She-Hulk: Attorney at Law continues on the Disney+ scene with episode 4! The story at large continues to be a mystery, but at least we get some more Wong this week! Let’s check in and see how are things going for our new favorite Hulk!
Recap of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S1E4: “Is This Not Real Magic?“
The episode opens with a magic show being performed by acclaimed magician, Donny Blaze. It’s clear that his magic doesn’t really get the people going, until he takes a hapless audience member, Madisynn, and sends her through a mystic portal. Yes; the same kind of mystic portal used by the Sorcerer Supreme!
We cut to Nepal where Wong is watching the Sopranos, when suddenly Madisynn shows up. She’s clearly had a rough go of it, and it was only by making a deal with a talking goat that she was even able to make it back to Earth 616.
Meanwhile, Jen’s dad wants to try and protect her after the run-in with the Wrecking Crew. Interestingly enough, Jen isn’t concerned because She-Hulk can handle them again if they show up a second time. Instead, she’s more interested in finding a partner through a dating app called Matcher.
That’s when Wong shows up to Jen’s office and asks for her help litigating a case against Donny Blaze. Apparently Donny used to be an apprentice to the Mystic Arts, but was kicked out. Unfortunately for Wong, there isn’t any sort of paper trail or contract that could help the case stand in court, but Jen is determined to help him out.
Nikki and Jen head out to work through the cease and desist for Donny Blaze, followed up by working on Jen’s dating profile. Nikki starts swiping like mad before suggesting that Jen make her profile as She-Hulk instead of herself. After all, a corporate headshot photo doesn’t seem like it’ll cut it in the dating world.
They deliver the cease and desist to Donny Blaze, who obviously refuses to follow through. This thing is going to court! Afterwards, Jen gets a single match which turns out to be an awful date. She’s clearly down about her absent love-life.
In the courtroom, Wong summons Madisynn as a key witness in the case against Donny Blaze. Donny uses smoke bombs and cheap magic to try and impress the judge, who will use the next few weeks to make a ruling. Despite possibly endangering all of humanity, Donny is permitted to continue his show.
Back at home that night, Jen changes her dating profile to be a She-Hulk one, and the matches come FLYING in! Apparently dating a superhero is high on people’s lists when assessing a potential romantic partner. After several encounters with people who want to talk about themselves or treat Jen like a ‘specimen’, Jen finally meets a guy she can split some fries with. They head back to her place.
Donny Blaze puts on another magic show and ends up pulling a dove from another dimension; he’s desperate for applause. But the unthinkable happens when the dove lays an egg and the egg hatches into a little imp. Suddenly the entire room is filled with imps that swarm out of the portal. And who does Donny run to for help? Wong!
Wong portals into Jen’s apartment when she won’t answer her phone because she’s preoccupied with Mr. Perfect. Things were about to get a little steamy when she gets pulled into helping Wong take care of all the beasties. At least as they’re cleaning up the mess they get Donny Blaze to agree to the C&D. It’s the least he could do for causing this mayhem, right?
Victorious, She-Hulk returns to her apartment for a nice night of frivolity with her date. In the morning, however, she’s regular-old Jen and that’s a deal-breaker. Gosh she just can’t catch a break! What’s even worse? Titania filed a trademark for She-Hulk and now Jen has to deal with that.
Thoughts on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S1E4: “Is This Not Real Magic?”
Despite ending the previous episode on a cliffhanger about the Wrecking Crew, we barely get mention of them at all in episode 4. The only hint that we get of an over-arching story is the reappearance of Titania through her lawsuit at the end of the episode. I was hoping for a bit more considering the series doesn’t have many episodes left.
Shoutout to the best name for a lawyer bar ever: Legal Ease. It’s just so good and if you aren’t paying close attention it would be easy to miss. I wonder if I missed this in the previous episodes and this was just my first time noticing it…
Also I was pleasantly surprised to see Rhys Coiro from Entourage fame showing up in the role of Donny Blaze! An interesting aside to make about the name Donny Blaze is that it’s remarkable similar to Johnny Blaze, the real name of a certain Ghost Rider.
Obviously Johnny and Donny are completely different names and it was likely that Donny selected his stage name because it would draw a lot of attention. But, it is quite interesting to have this correlation, especially with all of these street-level heroes on the scene and coming up in future MCU projects: Blade, Moon Knight, Werewolf by Night, etc. Who knows!?
I also really love the interactions between Wongers and Madisynn with two N’s and one Y but it’s not where you think. The fact that she continuously spoils The Sopranos for him is absolutely ridiculous, and they have another fun interaction in the mid-credits scene. Benedict Wong’s deadpan delivery juxtaposed with this party girl is a perfect pairing that we never knew we needed until now.
Another amusing line was the whole ‘No matches? Why is that an alert?’ Not to mention the notification just updating the number within the original notification, which is some level of Mystic Arts all on its own. When do we get this awesome technology? Jen also makes a comment on the absurdity of dating in your 30s with all of these different dating apps and the reduction of humans to a split-second evaluation.
If you pause the episode on Jen’s to-do list, you’ll also find some choice nuggets in there like ‘Sign up for Big and Tall membership’ and ‘Order those new Cheetos you saw’, followed by ‘Order more chopsticks’. So much on her to-do list is super validating for people who procrastinate or just like being able to cross stuff off a list. I fall into that bucket for sure.
Is Titania going to be the ‘big-bad’ here, or are we going to get more Wrecking Crew? Honestly I’m not sure at this juncture, but this long build-up better pay off. Sometimes these MCU shows keep you guessing for so long that we don’t get that good villain character development that we so desperately crave.