Jessica Jones, Season 1, Episode 3: AKA It's Called Whiskey
Yeah, a definite improvement can be observed across these three first episodes. I honestly don't quite understand why the pilot episode was so utterly underwhelming when the story they laid out across these early episodes is so tense and engaging. But that said, well, it's better to have one bad episode in the beginning than to have an entire season's worth of bad episodes, right? This episode had another pretty solid clear-cut plot with Jessica just trying to help Hope out and dealing with her allies, who are helpful... but not in the way she quite wanted. Also, her crazy hijinks in trying to get her hands on sulfentanyl.
But let's talk about the titular Jessica Jones first. We get to see what she is all about in the last two episodes, and this episode builds upon the premise of a character with a rich and mysterious backstory. We see her actual character here beyond 'not wanting to give a fuck but knows that she's the only one that can do it'. We see that she's not above doing some questionable methods when she has to. Not only does she try to rather hypocritically blackmail Hogarth while refusing to give a testimony because, well, considering her PTSD and her past dealings with Kilgrave, it's understandable.
And she tries to manipulate her good and supportive friend Trish to use her position as a radio celebrity to help out, though despite her coercion she understands that she's being an asshole, literaly muttering "I'm an asshole" at one point. And she's willing to beat people up... but she doesn't go over the line the way someone like, say, the Punisher would. I really loved that scene when she just wants to go in, beat people up and steal the sulfentanyl, but starts to count the people that would be hurt. One is okay. Two is fine. Three... four... she then backs out.
We get to see a bit of a darker side, though. In the episode both Luke and twincest brother talks a bit about racism -- Luke's just joking, but twincest brother, in his rambling, says something that might sound a bit too preachy but no less true, that sometimes people instinctively judge someone thanks to their race. And this unfortunate fact gets used by Jessica to kind of manipulate our resident druggie Marcus as a distraction. She very visibly regrets it and gives Marcus an apologetic look, and while it's a definitely questionable decision on her part, it's also something she did after considering other options.
I still honestly don't see the point of Marcus, honestly. He just keeps showing up here and there, reminds us that he's a druggie and steals TV and leaves the show immediately after those scenes.
We also get more mentions to her past as a superhero, which is a simple "been there, done that." And her origin story? "Accident." Luke's origin story? "Experiment." They're clearly saving it for later revelations, though at this point the story functions well even without those details, and finding them out later would certainly be a nice bonus. What we did find out from Jessica's ever-mysterious past, though, is that Kilgrave did get her to kill someone. Someone very specific, in fact... Luke Cage's first wife, Reva. Now Luke assumes the whole 'dead wife thing' was what drove Jessica away at the end of the episode, but it's something much deeper and, well, more tragic than what last episode implied.
So the question is... why did Kilgrave want Jessica to kill Reva specifically? Or is she just an unfortunate witness? And considering that Jessica doesn't seem to know about Luke being married to Reva until they had sex, well, what was she doing spying on Luke's house all the way back in episode one?
Another topic that's really explored in this episode is how people living in a world post-Avengers are doing, something that really isn't explored a lot in, well, everything else. The big movies generally just show a couple of news clippings before moving on to showing the superheroes. Agents of SHIELD takes place in the world behind the scenes where powered people are commonplace. And Daredevil is kind of a closed community with more pressing issues. Jessica Jones's setting allows us to actually see the general public's reaction to these powered people. And while in general the existence of superpowered humans are accepted, well, like Luke Cage points out... you can touch someone's indestructible skin, but mind control is another beast altogether.
And it's kind of true, honestly, because so far most of the super-powers in the MCU has been of the big, explosive types. We don't exactly have a precedent for mind-controlling, at least not without Loki's fancy scepter. Plus, y'know, when the story comes out of a girl who's killed her parents and using it as her defense... Granted, I do love Trish's defense about how people can believe aliens invading New York but not mind-control, but she's squarely on Jessica's side of the argument and actually knows Kilgrave exists.
