be worse. Oh, love. Yeah. Big wolf. Yeah. Product of its times, I suppose.

And those times aren't totally over. But let's move on to the cross-examination. stage. This is where we talk a little bit about crossovers and references in this episode to other things in the MCU. And there weren't that many this week, not as many as last week. But if you freeze frame on the extremely long to-do list near the start of the episode, you see a lot of funny tasks that Jen has assigned to herself, like buy and read how to make friends and influence people, sign up for a big and tall membership, order those new Cheetos you saw, order more chopsticks for the Cheetos, stop wasting chopsticks, find direct contact info for Wong, et cetera.

There's also a filed discovery request for Kraft versus Seoul. So that's a reference to former She Hulk comics writers David Kraft and Charles Sol. There's a compiled depositions for Lee versus Byrne, probably self-explanatory who Lee and Bern are. And research precedents on likeness IP for Miss Pete, which is a reference. to last week's guest star, Megan the Stallion, and her birth name Megan Pete. And along those lines, GLK and H, the law firm,

a name that comes from the comics, references a few formative Marvel figures, Martin Goodman, Marvel's first publisher, Stan Lee, aka Stanley Lieber, and Jack Kirby, aka Jacob Kurtzberg. And that's about it, I think, for this episode. I'm not sure if Donnie Blaze is any relation to Johnny Blaze,

also known as Ghost Rider, Also not sure if Jack the talking goat has anything to do with Mephisto, who sometimes goes by Jack, but I'm not going to go down the Mephisto road here. I'll leave that to Mint Edition and the rest of the internet. But I guess when you have Wong as a mainstay for most of this episode and the second one in a row, you don't need to shoehorn in as many references and connections because we've had a lot. It's maybe been overload. So it's kind of okay, I guess, to pull back on that a bit. And just, just, focus on this series and also Wong. I mean, you know, I got to say, Ben, I didn't catch every single one of those. But I'm glad to hear them now. Yeah, you got to freeze frame repeatedly to catch the deep stuff. But some of these, you know, people on Reddit will find them, even if you do have to freeze frame and fast forward and rewind. And I may have missed one or two here or there.

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Save at Whole Foods Market. Let's move on to the legal brief section. So start this off with a little clip. So consider this an official warning to cease all practices of the mystic arts. Absurd. You can't own magic. Yeah, you can't own magic. You can't trademark a spirit,

register a soul, copyright art. You can copyright art, yes. This is a farce. This is a farce. Okay, as noted on previous episodes, I have a lot of lawyer friends and family members. So because this is a legal procedural, I've been choosing one aspect of each episode for the legal eagles to scrutinize. And for the most part, the show has come out looking pretty good, pretty accurate by TV sitcom standards. And last week we went over how Wong had seemingly incriminated himself by taking the blame for Abominations Prison Break.

and he seems to have just skated this week. He's not even worried about going back into court. I guess it helps to have a sling ring. It's tough to get arrested. There was also last week's dodgy line about diplomatic immunity, where the judge says that Runa's New Asgardian diplomatic immunity doesn't apply because she's not in New Asgard, but that's not how diplomatic immunity works.

I don't think she should be protected when she's not in New Asgard. Then again, she might have made that up. Anyway, on the whole, I think the show is, is faring pretty well, much more realistic than Madison's legal advice about the power of saying that you were texting 911 and the anti-prosecutorial powers. I don't know whether you've tried that. I was not familiar with that tactic. I don't drive. I live in New York, but. I haven't tried it, but I believe that Madison has, so I would kind of trust her on it. But don't do it. Don't text and drive. While you're taking your Tinder profile photos,

Maybe you can try. So this week we have this copyright case, and a lawyer friend referred me to a specialists in this area, a trial lawyer named Matthew Pruitt, who practices for the firm Errant Fox Schiff. And Matt says, this is a great trade secrets non-compete case that would be perfect for a law school exam, which seems like pretty high praise. Yeah, he was talking about how my cousin Vinny is great for the legal accuracy. and how it's often been taught in law school. So we might have to add Sheehulk to the curriculum. What was your impression, if any, of Wong's odds of getting a judgment in his favor here, which we never actually find out what the judge's judgment is, but were you thinking that she would come down against or in favor?

Well, I think my main thought during the trial scene was I did not, I didn't understand why we were focusing so much on, whether you can copyright art or magic and wondering why we were not addressing the proprietary information of a sling ring, like you said earlier. Yeah. Like, I mean, I assume if I ever leave Spotify, there's going to be someone at my door

asking for this laptop back. Exactly. And shortly, as you try to leave the other realm or move along the astral plane, they're going to try and get your sling ring back. So I just kind of thought that that was a failure of the prosecution. As far as the copyright went, you can copyright art, as Jen says.

