Marvel's Jessica Jones S03E12-13 Review: Vigilante Justice

Marvel's Jessica Jones, Season 3, Episode 12: A Lotta Worms; Episode 13: Everything

Episode 12: AKA A Lotta Worms

So yeah, last episode's exploration that 'killing villains isn't the right thing to do, even though they did horrible things' was a very well-done one, but it really doesn't end up solving the fact that Sallinger knows how to blackmail and game the system, and that he brutally tortured and killed Trish Walker's mom. And it's not that I don't get the arguments that Jessica makes for vigilantes not taking life and death to their own hands. But I have to admit that Gregory Sallinger has been such a literal piece of shit and such a gigantic smug psychopath that I cheered a bit when Trish actually does end up catching up to him, scared shitless, in that elevator, and beating him to death literally to a pulp. Honestly, the tragedy here is less about Sallinger dying because seriously, fuck that guy, but more of Trish Walker herself descending into villainy.

I do feel that while I did enjoy this season and I did enjoy Sallinger (more than most, anyway), he is still a problematic villain in that the show doesn't really quite sell him as the terrifying chessmaster that Jessica treats him as. There were many points where it felt like the only reason he's succeeding is the writers ended up writing Jessica as a dum-dum in the episode, or general plot armour. He did end up sticking around for perhaps a bit too long without too much to show for it, and I honestly wished that maybe the show could've perhaps fit a bit more of the "I kill fools" parts of the Foolkiller moniker, which I felt would've at least given us a more consistent motivation to Sallinger's rants. When he was alternating between emotionally detached and ranting about 'fairness' and 'showing your truth' monologues before, when Sallinger ends up being forcibly protected by Jessica in this episode, he ends up with a dry wit in the vein of someone like Lost's Ben Linus or Kilgrave from earlier this season, and while it's entertaining to see the actor ham it up, it's another mark of Sallinger's not-quite-consistent writing.

With Jessica exonerated from being suspected as Nussbaumer's killer and good ol' morality-radar Erik on Jessica's side, they end up wanting to protect Sallinger from Trish less because they wanted to protect the serial killer, and more because it's a battle for Trish's soul and Erik talks about how Trish's soul is becoming dark and stuff. And... I dunno, I felt like that's perhaps a bit too much? The fact that Trish's descent to antiheroism and potential villainy is actually told next to a person whose superpower is literally "I can tell if you are good or evil" and properly quantify the 'good' and 'evil' within you feels like backwards to the message that the show is trying to hammer home that Trish's black-and-white worldview is naive.

After fighting off Trish's attempt at killing Sallinger by tossing her to another building, Jessica basically tries to take Sallinger down legally, but ultimately it's just dragging Sallinger around town while Sallinger continues to be smug and confident that Jessica will totally protect him. Hogarth ends up being scared shitless of cray-cray Hellcat and isn't able to provide help. Later on, while pretending to beat up Sallinger in his apartment (and also multi-tasking and destroying the hidden camera) Jessica causes enough of a distraction for Malcolm and Erik to sedate Trish and, uh, tie her with chains in her apartment.

Malcolm and Trish are left in the apartment and they start talking about 'balancing the scales', something that both characters have struggled with all season long. The problem, though, is the fact that the argument ends up with Malcolm talking about what a scumbag boyfriend he is to Zaya because he lied to her and destroyed her self-esteem and also cheated on his girlfriend, and asked Trish whether he deserved to die for that, because he might've "destroyed lives"... and then Trish's response is a long and genuinely sad story about domestic abuse and whatever happened to Mr. Walker -- Mr. Walker beat up Dorothy a lot but Dorothy was too proud to go to the police, and at one point Trish used the blood from her bleeding mother, rubbed it on her own face and ran to the neighbour and made them call the police and caused Mr. Walker to be arrested. Trish's argument for "what I did was wrong, but also right" is interesting and layered, but then Malcolm goes into an argument about the ends justifying the means and how Trish will become 'the evil'... and I dunno. If Malcolm actually did some more terrible shit or used the Hogarth/Kith event as an example, maybe the argument would feel a bit more poignant, but this little argument end up falling flat and ends up just highlighting how shitty Trish's childhood is.

