After a weekend away, Jen Walters is back in LA and living her romcom fantasy with wedding beau Josh (Trevor Salter). There’s food trucks, flirty texts, and plenty of chemistry between the two, and they hook up. But the next morning, Josh is nowhere to be found, and doesn’t answer Jen’s texts. This sends our heroine into a tailspin, and she’s unable to focus on work or her recent nomination for Female Lawyer of the Year (sorry what?). While Jen spends the weekend glued to her phone, Nikki assures her that it’s just the post-first time sex weirdness. But Jen is getting the distinct impression that Josh is ghosting her.
She’s broken out of her phone-obsessed cycle when Emil Blonsky’s parole officer calls her. Apparently Blonsky’s inhibitor bracelet is malfunctioning, and the officer is worried that Abomination is on the loose, so he calls She-Hulk for back-up. Having nothing better to do, Jen drives out to Blonksy’s self-help retreat. It turns out the inhibitor was damaged when Blonsky rescued his favorite chicken from an electric fence, so no real problems there.
“The Retreat” is the second episode in a row that takes Jen out of LA and away from the rest of the cast, meaning that there’s no B-story back at GLK&H. But there are plenty of new faces at Blonsky’s retreat, including Man-Bull (Nathan Hurd), wannabe vampire Saracen (Terrence Clowe), swashbuckler and not a matador El Aguila (Joseph Castillo-Midyett), and Porcupine (Jordan Aaron Ford), all D-list Marvel baddies. When Man-Bull and El Aguila wreck Jen’s Prius during a brawl, she’s stranded at the resort, sans cell service. Jen finds her way into a group therapy session, which sees Man-Bull and El Aguila struggling with co-dependency, and Porcupine unwilling to be vulnerable and remove his suit. Jen is uninterested in joining the group until Wrecker (Nick Gomez) shows up. Jen reminds us that Wrecker is one of the guys who jumped her in the alley, and she hulks out, tossing him across the room. But Wrecker is all apologies and radical accountability.
She-Hulk is then forced to sit in the calming chair and share with the group. She tells them about Josh and her frustrations, and they all give notes on her thirsty texts. But then Jen gets real when she delves into her core issues with her alter-ego. She describes She-Hulk as the popular friend in high school who gets all the attention, a person that Jen can now effortlessly turn into whenever she wants. But she laments, “It feels like cheating because would they like me if I didn’t have all this? If I were just Jen, would the same guys who like She-Hulk stick around for Jen? Because some of them don’t. And that sucks for Jen because Jen is great. And no one cares when there’s She-Hulk.”
Josh’s ghosting stings because it was Jen who he seemed interested in. And his rejection of her hurts more than any anonymous internet rejection or hate for She-Hulk. With the support of the group, Jen deletes his numbers, takes a steam in the yurt, and emerges with positive new energy. But unfortunately for Jen, Josh isn’t a run of the mill douche. In a flashback, we see him copying Jen’s phone, taking photos of her while she sleeps (gross), and texting HulkKing that he got a blood sample.
With only 2 episodes left in the season, Jen still has to face off against HulkKing (and get a visit from Daredevil). Hopefully, her new therapy buds will be there to back her up.
(featured image: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel)
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