Jessica Jones, Season 2, Episode 13: AKA Playland
The ending of the second season of Jessica Jones is a bit weird, but it's definitely interesting. So late in the series, we get the potential ending that we might just end with Jessica and Alisa driving off in the RV into the sunset, abandoning every other relationship that Jessica's built up (and subsequently trashed, with the exception of Oscar, Trish and the other absent members of the Defenders). And Jessica actually starts to sort of become more open to the idea, especially when the two of them do a superhero thing and save a family from a car accident. The moment when it seemed that Alisa is caught in an explosion during the rescue and Jessica freaks the fuck out is when, I think, Jessica realizes that, no, she does love her mother, as fucked-up as she is.
And as Jessica realizes this, Alisa ends up being the one to realize that, no, this whole riding-off-into-the-sunset thing is not a viable option. Especially when an attempted meeting with Oscar to get documents ends up being a police sting, and the police radios are starting to list Jessica as an accomplice instead of a hostage, doubts begin to build up in her mind. As Karl has mentioned earlier in the season, Alisa's a character who is single-minded and bull-headed, and once that grip of single-mindedness "I need to get Jessica to live with me no matter the cost" goal is accomplished, Alisa begins to see other options, and it's... it's pretty well done, actually.
Unfortunately, as the two of them struggle with whether this new life is sustainable, Trish Walker wakes up in a hospital and is told to essentially piss off by her mother. Mind you, it's not that you can't see the logic behind Dorothy's arguments -- she is a normal human, not a superhuman like Jessica, and there's nothing she can do when two super-powerful humans like Jessica and Alisa face off against each other. Dorothy's being a bitch, but her points do have some merit. Unfortunately Trish ends up taking it as a challenge, just as she has everything else in life, and heads off to track down Jessica and Alisa. The ironic moment, perhaps, is that Alisa lighting up Playland's giant ferris wheel is meant to call the police so she can surrender, and Trish ends up shooting Alisa in the head from a distance, killing her and traumatizing Jessica for life. The actual police parts ends up being handwaved when Detective Costa and the rest of the NYPD arrive, look at the scene and assumed Jessica shot Alisa in self-defense.
But more than Alisa's death in this season, Jessica's biggest loss is her friendship. Her relationship with Hogarth has always been strained, so there's really no telling how the two's going to interact in the hypothetical third season. Malcolm and Jessica pass down each other in the hallway without acknowledging each other. And perhaps most brutal of the 'breakups' is Jessica closing the door on Trish's face. And Jessica points out that, yes -- Alisa's death is perhaps the only thing that will 'free' Jessica, but it didn't have to be Trish and her hero complex that had to pull the trigger, because now Jessica sees Trish as both her sister and the woman who murdered her mother. It's an interesting dynamic for sure as Trish, like Jessica, has pushed away most of her family (Griffin, Malcolm, Dorothy and now Jessica). But she gets superpowers at the end of this episode, so... Hellcat?
Jessica, meanwhile, finishes the episode with the monologue that, yes, maybe she can let other people in, leading to her stopping a robbery at a liquor store, and recounting it with pride to Oscar and Vido later over dinner. It's baby steps as Jessica tries to break through her self-loathing "I'm not a hero" mentality, and how she realizes that she's always been supported despite her whole 'aloof loner' act, and she needs actual human contact despite everything. Its a nice scene for sure.
Meanwhile, far removed from the Jessica/Alisa/Trish drama is Malcolm. Last episode he decided to clean things up and look professional, and ends up at the end of this episode supplying Hogarth with ample information to bring down both of her competitors and then walk away with 61% of her company, starting off a new one with Pryce Cheng and Malcolm. She relishes her power as a woman who literally has nothing to lose, because as far as she's concerned, she can do whatever the fuck she wants. It's... an interesting conclusion to her story this season for sure.
And this season, overall? It's got a lot of strong moments, but as an entire season (and Netflix prides themselves in the seasons meant to be watched as a singular entity) it's a bit of a mess. It's nowhere as bad as Iron Fist, of course, but there were so many slow parts in the first half of the season, so much crap that was just meandering around and looking for clues, and a lot of concepts that were introduced without much follow-up like Griffin or the whole concept that IGH creates multiple metahumans when it's just the Jones family and Whizzer for some reason.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- Jessica makes a crack that she expressly does not want to hear "with great power comes great responsibility", the Spider-Man mantra that for some bizarre reason has been left out of the MCU and Amazing live-action adaptations.
- Trish's doctor tells her that she's used up two of her nine lives, a reference to Trish's comic-book superhero alter-ego Hellcat. And by the end of this episode, it seems that she's developed superhuman reflexes.
- Rand Industries gets mentioned as well here, which, of course, is Iron Fist's company.
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