*Spoilers.*
Is it too soon to be hoping for Jen appearances in Daredevil: Born Again? Just kidding, that question is rhetorical—of course it’s not too early. In the span of a single episode, Jen and Matt jumped into my Top Five MCU romances. In fact, to go one further, in the span of a single episode, they made me decide, “I should make a list of my Top Five MCU romances.” I dare anyone to withstand the awesomeness!
Throughout season 1, a big part of Jen’s struggle with her new circumstances deals with the different ways people react to both sides of her identity. In particular, as she starts coming to terms with being She-Hulk, she quickly realizes how much everyone seems to gravitate toward She-Hulk and ignore “just Jen.” On dating apps, She-Hulk’s profile wracks up way more matches than Jen’s, and after a great date with a guy who’s practically been crafted in a lab to be perfect, he bails the following morning when he sees her as Jen rather than She-Hulk, later admitting that Jen just “isn’t his type.” Part of why Josh ghosting Jen hits her so hard is because he seemed to be the one guy who liked her specifically for Jen.
Enter Matt, who meets her in the courtroom as She-Hulk, flirts with her off hours as Jen, first fights her and then fights with her as She-Hulk, and then goes home with her as Jen. Regardless of which body Jen is inhabiting, Matt simply regards her as herself, no differentiation needed. He’s not “perfect,” but the way he treats her is just what she wants, and it’s no accident that when she crafts her own ending for the season, it involves Matt literally dropping out of the sky so they can see each other again.
In recent years, my patience for fragile dudes who can’t handle being with smart, strong women has entirely run out, and I celebrate every time a show or film models a cishet romance in which both parties really feel like equals. Jen/Matt have that in spades. Even when they’re fighting, be that in court or with fisticuffs, there’s a “game recognize game” feeling between them. They’re sparring, and even as Jen asks the camera, “Who’s this asshole?”, there’s a part of her that’s impressed by his abilities. Such that, when he approaches her at the bar after having beat her in court, she moves quickly into flirty verbal sparring instead of trying to brush him off.
With these two, there’s lots of fun banter and implied good sexytimes—it kills me that Jen can’t figure out how to get Matt’s Daredevil suit off, and I love how happy he seems during his walk of non-shame in his suit the next morning—but it’s not solely uncomplicated fun. They also connect in a real way. They’re both powered people with careers that they care about, and neither wants to give that up for the sake of superheroing. But even before Jen learns about his secret identity, Matt tries to offer her some genuine advice about the potential of She-Hulk helping people both in and out of the courtroom. Yes, she punches a couple of baddies in the earlier episodes, but when she actually dons her suit for the first time and infiltrates a villain’s lair, she has Daredevil with her. The two of them giving Leape-Frog legal advice as they bust him and his goons is one of my favorite things.
I’m so glad that the finale establishes that their thing isn’t a one-and-done. In the closing scene of the season, Matt is meeting Jen’s family at a cookout, gamely putting up with her relatives grilling him about his prospects and good-naturedly waiting for Jen to come to his rescue. I don’t know what the MCU has planned next for Jen, and I don’t know how Daredevil: Born Again is going to fit into everything (including what came before,) but whatever the future holds, I hope it involves giving us more scenes of Jen and Matt together!
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