The 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 invaded New York, and she’s looking for revenge on someone with superpowers. Jessica’s just the superpowered person she happens to be able to find.
Unsurprisingly, Jessica can’t with this.
Nobody on this show will ever again remember that Jessica is supposed to be a private eye. Jessica Hecht from Friends‘s bigotry and annoying voice turn out to be functionally the last nail in the coffin of Jessica Jones’s burgeoning(ish) career as a gumshoe.
Her nonpaying career as a Kilgrave-tracker-downer, however, continues apace. Following last week’s revelation that someone has been photographing her, Jessica spends most of AKA 99 Friends feeling haunted and watched. There’s one scene in particular, where she’s thinking of Kilgrave and walking through the streets of New York, and she’s hyperaware of every noise on the street, from car horns to catcalls. Knowing that she’s being watched and followed, every tiny thing around her feels like a potential threat (: The Being a Lady Story.).
In a law office across town, the beautiful and talented Carrie-Anne Moss is setting herself up for ruin. From the minute she says this,
you know things are going to go south. Kilgrave isn’t reducible to his power, and Jeri’s inability to remember that won’t work out well for her.3
Pam’s boobs continue to be shockingly prominent for a business law firm office where important law business is conducted, but she acquires another attribute besides boobs: sometimes disagreeing with Jeri.4 When Jeri takes Pam to lunch at the same restaurant where she proposed to her wife, and then they run into said wife (Wendy! still a jerk!), Jeri says, “She does not get this goddamn restaurant.” And Pam says, “Yeah. She does.”
Great work, Pam! Way to stand up to your sharky girlfriend when she’s in the wrong! Also, and I’m saying this as a friend, you might consider finding some dresses that show less of your boobs. And hey, since I’m giving you advice anyway, don’t date your married boss probably. That doesn’t work out well even for people who don’t live in universes where mind control is a thing.
After Trish’s near-death experience last time, Jessica and Simpson (you remember him? the cop who got Kilgraved to kill her last time?) both do their best to protect her. Simpson brings her an illegal gun and chats to her for hours outside her apartment door, which culminates in some hearty sexing.5 Jessica talks her into giving Kilgrave an on-air apology for what she said about him last time. Guess whose plan works out.
Y’all, I just love Trish. Even though she makes some choices in this episode that I wouldn’t’ve (accepting Simpson’s present in a box; chatting to Simpson through the door; letting Simpson into her apartment even though last time he was there he tried to kill her; sexing it up with Simpson), I love the trust and admiration between her and Jessica. Trish tries to make Simpson feel better by saying, “What Kilgrave did to you, he did to Jessica. It doesn’t matter how strong you are.” Lady frieeeeeeeeeeeeeeends!
Jessica breaks things: The padlock on a building where Jessica Hecht from Friends is practicing her gun-shootin’ skills. A glass panel in Jeri’s office when Jeri starts getting too sympathetic/interested about Kilgrave. Some plaster, a chair, a mirror, a bed, the radiator, and some very attractive double doors in Jessica Hecht from Friends‘s creepy murder building. The lock on Malcolm’s apartment door.
Drinking game rules: I was going to say, Drink if someone comes to Jessica with a case; but she literally will never have one again after this. So it would be sort of a waste of a drinking game rule.
Watching TV with Whiskey Jenny: When Simpson helps Jessica find out who’s following her, he says “I’ve got your six.” Jessica rolls her eyes at this. Whiskey Jenny and I both shrieked “HE HAS HER SIX! TEAM-UP TEAM-UP!” That…is not ultimately exactly how this plotline ended up going.
- HA HA, just kidding, Jessica doesn’t have cases every week, did you think this was a procedural or something? (Legitimately, though, I think this would have been a better show if Jessica had solved more cases during it.) ↩
- How is Jessica paying her bills, though, seriously? She can’t be paying them with private eye work, since she doesn’t trust the one single private eye client she’s had in weeks. ↩
- I mean, SPOILER, it’ll still work out better for her than it will for literally any other queer person on this show, but still not great. ↩
- Why yes, I am writing a recap centered around recognizing people’s humanity and how bad a person you are if you reduce them down to a single one of their attributes. What was the question? ↩
- It’s not the choice I would have gone with but you do you, Trish! ↩