Marvel's Jessica Jones S03E07-09 Review: Foolkiller

Marvel's Jessica Jones, Season 3, Episode 7: The Double Half Wappinger; Episode 8: Camera Friendly; Episode 9: I Did Something Today

Episode 7: AKA The Double Half Wappinger

So this is, I feel, one of the bigger problems in writing a story in a larger universe. And I'm not even talking about the big daddy MCU umbrella as a whole either, but just in the scope of the Netflix Marvel series. In theory, a story about a vigilante that's trying her best to bring a villain to justice but thanks to a combination of the story that's being told to the public, the public's point of view on events, and the general flaw of the justice system would be an... interesting one. But in a world where Daredevil and the Punisher run around, it's always a little niggling question at the back of my mind that Jessica really should've called Matt to help out.

That said, though, taken on its own, it's a pretty fun story. Gregory Sallinger is well-written and while there's a significant amount of plot armour revolving around him to make him able to do all of this and some baffle Jessica and Trish and the cops all at the same time, it's a pretty interesting situation that this episode ends up giving us. Jeri Hogarth, ever an opportunist, ends up not trying to help Jessica to take down Sallinger but rather to represent him and use it as a jumping off point to salvage her career, ruined by the controversy that's of her own doing. Hogarth was already teetering into being a completely unlikable villain in the past couple of episodes, and at this point she's basically in complete 'you're scum, I don't like you territory'. There's also an interesting bit where Hogarth and Sallinger ends up spinning the whole deal into Jessica Jones using her superpowers to persecute a poor man living alone in his house, and essentially frame the story as the police and vigilantes unlawfully holding an innocent man without any clear evidence. And Sallinger even works in a 'I'm a white man, Jessica Jones is a violent angry feminist maniac' narrative into the whole deal, as if he's not already unlikable enough.

And... yeah, I suppose it's in character, I guess. Hogarth is an opportunist snake. But the episode and later episodes would frame this as Hogarth taking a risk and biting off more than she could chew, when it's clear that she's just being a complete moron and associating with the worst possible high-profile case ever. And by the time Sallinger spins it out into 'hate Jessica Jones' and less of a 'an innocent man unfairly held by the police' story, the damage is done and Sallinger correctly reads the situation as Hogarth's law firm desperate for a high profile case like his. Hogarth doesn't earn any brownie points with the audience when she and Zaya realizes that the mysterious second vigilante ("Hellcat", we'll just call Trish's alter-ego Hellcat) is actually picking off her asshole clients, like date rape guy. And, yeah, Hogarth's trying to defend her legacy or whatever, but god damn she's being more and more unlikable by the episode. And both Jessica and Malcolm's confrontations only cause her to double back even stronger. It's more of a case of love-to-hate, though -- the character feels authentic in that I totally buy that this is the decisions that Jeri Hogarth would take. It's just that in this episode and the next couple of bits, she's basically in full-on villain mode.

The rest of the episode ends up featuring some more procedural detective work, though, with Jessica and Trish trying to figure out if Sallinger's brother's death-via-tractor was actually an accident or a Sallinger murder. And... again, the procedural detective work is always fun, especially seeing how the Jessica/Trish team ends up working out. Trish falls into random distractions as a hysteric rich girl very easily, which really can't help her already mounting insecurities. There's an interesting bit where the local police officer really is friendly-yet-unhelpful, trying to protect Sallinger because she thinks she failed him when he's a kid... but is completely cooperative when Jessica breaks apart a gazebo and actually turns up results in finding the dead body of Sallinger's childhood friend buried under it. I actually kind of like the subversion of the brother's death actually seemingly be a real accident, and the scene where Jessica thinks to himself that he's going to tear this hopeful family's wounds right open if she's right about the dead body being buried there.

Jessica also got into a bit of a confrontation with Sallinger in front of his martial arts students, and... it's an interesting scene? Sallinger basically rants about how Jessica can't beat him without his 'cheating' superpowers, but all that happens is that Sallinger's trash-talk sort of ends up ringing hollow when all it ends up in is Sallinger being humiliated like a moron and Jessica coming off as being far more level-headed in the video that people are taking of the fight. It's meant to kind of be a contrast to Sallinger's earlier spinning of the story, I suppose, although the contrast wasn't particularly clear and the scene does feel a bit muddled other than giving us more of a confrontation between the main protagonist and the main antagonist, and a way for Jessica to also use publicity as her own weapon.

