Jen lands a new job at GLK/H as a superhuman law attorney, but the catch is she has to do it as She-Hulk.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Context Change: When Holden Holliway hires Jen, he does so to capitalize on her newfound She-Hulk persona for the superhuman division, though he also respects her talent as a lawyer. In the comics, this is inverted, since there Holliway states he wants Jen's sharp legal mind as opposed to She-Hulk's reckless adventuring.
- Affably Evil: While it's unclear just how genuine Blonsky is about reforming, as detailed in Ambiguously Evil below, he's nonetheless remarkably polite to Jen throughout her visit to his cell.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Jen's mom, who apparently has a habit of giving Jen's phone number to random strangers.
- Ambiguously Evil: Emil claims to have reformed, stating he no longer changes into the Abomination and has sent haiku of apology to those he's wronged, including Bruce himself, who is convinced he's changed his ways. But he also tries to justify his villainous actions in The Incredible Hulk, and he expresses resentment over the fact that the public sees Bruce as a hero, and we know (which Jen and the public find out at the end of the episode) that he's been leaving his cell to fight as the Abomination in an underground fight club in Macau. However, for the latter, he was also shown to have struck up an unlikely friendship with Wong, a heroic figure.
- Atrocious Alias: Jen is not taken with being called "She-Hulk".
- Bad Influencer: Titania is a social media influencer who was simply in court over a parking ticket when she decided to go on a rampage.
- Blatant Lies: While speaking with Jennifer inside the Cube, Emil claims that he has stopped using his Abomination form entirely as a way of trying to reform. Viewers of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings know that he's lying on the first count, as Emil was shown in Abomination form fighting and being defeated by Wong during the events of that film. Him reforming is more ambiguous, as he's shown to be on friendly terms with Wong and Wong is obviously the one springing him from jail for said fights.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Pug gives Jen and Nikki a welcome basket that contains office supplies, snacks, and a map to the best bathroom for pooping.
- Brick Joke: Blonsky offers to read Jen haikus he wrote about how he regrets his past actions. Bruce later mentions Blonsky sent him a letter where he apologized in the form of a haiku.
- Call-Back:
- Bruce is now aboard the Sakaaran delivery craft that tried to intercept him last episode, headed off to parts unknown.
- A video of Wong fighting Abomination in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is shown on the news at the end of the episode, complicating her case that he's reformed.
- Cardboard Prison: Played with. The Cube is shown to take the incarceration of its prisoners very seriously, and Jennifer is even forced to revert to human form just to speak with Emil, on top of following several procedures such as not touching the glass or stepping past the yellow line to avoid any risk of escape. That said, the fact that the security there somehow failed to notice Wong taking him to Macau to participate in illegal fight clubbing until the very end of the episode indicates that not only do the guards not bother checking on him regularly, there's not even any cameras in his cell. This is made worse by the fact that Wong's dialog in Shang-Chi indicates that Wong does this on a regular basis.
- Cassandra Truth: A retroactive, cross-episode example. Jen didn't take Bruce's warnings in the first episode about how her new She-Hulk form would permanently impact her life seriously due to her near immediately gaining control over her abilities. At the very beginning of this episode, her fight with Titania ends up costing Jen her job due to the notoriety her powers would bring to her law firm, and her new job at GLK/H requires her to attend her court hearings as the She-Hulk because she now has to be a representative for all superhumans, whether she likes it or not.
- Celebrity Paradox: The instructions for visitors to the Cube naturally remind Jen of The Silence of the Lambs... starring Anthony Hopkins (Odin). Footage from Ally McBeal is also played at the bar - Robert Downey Jr., aka Tony Stark, was in that show.
- Chekhov's Gag: The joke in Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings about Emil in an underground fight ring bites Jen in the rear and becomes a critical plot point here.
- Continuity Nod:
- When talking about the supposed changes going on in his life, Blonsky notes that he goes by a First-Name Basis now, which is backed up by Wong calling him Emil in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus as Jen is looking for a job references Tiamut sticking out of the Earth.
- Contrived Coincidence: Titania happened to be in court for a parking ticket and it's Jen's courtroom she decided to bust into.