Also like I point out in my previous reviews, in the scene where a radio plays in the background someone actually says "have you ever heard of a more made-up name than Killgrave?"
The first half of this episode deals with Jessica recruiting Hogarth and Trish to both help out Hope's case, and we see just how these two characters differ. Hogarth the lawyer isn't exactly unreasonable, because after all while we, the audience, knows that Jessica and Hope are telling the truth, she's still a lawyer, and she kind of has a point where Jessica is a witness whose testimony can definitely help in getting Hope out of her predicament, but she's refusing to come out as a witness while calling Hogarth a coward and a cheat. And I do love how there's really no clear-cut answer to this, because Jessica's PTSD and her knowing that Kilgrave would be targeting her specifically are both relatively valid reasons to her not rearing her head out waiting for it to be chopped. Look at what happened to Trish this episode!
That's not to say she doesn't help out, though, because she tries to play 'bad cop' here, basically arguing against Hope's case in hopes that the more charismatic and more palatable-to-the-public radio broadcaster Trish would make the argument for her. She does kind of come off as a dick for doing that, and for all I know she could just not really care about Hope at all but that's what Jessica and Trish observes Hogarth is doing, so good for her.
Trish, I think, is easily the strongest of the side characters we visit in this episode. While it's odd that she and Jessica act like BFFs despite being apparently estranged for a year prior to the first episode, it's not an unbelievable change in their relationship. I do love how she's not at all happy to do random favours for Jessica that don't really make sense, but the moment that Jessica has actual evidence -- like when she brings up the sulfentanyl weakness -- she's suddenly excited and happy to listen. She's also turned her house into a fortress, which doesn't do her good when Kilgrave sends in a mind-controlled police officer claiming to be asking her about reflexively punching a fan... which may or may not be sent by Kilgrave as well.
And while she's been taking self-defense lessons, well, she doesn't do all that well against the desperate and single-minded policeman, and ends up getting bailed out by Jessica. Well, you still have an entire season to grow into your Hellcat persona, Trish. Jessica finds out about her little training, and immediately assumes her mother is back in town, and I do love how her abusive mother was actually foreshadowed last episode, with the 'low brow' conversation that seemed like just an innocuous joke.
Also, speaking of foreshadowing, I do love how Jessica makes use of the stolen sulfentanyl to put Trish into an anesthetic state. Granted it's definitely pretty fucking dangerous to stab someone with an anesthetic in the neck and hoping that she'll just go to sleep for a bit, but this is a show where they store sulfentanyl near a medical ward instead of being stored in the surgical theatre, so why the hell not.
Also, speaking of Jessica's attempts to get sulfentanyl, I think an understated character is Jeri's wife, doctor... doctor whoever. I don't think we get her name. I do love the sheer amount of snark coming from her, and there's that bit of acknowledgement that while Jeri Hogarth may be a supporting character for Jessica's case against Hope, she's still a gigantic bitch and a "shark", as Jessica puts it. And, well, a divorce may be in the works thanks to Hogarth sleeping around with her secretary. I do love the fact when reality sets in and GPs don't actually have access to surgical anesthesia. Looking like she's about to prescribe one, and her prescribing an anti-psychotic medication instead, is an absolutely hilarious scene.
We also get a fair amount of Luke Cage, and whoa there's a lot of scenes of Luke and Jessica banging. And, granted, for powered people with super-strength they probably don't find a lot of chances to actually let loose and enjoy proper sex without holding back, but still the sheer amount of times they fuck is kind of... too much. It's at least to show them kind of being close, talking about their past and Luke's indestructible skin and super-strength, and talking a bit about Luke's dead wife. We get some reaffirmations of things we already know, and I do like how the two of them have formed some kind of odd relationship where they're the first super-powered friend they've made. We also get some nice references to the Avengers, and I do love how Luke Cage identifies with the Hulk, considering the team to be "the big green dude and the others." A nice little tidbit that made me smile.
Also, we get a well-timed "sweet Christmas" from Luke Cage, which, as anyone who knows anything about Luke Cage would know is his catchphrase.
