S01.E06: Just Jen

[Chicago Redshirt]

14 hours ago, Zuleikha said:

No, they didn't perfectly represented his issues. Mr. Immortal asked Nikki to work on getting a shorter amount of eye contact for the apology and she raised it instead. That was malicious and bad lawyering.

It's also a deliberate writing choice to show Nikki being annoyed with Mr. Immortal and working against him rather than for him as the main interaction in the scene. I didn't actually get that there was no "win" here because the show didn't take any of the law aspects seriously. Yes, Mallory and Nikki commented that they thought the spouses had a case, but foolishly, I had expected that the point was to show us Mallory being a brilliant lawyer and finding loopholes in the law because it doesn't account for someone having the ability to resurrect after death. 
 

The show told us, and I think it's fairly safe to say that it would probably be true if anything close to real-world law applies, that Mr. Immortal is guilty of numerous crimes.

He faked his own death to get out of at least 8 marriages. (Is it pure coincidence that the number's the same as Abomination's brides?) He remarried at least 7 times that we know of. He almost certainly committed bigamy, fraud, and other crimes. He had civil liability for his debts in each of those lives. I think the show explicitly mentioned he racked up $75k in credit card debt in one life. And each of those spouses was a witness who could put him away for years. 

There's really only one way I can see to win that case -- settle and non-disclosure agreement.

It is pretty much inconceivable that if the exes brought suit that any court or jury would side with Mr. Immortal given the pattern of behavior. Maybe if had been just done the one time, it could be deemed excusable. But eight? No way.

There's an old saying for litigators: When the law is on your side, pound the law. When the facts on your side, pound the facts. And when neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound the table. No matter how brilliant a lawyer Mallory might be, she can't possibly fight the sort of uphill battle when the law is not on her side, the facts are not on her side, and her client is an unrepentant, lying self-centered asshole who happens to have superpowers (and thus would probably freak at least some people out).

Yes, Nikki should not have made him give an extra 5 seconds of meaningful eye contact. That was a joke, and some people (including me) found it funny despite it being technically unethical to not act in his best interest. (Then again, a lawyer might argue that it is in his best interests to have to undergo the extra five seconds of eye contact. Lawyers can argue just about any position.)

Mr. Immortal is lucky none of his exes bothered to get their own attorneys, because at least one of the plaintiff's attorneys would have told Mallory to stick any potential deal up his immortal ass.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 9/22/2022 at 2:01 PM, Unclejosh said:

I was today year's old when I learned that a cash bar was considered tacky since every wedding including my own I have attended (with one exception) has had a cash bar.

Clearly I am too low class to know people who can afford such things.

If you google "cash bar wedding tacky" it seems like a lot of the results range from saying "yes" to tiptoeing around saying "kinda." 

People's mileage will vary, of course. No offense to you or anyone who has a cash bar, but I don't see much of a difference between having a cash bar and charging people to have dinner or a piece of wedding cake. If you're a host, you're a host. Either pay for the alcohol or don't have alcohol.

On 9/23/2022 at 1:50 AM, arc said:

How did Nikki know to role-play as an incel to sign up for Intelligencia? The external page she went to didn't seem that full of red flags, unlike the members only pages.

I'm assuming Intelligencia's reputation as a man-baby incel site preceded it, and that she could have signed up as "nramos@gmail.com" or whatever her actual info was, but she chose to make up an incel-like persona just for fun.

On 9/23/2022 at 2:22 PM, paigow said:

 How does he still have Apple shares from the 1980s? If the alias on the brokerage account that made the purchase is "dead", his estate would have been wound up. 

Presumably he has a whole bunch of identities that he uses to keep his wealth and background secret. He kept the Apple shares and gold secret under one or more of those.

On 9/23/2022 at 9:41 PM, Zuleikha said:

I liked this episode, but I didn't think it was well written. Lulu didn't make any sense. I kept waiting for something to happen as a result of all the wedding cruelty, but there was no real payoff. Titania's barely been on the show and was easily defeated before, so seeing Titania easily taken down at the wedding felt anti-climactic. 