Also, when Jessica reached home, turns out that her whiskey is drugged by Sallinger, because of course Sallinger is a lunatic who ties Jessica up and goes into his "tell me your truth" routine, and Sallinger ends up giving a summary of the show's premise -- how Jessica's antagonistic and anti-people deal is a fake act, and deep down she wants to find purpose in being a proper superhero. But then Jessica ends up ranting about Dorothy, telling Sallinger that Dorothy lived in the truth, that she was sometimes cruel, but she owned it all and Sallinger killed her anyways with some fucked-up logic to justify that he's not a simple murderer who likes to murder. Sallinger ends up going into a rant about how he's actually delivering 'punishment' and showing the truth... but turns out that it's all an act to catch Sallinger's confession on camera, Jessica was faking being drugged, and Erik was even in the other room waiting as backup. And while I do feel like this sequence does feel abrupt, it does feel like the obvious conclusion. Jessica outsmarts Sallinger on his own game, confronts him with the fact that his psychopathic justifications are all hypocrisy, and with Costa's help and some extra bits of evidence, manages to send Sallinger into jail. And, hell, Trish even admits that she might be wrong, and reconciles with Jessica.

...except, of course, just like that random doorman, Trish's co-star Grace ends up making small talk about how people like Sallinger are scum and would be better off dead and he could probably game the legal system, which sends Trish Walker into full angry Hellcat mode again. And, to be fair, Sallinger did manage to call Jessica to taunt about how he had extra plans to 'test' Jessica eventually or some shit. But of course, Sallinger ends up being scared shitless as he's brought up the elevator and gets absolutely murdered by Hellcat. And he honestly had it coming... but, again, the cost was Trish's "soul", for lack of a better term, and it ends up setting up the next episode. Good riddance to Sallinger, though, he's an asshole.

Interestingly, the previous two seasons of Jessica Jones focused on whether or not Jessica would kill the main villain, with her deciding to kill Kilgrave, her deciding to spare Karl Malus (and freeing herself of the guilt), and also not killing Alissa. Here, the decision that Trish makes is essentially an interesting twist in that Trish is far, far more brutal than Jessica did, plus the whole fact that they actually had other options and Trish refuses to admit it. 

I feel like the problem with this episode is that it's kind of inconsistent, and Trish vacillating between the extremes feel kind of... not the most well-written and well-paced thing. Rachael Taylor is amazing in her scenes for sure, but I felt like the pacing in this episode was off, and that perhaps there was one too many scenes of her seemingly accepting that Sallinger going to jail was for the best. I've also already discussed the weaknesses of the writing around Sallinger so I won't repeat myself, but while, again, it's not a terrible season or episode, it definitely could've been a lot stronger.
_____________________________________________

Episode 13: AKA Everything

And so we have this final episode of Marvel's Jessica Jones, and, indeed, the final episode ever for the quintet of Marvel Netflix shows. And... and it's actually a far, far better outing than it would if the season just ended with Gregory Sallinger being arrested, so definite kudos for the show-writers for setting up this more epic and emotionally charged showdown between Jessica Jones and her sister-gone-crazy. With everyone from Jessica to Hogarth to Detective Costa agreeing that Hellcat needs to be stopped, that's basically the crux of the episode. We also start off this episode with a delightful cameo from Luke Cage, and bringing up his own evil brother Willis, Luke notes that sometimes the right thing to do is also the hardest thing to do. His position as a new crime boss notwithstanding, Luke basically makes a deal with Jessica that they will trust each other to take the other one down if they should 'go too far'. And I do like it. Luke Cage's second season does end with the rather sour note that's certainly meant to be a cliffhanger before the whole cancellation, but this meeting ends up far more positively, showing that, hey, presumably, in the background of this world, Jessica would eventually drag Luke back if he ever actually became full-on villainous instead of just hanging around to keep the crime in check. That's a neat little coda to Luke Cage, meaning that for the most part, we do have all of the Netflix superheroes in a relatively good spot.

