Jessica Jones S01E02 Review: Twincest, Sulfentanyl & Bar Brawls

Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 2: AKA Crush Syndrome

Ah, that is more like it. Moving away the focus from just having Jessica brood and be cynical and actually do some stuff makes this a far superior episode than the first one. With an actual goal and endgame in mind, Jessica goes around investigating Kilgrave and how he cheated death -- that bit with the cockroach was actually some nice little poetic illustration. She goes around going from the kidneyless Jack Denton and his wacky mother, to hunting down scared-shitless David Kurata, all in the name of hunting down Kilgrave and, well, if that gets her to help out Hope, all the much better.

In the meantime, we get the little sideplot showing Luke Cage. Apparently some of Jessica's investigation photos regarding Luke Cage's tryst with a married woman got leaked out, Luke ends the relationship with the married woman, and this all absolutely comes out of nowhere and I don't think was foreshadowed last episode. It then leads to Luke and Jessica absolutely beating the fuck out of the husband and his hooligans, though, which is kind of worth it. And we get confirmation that Luke Cage does have his powers here, displayed by having a power tool not do anything to his stomach. And honestly, having Luke and Jessica just be absolutely nonchalant about the whole thing was pretty funny.

We also find out that Kilgrave's death was responsible for the bus accident that caused the death of Luke Cage's woman, which will make things totally awkward when they actually do talk about it.

Trish is awesome this episode, from her training to fight, and from her just wanting to care about Jessica. That bit when they just argue like old friends definitely went on for a bit too long, but it's definitely well-done. That poor doorman, though. So she's training herself to be Hellcat, I assume, though for what purpose, we don't exactly know.

Jeri Hogarth gets some scenes with Jessica, and she's basically the reasonable authority figure. All the random lesbian kissing last episode apparently is turning into a bit of an affair story because her wife knows about her and her secretary, something that I didn't even notice last episode were different women she's with. It's cool though, that she goes on to actually hold her end of the deal even if mind-control can't be an easy case to represent in court.

Poor Hope! That conversation between her and Jessica was well done, and having her just go from shocked to sad to screaming to just spitting vitriol at Jessica and telling her that she should have made sure Kilgrave is dead. Yeah, shooting your own parents, on top of whatever the hell Kilgrave made her do... poor kid. No wonder she's broken.

We get to see Kilgrave for the first time properly his episode, though his impact on so many people has definitely been felt. We've got Jessica's flashbacks last episode, we see just how scared Kurata was, we see how destroyed Hope and Denton were... and at the end, when he just shows up at a random family, takes control of the parents and cringeworthily shuts their kids in a wardrobe while their parents are ordered not to even care.... also, I honestly thought that it was blood instead of urine during my first viewing, thinking that Kilgrave crushed the poor kid. Thankfully I was wrong. Damn lighting!

And yet, despite Jessica's little detective hunt, there's still a nice sense of mystery of all this. Why does Kilgrave refuse to be put under anesthesia? What specific functions must he preserve? Why is he so obsessed with Jessica? Why does he have such an obsession about being 'whole'? What is Alias and why are Trish react so funny when Jessica brings it up? So many questions.

There were some slower scenes in the episode that really could've been cut, like the bit when Jessica infiltrates the hospital, but the weakest part in this episode is the absolutely random scenes with Jessica's noisy neighbours. Who are apparently twins. And fucking. And the guy's smitten with Jessica. And the sister is a 'very perceptive asshole', as Jessica puts it. The twincest thing doesn't seem to serve any purpose and I honestly thought that Marvel was beyond such juvenile attempts to make an adult-oriented series more edgy by shoving in random non-plot-relevant things like this.

So yeah, a lot more interesting than the first episode. I do hope the quality remains the same. This was pretty great, other than some odd plot 'twists' like Luke Cage and Jeri's affairs, or the random twincest thing. The pacing's still slow and I honestly hoped it's faster, but it does work to build up Kilgrave's creepiness and Jessica's investigations.