Jessica Jones S02E03 Review: Enter the Villain

Jessica Jones, Season 2, Episode 3: AKA Sole Survivor

I actually sort of binge-watched the entire season 2 of Jessica Jones, as Netflix shows are meant to be, a while back when I was sick. I just never quite got around to writing individual  episode reviews. Whoops. I'll try to make this an episodic review still because each hour-long episode of Jessica Jones does have enough meat for me to talk about. 

Let's start off with the least interesting bit of this episode for me. Jeri Hogarth. Carrie-Anne Moss is a pretty decent actress, and it's hard not to sympathize with a powerful woman who's spent her entire life amassing influence and power, only to find out that she's now suffering from a terminal disease. (Also hey look at all the parallels to Jessica except she has actual friends that don't get pushed away as easily as Foggy) Her business associates try to oust her from her own company -- the only thing she has left -- and while it might not exactly be fair, she asks Jessica to help dig up dirt on her newfound adversaries. It's just that this whole Hogarth stuff feels very much like a side-quest in a video game, and one that doesn't really tie into the IGH and Jessica storyline that well. Hogarth herself is written well and we get a neat little cameo by Foggy, but she feels really divorced from everything that's going on and feels like a distraction. 

Also feeling extremely like a distraction is Jessica's housing situation. I cannot really tell you how much I don't care that Oscar next door is trying to get Jessica evicted because of some superhuman prejudice... and how stupid Oscar is for prolonging the conflict. Dude, Jessica's a superpowered human who evidently is capable of digging up dirt on you, just shake hands and call it a day. Neither of these storylines are as bad as the weird incestuous siblings from the first season of Jessica Jones, and Krysten Ritter is so fucking entertaining while interacting with everyone that she makes the scenes at least watchable... but god damn if it's gratingly obvious that these are distractions. 

Oh, yeah, and Trish's boyfriend Griffin is super-worried and we have some extended scenes of Griffin being oh-so-cute before distracting Trish long enough to download the Whizzer video. Dancing around the evil-or-not seems to be the name of the game. It's... it's fine. I could complain about it, but the other two B-plots bother me a lot more. Trish's love life is a lot less time-consuming. 

Jessica and Trish's (and Malcolm, I suppose) investigations are clearly the fun bits here, and after a bit of investigating, a bit of a shouting match on responsibilities, Trish nearly beating up poor Griffin and a visit to a therapist, they end up finding a lead. In a human skull stuffed into an incinerator. The bit with the morgue dude is pretty neat, and the lead-up to the paparazzi ending up with the misguided fact that Trish dumped Griffin for Malcolm is hilarious, but this episode ends up setting up the seeming villain for the moment. There is also, of course, the mysterious "flesh-shaped man", as Jessica calls him, but no real clue as to where that dude is at the moment. 

A female scientist who initially poses as dr. Hansen of IGH, who initially is angry that Jessica would be ungrateful for the gift of life (while Jessica mostly remembers the torture), and displays super-strength on her own, knocking the otherwise invincible Jessica down a peg. It's a pretty great sequence as Jessica and "Hansen" argue in that pub, increasing their angry arguments, culminating with "Hansen" throwing Jessica around in shots that are clearly meant to mirror Jessica throwing Pryce around in this season's first episode, before escaping. It's neat setup, with a lot of neat scenes for our three heroes. Overall, though, it's way too slow and clunky as an individual episode, and I honestly really wish that Netflix shows had opted for either shorter individual episodes or a shorter season (they did it for Defenders, didn't they?) so a lot of these extraneous C-plot filler could be trimmed down. Still, it's an enjoyable watch if nothing else, which is part of the Netflix binge experience, I suppose. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Daredevil's buddy, makes a brief appearance talking to Hogarth. He was, of course, last seen as part of Hogarth's law firm after the dissolution of Nelson and Murdock.
• On the apartment directory of doctor Hansen's building are S. Jackson and F. Jones, allusions to the actors Samuel L. Jackson and Finn Jones, who play Nick Fury and Iron Fist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe respectively. 
• Captain America is mentioned by Oscar's son as his favourite superhero, and Oscar also makes an allusion to Captain America fighting aliens which he does in Avengers.