- Couch Gag: The Title-Only Opening is replaced with She-Hulk: Attorney For Hire, reflecting how she is out of the job.
- Door Dumb: Jen encounters this problem briefly when she first arrives at GLK/H.
- Dude, Not Funny!: The guard makes it clear that Blonsky is a serious and dangerous threat. When Jen tries to add some levity to their conversation with a Silence of the Lambs reference, he sharply reminds her that they're in a prison.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Blonsky mentions that he went after Bruce because General Ross gave him the Super Soldier Serum. Jen immediately latches onto this, seeming to believe this adds some extenuating circumstances to Blonsky's subsequent Abomination rampage.
- Extranormal Prison: We find Blonsky in The Cube, a maximum security prison made of solid concrete, this iteration under the Department of Damage Control.
- Fantastic Legal Weirdness: The legal firm Jen is hired for was meant for exactly this kind of stuff, being asked to be She-Hulk during work hours and take cases involving superheroes, supervillains and other Enhanced circumstances.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Jen calls Bruce to talk about being hired at a new agency, Bruce asks her what alias the media gave her, something he should know already given the media circus. Then it's revealed that he isn't in his lab, but in the spaceship that led to her becoming She-Hulk in the first place, and understandably wouldn't have seen any recent news reports.
- Forgiveness: Bruce decides to forgive Blonsky offscreen after Blonsky sent him a haiku and an apology letter.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: While Jen is looking for a job online, there's an advertisement on the site with articles about a man that fought in a bar brawl with metal claws and a giant statue of a man sticking out of the ocean.
- Good Parents: Jen's dad, noticing she's extremely uncomfortable and stressed at the family dinner, makes an excuse to bring her to the basement, where he asks her how she's doing and gives her reassurance that everything is going to be alright.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: When it comes to keeping visitors safe from Blonsky in his cell, the guards are very no-nonsense about the procedures that they need to follow. That said, the fact that they appear to be completely unaware that Emil left his cell to participate in Xialing's fight club indicates they aren't quite as competent as they try to look.
- Informed Ability: Holden Holliway claims that part of his reason for hiring Jen is that he was impressed by the fact that she would have won her case against his firm, GLK&H, if not for the extenuating circumstances. He claims this was not an easy thing to do. Assuming Jen was permitted to deliver her closing argument, her success could just as easily be attributed to her opponent's legally incoherent closing argument as it could any competence she displayed offscreen.
- Internal Reveal: At the end of the episode, Jennifer discovers that, contrary to his previous statements, Blonsky has in fact been using his Abomination form to participate in illegal fight clubbing. People who watched Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, however, will already know this.
- Intoxication Ensues: At the bar, Jen's boss asks her to de-Hulk for his convenience. Having already drunk quite a lot, the minute she does so, she becomes instantly hammered and collapses to the floor.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: When Dennis notices "a hot chick" in the bar, he says he's "gonna go talk to 'it'".
- Jerkass: If his blatant sexism in the previous episode weren't already a warning sign, Dennis proves he's every bit as terrible as the audience was led to believe from his first scene when he accuses Jen of staging the courtroom attack and believes her gaining Hulk powers is "nepotism" when she evades the question on how she got them. Then he refers to an attractive woman as "it" for the cherry on top.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When discussing his past battle with Blonsky and how he's put it behind him, Bruce says that he was "a different person back then, literally", referencing the fact that when Bruce fought Blonksy in The Incredible Hulk (2008) he was played by Edward Norton, while he's been played by Mark Ruffalo since The Avengers (2012); while still making sense in-universe as his current form, Smart Hulk, is a vastly different character from the Banner/Hulk who existed prior to Avengers: Endgame. Jennifer briefly looks at the camera and sarcastically laughs when she hears this.
- Morton's Fork: Titania's impulsive attack on Jen's court case had two outcomes: either a mistrial is declared because the jury gets hurt or killed by Titania, or a mistrial is declared because Jen saves them and they become biased in her favor. Her boss even affirms that she made the right call in the end when Jen points this out.
- Mundane Utility: The Stinger has Jen using her Super-Strength to do chores that would take more than one person to finish quickly at her family's home.
