REVIEW -- Marvel's Jessica Jones (Netflix) - Season 1

Marvel's Jessica Jones, or simply Jessica Jones, is an American web television series created for Netflix by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise, and is the second in a series of shows that will lead up to a Defenders crossover miniseries. The series is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios and Tall Girls Productions, with Rosenberg serving as showrunner.

Krysten Ritter stars as Jessica Jones, a former superhero who opens her own detective agency after an end to her superhero career. Mike Colter, Rachael Taylor, Wil Traval, Erin Moriarty, Eka Darville, Carrie-Anne Moss, and David Tennant also star in season one. A version of the series was originally in development by Rosenberg for ABC in 2010, which was eventually passed on. By late 2013, Rosenberg reworked the series, when it reentered development for Netflix as A.K.A. Jessica Jones and Ritter was cast as Jones in December 2014. Jessica Jones films in New York City, in areas that still look like old Hell's Kitchen.

All episodes of the first season premiered on November 20, 2015. They were released to critical acclaim, with critics noting Ritter's and Tennant's performances as well as the series' noir tone, approach to sexuality, and coverage of darker topics such as rape, assault, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In January 2016, Netflix renewed Jessica Jones for a second season.

Cast:

Main:

Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones
Mike Colter as Luke Cage
Rachael Taylor as Trish "Patsy" Walker
Wil Traval as Will Simpson
Erin Moriarty as Hope Shlottman
Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse
Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth
David Tennant as Kilgrave

Recurring

Susie Abromeit as Pam
Rebecca De Mornay as Dorothy Walker
Lisa Emery as Louise Thompson
Ryan Farrell as Jackson
Danielle Ferland as Clair
Gillian Glasco as Emma
Colby Minifie as Robyn
Kieran Mulcare as Ruben
Clarke Peters as Oscar Clemons
Paul Pryce as Donald
Michael Siberry as Albert Thompson
Robin Weigert as Wendy Ross-Hogarth
Nichole Yannetty as Nicole

Guest

James Colby as Brian Jones
Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple
Parisa Fitz-Henley as Reva Connors
Royce Johnson as Brett Mahoney
Thomas Kopache as Kozlov
Joseph Ragno as Roy Healy
Miriam Shor as Alisa Jones

Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance through an on set photograph, the same one seen in Daredevil.

The Plot:

Episode 1 - "AKA Ladies Night"

Jessica Jones, an alcoholic private investigator "gifted" with superhuman strength and flight, delivers a subpoena to strip-club owner Gregory Spheeris for lawyer Jeri Hogarth (who is having an affair with her assistant Pam behind the back of her wife Wendy Ross-Hogarth), exposing her abilities to him in the process. While not working, Jones spies on Luke Cage, a bar owner who sees her looking into his bar and offers her free alcohol as a "Ladies Night" promotion, leading to the two sleeping together. She leaves upset after seeing a photo of a woman in his bathroom. Jones is approached by Barbara and Bob Shlottman after their daughter Hope began acting differently and disappeared. While investigating, Jones discovers that Hope is with Kilgrave, a man with mind control abilities whose time controlling Jones gave her PTSD, and who she believed was dead. Jones wants to flee, but is convinced by her friend and foster-sister Trish Walker to help Hope. Jones finds her, but Kilgrave's hold is still over Hope, and she murders her parents.

Episode 2 - "AKA Crush Syndrome"

Jones is investigated by Detective Oscar Clemons, who discovers photos she took of Cage. Jones lies to Cage that she had been hired by the husband of a woman who Cage had slept with. Cage, having not known that the woman was married, confronts her about it, and when she goes to her husband, he attacks Cage with a group. Jones helps fight off the men, and learns that Cage is gifted with unbreakable skin. Hogarth agrees to represent Shlottman if Jones can prove that Kilgrave exists. Jones remembers leaving Kilgrave to die after he was hit by a bus, and now tracks down the ambulance driver who had picked him up. The driver had donated both his kidneys to Kilgrave, and is now on dialysis. Jones finds the operating doctor who anonymously donated the dialysis machine. He agrees to testify for Shlottman, and reveals that he operated on Kilgrave without anesthesia since that would have blocked Kilgrave's abilities. When Hogarth meets with Shlottman, the latter reveals that Jones was once under Kilgrave's control as well.