The Nikki/Mallory plot was funny, but they also came across as bad lawyers. Mr. Immortal was their client. They didn't need to like him, but they did need to advocate for him. 

Renee Elise Goldberry has amazing chemistry with her scene partners, and I really thought they were setting up a relationship between Mallory and Nikki. I am too old for shipping so fine, if they're not, they're not. I move on. But I wish they would have paced or staged the scene differently, especially since Nikki's a canon non-straight character. 

Tatiana Maslany is so good at playing drunk. 

I was disappointed with one aspect of Titania. I liked the idea of Titania challenging Jen as Jen since she is clearly no match for She-Hulk in a fist fight judging from Jen having knocked her out cold with one blow when they first met. The notion of Titania trademarking She-Hulk, or throwing it in Jen's face that Titania is a popular influencer who everyone loves and she's to many...just Jen seemed like fertile ground.

I was so hoping that Lulu was actually more in league with Titania and that Lulu's being a bitch to Jen was part of Titania's attempted humiliation of Jen. But nope, Lulu is just kind of a bitch.

There really should have been a Titania/Jen dance off. Or more mean-girl-ry.

On 9/23/2022 at 10:48 PM, AnimeMania said:

I think they did by settling out of court. Mr. Immortal seems to have committed multiple crimes that would have come to light if taken to trial. Spousal abandonment, Child abandonment, Bigamy, and various forms of fraud. I don't don't see how Mr. Immortal could be declared dead if he comes back to life before any "official" person can declare that he died. 

I am acting under the assumption that in a typical "death," he stays dead long enough to be declared legally dead and then resurrects.

18 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I am not fine with the show because I don't think it is very funny and the She-Hulk isn't doing superhero stuff. I didn't understand why She-Hulk didn't take the Asgardian construction equipment from the Wrecking Crew if she knew they were doing bad things with it. Maybe at some point in the series the She-Hulk will get in a proper fight and show us what she can really do. 

Not every show is for everyone. 

In this show, part of it is Jen coming to terms with whether or not she is a superhero. And even superheroes don't always get it 100 percent right, and sometimes they let people go that they shouldn't have because of plot.

Fairly sure that this series will never have a true knock-down, drag-out fight for budget reasons. But Jen has gotten into at least somewhat of a fight in multiple episodes: With Bruce in the first one, with the demons summoned by Donny Blaze, with the Wrecking Crew, with Titania in briefly in the pilot and now this episode. 

14 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I wonder if this writing of Mallory and Niki doing some lackadaisical lawyering is to be seen in contrast to Jen's stellar lawyering?

I don't think that Mallory and Nikki are being lackadaisical. (Also, technically, Nikki is a paralegal, not a lawyer).

I don't think Jen's lawyering to this point has been stellar since she went to HGK&L (or whatever the firm is). Yes, she has been undefeated in the two cases that she has had (Abomination's parole board hearing and Donny Blaze) but she really only won the last one because she extorted him into settling at demon point. 

[johntfs]

18 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I am not fine with the show because I don't think it is very funny and the She-Hulk isn't doing superhero stuff. I didn't understand why She-Hulk didn't take the Asgardian construction equipment from the Wrecking Crew if she knew they were doing bad things with it. Maybe at some point in the series the She-Hulk will get in a proper fight and show us what she can really do. 

So you'll be happy if and when She-Hulk punches a big-ass sky beam?

I'm loving this show specifically because it isn't doing stuff like that.  I love that we're getting fun, low-stakes cases like the shape-changing Light Elf and Mr. Immortal as a serial bigamist. 

[johntfs]

17 hours ago, Zuleikha said:

No, they didn't perfectly represented his issues. Mr. Immortal asked Nikki to work on getting a shorter amount of eye contact for the apology and she raised it instead. That was malicious and bad lawyering.

It's also a deliberate writing choice to show Nikki being annoyed with Mr. Immortal and working against him rather than for him as the main interaction in the scene. I didn't actually get that there was no "win" here because the show didn't take any of the law aspects seriously. Yes, Mallory and Nikki commented that they thought the spouses had a case, but foolishly, I had expected that the point was to show us Mallory being a brilliant lawyer and finding loopholes in the law because it doesn't account for someone having the ability to resurrect after death. 