So I thought that Wong had a good case, but I'm no lawyer. Neither am I. But Matthew Pruitt, Esquire is. So he says he thinks Marvel basically got this correct, much of what transpired here from a legal perspective in this episode. So, yeah, on the copyright point, so from the copyright office, here's a quote, Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work.

So you can't copyright the concept for a painting, for instance, but you can copyright the painting itself. So Matt told me that the relevant area of law here is trade secrets and confidential business. information. So the law of trade secrets deals with information that is a secret, that is treated as a secret by the entity that possesses the secret, and that derives value from the fact that it's a secret. So if Wong developed a new, unique proprietary spell, and he could practice it without disclosing it to others, if he could just mutter it to himself or just execute it himself. He could protect that as a trade secret. One problem he runs into here is that he brought in Donnie as an apprentice without any mutual expectation of confidentiality as far as we know. So ideally,

he would have had Donnie sign an NDA, as Jen says. But it doesn't have to take that form. It could also be sort of a sorcerer's handbook, like an employee handbook that defines some expectation of confidentiality. So the kind of thing you would get on day one of Masters of the Mystic Arts orientation. So because something like that doesn't exist, Matt says the apprentice is free to go out and use whatever he learned from the sorcerer. He said, if there are only five copies of the book, the book of Vashanti, let's say, and each one is guarded by a secret spell and there are only five sorcerers in the world who have access to the book, then it could still be a trade secret. you could imagine them just having these secret books and a few of them know the spells and they all agree that they're going to keep the spells secret and they have some sort of sorcerers guild rules. In that case, this could be protected as a trade secret. If you have a lot of sorcerers who know the same secrets, then a court is going to start looking sideways at the idea that it really is a secret.

A non-compete probably would not be enforceable, especially in California, but it's a trade secret or if it is, an NDA could be enforced. as long as the technique remains a trade secret. If it's not quite a trade secret, just confidential info, then many states require a term of years, so it wouldn't be indefinite. Here's the other catch, though. Wong may not have legal standing to bring a lawsuit if he didn't develop or purchase the trade secret himself. So if he's just memorizing the book of Vichanti, essentially, as the keeper of the ancient

spells, not the inventor of them, then he would, he would, would have to assert his claim on behalf of the masters of the mystic arts. And the court would have to decide whether he was entitled to do that. So if he wrote his own book of spells, he could copyright the specific expression of those spells so that Donnie Blaze couldn't say photocopy that set of spells and sell them. Wong could even patent the technology if, for instance, he had invented the sling ring, as you said. But as it is, Matt says he has a pretty shaky case.

And ultimately, we don't find out what the ruling would have been because Shee Hulk basically badgers Donnie and Cornelius into accepting the sea synthesis by dangling a demon over their heads, which probably violates the American Bar Association's model rules of professional conduct. So she could maybe get disbarred or censored or something for that and the agreement might get tossed out. But basically, I'm sorry to say this, but I think Cornelius and Donnie may be right. when they say that this is a farce. It sounds like they may actually have the stronger side of this case. I think it just sounds really good that Wong has retained counsel because he has a lot of legal work ahead of him to prevent future situations like this. He's got a lot of things he needs to put on paper.

He's got some books to write and some manuals to make. Yeah. I think that the magician's code is notoriously not written down, but they're going to have to figure that out because we can't keep having it. these little goblin demons coming out of the woodwork. This could be a lucrative client for Jen. So yes, this case could be a farce, as is this segment. To be honest, I'm just delighted by how many billable minutes today's legal consultant

wasted or let's say spent talking to me and saying the words sorcerer, spells, wizards, and magicians. I hope law school was worth it. I would like to request a full transcript of that conversation, please, and Thank you. I don't know where the Shehawk practices law. Los Angeles, yeah. She's in California.

Yeah. A non-compete would not have helped her. Would not have helped this. If this wizard is in California, too. He's in Nepal. Oh, I can't really speak to the law in Nepal. Yeah. All right.

That takes us to the closing arguments. So first question, when does the statute of limitations expire on spoiling one? TV show on another TV show, just in case anyone is upset about the Sopranos spoilers here. I'm going to say a year. I think after a year with a big show, you should be safe because if they haven't watched it then, but there's got to be some sort of vocal ramp up to the fact that it's coming. You know, they displayed Sopranos really big on that screen behind Madison before she's spoiled it. And I was like, oh, they want us to know that Wong is watching the Sopranos.