Episode 3 - "AKA It's Called Whiskey"

Jones and Cage bond over their mutual powers, while Jones also tracks down a surgical grade anesthetic to subdue Kilgrave with. Hogarth, now divorcing her wife and unwilling to risk herself and her reputation despite the doctor's testimony, organizes for Walker to interview Shlottman about Kilgrave live on her radio talk show. Walker asks that anyone who believes they have been approached or controlled by Kilgrave contact Hogarth, before publicly insulting Kilgrave on air. Angered, Kilgrave sends police sergeant Will Simpson to kill Walker, with Jones having to use the anesthetic on Walker to convince Simpson that he has carried out his orders. Jones follows Simpson back to Kilgrave, who orders Simpson to walk off a balcony. Jones again convinces Simpson that he has carried out this order by knocking him out and taking him to the street below, telling him as he wakes that she caught him. Searching through the house that Kilgrave was occupying, Jones discovers a room full of photographs of her.

Episode 4 - "AKA 99 Friends"

Jones accepts a case from jewelry designer Audrey Eastman who seeks evidence of her husband cheating. Jones tracks Eastman's husband to a rendezvous with his girlfriend only to discover a trap set by Eastman, who blames gifted people for the death of her mother during the "Incident" and who learned of Jones' powers from Spheeris. Angered as she recalls the death of her own parents, Jones convinces the Eastmans to leave her alone with a show of her power and a bluff over the number of other gifted in the city. Hogarth and Jones process a large number of people claiming to have been controlled by Kilgrave, forming a support group for those legitimately affected by him. Simpson attempts to apologize to a frightened Walker over his action while under Kilgrave's control; they eventually bond over the experience. Jones uses surveillance footage provided by Simpson and clues offered by the Kilgrave support group to learn that the photographer spying on her for Kilgrave is her drug addicted neighbor Malcolm Ducasse.

Episode 5 - "AKA The Sandwich Saved Me"

Jones recalls her brief time as a superhero as she debates whether to save Ducasse or to use him as a means of locating Kilgrave. Walker and Simpson begin a romantic relationship with Jones grudgingly allowing him to assist in a plot to capture Kilgrave. Simpson supplies ex-special operations skills and contacts, including access to a hermetically sealed room in which Kilgrave could be kept once the effects of the anesthetic wear off. They follow Ducasse to his daily meeting with Kilgrave where photographs of Jones are exchanged for drugs, which Kilgrave had forced Ducasse to become addicted to so he would obey Kilgrave even after his powers wore off, after around 12 hours of no contact. Simpson shoots Kilgrave with the anesthetic; Jones refuses to let him kill Kilgrave so he can be used to prove Shlottman innocent. Jones gets Kilgrave to Walker and the getaway car, but they are attacked by hired bodyguards who escape with the unconscious Kilgrave. Jones then resolves to help Ducasse overcome his addiction.

Episode 6 - "AKA You're a Winner!"

Kilgrave uses his powers to win a poker game, and spends his winnings on Jones’s childhood home. After paying a fellow inmate to beat her, Shlottman confesses to Jones that she is pregnant with Kilgrave’s child and has been trying to miscarry. Jones gives her an abortion pill; Hogarth secretly takes the fetal remains. Cage hires Jones to help find the brother of someone who has evidence on the death of Cage's wife, Reva Connors. Connors had left Cage instructions to find a box she had hidden, but it was not there when he looked. Jones recalls Kilgrave having Connors lead them to the box, with Jones digging it up before killing Connors. Jones and Cage find the missing brother, and are given the file of the bus driver that accidentally hit Kilgrave (and who Cage believes hit Connors). Seeing that the driver had been drunk, Cage seeks revenge. Jones intervenes and confesses that Kilgrave forced her to kill Connors. Cage leaves, unable to forgive her for hiding the truth and instigating an intimate relationship with him.

Episode 7 - "AKA Top Shelf Perverts"

A drunk Jones, having been asked by Hogarth to convince her wife to sign divorce papers, accosts Ross-Hogarth in a subway and almost kills her. Ross-Hogarth refuses to sign the papers. Ducasse helps Jones back to her apartment, where they find her neighbor Ruben, dead. Knowingly blaming Kilgrave, Jones devises a desperate plan: get herself imprisoned in asupermax prison so when Kilgrave inevitably comes for her, his abilities will be caught on camera. Walker and Simpson have their own plan, with Simpson following Kilgrave's security detail, though he does not tell Walker when he finds them at Jones's old house. Ducasse disposes of Ruben's body, though Jones finds him. Enacting her plan, Jones goes to a police station with Ruben's severed head and confesses to his murder. Her processing is interrupted when Kilgrave takes control of the station and declares his love for Jones, as she was the first person to resist him. He invites her "home." and Simpson later watches as Jones voluntarily enters the house with Kilgrave.

Episode 8 - "AKA WWJD?"