Oh, and of course, the end of this episode finally reveals to us Kilgrave, bringing Jessica and Kilgrave finally face-to-face. Of course the man actually makes his presence known to Trish's radio show, which was what Jessica was so terrified of. He's awesomely creepy, and from his army of people who will not stop at anything until they do what Kilgrave commanded. And Kilgrave's eerie description of what he could make someone under his control do, like make someone commit suicide. And, well, we did see him actually do exactly that in this episode.
That said, though, we actually see a fair bit of limitations to Kilgrave's ability. He needs to be in the same room as his victim, because otherwise he probably would've ordered Trish to kill herself by calling in. And the orders given to his victims can be considered to be 'done' if the victim thinks that he/she has done it. Like when the officer thinks that Trish has actually died when she's just playing dead, or when the officer wakes up having "fallen" from the building when it's Jessica that drags him down.
We get Jessica fighting an army of mind-controlled dudes and trying her best not to, y'know, kill them or maim them when they're attacking her with a single-minded robotic intensity. And we see that Kilgrave has built a gigantic creepy stalker tribute to Jessica... man, dude can't move on, can he? Also, there's the less-obvious implication (more explored in the next episode) that Kilgrave has been watching. In the past year where Jessica thought herself free from the demons of her past, Kilgrave was watching.
The door gag's honestly getting quite old, and I'm glad that they fixed the door. Even if it involves some borderline-racist Mexican stereotypes.
There are apparently a fair amount of Marvel Easter Eggs, like references to the fact that Trish used to have red hair, Reva's death in the comics is also caused by superhero fighting, some other stuff like that, but not knowing much about these characters in the first place, well, none of them really mean much to me. It's not distracting the way Gotham's Easter Eggs can be at times, though, which is a bonus point. That's how Easter Eggs should be handled -- obvious if you are in on the joke, but doesn't disrupt the story for anyone who isn't in on it.
Overall the most solid episode so far into the season. Granted the best out of three episodes probably isn't saying much, and it's not like there aren't weak parts in this episode -- Marcus, the Mexican carpenters and having a bit too many sex scenes made me frown. But as a whole it's really an enjoyable and thrilling episode and, more importantly, it makes me want to watch more which is kind of important when you just throw an entire season out in the open for people to binge-watch.
But let's talk about the titular Jessica Jones first. We get to see what she is all about in the last two episodes, and this episode builds upon the premise of a character with a rich and mysterious backstory. We see her actual character here beyond 'not wanting to give a fuck but knows that she's the only one that can do it'. We see that she's not above doing some questionable methods when she has to. Not only does she try to rather hypocritically blackmail Hogarth while refusing to give a testimony because, well, considering her PTSD and her past dealings with Kilgrave, it's understandable.
And she tries to manipulate her good and supportive friend Trish to use her position as a radio celebrity to help out, though despite her coercion she understands that she's being an asshole, literaly muttering "I'm an asshole" at one point. And she's willing to beat people up... but she doesn't go over the line the way someone like, say, the Punisher would. I really loved that scene when she just wants to go in, beat people up and steal the sulfentanyl, but starts to count the people that would be hurt. One is okay. Two is fine. Three... four... she then backs out.
We get to see a bit of a darker side, though. In the episode both Luke and twincest brother talks a bit about racism -- Luke's just joking, but twincest brother, in his rambling, says something that might sound a bit too preachy but no less true, that sometimes people instinctively judge someone thanks to their race. And this unfortunate fact gets used by Jessica to kind of manipulate our resident druggie Marcus as a distraction. She very visibly regrets it and gives Marcus an apologetic look, and while it's a definitely questionable decision on her part, it's also something she did after considering other options.
I still honestly don't see the point of Marcus, honestly. He just keeps showing up here and there, reminds us that he's a druggie and steals TV and leaves the show immediately after those scenes.
