And now, a conundrum. AKA I’ve Got the Blues is an episode that focuses on Jessica and Trish’s relationship but also features a whole lot of Evil Simpson (a plotline that, as I mentioned in my last recap, really bugs me) and doesn’t move the Kilgrave needle forward hardly at all. So what wins out: The “I heart female friendship” Jenny or the “get a damn move on with the plot already” Jenny? Let me tell you what tipped the balance. Patricia. Come on. Jessica just got hit by a truck. When someone is in great pain and sadness, you…
5 CommentsTag: Jessica Jones
After the mesmerizing two-hander episode from last week, AKA Sin Bin is a bit of a letdown. It’s a perfectly serviceable piece of television in that it gets Jessica and Kilgrave from point A (he is captured) to point B (he is freed) without too much of the lagging and lying around that plague this show. (Jessica Jones would have benefited by being ten episodes, rather than thirteen. Discuss.) Compared to last week, which was nothing but beautiful character notes for Jessica and Kilgrave, while also advancing the plot in wonderful and surprising ways, AKA Sin Bin sets character-building to…
14 Comments“AKA WWJD” is my favorite episode of this series, even though (or maybe because!) it’s mostly just characters chatting. The closest thing to action is a whispered, cautious exchange of punches between Jessica and Simpson, when he’s trying to get in the way of Jessica doing what she wants. After the events of last week, Jessica has given up: She’s going to live with Kilgrave, in his creepy recreation of her childhood home. Though the house is full of servants and bodyguards who will kill themselves if Jessica attempts to harm Kilgrave, Kilgrave still insists that he wants her to…
10 CommentsThe good thing about “AKA Top-Shelf Perverts,” the mid-point of this season of Jessica Jones, is that it sets up a crucial turning point in the over-arching plot. No longer will the show waste our time pretending to care about Jessica’s private-eye business; from here on in, it’s going to be all Kilgrave all the time. This will not only permit us to really dig into the fascinating, creepy, nuanced performance David Tennant is capable of bringing to what could have been a very one-note villain. It also lets the show get back to doing what it’s truly good at:…
11 CommentsAnd now, the case of Luke Cage’s dead wife. In “AKA You’re a Winner,” Luke hires Jessica to investigate what appears to be a missing pothead but actually it’s stealthily about Luke trying to find out what happened to his wife. You remember Reva? Kilgrave ordered Jessica to kill her? And then he got hit by a bus right afterward, and Jessica’s failure to double-tap in that moment is what led us all to the events of this show? The first problem with centering an episode on Reva is that we are all tired of the trope where the superhero…
17 CommentsIt’s toxic masculinity ahoy in “AKA The Sandwich Saved Me,” as Jessica teams up (rather grudgingly) with Simpson to track Kilgrave down and tranq him with Jessica’s newly acquired sufentanil. Simpson usefully discovers an old CDC facility with a hermetically sealed soundproof room where Jessica can keep Kilgrave once she’s got him. On my first watch-through of this show, I hoped that Jessica and Simpson were enjoying the kind of enmity that would later grow into grudging respect and then total trust. I can’t tell you how excited Whiskey Jenny and I were for Jessica to make use of Simpson’s exfiltration…
17 CommentsThe most important thing about Jessica Jones is its vehement assertion of the personhood of its characters. David Tennant’s villainy, as Jessica’s unintentionally-formed Kilgrave support group makes clear, is that he sees attributes and not people, and responds accordingly: a car and a driver (not a man with a toddler son); beautiful music (not the cellist creating it). The case of the week1 reflects this. What seems — once Jessica finally decides that Jessica Hecht from Friends isn’t a Kilgrave henchman2 — to be a routine infidelity case turns into a trap: Jessica Hecht lost her mother when the aliens…
9 CommentsWhat’s that you say? It’s time to talk about Mike Colter now? YES OKAY. Up to now, we’ve mostly seen Luke Cage in a state of chilly calm, whether he’s offering Jessica free drinks or fussing at her for sending cops his way. And don’t get me wrong; Mike Colter is amazing at chilly calm. But in “AKA It’s Called Whiskey,” he and Jessica are getting to know one another, and it’s fun to see both of them a little more relaxed and getting to know each other. Mike Colter’s cheekbones are just really really on point. Plus, how often…
7 Comments“AKA Crush Syndrome” opens on Jessica being interrogated by the cops in the wake of Hope’s parents’ deaths. The scene has the kind of framing I love in this show, where we observe Jessica at an odd angle — through a window, behind a door, in a mirror. We’re watching Jessica, of course; but more importantly, the way this show’s shot doesn’t let you forget that Jessica is constantly being watched. The camera literalizes the feeling Jessica (and, to a lesser extent, ladies in public spaces) has of being perpetually on display for an unseen audience. It’s a neat trick…
15 Comments