Jones spends several days living with Kilgrave. Though he takes her phone so she cannot record him, she secretly gets Simpson's phone when she catches him sneaking into the house to plant a bomb. Unwilling to let Kilgrave die until Shlottman is free, Jones tells Kilgrave about the bomb. Kilgrave, in an effort to prove that his nature was forced upon him, shows Jones a pendrive (this is what Connors had hidden in the box) containing footage that shows his parents experimenting on him as a child and him eventually stopping them by his command during an especially painful experience. Jones shows Kilgrave that he can do good with his power by convincing him to save several people. Jones visits Walker and asks whether she should stay with Kilgrave and try to use his abilities to change the world for good. When Jones, knowing that Kilgrave will harm some of his "servants" if she does not return, goes back to Kilgrave, she uses a distraction to incapacitate him instead, and flies away with him. Then, Simpson is seriously injured by his own bomb, which Kilgrave left for him.

Episode 9 - "AKA Sin Bin"

Walker races Simpson to the hospital, where he insists on seeing Dr. Kozlov, who he knows from his days as an Army sergeant and who gives him some pills—his injuries heal miraculously. Jones imprisons Kilgrave in the hermetically sealed room, where she plans to torture him until he reveals his abilities on camera. Hogarth warns her that this would forfeit their case in court, and that the D.A. has offered a 15-20 year plea deal to Shlottman if she pleads guilty. Jones convinces Shlottman to not take the deal, and devises a new plan. From the footage of Kilgrave's experiments, Jones discovers the names of his parents, Louise and Albert Thompson, and from photographs realizes that his mother is a member of the support group. Jones confronts her and Albert, and convinces them to face their son. Jones also convinces Clemons to come as a witness. In the cell, Kilgrave is remorseful, but Louise attempts to kill him to stop him from hurting anyone again, and he makes her kill herself. Jones saves Albert from a similar fate, but Kilgrave escapes.

Episode 10 - "AKA 1,000 Cuts"

Kilgrave forces Hogarth to take him to a doctor; she goes to Ross-Hogarth, hoping Kilgrave will force her to sign their divorce papers, but Kilgrave orders Ross-Hogarth to kill Hogarth with a thousand cuts. Pam arrives, and kills Ross-Hogarth to stop her. Thompson reveals that Kilgrave's abilities are a virus that he releases, and that a vaccine could be created from Jones's blood as Jones appears to have become immune to Kilgrave's influence. Simpson, under the influence of Kozlov's drugs that enhance combat performance and numb pain, arrives at the cell, where Clemons is guarding the evidence needed to imprison Kilgrave. Set on killing Kilgrave instead, Simpson kills Clemons and destroys the evidence. He finds Walker with Thompson, who is unsuccessful in creating the vaccine, but she sends him away when she sees how unstable he is, managing to take some of his pills from him in the process. Kilgrave gets Shlottman released from prison and trades her for his father; Shlottman kills herself, freeing Jones to kill Kilgrave.

Episode 11 - "AKA I've Got the Blues"

The truth about Simpson's special forces past is shown, as he takes red pills to up his adrenaline. This causes him to go on a kill mission after Kilgrave, leaving Jones and Walker to stop his out-of-control blood-lust. Kilgrave learns about Cage and makes an example of him to Jessica.

Episode 12 - "AKA Take a Bloody Number"

Cage reveals to Jones that he was ordered by Kilgrave to destroy his bar, and recounts the events leading up to it. The two go in search of leads to Kilgrave and his father, who Kilgrave is using to concoct a way to control Jessica again. Cage tells Jones that it was wrong to blame her for Connors's death and that he forgives her. Walker's mother, meanwhile, visits her with a file on a company called "IGH", which was responsible for providing Simpson with his pills, and also paid for Jones's medical care following her childhood accident. Cage and Jones eventually find a nightclub which Kilgrave was using to test his enhanced powers on an audience. While they look for video footage, Kilgrave appears and reveals that Cage has been under his control the whole time in order to lie to Jones that he has forgiven her. Kilgrave unleashes Cage on Jones and escapes while the two fight. The fight culminates in Jones's shooting Cage in the head with a police shotgun.

Episode 13 - "AKA Smile"

Claire Temple, after treating Cage for injuries, sees he is superhuman and helps Jones move him to her apartment for treatment. Kilgrave's powers have reached a powerful new threshold and he is willing to use it to end Jones however he can. Walker tells Jones she may have found a clue to how she got her powers. As Jones and Walker track down Kilgrave, he uses his greatly enhanced power to control a crowd and, unsure whether he can also exert his powers on Jones, opts to make Walker his sex slave to punish Jones. Jones appears to accept this under Kilgrave's commands, but as he approaches her and asks her to say she loves him, she demonstrates she is still immune to his influence by grabbing him by the throat and lifting into the air. With a sarcastic repeat of his frequent order to "smile," she snaps his neck, freeing everyone, including Cage, from his spell. Jones is arrested for the murder but Hogarth, acting as her lawyer, secures her release. Word of Jones's heroics begin to reach the population of the city, and she begins to get calls asking for her assistance.

