Episode 3: The People v. Emil Blonsky.

Fresh off taking his own fist to the face, Emil Blonsky is seen back in his shark tank cell and greeted by a fuming Jen Walters. Pressed and assuming the worst, Jen is fighting to keep a compelling case together for not only the sake of her client, but her career.

Emil, still calm and zen as a lily pad in a pond, presents key information and the winning angle to Jen. In Emil’s own words, “I was forced out of my cell but I returned of my own free will.” Perplexed, but hopeful, Jen takes to believing that her client’s voluntary return to prison because the man who helped him escape was the Sorcerer Supreme of the Mystic Arts. Pause for dramatic effect.

“Wong. Just Wong.”

As alluded in episode 2’s recap and analysis, if you’ve seen “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” then you will already know how Emil escaped. Much to the anticipation of Marvel fans, the Sorcerer Supreme of the Mystic Arts, “Wong, just Wong” made his return to the screen.

Four minutes into the episode, we are introduced to our first new social dynamic: the unfiltered chaos of the internet and their reaction to Jen Walters aka “She-Hulk” representing Emil “The Abomination” Blonsky.

While media portrayals or descriptions aren’t always accurate, the power of influence it has on public perception is scary how quickly information travels. Accurate or not.

As you would expect, the reactions vary from your typical semantics from horny internet trolls thinking about smashing or passing on She-Hulk, Twitter wars between men and women arguing over the ownership and masculinity theft of the name “She-Hulk,” and even a spoof FOX News type interview which is a kind of a nothing-pertaining-to-the-actual reason or cause interview/conference.

In today’s society, we know that social media, especially Twitter, can be a cesspool to navigate and you’ll have to find the cleanest area to enjoy yourself at. However, much like algae in water, toxic posts and comments spread with more interaction allowing it to further pollute the clean pockets of space.

Jen, whether she likes it or not, is a public figure now, and part of being in the limelight is controlling your own narrative to limit distractions and help block out excess noise.

The audience is thrown back-to-back curveballs in the same at bat. A minute after considering some narrative control, we soon find out that Jen’s former colleague Dennis Bukowski, from the district attorney’s office, is now a possible client for the Superhuman Law Division. The egocentric, self-loathing, buffoon of a man was scammed by a shape-shifting Light Elf from New Asgard posing as Megan Thee Stallion.

Alright, we got a good laugh out the way. And here comes an unexpected yet epic portal entrance by Wong!

Wong, without hesitation, confesses to Jen that, “Everything Mr. Blonsky told you was factual. I extracted him from the prison against his own wishes, because I required a worthy opponent as part of my training to become Sorcerer Supreme.”

Wong insists that Emil should not be punished for the transgressions.

One of the more underlying topics and issues that every superhero movie/series deals with is the concept of how much accountability vigilantes/superhumans should be held to. Jen is in the ever so envious spot of being the literal symbol of law. Not law enforcement, just law.

Wanting to proceed in a diplomatic and systematic fashion to the letter of the law, Jen convinces Wong to testify in front of several judges at Emil’s hearing to absolve him of responsibilities for violating his parole and escaping prison.

Simultaneously, Augustus “Pug” Pugliese is assisting Dennis in his fraud case against the shape-shifting Asgardian elf. We learn that he has been defrauded in $179,000 which included a Volkswagen, trips to Bali, private planes, photoshoots and other boujee expenditures.

Dennis is outraged that Jen may be in charge of his case and Jen outright refuses to consider Dennis’s case because of their shaky work history at the DA’s office. Holliway, present in the room, questions why this client wouldn’t want the face of the Superhuman Law Division to assist him. Another attorney walks into the office and is immediately disgusted by Dennis’s unwarranted cat-calling.

We see more of Dennis’s pretentious side in this interaction, but it helps to his advantage in more ways than one.

As Pug begins putting a case together, Dennis walks back into the room to call the case off for reasons of letting bygones be bygones, “It’s just money,” and “Now I’ll have a story to tell.”