Finally, in an interesting twist that I didn't actually think about until I sat down to write this review is Trish basically calling in a tip to the New York Bulletin about a Hellcat sighting, and essentially jump off buildings to make sure they catch her on camera. And I didn't realize until this point that throughout the episode, we get to see Jessica bristle and get angry at the more visible part of her public persona, and avoids any sort of media exposure. Meanwhile, Trish isn't happy at not being able to claim credit for her superheroing. And it's not done in an obvious scene, but from her obsession with "you're welcome", the fact that she's constantly relegated to doing humiliating distractions or stand behind as reserve (under Jessica's not-unreasonable excuse that Trish is too hot-headed and impulsive) Trish ends up basically making Hellcat's existence public... at the worst possible time, because Hogarth is trying to hunt down Hellcat who she views as an enemy beating up her clients.

There's a B-plot of Malcolm's journey trying to hide things from everyone around him. Trying to hide his complicity in the Kith thing from Zaya, trying to hide the fact that he knows about Trish=Hellcat and the whole Jessica-vs-Sallinger thing from both Zaya and Hogarth... it's neat background stuff that ties into the other larger plots, and it's... interesting? I don't think the writing for this B-plot is the strengths of this season, but I do appreciate the effort in making Malcolm a more rounded-out character that is trying his best to balance pragmatism and being a good guy, and at least he's actively likable in that he's genuinely torn -- Hogarth does offer better employment offers for his future and his girlfriend Zaya is allied with Hogarth, but Malcolm's morality makes him Team Jessica.

Ultimately, I do think that this is one of the stronger episodes of the season. And sure, the season as a whole is kind of spotty at times, but I really do like how this episode ties together the earlier Hellcat debut episodes, the Sallinger/Hogarth unholy alliance, Hogarth's attempts to figure out who Hellcat is, and even Malcolm's story together in an interesting way.
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Episode 8: AKA Camera Friendly

Unfortunately, "AKA Camera Friendly" isn't as good of a follow up as I wished it was. Trish's ill-advised outing as Hellcat being caught on camera ends up with the police precinct being thrown into chaos as poor Detective Costa's credibility gets brought up into question, and that's without Hogarth fanning the flames later on in the episode.

And then Gregory Sallinger continues to be a comic book super-villain serial killer, and while Jessica and Trish discuss the Hellcat photo stuff, Sallinger strikes by sending Jessica clues via... Instagram Instayap, and I dunno, it's just something that I feel is hard to take seriously when parts of the episode is devoted to Trish and Dorothy explaining to Jessica that Instagram Snapchat Instayap deletes videos quickly and Jessica had to use a second phone to video the Riddler-style serial killer video sent to her. Sallinger, of course, ends up having escaped by paying some dude to stand in for him in his apartment (wouldn't that be grounds for arrest, really?) and at this point I feel like the episode itself is trying a bit too hard to basically protect Sallinger with copious amounts of plot armour. And, yes, Sallinger is very, very smart, but at the same time there are parts of this that I feel would've probably worked better or be a bit more believable with some extra manipulation on Sallinger's parts. Sallinger's meant to be a take on the classic "brains over brawn" villain, but the thing is... Jessica isn't stupid. That's been the whole point of her character, because throughout the three seasons she's been in we see that she's a pretty damn good P.I. in addition to the whole Jessica Smash thing. And I guess it's Jessica's own smartness and ability to figure out clues that ends up causing her to investigate so long, but I dunno, I feel like the tone of the episode is just off and Jessica just feels, for lack of a better term, impotent.

