“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 CommentsReading the End Posts
I might maybe once or twice in the last few months have mentioned how I am super into Alexander Hamilton now? On account of that the cast recording of the musical Hamilton took over my whole life? You may have heard something about that. Anyway, when Alice said “Chernow biography readalong,” I was naturally like: (even though I don’t really read biographies and I find American history, like, pretty boring) Ron Chernow starts by destroying everything I thought I knew about Alexander Hamilton. He was a bastard, but not an orphan (his father was alive for much of his adulthood),…
40 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 CommentsSo here we are at the end of 2015. I had this idea that maybe in 2016 I’ll get really good about writing down all the super-excellent things that happen to me that year, and that way I won’t be struggling to think of them when the end of the year rolls around. My best thing of 2015 (brace yourself for a shock) was the musical Hamilton. Not a full week after I whined to my friends that I feared there would never be another musical that made me feel the way Wicked and Rent made me feel, and maybe…
39 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 CommentsIT IS HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE TIIIIIIIIME! Whiskey Jenny and I propose awesome holiday gifts for all your giftees, and then make specific recommendations for the folks who used our submission form. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 52 Gifts by the Jennys 1) Illustrated Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I mean, look at it. 2) Litrally anything from the Rifle Paper Co. 3) Book art stationery by Justin Rowe. 4) Classes at the Brooklyn Brainery. 5) Book Riot Quarterly! 6) Speaking…
4 CommentsThis #AMonthofFaves continues apace, hosted by the marvelous and wonderful Andi of Estella’s Revenge, Tanya Patrice of Girlxoxo, and Traveling with T. Today we’re talking about a book this year that surprised us. I would like to choose Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl, but I already chose it for something in this Month of Faves. However, I want you to, when you picture me reading Funny Girl for the first time (a thing I am sure you are all constantly imagining), imagine that I spend the entire time saying, “REALLY. REALLY.” Because that is what happened. Instead of that, I choose…
18 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 CommentsAs we prepare to recommend books for you and your loved ones, Whiskey Jenny and I discuss how and when we recommend books (spoiler alert: enthusiastically and always), as well as how we cope with failed recommendations. Then we review Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 51 You can access our holiday gift guide form here. Be sure to get your entries in soon! Our gift guide podcast will air next week!…
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