We also get more mentions to her past as a superhero, which is a simple "been there, done that." And her origin story? "Accident." Luke's origin story? "Experiment." They're clearly saving it for later revelations, though at this point the story functions well even without those details, and finding them out later would certainly be a nice bonus. What we did find out from Jessica's ever-mysterious past, though, is that Kilgrave did get her to kill someone. Someone very specific, in fact... Luke Cage's first wife, Reva. Now Luke assumes the whole 'dead wife thing' was what drove Jessica away at the end of the episode, but it's something much deeper and, well, more tragic than what last episode implied.
So the question is... why did Kilgrave want Jessica to kill Reva specifically? Or is she just an unfortunate witness? And considering that Jessica doesn't seem to know about Luke being married to Reva until they had sex, well, what was she doing spying on Luke's house all the way back in episode one?
Another topic that's really explored in this episode is how people living in a world post-Avengers are doing, something that really isn't explored a lot in, well, everything else. The big movies generally just show a couple of news clippings before moving on to showing the superheroes. Agents of SHIELD takes place in the world behind the scenes where powered people are commonplace. And Daredevil is kind of a closed community with more pressing issues. Jessica Jones's setting allows us to actually see the general public's reaction to these powered people. And while in general the existence of superpowered humans are accepted, well, like Luke Cage points out... you can touch someone's indestructible skin, but mind control is another beast altogether.
And it's kind of true, honestly, because so far most of the super-powers in the MCU has been of the big, explosive types. We don't exactly have a precedent for mind-controlling, at least not without Loki's fancy scepter. Plus, y'know, when the story comes out of a girl who's killed her parents and using it as her defense... Granted, I do love Trish's defense about how people can believe aliens invading New York but not mind-control, but she's squarely on Jessica's side of the argument and actually knows Kilgrave exists.
Also like I point out in my previous reviews, in the scene where a radio plays in the background someone actually says "have you ever heard of a more made-up name than Killgrave?"
The first half of this episode deals with Jessica recruiting Hogarth and Trish to both help out Hope's case, and we see just how these two characters differ. Hogarth the lawyer isn't exactly unreasonable, because after all while we, the audience, knows that Jessica and Hope are telling the truth, she's still a lawyer, and she kind of has a point where Jessica is a witness whose testimony can definitely help in getting Hope out of her predicament, but she's refusing to come out as a witness while calling Hogarth a coward and a cheat. And I do love how there's really no clear-cut answer to this, because Jessica's PTSD and her knowing that Kilgrave would be targeting her specifically are both relatively valid reasons to her not rearing her head out waiting for it to be chopped. Look at what happened to Trish this episode!
That's not to say she doesn't help out, though, because she tries to play 'bad cop' here, basically arguing against Hope's case in hopes that the more charismatic and more palatable-to-the-public radio broadcaster Trish would make the argument for her. She does kind of come off as a dick for doing that, and for all I know she could just not really care about Hope at all but that's what Jessica and Trish observes Hogarth is doing, so good for her.
Trish, I think, is easily the strongest of the side characters we visit in this episode. While it's odd that she and Jessica act like BFFs despite being apparently estranged for a year prior to the first episode, it's not an unbelievable change in their relationship. I do love how she's not at all happy to do random favours for Jessica that don't really make sense, but the moment that Jessica has actual evidence -- like when she brings up the sulfentanyl weakness -- she's suddenly excited and happy to listen. She's also turned her house into a fortress, which doesn't do her good when Kilgrave sends in a mind-controlled police officer claiming to be asking her about reflexively punching a fan... which may or may not be sent by Kilgrave as well.
And while she's been taking self-defense lessons, well, she doesn't do all that well against the desperate and single-minded policeman, and ends up getting bailed out by Jessica. Well, you still have an entire season to grow into your Hellcat persona, Trish. Jessica finds out about her little training, and immediately assumes her mother is back in town, and I do love how her abusive mother was actually foreshadowed last episode, with the 'low brow' conversation that seemed like just an innocuous joke.
