Marvel's Jessica Jones S03E01-03 Review: Hellcat

Jessica Jones, Season 3, Episode 1: AKA The Perfect Burger; Episode 2: AKA You're Welcome; Episode 3: AKA I Have No Spleen

I've watched the final season of Jessica Jones in a huge binge, perhaps one of the few Netflix shows that I watched in the way that it's intended to... I think the only Netflix seasons I watched in huge sittings were the first seasons of Daredevil and Luke Cage. I'm not sure why I didn't have the same problem that I did when watching the second season of Punisher? I guess it's because the themes and the plotlines do feel more like chapters of a longer book as opposed to being a bunch of episodes? Eh. Anyway, season three of Jessica Jones debuted a while back, more than a year ago in June 2019, and I've watched it some time in April this year. There are going to be a bunch of superhero show reviews that I watched earlier during the early days of the quarantine that I only got around to writing reviews for (although, as usual, I did take notes), which is why it's probably going to be a bit shorter. Three episodes this time around, too.

Episode 1: A.K.A. the Perfect Burger
And that's not saying that these episodes are devoid of content, no. It's mostly because Jessica Jones, as a show, is more intent on setting up the mood and the vibe of a pessimistic detective with superpowers. And the first episode, "AKA The Perfect Burger", is sort of mostly a bit of a setup re-introducing us to Jessica, her lot in life, and gives us little bits and bobs of a recap of the messy end of the second season. Very helpful, because it's been around two years since I last saw the second season. Jessica's doing cases, including the one early on where she drags a girl back to her mother from Mexico after a bit of custody wars between the two, and... she's seen better days. Between bitchy clients and the fact that some of them doesn't really leave a sense of a nice, hero-did-the-right-thing feeling (the kid was evidently happier with her father, regardless of the law), Jessica's just not feeling particularly happy.

Also not feeling particularly happy being a 'hero' to assholes is Malcolm, who's now working for Jeri Hogarth. This episode's B-plot has Malcolm bail out a rich asshole athlete who's unrepentant in drunk-driving, and while he keeps things civil in front of his boss, Malcolm ends up taking matters into his own hands and ram the rich asshole's car with his own, sending him to a hospital and destroying his career... which perhaps is a bit too over-the-top even with the athlete dude being, well, a dick. The lines of morality and good-and-evil is something that is brought up in this show (a particularly unsubtle one is Trish's unsent email to Jessica), and it's easily arguable that Malcolm actually causing grievous harm to the dick athlete is just as immoral as the drunk antics of the athlete punk himself.

After a brief re-introduction to some members of the supporting cast, like her new assistant Gillian (who's sassy, and buys Jessica a couch that ends up being a running gag), the friendly kid Vido, and the helpful Detective Costa, Jessica gets dragged into a case by Trish's mom Dorothy, who asks Jessica to find Trish. As the episode reminds me, Trish shot Jessica's crazy mom at the end of the previous season, which is why Jessica is so reluctant to help. I also really do love-to-hate the portrayal of Dorothy here. She's clearly a smothering, passive-aggressive mother who, in her own twisted way, both wants to profit from Trish's popularity while also actually freaking the heck out that her daughter's, y'know, missing.

After a depressing intermezzo with Hogarth (who's starting to get heavier symptoms from ALS and at one point asks Jessica to kill her, and Jessica points out what a stupid request this is), a good chunk of this episode is spent with Jessica's investigation while the mood is set. And none of it is boring to watch, but it does take a bit of time and doesn't really give me much to talk about. Jessica goes off to try and figure out whatever the heck Trish is doing, and it's later made pretty clear that Trish is going off half-cocked on a vigilante crusade of her own. Jessica's monologues also work very well, noting that because Trish chose a vigilante life, she thinks she can essentially be a hero with a strong sense of right and wrong, in stark contrast to Jessica's more muddied morality. The classic Superman/Batman contrast, except the Superman in this equation has all of the moral high ground without the experience. It's interesting nonetheless, and it's explored in the next couple of episodes.