The Verdict:

Unlike my review on Daredevil last year, I'm not going to cite and analyze every single episode of this 13-episode season. I personally feel like the show should be reviewed as a whole and not by it's individual parts, especially since this is the second of these Netflix exclusives from Marvel Studios. This isn't their first rodeo, so they know what they are doing - for the most part.

Casting

Krysten Ritter plays this character flawlessly (an emotionally damaged woman warped in a bizarre twist of being a rape victim, no thanks to being used as Kilgrave's pawn) while David Tennant (a Dr. Who alumni) plays the psychotic, yet obsessively (and oftentimes, hopelessly) in love Kilgrave (commonly known as the Purple Man in Marvel Comics). Carrie Anne-Moss plays a gender swapped Jeri Hogarth. The character was originally male in Marvel Comics, but was made female and lesbian for this iteration of the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Wil Traval portrays Will Simpson, the man who will later become the pill-popping super villain known as Nuke. Rachael Taylor plays Jessica's best friend, Patricia/Trish "Patsy" Walker, in a role that was confirmed in interviews was originally written for Carol Danvers but that was changed after Marvel Studios announced that she was getting her own stand-alone film. For the record, I have to applaud the writers for going that far into Marvel's history to dig up a character that obscure. Still, she's not as completely unknown as the Night Nurse/Claire Temple... By the way, she makes a cameo in this show in the last few episodes and ends up being the first character in this side of the MCU to cross from the confines of one Netflix Marvel exclusive to another.

My personal issue with Ritter is that she's not... how do I say this without coming off mean... hot enough for the amount of sex scenes in this show. Sue me. It's the same reaction I had to Gal Gadot cast as Wonder Woman in Warner Bros./DC Comics' DC Comics Extended Universe for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Nerds and comic book geeks like myself have been reading and worshiping these heroes and heroines like idols for the bulk of our lives and we're very protective on the aesthetic appearances of how these characters should look like in reality. That's where I have a major issue with this type of writing. The titular female character in this show is a woman portrayed as a "victim" after going around whoring herself out to the first attractive guy (Luke Cage) she meets that she just happened to be stalking on a job?

Scaling back a bit, I can't frown upon Ritter's casting too much in terms of aesthetics as Jessica Jones wasn't "attractive" in comics until her more modern appearances, so yeah. My issue with Ritter was easily overlooked and forgiven by the point where Kilgrave and Jessica's paths cross and kept things interesting from a narrative standpoint anyway. Her and Tennant's chemistry is amazing together on-screen and perfect for this series.

Speaking of Luke Cage, I'm going to discuss his role in this show compared to his own series in that review, but for what it's worth here, Mike Colter did a fine job with the character for his debut appearance into the MCU. They didn't seem to tease much here, but I guess they are leaving the door open for that relationship to flourish MUCH later down the road in this corner of the MCU.

I know that I'm getting ahead of myself before discussing the series' plot in the first season but goddamn that left a bad taste in my mouth at the start of the first season. I know someone is going to say that I wouldn't have had a problem with it if it was a male in the same position and you would be absolutely WRONG. Sex scenes to further the narrative I'm all for, but sex scenes just to justify your R-rating I frown upon and it just makes your show look trashy from the start. There's more than enough smut on the Internet or on late night Cinemax if you're looking for that kind of fix.

Narrative

My issues with Ritter's characterization in this show just screams to me that this narrative had a bit of a woman's touch. Not trying to be sexist here, but from the way particular themes and situations were handled throughout the course of this first season, I could tell that it wasn't from a male perspective that this show was written by. It's just a lot of stuff just comes across very odd to me. Maybe it's because I'm a guy and this show is geared more for a female audience, I just can't identify with the manner how the story is presented here.

As mentioned before, the story between Jessica and Kilgrave is the best thing going in this season, but it's a little rushed. I was even more underwhelmed when they killed off Kilgrave (Purple Man dammit, even though most nerds will get pissed at me for even referring to him as that...) in the season finale and it makes me wonder what did they have in mind in terms of long-term appeal for this show when Kilgrave could have been around for at least two seasons after his powers were exposed to the public. Imagine how much publicity Hogarth could have gotten for her firm off that instead of just merely representing Kilgrave's victims. It just seemed like a wasted opportunity to rush everything in one season. Kilgrave being the "victim" in season two could have been the theme after Jessica Jones' new-found immunity to his powers.