It isn't hard to predict that if you insult people, they will react negatively. 

I spent most of my 20s in academia reading, writing, and analyzing how representation in media affects people, primarily from a feminist perspective. I don't think there's some great divide between men and women where women being portrayed as shrews or damsels-in-distress or unambitious helpmeets etc. matters but negative portrayals of men are just ha ha funny. I also don't think we're in a zero sum game on this where improving portrayals of women has to result in negative portrayals of men.

I also think the show has been funniest when it just lets the characters be characters and humor come from that.

If Mr. Immortal's case gets through the doors of a courthouse, he's fucked.  He's going to the cleaners financially and then going to prison.  Nikki and Mallory's job is to prevent/mitigate that as much as possible.  They did that job.  Nikki upping the eye contact was something that helped sell the deal to the wronged spouses.  That she enjoyed it because Mr. I was an asshole is beside the point.

Maybe men and women isn't a zero sum game but over past 6000+ years of human civilization, the men side of the equation has gotten stacked pretty high.  This is a comedy show about a female lawyer and her problems and one of those problems will tend to be men.  Not all men.  Jen's family, which includes Bruce is pretty good.  Pug seems cool.  Even Holden Holliway, her boss isn't too bad.  Plenty of shows would have had him treat the trademark problem as "Fix it or you're fired!"  He put the firm's resources behind Jen to get it fixed instead.  Assuming he doesn't turn out to be evil or a robot and an evil robot, Josh seemed like a nice guy who wasn't "nice guy."

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

had civil liability for his debts in each of those lives. I think the show explicitly mentioned he racked up $75k in credit card debt in one life.

And wouldn't Mr. Immortal's wife at the time now be on the hook for that $75,000 in credit card debt? 






 

2 hours ago, johntfs said:

This is a comedy show about a female lawyer and her problems and one of those problems will tend to be men.  Not all men.  Jen's family, which includes Bruce is pretty good.  Pug seems cool.  Even Holden Holliway, her boss isn't too bad.  Plenty of shows would have had him treat the trademark problem as "Fix it or you're fired!"  He put the firm's resources behind Jen to get it fixed instead.  Assuming he doesn't turn out to be evil or a robot and an evil robot, Josh seemed like a nice guy who wasn't "nice guy."

And don't forget Jen's loveable Dear Old Dad! 
He may actually might be the only person or character in the last 30 years to not wind up on my So Glad I'm Not Married To That Man/Person list.

Edited September 25, 2022 by shapeshifter

[AnimeMania]

Behind the Scenes Photo

[arc]

8 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

And wouldn't Mr. Immortal's wife at the time now be on the hook for that $75,000 in credit card debt? 

Maybe if the card was jointly held, but otherwise, no, she shouldn't inherit his debt.

3 minutes ago, AnimeMania said:

Behind the Scenes Photo

Weird. Didn't they already hire a 6-5 woman to be the on-set stand-in for She-Hulk?

[Chicago Redshirt]

19 minutes ago, arc said:

Maybe if the card was jointly held, but otherwise, no, she shouldn't inherit his debt.

I think it is potentially more complicated than that, according to quick Googling.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/am-i-responsible-for-my-spouses-debts-after-they-die-en-1467/#:~:text=In most cases you will,a person who has died.&text=If there is a joint,account holder owes the debt.

The debt goes to the husband's estate in any case, and to pay it may require payment of other assets that would otherwise go to the surviving spouse or that the spouses held jointly.

[Guest]

On 9/23/2022 at 4:11 PM, arc said:

Right, so how did she know it was an incel site and she'd have to go undercover to get approved for an account?

You could see part of the page behind the log-in screen. The page was called Cancel She-Hulk. When the site was first mentioned it was described as the one for hateful man babies. Assuming it was an incel site was a safe bet. 