The huge action scene in this episode involves Jessica charging in to rescue Trish (or, well, "Hellcat" at this point, if we're going by their superhero pseudonyms) from the criminal whose house she has been staking out. Jessica sees this bit as rescuing her half-cocked sister who's not prepared for this vigilante business. Trish sees it as Jessica ruining her attempt to get the criminal to open the safe, which contains the evidence she needs. After and argument, Jessica goes off to a bar, ends up coming home with some dude called Erik who likes to talk about burgers a bit too much... and then gets stabbed bloody by some dude who knocked on the door of her office. It's a cliffhanger!

Overall, a very neat mood-setting episode. Not a whole ton happens here other than setting up the Trish/Jessica dyanmic, plus telling us what our old buddies Hogarth, Dorothy and Malcolm are up to. There's nothing particularly exciting here, but, again, the third season does fall back to the roots of what made the first season so effective with cynical monologues and basically selling the mood of this done-with-it superpowered private investigator.
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Episode 2: A.K.A. You're Welcome
Instead of continuing the cliffhanger, 'AKA You're Welcome' instead turns the clock back a bit to see the genesis of Trish Walker's transformation into Hellcat, and it's pretty neat. Rachael Taylor doesn't really get too many chances to show her stuff, and her sub-plot in season two has been... problematic. But putting Jessica in the background for most of this (which allows Krysten Ritter to direct the episode) and seeing the world from Trish's point of view is a fun one, showing that Trish doesn't just decide to suddenly go vigilante overnight, but actually went through some... training. We get a brief glimpse of her vague superpowers, including her cat reflexes (which, much to the dismay of her poor phone, doesn't work all the time) and some cat-night-vision. A good chunk of the first half of the episode is a montage of her training somersaults in a park, training to box from a trainer, and a bit of a costume-selection montage that's an excuse to pull a Luke Cage style wink-wink-we're-not-doing-this to the comic costume.

Trish also gets to do a bit of monologue in this episode, replacing Jessica's usual fare, and we get to see Trish's own reasoning on her more rigid codes of morality. Jessica isn't a terrible person when it comes down to it, but she is a lot more jaded in the things she does, whereas Trish is... a bit more naive? Optimistic? Inflexible? Either way, Trish's first attempts at vigilantism ends up in a hilarious subversion of a lot of comic book tropes. You can't just walk around like Spider-Man in a Silver Age comic and find crime all over New York, and by the time she actually does and runs towards the crime scene, the police has already handled it. And when she does beat up a phone robber, the fact that she's not wearing a mask and she's also a famous person ends up with a lawsuit up her ass, regardless of whether she's doing the right thing or not.

Trish ends up hiring Hogarth's law firm to help out, and, of course, is partnered up with Malcolm. Malcolm's 'help' does exonerate Trish and allows them to pay off the dude without much of a problem, but we get a very great performance of Malcolm himself reluctantly telling Trish how he got the other dude to essentially submit, by threatening (and going through with) calling up the dude's son and telling him that he's born out of wedlock... and Trish, with her rigid moral code, is clearly disgusted by it. A nice follow-up from Malcolm's own storyline from the previous episode also has Malcolm admitting that he doesn't feel anything when doing it beyond the triumph of 'getting' what he needed.

The most interesting parts of this episode is definitely Trish's mental state and monologue, part of which is part of the message to Jessica that she keeps writing and rewriting. The whole 'moral compass' version of the message that Jessica discovers on her laptop in episode 1 is certainly the harshest version of Trish's many monologues, with earlier drafts involving even an admission of fault and an apology for shooting Jessica's mom, and a call to maybe work together. It's pretty interesting, and at one point in the episode Trish tries to call Jessica while seeing her walk down the street and sees Jessica just ignore the call.