But maybe that's not long enough. What do you think? I think the acceptable spoiler window is different than what it was when the Sopranos was on, what was social media and just the expectation that you're going to get spoiled somehow. But we're well past it. Our friend Joanna Robinson famously has not seen the Sopranos or not most of it, but I'm sure she is not angry at She-Hulk. Adriana died 18 years ago. Tony killed Christopher 15 years ago. Enough time has elapsed. And look, if you're with someone who's watching Sopranos now and doesn't know what happens,

then don't be a Madison, have some respect, preserve the suspense. But in the larger culture, it's okay. I think a year, it's not bad, especially if it's a very zeitgeist-dominant land bark show like The Sopranos, where if you don't know by now, it's your fault. Well, and the thing is, if you haven't watched the show at all, you actually don't know what those spoilers mean. You're just saying names, you know, who died, when, how? I don't know.

Yeah, and maybe you'll forget by the time you get to season five or season six, or maybe the Sorcer Supreme can just do the neuralizer on you. I'm crossing franchises here, but make you forget maybe. All right. Second question, what was the worst date on this episode? There are so many to choose from. You've got your rude, fake New Yorker who won't pay for drinks. You have your meathead who wants to brag about his deadlift.

You have your pretentious indie director. You have the guy who calls her a specimen. Who you're going with or who you not going out with? I'm not going out with any of them, Ben, please. But I'm going to go with the first date that Jen goes on where they have, you know, the very comedic moment about who is going to go for the check. But it's not because of that. I think that that guy is like most realistic, most undercover terrible. And there are a lot of times in this show where you can just kind of tell how online the writers are,

like how pop culture-centric they are. And I think almost every time that is really funny and fun. I assume we're going to talk about Madison some more. I don't think we can talk enough about like how well she was written. and performed. But when that first guy says, you know, that he's a New Yorker through... First when he says he hates L.A.,

and that's so annoying. Then he says he's a New Yorker through and through. And then Jen says, how long did you live there? And he says, 14 months. It's like, guy, get out of here. But that's just... It's so realistic.

It's so much more insidious than the other, like, very straightforward, terrible options. So he was definitely made... gave me the ick. the most? Who was it for you? Yeah, he's up there. You're not a real New Yorker unless you remember Abomination destroying Harlem. But I think I'm actually going to go with an unconventional answer here. I'm going to go with the last guy. I think in a way he is the most undercover bad, the hunky oncologist

who reads Roxanne Gay and seems like such a good listener, he turns out to be as superficial as everyone else, which is even more devastating because he made Jen let her guard down. And it's not clear, is he actually a good guy or does he just know what to say to get home with Shehulk? It's like he wakes up and it's basically like he sees her without makeup in the morning. And he's like, I'm out. You know, I'm not staying for breakfast. And granted, if he didn't know that she shapeshifts, I could see that being a bit charring. But if he's such a good listener, I assume that came up during dinner.

And this scenario is actually pulled from the first issue of the Dan Slot, Shehulk run, where Jen wakes up with a model she brought home as Shee Hulk, and she transforms into Jen while she's sleeping. So she wakes up under his arm as Jen, and she thinks to herself, got to do something before it happens, before he gives me the look. The I went home with She Hulk,

but woke up to this look. And then she morphs back into Shehulk before he wakes up. But it's hard for her, because after owning her identity at the end of episode three, she's conflicted again. She made a She Hulk profile, and she said she's not proud of it. And then when Sheeulk gets more matches,

she says, well, that is demoralizing for Jen. So extra demoralizing, right? After finding out that work only wanted her for Shee Hulk, now she finds out that hunky doctor only wanted her for Shehulk. That to me, that's sad. It is sad. It's a tough spot to be in. You got a, you know, you need a good therapist,

and you need to have your mind on right when you get on the apps. And you need to know. You need to have your self-worth in check and your value unlock and not put your value in these knuckleheads. But I think that's a really solid choice on your part, Ben, to choose him as the worst. Because ultimately, he was the worst. And ultimately, I do not believe that he was a doctor. Oh, yeah. I'm not buying it.

Yeah, he may have made up the whole thing. Probably he picked up the tab at least, and hopefully she had fun with him before he left. So that's something. Anyway, third question here. Madison says she hates drama, but I have my doubts. So here's where I'm relying on your expertise. Please cast Madison in a Bravo show or really any reality show if you'd rather go beyond the Bravo umbrella. Oh, you know, might as well stay in Bravo. We got a lot of great options. I just have to say how much I enjoyed this Madison character and this performance in the episode. I thought. that she was so funny. And, like, you know, when she first gets pulled up on stage in the magicians act, you're, it seems like it's going to be pretty one note.

And the extent to which, I mean, that has to be the best drunk acting since Evan Peters in Marevice Town. I think that it should be, it is a high bar, but, like, she, the way that she would do something really drunken and then, like, when she gets on the stand, she's like, I swear to tell the truth. And then she falls off the chair. she looks at the judge really seriously, and she says, but really, I do.