On 9/24/2022 at 11:10 AM, Zuleikha said:

No, they didn't perfectly represented his issues. Mr. Immortal asked Nikki to work on getting a shorter amount of eye contact for the apology and she raised it instead. That was malicious and bad lawyering.

It's also a deliberate writing choice to show Nikki being annoyed with Mr. Immortal and working against him rather than for him as the main interaction in the scene. I didn't actually get that there was no "win" here because the show didn't take any of the law aspects seriously. Yes, Mallory and Nikki commented that they thought the spouses had a case, but foolishly, I had expected that the point was to show us Mallory being a brilliant lawyer and finding loopholes in the law because it doesn't account for someone having the ability to resurrect after death. 

It isn't hard to predict that if you insult people, they will react negatively. 

They didn’t just comment that the spouses had a case but that they could file criminal charges. This was a civil suit and they decided to make whatever deal they could to prevent it going to court and potentially becoming criminal. That was in his best interests considering he was guilty of multiple counts of fraud. 

People reacted that way before the show ever aired. The show has used things said when it was first announced. 

[tkc]

14 hours ago, johntfs said:

I'm loving this show specifically because it isn't doing stuff like that.  I love that we're getting fun, low-stakes cases like the shape-changing Light Elf and Mr. Immortal as a serial bigamist. 

There was a TV comedy called Powerless that lasted just for a few episodes back in 2017. The premise was about following the day-to-day happenings in a company that developed products for non-powered people, to protect themselves and their property from the damage done by "supers". It lived in the DC Universe, but it never showed any superheroes at all other than in the intro. Interesting to think about what it would be like to be a "regular person" in a world where superpowers were a thing!

[Tachi Rocinante]

On 9/22/2022 at 3:01 PM, Unclejosh said:

I was today year's old when I learned that a cash bar was considered tacky since every wedding including my own I have attended (with one exception) has had a cash bar.  Clearly I am too low class to know people who can afford such things.

It has nothing to do with "class".  Everyone has different experiences.  I've been to 25+ weddings and none of them had a cash bar.

I went to a wedding for two friends who barely had anything beyond each other, and even they didn't have one.

Good episode.

[jacehan]

I think it definitely depends on how much you are spending on other things. If you are spending a bunch of money on the wedding, but some of that money isn't going towards having an open bar (aka for the benefit of the guests, not just yourself), that yeah, that looks bad.

I also agree with all the comments that say if people think Mallory and Nikki weren't representing Mr. Immortal well, they were vastly underestimating how much he was on the hook for.

One thing I really like about this show is that it makes the MCU feel more full. Previously (at least on Earth), you could have the impression that the only powered people there are are the ones you've seen origin stories for. But this is making clear that, no, they're all around. We've just seen the big names (the Avengers).

[Guest]

On 9/25/2022 at 6:56 PM, jacehan said:

I think it definitely depends on how much you are spending on other things. If you are spending a bunch of money on the wedding, but some of that money isn't going towards having an open bar (aka for the benefit of the guests, not just yourself), that yeah, that looks bad.

This. But also, how much the guests and wedding party is having to spend on the wedding. This wedding looked to be a multi-day event during the week and away from any cities. Meaning guests had to take of work, commit to being away from home, spend money on clothing and a gift and the couple can’t even cover the cost of alcohol. In that situation it’s tacky. 

On 9/22/2022 at 10:54 PM, Stardancer Supreme said:

I know she was drunk at the reception; but why was Jen's bridesmaid dress so big? It only looked good when Jen hulked out. Bridezilla was probably thinking that it would be cool to have She-Hulk at the wedding until she saw how popular and awesome She-Hulk was in person.

In my experience, it would be very unusual for the bride to be involved with buying the dress or alterations. Generally the bride picks the dress but the bridesmaids are responsible for the logistics. Jen wanted to be She-Hulk for the wedding so she had the bridesmaid dress tailored to fit She-Hulk and not Jen. 

[Raja]

34 minutes ago, Dani said:

In my experience, it would be very unusual for the bride to be involved with buying the dress or alterations. Generally the bride picks the dress but the bridesmaids are responsible for the logistics. Jen wanted to be She-Hulk for the wedding so she had the bridesmaid dress tailored to fit She-Hulk and not Jen. 

