Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 12: AKA Take A Bloody Number
As we reach the penultimate episode of Jessica Jones, it reverts back to the more detective-y feel of the earlier episodes, but does not lose any of the tension built up across the second half of the season. I was worried that the Simpson/Nuke thing would kind of disrupt the tension about all things Kilgrave-related, but really while all of that was rather strangely handled, this episode works in something that kind of justifies just what Kilgrave does between the end of episode 10 and the beginning of 12 while Jessica and Trish were mucking around with their sidequest.
All too often in shows but especially in Japanese anime/manga, a villain that is a gigantic threat at the beginning of the show starts to lose credibility and start, well, losing before eventually being taken out thanks to the hero(es) improving their skills and learning new techniques and shit. I think TV Tropes calls it ‘Villain Forgot to Level Grind’. Well, not so for Kilgrave, who has kidnapped his father, Albert, two episodes ago and has apparently been working to improve his mind-controlling abilities. When Jessica (and us, the audience) start to learn about the cracks in Kilgrave’s mind-control powers, Kilgrave sets out to, well, level up and gain new skills! Or force his father to work in an attempt to enhance the range and duration of his powers, if you will.
And this all sets up beautifully as Jessica and Luke team up for three-fourths of the episode in a nice tense little detective chase throughout town as they try to figure out just what Kilgrave is doing and where he is now. Kilgrave himself is also frantic, testing out his new powers randomly at a club, forcing his father and a bunch of random scientists to work without rest… only for it to turn out that, well, he’s had Luke Cage dancing on the palm of his hand all throughout the episode. It’s a nice plot twist that while not entirely unexpected – I think I made a joke of it during my last review – is handled absolutely well. I think the biggest point to faking out the “Luke is mind-controlled” plot twist is when Jessica basically forces Luke to sit out the action for twelve hours, which seems to be a convenient way to get it out of the audience’s mind.
And while Kilgrave is arguing with his father about increasing the duration and range of his powers, we don’t actually know that he’s succeeded in lengthening the 12-hour limit to a 16-hour limit prior to this episode up until the plot twist itself. Great job, that! And as with all mind-control plot twists, there’s all the hints that Luke isn’t quite in his right state of mind. There’s the obvious going offscreen to use the shower, of course, and we see how Luke dealt with the landlady – nonviolently, but still a flagrant usage of his superpowers when usually it’s Jessica that initiates that kind of thing.
We get a lot of great moments between Jessica and Luke while they’re together (the two characters really improve each other when they’re on screen together), and we even get a great reconciliation moment when Luke apologizes to Jessica and generally spout out a lot of heartwarming things… which at the climax Kilgrave claims to have ‘script written’ it all. How much of this is true, and how much of it is Kilgrave making Luke say the hurtful ‘you killed my wife’ dialogue in the end, is up to debate, and no doubt something that’s going to shake Jessica’s emotional state. As if all the shit that’s happened to the people around her isn’t enough already. It’s a great moment, capitalizing on the heartwarming scenes earlier to make them actually turn sinister and hurtful. Having Kilgrave repeat Luke Cage’s “I’ll say I’m sorry for the rest of my life” line to be the whammy is an absolute gut punch and you can just see how much it affects Jessica. While they fight Kilgrave keeps yapping on and on about how Luke has been his puppet all along, how it’s their sexual tension being resolved… man, what an absolute dick!
And the climax is absolutely brutal. This show’s always been shy about depicting Jessica’s super-strength beyond some super heavylifting or punching someone and sending them flying more than they really should – it acknowledges Jessica’s super strength while at the same time shuns from putting it on full display like most superhero TV shows to help preserve the more realistic feel of the show. Not so for this episode, as the moment Kilgrave reveals his presence Jessica just hops down from a storey above all Batman-like as she marches towards Kilgrave… and then the reveal of Luke Cage’s mind-control pans out, and we get a superhero fight scene! While it starts off as a normal brawl, generally Luke and Jessica hold back their powers against normal human beings – even when fighting Simpson, Jessica never really got the chance to go all out like she did here, and while it isn’t quite the level of the Hulk/Iron Man fight from Age of Ultron, there’s a fair bit of property damage. We get shit like ripping the police car door and using it as a ramming shield, or Luke making a new door on a wall to ambush Jessica… great stuff.
And, yes, Jessica “kills” Luke with a boom headshot from a policeman’s shotgun, with Luke’s consent so he gets released from Kilgrave’s thrall. Obviously anyone with any knowledge of upcoming Marvel productions knows that there’s no way they’re going to kill Luke Cage off like that, not before he stars in Defenders, but still, the emotional impact is there as Jessica just breaks down at being forced to kill one of her loved ones all thanks to Kilgrave. It’s a great, explosive climax to an episode that builds up to it pretty slowly.