It's like, that's how you act when you're drunk. You're like, you're making mistakes, but you're like, no, I'm going to convince them. I'm not drunk while I slur my way through this. I just thought that she was so great. And listening, I loved that she just had a pretty good time, you know? She's just a fun, fun-loving girl, and I think that that would earn her a great place

on the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, where we already have a real Madison-type, named Whitney Rose. I really can't explain the similarities between these two people, the way that they talk, the way that they love to party, the way that they wear rompers

that might as well be swimsuits. I just, I think that Madison would fit right in and would bring a sort of levity and lightness to the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City that we could really use during these legal times. A lot of legalities also going on over on the Real House 5th of Public City. Perfect.

Okay. Speaking of Roses, last question, in honor of Donnie Blaze, giving Madison an order list final rose and in honor of the forthcoming finale of The Bachelorette, which you'll be covering later this month. Give me your top pick for a Bachelor or Bachelorette lead from the MCU and maybe a handful of your top five draftees for Superpowered Paradise. Who do you want to see in that setting? Listen, it's an easy answer, but for Bachelor, I'm going Hulk, it's time to get some body diversity in this franchise.

They're not going to do it unless it's a superhero. So that seems like the easiest and quickest route into it. And, you know, for Bachelorette options, don't quite have as many body diversity candidates. She-Hulk would be the closest. But like we've discussed, it's not exactly out of the norm. Personally, I prefer my bachelorette's angry. I like when they're mad. And as Jen has well discussed, she's pretty on top of her anger.

So I'm thinking Black Widow's sister, Yelena, I would just really love to see as a very fearsome Hannah Brown-style bachelor's. Perfect. Do you have any ideas? It's hard to top the ones you named or Shehulk herself. Just like, I guess it would be not totally different from this season of The Bachelorette where you kind of have multiple leads, right? If you had Jen and Shee Hulk and then you had the insecurity of, oh, they want Shee Hulk, not Jen. That's basically what we've been watching this season. Just try to resist comparing women to one another.

I dare you. Exactly. That's well suited. And as for Superpowered. Well, you did ask superpowered Paradise, but I just want Madison. I want Madison on Paradise. I want Madison on every show I watch. Yeah.

Send us to your submissions. Tweet us for your Superpowered Paradise draftics. All right. That brings us to our verdict, our closing thoughts, brief thoughts on the episode and the series so far. Any final say on how you think this is going or how you enjoyed this week's episode? I really enjoyed this week's episode. I thought that it was very funny and I laughed a lot. And that is really what I'm looking for personally from the franchise.

Now, you know, I am no, this is my first time on the Ringerverse. I don't know how I'm going to get my foot in again. But I'm not an MCU expert, but as just like a TV enjoyer and studier and watcher, I think that kind of leaning into these MCU hijinks like they do with Wong and Jen in this episode. is how I am really going to enjoy this series the most. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, I knew no more about She-Hulk than you did a few weeks ago. So all you have to do is just spend a few weeks just reading She-Hulk cover-to-cover, and you'll catch out quick.

But this is probably my favorite episode of the series so far. I think the funniest episode, although last week's was good too. And I'm really enjoying this. And Disney only sent screeners to some people for the first four. So as far as I know, we are entering uncharted territory next week. And I'm excited to see her continue to claim or reclaim the She-Hulk name. She didn't want it at first. But now that it's in jeopardy now that Titania is trying to control it, she may be forced to fight for it, whether legally or violently or both.

So I think that's an interesting dynamic. She's comfortable with her power now, which we see in the way that she shrugs off her dad's concerns. and she decides not to call the cops on the wrecking crew, but she's still becoming comfortable with how She Hulk affects her personal life. So like Adriana on The Sopranos, she's leading a double life, and everyone knows it now. So we'll see what price she has to pay. So the time has come to take our traditional one-week recess.

Jody, thank you so much for being this week's expert witness. Thank you so much for having me, then. a great time over on the Shee Hulk sitcom universe. You can read Jody's account of another awkward morning after in her Bacheloret fantasy suites recap this week. Thank you to Jonathan Kerma for being our bailiff and producer today, keeping the court in order. Thanks to Arjuna, Ram Gopal, for managing the snot out of this episode, as always. And please watch this space for more Mal and Joe on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday, and some show

on Saturday, too, along with the Midnight Boys, and they'll be back with more on Wednesday, and then I'll be back with more She-Hulk next Thursday. So for now, the next round of vodka and yak milks is on me. Just put it on my comortage tab. And as Bruce Springsteen and Christopher Maltesanti said, the highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. So stay safe out there. Don't take your profile photos while you're driving. We'll be back to talk about an Unbroken Hero next week. Kind of a bummer way to end this episode. I bet there's a fun tag.

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