I'm not even going to dwell upon Kilgrave being Kevin Thompson's "codename" instead of having Zebediah Killgrave (yes with two L's...) as his real name. The child experiment gone wrong works for this iteration in the MCU, so there's not much to complain about here. Everything about the use of Kilgrave is comparable to something straight out of the horror/psychological thriller genre(s). I could easily spend this entire review talking about the brilliance of David Tennant as Kilgrave, but that's easily the best thing that everyone will be talking about this show for years to come.

In my review of Daredevil Season 1, I compared that series as the MCU's equivalent of the Death Note anime series. Jessica Jones can be compared to the anime Silent Möbius. Both female protagonists are given a heroic destiny that they don't really openly accept and often times refuse to act on it's call, controlled by a malign force beyond their control or comprehension to cause irreversible damage to those they care about, but ultimately overcome these hardships to fully embrace their heroic destinies.

The subplot with Will Sampson showing the signs of going down the deep end as he becomes the villain, Nuke, was something else that could have been saved for the second season. He was better off as Jessica's unofficial sidekick, along with his on/off-again fuckbuddy girlfriend, Trish. That's the number one problem I had with this show's first season. It habitually got ahead of itself. From the moment that Jessica and Luke Cage were having sex in the first episode within minutes of meeting each other to Trish's martial arts "training" for her pending superhero career as Hellcat, this show had a common theme of getting ahead of itself.

I have to applaud this show for doing a better job at emphasizing the horrors of PTSD and destructive relationships. Even though I felt that Hope had a more compelling tale of PTSD than Jessica Jones did, it was interesting to see the MCU explore this aspect of human psychology. It was touched upon in Ironman 3 in a joking manner as that film's subplot but to see it explored in this Netflix series in a tasteful manner, deserves a nod of approval.

Closing Thoughts

For a LONG time, I was very nervous to write about a show like this - even more so than the Ghostbusters reboot with the all-female cast - for multiple reasons. For one, this is one of the few newer Marvel Comics properties I never bothered to read the comic book of that it was based off of, so I found myself asking my on-again, off-again occasional co-author Serena stuff about the series before I wrote this review as she's a big fan of this character and the graphic novel(s) that spawned her. I was even at the point of letting her write this review entirely but after discussing it with her, I felt confident enough to tackle this subject on my own.

As Marvel's first female-led television series, Jessica Jones gets it's point across but is Jessica a heroine that you will see girls aspiring to be? I think not. She's as much of a heroine as Lady Death is and in both cases, they took the shit that their lives handed them and made it into a steak dinner. This series seemed to overlook the origins of Jessica's powers in favoring to establish her relationships with her foster family (Patsy and her mother) along with her history with Kilgrave. To a degree, Jessica's powers took a backseat to almost everything in terms of the narrative. To the casual fan who doesn't know any better, Jessica Jones would seem like a normal woman who just happens to know how to take care of herself in a fight. The "super-powered" aspect here is almost transparent. If someone told me this was just another female-led drama in the wake of Rozzili and Isles or Bones, casuals might not have been able to distinguish that this was a superhero show from first glance.

This is a show about women with a lot of psychological issues and how do they cope with living with these issues more than anything. Jessica deals with PTSD from her experience with Kilgrave throughout the course of the entire season while Patsy is emotionally scarred by being forced into the spotlight by her mother for her entire life to the point that she thrives off toxic relationships, which led her with Will Thompson shortly after he attempted to kill her. Jeri Hogarth has a ton of control issues that this show seems to merely scratch the surface of, but I can see affecting the Defenders in the long run.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Yes this show is worth a look at least once. Like previously mentioned, David Tennant's performance as Kilgrave rivals Tom Hiddleston's own as Loki as Marvel fanboys and fangirls will be arguing for years to come for who is the best Marvel villain to date between those two, along with Vincent D'Onofrio as the Kingpin in Daredevil.

At first glance, this feels like a total chick flick until the show hooks you in by the end of the first episode with the elements of a psychological thriller. Jessica Jones manages to take what could have been a lackluster subject manner to wade through and create something truly special within the confines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in this corner of the Marvel Netflix properties. Unfortunately, there's a few shortcomings that cut the life support off of this wildride a bit prematurely for my taste. Kilgrave was the type of villain that could have had a lasting impact in this series, but ultimately falls victim to Marvel's constant trope of killing off their villains (especially potentially great ones) before they have a firm foothold into this continuity.