While less interesting, we also see the genesis of Trish's hovel-house, with Dorothy absolutely disapproving of her choices, and as hard as it is to see Dorothy smothering Trish and trying to take control of her life and stuff, both actresses play off each other very well. We also get to see Trish taking up the fashion-show gig just to give herself an alibi, after taking Malcolm's "people will be asking what happened to Patsy" advice. Also, due to her little snide-comment-war with Malcolm, Trish ends up finding a bit of a target... criminals who have weaseled their way through the legal system, which she gains some information of from Hogarth's law firm.

After a successful bit where she prevents a serial rapist from claiming another victim and successfully delivering justice to him, we get to see Trish pick out her next target -- Andrew Brandt, which is the man from the first episode. Andrew Brandt beat the hell out of her sister to claim some statue or other, but the law doesn't get to persecute him because of reasons. After that, though, we mostly just see something that's a bit procedural as we get to see Trish stake out Brandt, monologue about how the stakeout job fits the anti-people Jessica, before seeing the assault play from Trish's point of view, and, hey, she is trying to get Brandt to open the safe. It's just that she's so angry at Jessica's rejection, so sure that this is her purpose in life, that she ends up pushing Jessica away and telling her that she totally has all of this vigilante business covered when, no, she clearly isn't. It's a storyline that these Netflix shows really love to explore, with a significant amount of the different Netflix-Marvel leads (except maybe Danny) being loners at some point.

Trish hasn't been at this thing as long as Jessica (or Matt, or Frank, or Luke) has, however, and we get a great scene where she finally breaks down in front of her mother, even if she doesn't quite tell Dorothy the exact details of her Hellcat vigilante night career. Which, of course, makes it even more of a heartbreaking moment when the hospital calls Trish, telling her that Jessica has been asking for her... only to find out that Jessica, too, is pushing her away -- she doesn't care for any of the sisterly business, she just wants the name, using her as a lead. Both sisters are pushing each other away, and it's building up to be the huge theme of the season. Having the titular "you're welcome" be a recurring theme across the episode (with the ways Trish delivers it changing from being triumphant when catching the rapist to bitter when exiting the hospital) is also a nice touch.

Overall, while one that could've easily felt like a throwaway flashback/bottle episode (like that Karen-centric one in the final Daredevil season), this one was actually a very great one, and while it does lose some steam in the second half, it's still a very fun watch.
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Episode 3: A.K.A. I've Got No Spleen
What is it about the spleen that makes it so funny? You see it in cartoons and jokes all the time. "Ow, my spleen". And this episode does have its share of spleen jokes, from Jessica's perfect delivery of "a hero has a goddamn spleen" to the doctor's hilariously inappropriate spleen puns in ex-spleening Jessica's newfound lack of a spleen. And yet, the episode also shows that despite being a person of super-strength, Jessica stumbles and can't just power through everything after a night in the hospital and ripping off her IV's and stuff. She actually ends up falling down and has to be hospitalized a second time in the episode, which is an interesting bit of realism.

The theme of the episode, though, is less of Jessica's spleen or lack thereof, but rather of vulnerability. From Jessica flinching and getting angry at Detective Costa's usage of the word 'victim', her initial refusal to lock her door despite Gillian's attempts to protect her out of nothing but bullheadedness, and the flashbacks to how she got stabbed at the end of episode one... it's not said out loud in our faces, but Jessica's clearly not just reeling from simply being stabbed, but remembering the two huge times she has been, well, a victim. The long, terrible ordeal with Killgrave prior to season one, and being abducted by her mother in season two. And Jessica's instincts, like many other people in the world, is to ignore it and push forwards. Deliberately leaving her door unlocked. Going out of the hospital despite the doctor's orders. Refusing all of Gillian's advice and drinking her pills with alcohol. Keeping the people willing to help her like Malcolm and Detective Costa at arm's length.

And while people like Erik might assume that someone like Jessica is powerful and indestructible, with super-tough skin and whatnot (wrong Defender, Brandt), Jessica is not. She acts like she doesn't have any weaknesses in her attitude, but that doesn't mean that she is invulnerable... and the show is not just talking about the stab wound either. Her emotional state is at fritz, not just because of the trauma but clearly also because of everything surrounding Trish. Jessica needs to learn to accept these -- her cold relationship with Trish; her weakness due to her lack of spleen -- and work around them, which is pretty neat from a character growth standpoint.