- Nepotism: Dennis accuses Jen of exploiting family connections when she reveals her Hulk form in the courtroom.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Jen fighting off Titania may have been the right thing to do, a fact her boss even acknowledges, but it turned a slam-dunk case into a mistrial because opposing council quite reasonably argued that saving the jury's life would unfairly bias them, and she's subsequently fired because her notoriety makes her a liability.
- Nobody Poops: Averted. Jen's welcome basket includes a map to the best bathroom for pooping, to which both she and Nikki say "Thank you".
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Jen wants to refuse the case to represent Blonsky due to the conflict of interest since he tried to kill her cousin, but since Blonsky specifically asked for her and even signed a conflict waiver, it's either take it or quit since it's the exact kind of case she was hired for.
- Oh, Crap!: Jen's reaction when she sees the video of Abomination fighting Wong in an illegal cage match seconds after agreeing to represent him and bragging to her boss that her strategy is 100% guaranteed.
- Put on a Bus: Near the end of the episode, Bruce once again blasts off into space in the Sakaaran ship seen from earlier, leaving Jen to deal with Blonsky on her own.
- Reformed Criminal: Blonksy seems genuinely remorseful and reformed since his rampage at Harlem in The Incredible Hulk. He had learned how to return to his human form, has written heart-felt haiku to everyone he ever wronged and has even made-up with Banner during his years in incarceration. Though whether or not all of this is genuine or a ruse for some nefarious Evil Plan is yet to be shown, especially in light of his fight club participation where it's shown that he was lying about not becoming the Abomination anymore but was also shown on affable terms with Wong, who's a genuine hero.
- Serious Business: Jennifer and Nikki both agree that knowing the location of the best bathroom for pooping is very valuable information for your first day at work.
- Shout-Out: Jen tries to quote The Silence of the Lambs when she's warned that Blonsky is dangerous, but the guard cuts her off because it's a serious matter.
- The Stinger: After (and during) the credits, Jen uses She-Hulk to help her family with various household tasks.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Right after Jen agrees to represent Blonsky, she sees a news report of him participating in an illegal cage match, blowing a huge hole in her case that he's reformed.
- Super Cell Reception: Zig-zagged. Bruce still has reception while inside a starship that is implied to be at least outside Earth's orbit, if not a considerable distance beyond. The call does disconnect once the ship jumps to FTL, however.
- This Is Gonna Suck: After footage of Abomination's cage fight with Wong is revealed on live television, Jen breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience "that sucks."
- Title Drop:
- Bruce dubs Jen "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" after learning what she's being called by the public.
- "Superhuman Law" is the department Jen finds herself working at for GLK/H.
- Toilet Humor: Pug's welcome basket includes a map to the best bathroom for pooping.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Zig-zagged with Emil Blonsky. He claims to feel some kind of remorse for his actions back in The Incredible Hulk, and has gone so far as to write haiku letters to each of his victims and Bruce himself to make amends. That said, he clearly shows some kind of resentment for the fact that Bruce is now celebrated as a hero while he's still in prison, and he lies to Jen's face about his lack of usage of his Abomination form, indicating he might not be entirely honest about wanting to reform.
- Truth in Television: Legal associates (lawyers who aren't partners) at big name law firms don't get a choice in the cases they take. That Jen is a celebrity hire doesn't change that fact.
- TV Telephone Etiquette: On a phone call with Jen, Bruce announces he can't help her because he has something important to take care of. Cut to the exterior of the Sakaaran ship he's on disappearing as it jumps to FTL speed. Jen remarks that the silence must mean the call is over.
- Wham Shot: At the end of their phone call, it's later revealed that Bruce isn't in his lab in Mexico, but inside the Sakaaran spaceship from the previous episode that's now in space, presumably flying off to Sakaar.
- Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Jen is so nervous about taking on Emil as a client when she calls Bruce to ask for permission, she can't stop talking long enough to hear his constant attempts at reassurance.
- Worthy Opponent: Holloway may be hiring Jen as the public face of the law firm's new superhuman law division because she's She-Hulk, but he also respects her ability to win a case against him (or would have, anyway) and clearly sees her as a talented lawyer apart from being She-Hulk.
- "Oh. That sucks."