Also, speaking of foreshadowing, I do love how Jessica makes use of the stolen sulfentanyl to put Trish into an anesthetic state. Granted it's definitely pretty fucking dangerous to stab someone with an anesthetic in the neck and hoping that she'll just go to sleep for a bit, but this is a show where they store sulfentanyl near a medical ward instead of being stored in the surgical theatre, so why the hell not.
Also, speaking of Jessica's attempts to get sulfentanyl, I think an understated character is Jeri's wife, doctor... doctor whoever. I don't think we get her name. I do love the sheer amount of snark coming from her, and there's that bit of acknowledgement that while Jeri Hogarth may be a supporting character for Jessica's case against Hope, she's still a gigantic bitch and a "shark", as Jessica puts it. And, well, a divorce may be in the works thanks to Hogarth sleeping around with her secretary. I do love the fact when reality sets in and GPs don't actually have access to surgical anesthesia. Looking like she's about to prescribe one, and her prescribing an anti-psychotic medication instead, is an absolutely hilarious scene.
We also get a fair amount of Luke Cage, and whoa there's a lot of scenes of Luke and Jessica banging. And, granted, for powered people with super-strength they probably don't find a lot of chances to actually let loose and enjoy proper sex without holding back, but still the sheer amount of times they fuck is kind of... too much. It's at least to show them kind of being close, talking about their past and Luke's indestructible skin and super-strength, and talking a bit about Luke's dead wife. We get some reaffirmations of things we already know, and I do like how the two of them have formed some kind of odd relationship where they're the first super-powered friend they've made. We also get some nice references to the Avengers, and I do love how Luke Cage identifies with the Hulk, considering the team to be "the big green dude and the others." A nice little tidbit that made me smile.
Also, we get a well-timed "sweet Christmas" from Luke Cage, which, as anyone who knows anything about Luke Cage would know is his catchphrase.
Oh, and of course, the end of this episode finally reveals to us Kilgrave, bringing Jessica and Kilgrave finally face-to-face. Of course the man actually makes his presence known to Trish's radio show, which was what Jessica was so terrified of. He's awesomely creepy, and from his army of people who will not stop at anything until they do what Kilgrave commanded. And Kilgrave's eerie description of what he could make someone under his control do, like make someone commit suicide. And, well, we did see him actually do exactly that in this episode.
That said, though, we actually see a fair bit of limitations to Kilgrave's ability. He needs to be in the same room as his victim, because otherwise he probably would've ordered Trish to kill herself by calling in. And the orders given to his victims can be considered to be 'done' if the victim thinks that he/she has done it. Like when the officer thinks that Trish has actually died when she's just playing dead, or when the officer wakes up having "fallen" from the building when it's Jessica that drags him down.
We get Jessica fighting an army of mind-controlled dudes and trying her best not to, y'know, kill them or maim them when they're attacking her with a single-minded robotic intensity. And we see that Kilgrave has built a gigantic creepy stalker tribute to Jessica... man, dude can't move on, can he? Also, there's the less-obvious implication (more explored in the next episode) that Kilgrave has been watching. In the past year where Jessica thought herself free from the demons of her past, Kilgrave was watching.
The door gag's honestly getting quite old, and I'm glad that they fixed the door. Even if it involves some borderline-racist Mexican stereotypes.
There are apparently a fair amount of Marvel Easter Eggs, like references to the fact that Trish used to have red hair, Reva's death in the comics is also caused by superhero fighting, some other stuff like that, but not knowing much about these characters in the first place, well, none of them really mean much to me. It's not distracting the way Gotham's Easter Eggs can be at times, though, which is a bonus point. That's how Easter Eggs should be handled -- obvious if you are in on the joke, but doesn't disrupt the story for anyone who isn't in on it.
Overall the most solid episode so far into the season. Granted the best out of three episodes probably isn't saying much, and it's not like there aren't weak parts in this episode -- Marcus, the Mexican carpenters and having a bit too many sex scenes made me frown. But as a whole it's really an enjoyable and thrilling episode and, more importantly, it makes me want to watch more which is kind of important when you just throw an entire season out in the open for people to binge-watch.
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