To this end, Jessica goes around and tries to investigate Brandt as well, thinking that he's the one who sent the hitman after her. It does make sense, she has made a name of herself in-universe, everyone knows that she's the superpowered lady detective. This leads to an interesting bit where Jessica and Trish end up investigating the Brandt lead together from different ways, and while, again, it doesn't really make for particularly engaging review material, it's a lot of fun seeing Jessica's detective work. Jessica ends up bopping Trish in the shoulder at one point to steal one of her leads, but her quick hunt-down of Brandt turns out a dead end -- Brandt didn't actually send the knife man after her because he's actually scared shitless. Jessica does basically soften up a bit, leaving Brandt tied up at his base and leaving his case for Trish to close all on her own. As Detective Costa points out near the episode's end, it's nice that Jessica seems to have an ally. While they're not quite the Batman-and-Robin duo that Costa thinks they are, it is nice that at least Jessica and Trish are starting to be on the mend. Speaking of Jessica getting allies, Hogarth and Malcolm both have great moments in this episode where they show their gratitude and friendship to Jessica. Malcolm keeping the murder weapon and cheekily handing over a bill; and Hogarth berating Jessica about using her name as a cover to investigate only to quickly give her a list of art galleries and stuff? All very nice moments, and while the Jessica/Trish relationship may be rocky, her other allies are clearly more used to Jessica's attitude.

The B-plots running in this episode... is something? Malcolm's story works better than Hogarth's, for sure, mostly because I kind of like the whole 'treading the morality line' vibe of his story, and it seems to come to him as second nature. Telling himself and his girlfriend Zaya that all of his more questionable acts (that she will never know about) is just a way for his plan for a brighter future, Malcolm also has no qualms into hacking into Peter Lyonne's computers just to dig up blackmail material, just because Hogarth tells him to. Hogarth's storyline, meanwhile, is a bit more puzzling. It gets built up a bit in the first and second episodes, but it wasn't particularly interesting for me. Hogarth is dying, sure, and she ends up seemingly finding something worth fighting for when she sees her old sweetheart Kith, and basically tries to win her over. After a chilly lunch, Hogarth's attempts to use a cassette and an old sonata to seduce Kith works, but then turns out that the dirt that Malcolm dug out on Kith's husband (he's screwing his students) isn't even something Kith cares about and already knows, so Hogarth really wants to dig more dirt on him? To drive him away from Kith? Okay, sure? Hogarth's actress is certainly talented and plays off the rest of the cast very well, but I really find myself caring for this particular storyline.

Still, the rest of these three episodes are really fun and engaging, particularly the Jessica/Trish dynamic and their respective developments, that I can definitely forgive some of the weaker B-plots that is going on in these episodes. Speaking of which... turns out that Jessica's next suspect is Erik, who she figures is the actual target of the stabbing instead of her, and she confronts him about it. (Which... to be fair, considering the burger, apparently after Jessica got rushed to the hospital, Erik stuck around to make the burger and leave it in the fridge? Really?) Anyway, it's a pretty great set of episodes to open up this final season.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Captain America is mentioned by the girl that Jessica brings back to her mother in the opening scene of the first episode. 
• In episode 2, as Trish tries out a bunch of costumes for her vigilante alter ego, the first thing she tries is a cat mask, which, of course, is a reference to her comic-book counterpart's Hellcat costume. The final attempted costume she wears, which is a yellow body-suit with black gloves and sash, is basically her comic book costume sans mask. Her line at seeing this, "hell no", is likely just a fun jab at the Hellcat moniker. 
• A bit of a looser Easter Egg that I've seen people point out is that one of the costumes that Trish tries is a bomber jacket and leather pants vaguely in the colour scheme of Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, who was Jessica's best friends in the comics and one whose role in Jessica's life was rewritten for Trish in the show.