Kilgrave, meanwhile, is a gigantic hammy dick throughout this episode. He’s just dark comedy personified as he just snarks onto everyone around him and just goes over the top, shouting emotionally abusive things at Jessica while pulling off the odd ridiculous dance move or two on that stage. All the darker bits work well, too. From him giving Luke Cage a death-glare when he thinks Luke soured his chances with Jessica, the blender scene, him giving the rant about how Luke never forgave Jessica and all that… And again, despite all the established limitations of Kilgrave’s powers – Jessica’s immunity, loopholes in Kilgrave’s specific commands, a 12-hour (now 24-hour) time limit, hermetically sealed rooms stop Kilgrave’s virus from influencing you – we still see how Kilgrave’s powers are so horrifying even before the big reveal that Kilgrave’s gotten a power upgrade. There’s the bit with the dude that kills himself with garden shears, of course, easily one of the most brutal deaths in the MCU that’s absolutely jarring compared to the relative lack of gore in this show. There’s the bit where Luke describes the helplessness of being controlled by Kilgrave – someone with such a strong personality like him being utterly broken by it. And there’s the bit with the random workers being forced to ‘work nonstop’ until they shit and piss in place, and Kilgrave forcing his father to put his hand into a blender to help him focus.
It all builds up to a vengeful Jessica going to be out for blood. Having the Jessica-Luke fight happen in the penultimate episode (and Nuke happening in the previous one) means that there probably won’t be a big action scene like this one in the final one, but hey, I think it’ll suit the theme of this scene for the final confrontation to simply be between Jessica and Kilgrave.
And we haven’t gotten into the B-plots yet! Whoo, this episode is packed. Let’s get Marcus and Robyn out of the way. They’re honestly pointless. There’s a bit of an emotional scene when Robyn just breaks down and regretting not letting Reuben use express delivery for his charger or whatever, but otherwise Robyn is just crazy, assaulting that poor FedEx woman in a scene that lasts too long, and Marcus is just… kinda there.
Trish and her mother, on the other hand, builds up on the oddly-placed flashback last episode and ends up being relevant. The first few scenes seemed to have Dorothy just bring flowers and try to make up with Trish, talking about how all she wanted is a relationship – something that anyone can easily sympathize with as horrible as a mother Dorothy could be. And Trish herself even seems to almost believe it when Dorothy comes back later bringing the IGH file and just going on about how Trish can at least ‘use’ her mother to get what she wants, and she talks about what a shitty excuse of a human being she used to be, and it really seems to be building up to Trish grudgingly respecting her mother… until she makes a business proposal for Trish to help promote a client, and then things get ugly. Trish really has good reason to immediately be defensive and talk down any attempts her mother makes to play nice, and at the end of their conversation Dorothy just drops all pretense of being nice and just reverts to being a bitch. A great scene, really, as irrelevant it is to the Kilgrave plot.
I’ll talk about the IGH origin story bit later, but I really do like how it kinda sorta parallels the Jessica/Luke interaction throughout the episode, and foreshadows it even. Dorothy apologizes and says all the things that Trish wants to hear – how she’s horrible, how she doesn’t expect forgiveness, how all she wants is a chance to try to reconcile… all the nice things Trish wants to hear. Except, y’know, she doesn’t accept any of them. It parallels nicely to the tender rooftop scene where Luke tells Jessica all the things she expects, wants and needs to hear. And then at the end, the shocking betrayal is revealed. Now Dorothy isn’t mind-controlled and is a special kind of evil in herself, but it’s a nice little not-too-obvious parallel between the two and I like it.
Also I generally don't care too much about symbolism in backgrounds of shots or whatever, but Dorothy brings Trish an orchid while talking shit about someone else's choice of flowers. If she didn't talk shit about someone else's gift of carnations, I wouldn't have noticed that Dorothy brought orchids for Trish... orchids are parasitic plants, which really describes Dorothy's relationship with her daughter.
Now, the IGH stuff! Jessica Jones’ backstory has been handwaved as ‘accident’ and it’s clear that the show isn’t really interested in delving into that angle. But while Trish is doing her digging to the doctors that made Simpson into Nuke, she comes across the name IGH. An organization that Dorothy happens to know, and she gives Trish a file about it in her attempts of manipulation. Obviously Dorothy is withholding some information, but apparently IGH paid the bills for Jessica’s stay in the hospital so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that IGH experimented on Jessica after her accident. Her powers didn’t show up until after she was adopted by the Walkers, after all, so it totally makes sense especially with all the mystery surrounding Simpson.
Speaking of which, Reva, while dead, still provides a fair bit of intrigue that puzzles even Luke Cage. How is she connected to all the experiments on kids that created Kilgrave? Was she involved? How did she come across the information and how is she connected to Kilgrave? All of these questions have been mostly overshadowed by the ‘ZOMG Jessica killed Reva’ revelation, but now with Jessica giving Luke the yellow USB and all the Trish talk about the IGH and superpower origins, it comes back in full force. Is Reva involved with the IGH? Did the IGH have a hand in creating Luke Cage’s unbreakable skin? So many questions, and I doubt any of them will be answered next episode – it’s world-building and seeding more and more questions to be answered in future Netflix Marvel shows, and it’s totally fine.
One more episode to go. It’s not as 100% Best Superhero Show EVAR as it has been advertised to me, and it certainly has its bumps and less-impressive moments, but as someone with no emotional attachment to any of these characters bar Luke Cage, it has certainly crafted a well-done story done in a different genre compared to its superhero TV brethren. It’s darker, it’s snarkier, it’s Kilgravier. It’s a great show, I’ll give it that.
No comments:
Post a Comment