A few hours remaining before the 2nd episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law drops. I thought the 1st episode was highly amusing, thoughtful, nostalgic, and complemented with some low-stakes violence, setting the tone for a series that is more light-hearted than usual, and relatable more on a human scale. I'm also very interested in the meta story, and how it shapes the narrative as told by Tatiana Maslany's Jennifer Walters (or Jen) who desperately wants her series to be a "fun lawyer show" rather than a superhero flick.
Jen is probably the first character in the MCU who rejects and denies her powers. Her concerns are entirely human. It's all about job, and recognition for her competence. Friends, and work rivals. And maybe in later episodes, her insecurities dealing with relationships. Perhaps her obsession with Captain America suggests some projection on her own love life -- but I'm speculating here.
As such, when she recaps her origin story to the audience, breaking the 4th wall as she does so, she is a terribly unreliable narrator. Afraid the audience will be distracted from her amazing lawyer super power, she hastily acknowledges her Hulk-ness, reassuring us that she is coping well, and that her condition will not be a further distraction from the courtroom drama she wants to tell. As such, her origin tale is perfunctory and rushed. Accusations that she is a "Mary-Sue" are entirely warranted, because that IS the tale she wants to tell. In the training montage with Cousin Bruce, she passes all her tests with flying colours because she refuses to tell us every painful detail of her learning journey, just enough to justify her return to her law firm and the case she is working on. Her flashback also features cartoonish characters, like the overly helpful bathroom ladies and the pervy males she meets at the Ideal Sports Bar. These people are told from her subjective point of view, and once again, she skims over the details that might have added more nuance to those encounters, while exercising her prerogative to be the hero of her own story. After her recap she reminds us once again that we are watching a "lawyer show".
The "lawyer show" however quickly degenerates into a pile of utter nonsense. Before Jen can even commence her closing arguments on a nondescript case, Jamila Jamil's Titania randomly bursts through a wall Kool-Aid Man style causing havoc. Her ridiculous outfit gives no indication of her identity, her motivation is undefined, and she attacks the biggest, greenest thing she sees, after it declares itself as "Jennifer Walters, Attorney at Law". The whole attack ends with a single punch from Jen, and that's it. Jen reverts to lawyer form, and in her disheveled state announces that she is ready to deliver her closing arguments... immediately cut to black. The "lawyer show" never once gives Jen a chance to shine as a lawyer.
Who is Titania (if you didn't already know who she was, you would never have known who she was)? What does she want? Who does she work for? How evil can she be? None of these questions are answered and the main antagonist in this episode is summarily dispatched with ease. It doesn't matter. In this establishing episode, whomever she was, she is not the most significant villain Jen is facing. Torn between the lawyer that she wants to be and the She-Hulk who keeps getting in the way of her lawyer-ing, Jen's true conflict is against her own narrative.
Is Jen a good lawyer? Her interactions with Bruce do suggest that she has impressive skills. She keeps getting the better of him not because she is a better Hulk, but because she is a "better lawyer than she is a Hulk". Unfortunately for her, her narrative, her story, is equally determined to prove otherwise.
