She-Hulk episode 4 review: 'Funny, focussed, but has a villain problem'

Warning: spoilers for She-Hulk episode 4 ahead – turn back now if you have not seen the latest episode of the MCU show.

Early on in this week’s She-Hulk, Jen quips that Wong’s cameo should give the show "Twitter armor" for another week – and, well, she’s not wrong. Benedict Wong’s return as Wongers elevates this to the funniest episode of the MCU show to date.

We’re now fully in the procedural format: Wong hires Jen when one of Kamar-Taj’s former Students of The Mystic Arts goes rogue and starts using their portal skills in a knock-off magic show. Things get serious when the cheekily named Donny Blaze (a nod to Johnny Blaze, but sadly no Ghost Rider) sends a drunk attendee into a goblin-filled hell universe, and Wong is left to pick up the pieces.

The structure gives the show some much-needed focus and acknowledges how, as with most TV shows in this genre, that we don’t really care about the cases, just how they offer a narrative to follow. With Donny Blaze, it’s hard to invest in this stuck-up magician’s case, but we are gifted some very enjoyable moments and the episode’s standout character, Madisynn. Her dynamic with Wong is the most fun the series has had so far. Whether she’s spoiling The Sopranos or the duo are heading out for fro-yo, they’re great fun and I need a buddy comedy ASAP. 

Elsewhere, Jen is still grappling with her superhero life clashing with her regular life. Turns out, the flying demons aren’t the real evil here – it’s online dating in your 30s. Struggling to meet anyone as "regular old Jen", she gives her profile a She-Hulk makeover and the matches start pouring in, along with the red flags. The resulting dates are stuffed with too many gags in a very short space of time – did the wannabe New Yorker really need to be that awful? – but, for the most part, these scenes are witty, pacy, and depressingly accurate.

I’m totally into the series embracing the mundane everyday qualms of being a woman and a superhero rather than needing to center on another world-saving adventure. However, there is an overarching issue that I’m going to call the Titania problem. Understandably, you don’t need a villain driving the plot, but you also can’t keep name-dropping Jameela Jamil’s influencer and hinting at something bigger to come without doing something about it. We really don’t know who she is – her character only appeared in a 10-second, dialogue-less scene back in episode one – and the references are, at best, confusing.

When the episode ends, as last week’s did, with a tease at the bigger picture – this time, Jen being sued by the supervillain influencer – it falls flat. Now that we’re almost at She-Hulk's mid-point, the series needs to give us more than a name and a character poster if it wants us to get on board with this storyline.

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