Jessica Jones S02E09 Review: Duct-Taped Man In The Bathtub

Jessica Jones, Season 2, Episode 9: AKA Shark in the Bathtub, Monster in the Bed

This is another episode that's centered around Jessica and Alisa's relationship again, with not much in lieu of B-plots. And it's an interesting episode, for sure, and I really wished that we've jumped straight into this twisted mother-daughter storyline a lot sooner. The identity of the mysterious sniper from the end of the previous episode is quickly revealed to be Pryce Cheng, and he clearly is no match for two super-powered humans. Cheng is taken down no problem and duct-taped in Jewssica's bathroom, but the question remains to be about the whole 'killing' thing, something that Jessica struggles with throughout the season. She's killed Killgrave at the climax of the first season, of course, and while she sees Alisa's brutal murders (and that's before she knows that Alisa's her mother) she keeps struggling with her own rage problems, and trying so hard not to kill. And while that's not a problem for Jessica, now she has to deal with Alisa advocating killing Cheng not once, but multiple times.  

And while Alisa's initial attempt to kill Cheng is understandable -- she lapses into a raging rampage when some jackass tries to snipe-murder her daughter and herself -- her later conversation with Jessica where she is clearly of sound mind and calmly suggesting that all Jessica has to do is to get out of the room and cover her ears... that's pretty cold, and despite all the comparisons one might make to Alisa about someone who's been used and manipulated, she definitely has the capacity for killing and for great violence, in pretty stark contrast to Jessica.

This argument doesn't get carried too much because there's a lot of other stuff that the mother/daughter pair works through, like the discussion of the car accident, with Alisa genuinely horrified that Jessica's been carrying the guilt of causing the accident for 17 years, and Alisa's hilariously brusque way of 'dealing' with Jessica's loss, by flushing the ashes of their dead family down the toilet. And of course, between eating gross jam spaghetti or calming down Alisa's night terrors (which, of course, are all about "give me back my Jessica!") the question is subtly brought up multiple times. As fucked up as the two of them are, wouldn't it be nice for the two of them to just... stay like this? Even run out of the country somewhere? Hell, Jessica managed to do something Karl couldn't -- stop Alisa from killing. 

The episodes takes then has Jessica and Alisa help out Oscar get back his son when Oscar's ex-wife essentially kidnaps Vido. Alisa just quickly goes "of course we have to help him!" and there's a neat scene of the two of them banding together to stop a bus together by grabbing onto the back bumper really hard (I half-expected the bumper to rip off), and that felt pretty awesome. But while it's a great feeling -- bonding with her own long-lost mother, actually doing something a superpowered family would do, when she frees Pryce Cheng, Jessica's own internal moral compass is strong enough for her to call in the police. (It also helps that Cheng actually is portrayed as someone who's truly hurting when a close friend of his was the casualty of Alisa's rampage -- it could've been so easy to paint him as a generic bully villain.) 

"The killer is in my house", she says, well aware of just what she's giving up, and while the two of them have a scuffle as Jessica buys time for Pryce to escape and for the police to arrive, Alisa is forced to surrender to the police. It's pretty neat how the narration of the episode essentially opens with "this is how I get my mother back" and ends with "this is how I lose my mother". 

Meanwhile, the rest of the B-plots are... actually pretty good, too, since they actually progress their respective storylines. Hogarth finally gets Shane Ryback, the healing man, out of jail, and he goes through this whole process of healing Hogarth and as much as I've expressed my disinterest in Hogarth's storyline throughout this season, Carrie-Ann Moss's performance in that scene as she gets this euphoric sense of relief when she's apparently cured is amazing to behold.

Meanwhile, Trish continues on her downward spiral. She lost Malcolm last episode, and here she sees Griffin has apparently jumped headlong into his reporter career, working on some war-torn wasteland. The effects of the inhaler causes her to straight-up lose her temper during a recording session of Trish Talk with that poor, poor gluten-free diet lady where she just lambasts everyone and starts going into this high-energy rant about how everyone's caught up in trivialities when there are wars and murders and conspiracies happening all over the world and she doesn't give a fuck and she quits her job. And, of course, this explosive quitting causes her to get the attention of ZCN, who hires her... and then, of course, the Simpson inhaler runs out. Oops! Well, at least this storyline seems to be leading somewhere other than highlighting the abusive nature of drug addiction.

Overall, this is a pretty great episode of Jessica Jones, and it's honestly such a shame that while reviewing this series episode-by-episode that so much of the quality is lumped together at the back end of the season. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Stan Lee cameo! Stan Lee's face is on an advertisement on the back of the bus.