Jessica Jones, Season 2, Episode 7: AKA I Want Your Cray-Cray
This episode is almost entirely a flashback exploring the state of the cast of Jessica Jones a couple of years ago when Alisa Jones wakes up from her experimentation from IGH. And it seems that it's sort of a hallmark of these Netflix Marvel series, where in most of these, an episode in the middle of the series is going to be devoted to a flashback explaining things in the past. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... and "I Want Your Cray-Cray" sort of does both, I think.
On one hand, I do like some clarification as to just what Alisa's been doing. We get an explanation as to why she looks different, and we get confirmation that the temper stuff is indeed a side-effect of the IGH experimentation. We also get a reason as to why she's not contacted Jessica in all these years -- she tried to, even broke out of IGH to do so (and causing the incident that killed a nurse and traumatized poor Inez), but ended up being completely unrecognized by Jessica and losing her temper and killing Jessica's then-boyfriend.
All of that is neat, of course, but at the same time isn't enough to carry an entire episode, because it really feels more like an exercise of "show, don't tell", but instead of a ten-minute explanation we drag it out for 55 minutes. And that slow-burn pacing just makes the flashback feel like it's way, way longer than it should. Thankfully Alissa, Karl and Jessica are all extremely well-acted, with some pretty fun scenes like Jessica and Alissa bonding over tampons, so despite my negative tone, the episode was still pretty enjoyable. We also get the (to me, rather surprising) revelation that a pre-plastic-operation Alissa is the same 'meat-faced person' from Jessica's first flashback, which is a neat bit of loose end tying, because I thought those two were unrelated metahumans.
Of course, Alissa's backstory isn't the only thing in the episode. There's a side-plot featuring teenage Jessica and teenage Trish, during a relatively vulnerable part of their life. The two adopted sisters ended up splitting away due to differences of opinion regarding Trish's rise to stardom in a Britney Spears-esque image reinvention... something that also causes her to do drugs and essentially ride that self-destructive train of drugs, alcohol and sex until Jessica pulls Trish out of it. It really does help to sell their sisterly bond, which I do like. We also get the added wrinkle of Jessica being the one responsible for pushing Trish back to Dorothy for aid in her addiction, which is an interesting wrinkle in their family drama.
But one thing that I really don't like is the sudden inclusion of Stirling. It's definitely in character for Jessica to get into a hook-up, and it's interesting to see this younger, happier version of Jessica. Great job on Krysten Ritter, by the way, for giving us a more optimistic and doey-eyed Jessica while retaining her 'piss-off' worldview and not turning her into a generic happy girl. And Stirling being not entirely evil -- the jury's still out on whether he's just saying those things to his debt collectors to get them off his back, or if he is genuinely a manipulative bastard... but witnessing that scene is certainly a great way to get any parent to flip off.
But the sheer amount of how Stirling is involved in Jessica's backstory and influences a lot of her style -- her leather jacket, the name 'Alias', her reconnecting with Trish and presumably the far more jaded look and refusal for any lasting relationships beyond one-night stands... I dunno. It feels like such a classic version of an angst-driven backstory, except with genders flipped... and I'm not that huge of a fan since between losing her parents and everything involving Killgrave, Jessica Jones doesn't really have any shortages of tragedy in her life.
Still, despite my complaining, in a vacuum this episode's pretty great, checking off everything it needs to do to tell the story around Alissa and Jessica's life at that point in time. It's not the best paced episode for sure, but thankfully the performances are strong enough to keep me from being flat-out bored throughout the episode. Ultimately, this is one episode that really would've worked a lot better if it's reduced in length, I think.
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