Something wasn’t adding up here. Suspicious and confused, Pug answers his call to find out that it’s not Dennis in the room. He’s walking down to his car across the street. Pug has just come face to face with the Light Elf impersonating people and heeding this as a warning to Pug to not take the case.

Switching cases and clients, Jen is on her way to her court date where she is met with numerous members of the media covering the case.

We are introduced to more examples of the unfiltered nature of social media: click baiting and headline chasing. We saw some early examples in this episode, but the newscaster and camera crew switched their coverage script from the case to “Jen Walters, rumored to be rejected by the Avengers,” instantly. It only highlights the nasty nature of the media industry and how cutthroat and savage it can get if run a certain way.

Seeing as though this may be a cut and dry case for the parole officers and judges, the hearing officially begins: The People v. Emil Blonsky. Wong, the most critical component to the case, is nowhere to be found.

Jen, in order to buy time, begins her argument by providing testimony from those closest to her client during his rehabilitation process: librarians, security guards and the prison counselor. Just as the patience of the judges gets thin, Wong appears with seconds to spare and begins giving his testimony.

Cut to Pug’s case. It appears to be an uphill battle for Dennis’s case. While the defendant blatantly impersonated a judge and only highlighted her nature, the judge found it very hard to believe that Dennis would be convoluted out of $175,000 to a Meg Thee Stallion fraud.

Back to Wong’s testimony. True to his word, Wong explained to the parole officers that every infraction made was his fault and that Emil was taken against his will from prison and even when offered asylum, chose to go back to pay out his debt to society.

The final nail in the coffin to piecing together a perfect case was an impromptu demonstration of Emil’s ability to turn into and out of his Abomination form on command, proving his discipline and strict rehabilitation plan was effective.

While the hearing officers deliberated, our protagonists gather in a bar where we find out Jen’s assistant is dating Pug, who is stressed out about Dennis and the uphill battle he faces.

“How did you two work with him for so long?” Upon insult after insult, Pug gets the flashing lightbulb moment after Jen calls Dennis, “almost terminally deluded” to have Jen testify under oath how dubious and oblivious his client is.

And it worked! Dennis was awarded full damages and the defendant was sentenced to 60 days for impersonating a judge.

Every last detail of Dennis’s chauvinistic behavior on record for the entire courtroom: “He once described himself as a New York 10 and a California 11,” the “Dennisphere,” the unprompted stories of his romantic endeavors, he is “pathologically entitle man” and would believe he is dating the real Megan Thee Stallion “because he is truly that delusional.”

After presenting her testimony, we cross the city to Emil’s hearing where he is granted release on parole under certain terms and conditions he is never to violate which they willfully accept.

With both cases successful, we see that both male clients have won their cases. We see our final social dynamic introduced in this episode: statistical disadvantages of men in court rulings. Emil’s case is shares similar traits to the movie in 2012, “Jack Reacher,” a trained military killer who is at the mercy of the same government who put him there to and being framed to take the fall, unlikely and unwinnable circumstance, and a female lawyer being tasked with this Mount Everest of a case with the burden of proof falling to the client.

Dennis’s case is a different type of unfair court circumstance. According to a study done by two criminal justice doctors, the system is almost always harsher on men than women. This includes judges, jury, parole officers and others in the judicial system. In relationship cases especially, 80% of the time, men lose a case because the court system supports women biasedly. Oftentimes, the burden of proof falls to the man. Much like Dennis’s and Emil’s case, it is an uphill battle for most men battling in court against the burden of proof.

Ironically, Emil convinces Jen to take control of her narrative and be part of the story instead of letting others write it for her. She turned the corner and decided to allow Citizen News to interview her to clarify some of the uncertainty surrounding her.

To her dismay, she is unable to successfully change some of the narratives attached to her, but she was able to say her piece. That same night, Jen was attacked by several armed Asgardian. Unsuccessfully, the crooks allude to a boss not going to be happy and we are left to wait till the next episode.

We are provided with the confirmation that Megan Thee Stallion and She-Hulk twerk scene past the credits and Twitter was quick to come up with banter like, “Tony Stark died for this…”