Jessica Jones S01E01 Review: 'whelming

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 1: AKA Ladies Night

I know jack shit about Jessica Jones, or literally anything about this show. All I know about it is that, well, it's set in the Marvel cinematic universe, it's got rave reviews like you wouldn't believe, and it has Luke Cage. Marvel's fourth TV series set in the MCU after Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter and Daredevil, this show is a follow-up to Daredevil and apparently part of a series of TV shows that's going to lead to the Defenders. 

And, well, it's on Netflix, so it means that it gets released in one go. And it's definitely got a darker, edgier tone comparable to -- and even surpassing -- Daredevil. 

The pilot is... honestly a bit underwhelming, Don't get me wrong, as a whole it is definitely an atmospheric episode, it paints the picture of Jessica Jones' life as an independent woman, trying to live a life as a down-and-out private investigator. And she happens to be a retired superhero. This is all told via snippets and details given in conversation and monologue and not dumped at us in one go. Which is great! The problem is, well, for a fifty-plus minute episode, that can only get you so far. And Jessica Jones is definitely a less action-y series than the likes of Daredevil or SHIELD, with the only real 'action' in the show being Jessica displaying her superpowers, which for now appears to be super-strength enough to lift a car. No, the episode is more about exploring Jessica Jones's super-cynical worldview, and discovering bits and pieces of her backstory.

The main plot is decent enough, Jessica investigating a missing girl, Hope, a nice break from her taking pictures of people fucking in alleys and whatnot... and it's honestly not very interesting, right until Jessica realizes that the kidnapper is apparently her ex, someone called Killgrave, who has mind-control powers and freaky-stalker powers. Also, supposed to be dead in an altercation with Jessica a year ago, an altercation that scarred her a lot. Killgrave -- er, Kilgrave -- also has one of the most badass names ever if that's his real name and not his superhero name.

Running through the fifty-minute episode are the introductions of a bunch of characters in Jessica's life, two of which felt relatively shoehorned in. Jessica's lawyer associate, Jeri Hogarth, shows up a couple of times as someone for Jessica to talk to, and runs a tiny pointless sideplot of recruiting Jessica to intimidate some douchebag to show up at a hearing -- Jessica scares him by literally dragging the douchebag's car and threatening him with laser eyes, as well as the totally-sensible excuse that not everyone readily accept superhuman problems. 

We also get Trish Walker, who apparently is privy to Jessica's past superheroic deeds, and feels like kind of a sister/BFF type figure. She is an outlet to Jessica's mysterious past, allowing them to discuss their past meeting with Kilgrave in cryptic undertones and whatnot. I do love the slight "PTSD or whatever" that Jessica is suffering from. It's hinted that she might've succumbed to the same super-suggestion powers that Kilgrave demonstrates on Hope in this episode, which if it's anything like what he does to Hope, is not a pretty sight.

The other supporting characters aren't handled that well. Malcolm Ducasse, Jessica's flatmate or whatever, randomly shows up, gets in a bit of an argument and then leaves. Luke Cage, as much as I anticipated him, shows up, flirts with Jessica a bit, and they have sex. And then Jessica leaves. Yes, you could probably psychoanalyze that scene and say how exasperated Jessica is with life and whatnot and how she immediately regrets fucking a random dude she just met and all that... it just feels shoehorned in. Both Luke Cage the character, and the sex scene. There's the bit of mystery regarding Luke Cage's presumably-deceased wife, though, so there's that?

It's a good thing the episode definitely picks up the pace with the mysteries surrounding Jessica, as she tries to run away from it all, telling her clients to run away from it all only to realize that Hope is still under the influence of Kilgrave, and shoots both her parents dead -- a nice and horrific subversion of what I expected, which is Kilgrave leaving Hope's dead body for Jessica to find. And at the end she resolves to, well, to paraphase a different MCU character, give a shit. And stay.

Also I do love the scene where she tells Hope to repeat the names of street, the coping way she got from a shrink that she lambasted so much earlier in the episode. Granted things went all downhill after that, but that was a nice gesture.

This episode paints an edgy, sardonic and downright depressing worldview as seen through the eyes of Jessica Jones, and it's definitely way too slow-paced. The mystery of who Kilgrave is and how he is connected to Jessica's backstory is relatively alluring enough to get me to stick around, but the pilot episode is definitely not living up to the expectations I had from all the reviews the show gets. It gets borderline depressing at times, and while I get that it's setting the noir tone, they really could've gone with something more exciting as a pilot episode.

I dunno. We'll see as we go ahead into the second episode, I guess.