In the designer's last appearance he/the show gave us the promise that he could outfit the super powered. I was expecting something that would work for Jen and She-Hulk. So was wondering if it was supposed to be a joke about reputations not matching reality when I saw his creations on Jen. The oversized court suit looked no worse on her 

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, Raja said:

In the designer's last appearance he/the show gave us the promise that he could outfit the super powered. I was expecting something that would work for Jen and She-Hulk. So was wondering if it was supposed to be a joke about reputations not matching reality when I saw his creations on Jen. The oversized court suit looked no worse on her 

I don’t think that was the point. The wedding was the one of the few times Jen actually planned on and wanted to be She-Hulk so dresses designed for her and not Jen make sense. I don’t expect that to reflect at all on what her work suits or super suit will look like. 

[Unclejosh]

I concede that cash bars are considered tacky by many based on the responses here. I have not been privileged enough to run in the circles where that was even considered so it was a shock to me. Most people and family I know live check to check so paying for people to drink aside from champagne during toast was not in the budget.  At my wedding we had wine during the serving of dinner only but anything else was cash only.  Free soda and non alcoholic drinks.  That has been the norm for my social circle although even though mine was the only one I have been to that had the wine during dinner. Obviously never been to a multi-day event either and it is extremely unlikely that will ever happen so that was the cause of my confusion.

Thanks to all for enlightening me on this world.  Just unfamilar to me.

On topic of the show, I am still enjoying it but they really do need to up the action a bit.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Unclejosh

[Danny Franks]

Jen's increasingly drunken dancing was a whole mood. Great little showcase for Tatiana Maslany's abilities - both dancing and comedy.

The wedding plot was throwaway, as Jen herself pointed out, but it was a good addition to the underlying theme of Jen being asked to disassociate her two selves into different personas - The bride wants Jen but not Shulkie, because she's intimidated by the latter. Titania wants Shulkie but not Jen because she doesn't see Jen as worth her ire. Everyone else seems to prefer She-Hulk as well, which definitely has to be hitting Jen's confidence.

Of course, this was the first time Jen actively wanted to be She-Hulk, because she recognises how other people react and it's a hell of a confidence boost.

I'm really enjoying Jameela Jamil as a vapid and cruel influencer, and I know she's loving it too. She's clearly not the big bad, but a fun antagonist who can pop up repeatedly without the stakes getting too high.

Nikki and Amelia's subplot with Mr. Immortal was okay, nothing great. They're a fun pairing though, and it has been noted online that there's a split second in the episode where Nikki seems to break the fourth wall with a glance to camera. Not sure what to make of that.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Danny Franks

[Ceindreadh]

4 hours ago, Unclejosh said:

I concede that cash bars are considered tacky by many based on the responses here. I have not been privileged enough to run in the circles where that was even considered so it was a shock to me. Most people and family I know live check to check so paying for people to drink aside from champagne during toast was not in the budget.  At my wedding we had wine during the serving of dinner only but anything else was cash only.  Free soda and non alcoholic drinks.  That has been the norm for my social circle although even though mine was the only one I have been to that had the wine during dinner. Obviously never been to a multi-day event either and it is extremely unlikely that will ever happen so that was the cause of my confusion.

Thanks to all for enlightening me on this world.  Just unfamilar to me.

On topic of the show, I am still enjoying it but they really do need to up the action a bit.

The one and only event I went to with a free bar was a birthday party for one of the partners in my firm.  Every wedding I've been to, there might be free wine and/or champagne during the meal, but outside of that, everybody was expected to be responsible for their own drinks.  

[MaryMitch]

Weddings are so different depending on where you live (like funerals and baby showers). I've only been to a couple weddings that had table seating for a meal and those were "sit where you find a seat." I've never been to one with assigned seating except for the main table. Most of the receptions I've been to provided finger food/appetizers, not a regular meal.  Like @Ceindreadh, I've never been to a wedding with open bar - in fact, I don't think I've ever been to a wedding with alcoholic drinks other than champagne or wine.