The love life of She-Hulk
She-Hulk episode 4 focused a lot on the love life of Jen Walters. We already know that the show wants to explore the daily life of superheroes and treat it a bit like a sitcom. Unfortunately for Jen, the online dating situation is pretty dire. She goes on a bunch of unsuccessful and boring dates. So let’s break down everything we’ve seen.
Matcher Profile: Jen vs. She-Hulk
Naturally, Jen faces the dilemma of having a Jen profile or a She-Hulk profile on the dating app. She chooses to be Jen because technically that’s who she is and who she’s been her whole life. However, Nicky feels differently. Nevertheless, Jen continues with a normal profile and a rather boring corporate photo as her profile picture. This translates into a pretty telling comparison, as Jen matches 0 guys while She-Hulk matches a ton seconds after her profile is created.
Her first date as Jen
This one, I’m sure, has made women everywhere absolutely nauseous. The She-Hulk writers haven’t so subtly used every stereotypical red flag on this date. As soon as the guy was on the phone all the time, quickly bailing out and giving him a 6 out of 10. The guy was a grade A asshole who called himself an ‘entrepreneur’…because he’s not an entrepreneur .
Every Date as She-Hulk
She-Hulk then shows what was essentially a montage of every bad date she’s had. Again, every cliche and trope is used here, but it’s still pretty true to real life, I’d say. The first guy was the gym bro and the epitome of toxic masculinity. He bizarrely asks She-Hulk how much dirt she can lift so he can then show off. She is literally the Hulk and can lift a car as seen in a previous episode. I was shaking my head throughout this sequence. Next comes the pretentious artist who can’t stop talking about his new movie. And he obviously wore the typical “I’m an artist” beret. The last date was basically a fanboy who smothered him with compliments and questions about his powers. He totally bombed the date when he called it a specimen.
She-Hulk gets fucked
She finally meets a guy who seems sweet and nice. The guy wanted to talk about himself rather than himself. He was a pediatric oncologist. Also, he was emotional and very attentive and wanted to share the fries. In other words, he’s the dream guy you can only hope to find through online dating. However, surprise surprise, he is not perfect after all. Initially, She-Hulk seems absolutely smitten and they head to her house. We can also see him reading Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay but to no avail. At the end of the day, he too failed to treat Jen like a real person. After spending the night at her house, he woke up and saw Jen in her Jen form and pretty much ran away.
While Jen is definitely more confident in her She-Hulk form, which is pretty clear from the way she takes selfies for her Matcher profile. She also seeks acceptance as Jen. The episode 4 dates were all disasters and obvious exaggerations of actual instances. It might be a refreshing change to see her date a superhero like her. Realize it She-Hulk!