And it's kind of silly that the entire episode ends up being a gigantic red herring, because, even with the action scene caused by a misunderstanding, Sallinger's real target isn't even the people on the Not!Snapchat video, but rather Dorothy Walker. In typical 'dead asshole' method, Dorothy was starting to become just a bit more supportive about Trish's superheroism in this episode, too, before the huge, shocking reveal near the end of the episode that Dorothy's been brutalized, maimed and murdered... and I honestly don't think that they built up or earned this twist well enough. The episode spends way too much time with Jessica trying to use her newfound media presence (with Dorothy's help!) to try and save the person that Sallinger's targeted. And sure, there's the vaguely-defined 'clue' that Sallinger wanted to end Jessica 'where it began', but it feels like kind of random, and the twist ends up feeling like it's basically done for shock value instead of a tragic death or even the villain outsmarting the hero. I dunno. Jeremy Bobb plays Sallinger extremely well which is why a lot of his manipulations feel believable, but this episode just feels like it's kind of messy in its depiction of Jessica-vs-Sallinger, intelligence-wise.

The episode ends with a very angry and revenge-happy Trish going full Punisher mode, charging into Sallinger's apartment and about to slice him throat to throat and Jessica has to go there and stop Trish. And it's... it's honestly kind of an interesting twist on the superhero story of 'thou shalt not kill'. It's something that's admirable about these superheroes, that they are able to defeat their enemies without stooping down to their level of heinousness. And while Jessica's probably not someone who necessarily believes in that holier-than-thou stuff, the pragmatism of not wanting Trish (or Hellcat, really) be labeled as a criminal herself is understandable. On the other hand... watching this show (and, again, the aforementioned fact that this exists in the same universe as Punisher or Daredevil) and seeing all of the arguments for not killing Sallinger end up being false with the police and law system being either incompetent or easy to game ends up making it really, really hard to sympathize with Jessica at this point. Sallinger being a Grade-A asshole doesn't help Jessica's case either.

Again, there's a bunch of B-plot with the lawyer squad, but Zaya apparently loves Malcolm enough to edit his conversation with Trish out of the security footage she shows Hogarth; Hogarth continues to declare a war on superhumans and Hellcat in particular and she basically continues to be unlikable.

Ultimately, though, this episode feels pretty messy. I'm not sure if it's just me expecting a bit too much or something, but I feel like this episode really stumbled when the past couple of episodes have been pretty great at delivering and presenting Sallinger as a believable super-smart serial killer who covers his tracks that's a match for Jessica. I guess the takeaway is that Sallinger can only outsmart Jessica by manipulating her intelligence and by outright lying to her, but I dunno. The episode just feels pretty off. And while I've never been the biggest fan of Dorothy, the fact that she's essentially just fridged and killed off for shock value isn't something I'm a particularly big fan of. 

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Episode 9: AKA I Did Something Today
Thankfully, "I Did Something Today" is a bit of a smoother follow-up to the previous episode. It's hard to really think of a rationale to make Jessica stop Trish from killing Sallinger and still make her 'feel' like she's in the right, so after the bit where Jessica bops Trish and drags her away to a safehouse and allows the maimed Sallinger to be arrested, the show thankfully gives us a reason why Jessica is so willing to end up essentially dancing on Sallinger's strings after all the shit Sallinger has done. I mean, yes, sure, what a superhero's expected to do about killing is one thing, but when you've spent the entire show showing how terrible of a human being Gregory Sallinger is and how completely incompetent and incapable the police force in the show is (this is why Batman has Jim Gordon) it's hard for the audience to not see the heroes spare Sallinger and not come off as complete idiots.

Of course, Sallinger has plans. Sure, he might not have completely counted on Trish showing up on her apartment and near damn well killing him, but he's twisted it into a way to blackmail Jessica. Knowing that Jessica will do anything for her sister, and knowing that Trish is the sort of person who would go down if it means taking Sallinger down, Sallinger sets up a deal -- he has proof that Hellcat is Trish, and uses it to blackmail Jessica to get rid of the evidence that the police has on him from the gazebo corpse. And as if this isn't incentive enough, that prick Hogarth ends up throwing gasoline over a fire as she essentially sets up a manhunt for Hellcat.

And, well, things aren't quite in a nice headspace for Jessica and Trish. Especially Trish, whose mother, for all her sins, has been brutally killed. Jessica is essentially desperate to protect her sister, even if it means making a deal with the devil... and it's honestly far, far more believable that this is the way that Sallinger ends up manipulating her by giving her an offer she literally can't refuse without dooming her sister, something that I feel was particularly lacking about "Camera Friendly", where Jessica's essentially dumbed down to 'well, you got played'. Granted, there's still a bit of oddity that Sallinger somehow manages to catch a photo of an unmasked Trish beating him up, but we have long established that Sallinger has a lot of contingencies in his house and Trish is the sort of dramatic type (plus, avenging her dead mom, which means she's probably not in the soundest of minds) so I'll believe this as Sallinger taking the opportunity to twist events to suit his ends, and framing it in a way that Jessica has no choice but to help Sallinge rout .

That said, this episode does end up feeling procedural in its second half. With Erik returning in this episode to help out (between his evil-radar powers and knowing all the right people, Erik's the TV show equivalent of a video game exclamation point on your mini-map), Jessica and Erik ends up blackmailing a dirty cop, entering the police precinct, fuck over poor Detective Costa by causing a sewage leak and initiating a building evacuation and then Jessica blows the evidence away. And... I dunno, couldn't you have pocketed the hair as extra leverage, Jessica? And at the end of the episode, Jessica ends up doing Sallinger's dirty work for him, which means that the bad guy wins again... and Trish is absolutely livid at this. Jessica's retort is similar to something we saw earlier this season, that Jessica chose saving Trish over taking down the bad guy. And Trish is just devastated -- not only did this 'one win in a string of losses' get robbed from her, she's also lost her mom in a pretty brutal way, and we get this pretty somber scene of Jessica telling Trish to basically be visible so the media doesn't suspect her as Hellcat, while Jessica would do the dirty details like cleaning up the room of evidence. And the huge, crushing depressing feeling of loss is definitely felt near the end when all Trish can do is barely hold herself together and identify her mom at the morgue, knowing the scumbag that killer her is walking free because, indirectly, of her.

The B-plots... Hogarth continues to be a tit, Malcolm and Zaya's relationship are on the fritz, and Malcolm finally quits her job because he draws the line at Hogarth's law firm actively helping a serial killer. Good on you, Malcolm! It's just that at this point, any time the Hogarth law firm drama comes up on screen I just actively groan because I find myself so uninvested in this drama, particularly the bits of this episode that Hogarth is basically trying to help out Kith in something involving a lawsuit-or-other. Also, Hogarth finds evidence of Trish=Hellcat on her own anyway because her security cameras can catch reflections. Hogarth really is a character played by a great actress, but the writing for her turns her into such an unlikable twit that it's really hard to care about many of her scenes.

Again, something that's arguably lacking in "Camera Friendly" is the pretty fantastic character work. Trish is petulant, perhaps, and maybe a bit too absorbed about 'wins' and 'losses', but at the same time she's also just seen her mother brutally cut apart and essentially realized that Jessica was forced to work to help get him free. Erik's exposition story time about how he used his superpowers to rat out his incest-child-molesting dad causing his family to self-destruct is a bit shoehorned in, but it also helps explain why Erik is so reluctant to be a busybody with his powers. Trish giving Erik hell for being a coward and not testifying earlier is actually a point that I didn't consider, and that's actually a pretty valid point. Costa's quiet breaking of how the Sallinger case has been fucked up and him breaking the news to Jessica while Jessica tries her best to look offended and shocked despite she herself being the architect of said fuck-up is amazing.

That said, though, as a whole, the Sallinger storyline is... it's kind of frustrating, really. I realize that it's for the service of the plot, and if nothing else Krysten Ritter, Rachael Taylor and Jeremy Bobb are great to watch on-screen, but the logical hoops that they went to make Sallinger somehow evade jail and also evade being killed just because of vague ethical reasons is a bit convoluted. At least blackmail is involved in this one, which makes it a lot more believable from a character standpoint if not for a logistics standpoint. Again, this is ultimately a superhero show and they always come with the unwritten disclaimer that there's always going to be some acceptable breaks from reality, but I dunno. I feel like while episode 7 and 9 are extremely solid entries of Jessica Jones, episode 8 ends up just shoehorning in a huge twist without really earning it and it kind of hurts some of my enjoyment of the series as a whole. I still ultimately really like this season of Jessica Jones, but I do admit that there's a rough patch in making the villain and the plotlines work.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Raft, the prison for super-powered people, is mentioned several times in these episodes. It was first seen in the MCU in Captain America: Civil War, where members of Captain America's Avengers were temporarily imprisoned there.