We get a neat little confrontation in Trish's apartment, where Trish talks about how it was worth it, how she's protecting the people Sallinger might kill in the future (fair), but she refuse to turn herself in because she needs to maintain her cover and protect people and she can't do it from behind bars. Erik, a.k.a. our convenient morality sensor, even shows up to grab Trish and he bleeds out from his eyes, confirming to the audience and Jessica that Trish has gone off the deep end. And it's something similar to her denial earlier in the season about the murder of Jessica's mom last season. There's an interesting bit here where Erik's power of morality has been one of the benchmarks that Trish ends up using to make sure that Nussbaumer and Montero deserved to die, and if said powers turn against him? Trish pretends to submit and escape, intent on continuing to be the Hellcat, protector of justice.

And this is where the huge Hogarth storyline comes in, and I honestly really do felt like this was a bit of a distraction... but it is a pretty interesting distraction. Hogarth reveals that she's dying to Kith, and right just as they are reconciling, Trish demands to know details about Dmitri Patseras, Hogarth's assignment to her. Partly to impress Kith and partly because she's scared shitless of Trish, Hogarth sics Trish on Patseras and Trish naturally beats him absolutely bloody... right in front of his little girl who Patseras desperately tries to protect. Not everyone can be easy targets of 'yeah they most probably deserve to die' like Sallinger.

We later get a bit of a stand-off as the episode moves pretty quickly, with Hogarth setting herself as bait by threatening to reveal Hellcat's identity. However, Kith shows up at the moment that they're trying to spring the trap, and we get this fun little bit of hostage situation and 'what can you give me' bit as Jessica and Trish yell to win the opportunistic Hogarth to their side, and to protect Kith from being held hostage, Hogarth shoots Jessica in the leg and arranges for Trish to be shipped out of the USA. Also, after this bit, Jessica finally makes what Trish calls the 'ultimate sacrifice' and publicly outs Hellcat as Trish Walker, forcing Hogarth to ship Trish out via a coffin smuggling route. Okay, sure. All of this moves very, very quickly.

And then we get the brutal showdown because Hogarth ends up calling Jessica, and we get the sister fight in the smugglers' hangar. Jessica gives this speech that she had tried to excuse this because of what Sallinger did to them, or a side-effect of the Hellcat powers... but Trish always had that self-righteous resolve (unlike someone like Frank Castle, Trish really thinks that what she's doing is the best thing) all along, something that has been evident throughout this season's early part when they're dealing with the fallout of Alissa's death. And her denial remained even as she charges Jessica, aiming for her chest with her knife and yelling about how she's willing to do 'what it takes' for her vaunted justice. Jessica ends up allowing her arm to be stabbed and clonks Trish in the head... and we get a pretty great scene as Costa reads out Trish's long, long list of crimes that she ends up dumbfounded and realize that "I'm the bad guy". Great scene. Trish ends up willingly be shipped off to the metahuman prison of the Raft, and we get a great scene of the two sisters just looking at each other as Trish is being shipped away, sharing an understanding nod as they are separated.

Of course, before the actual final ending of the episode and the series, we do get a bunch of wrap-up scenes. At some point in this episode Malcolm and Zaya broke up (oh well) and Brianna is also there sort of and I don't really care, but ultimately Jessica leaves Alias Investigations for Malcolm. Erik shows up with the revelation that New York hails Jessica as a 'bona fide hero', but Jessica rejects any further involvement with Erik. Erik, meanwhile, gets sent off to The Bar where he and Costa sort of become a bit of a fun crime-fighting duo. And as the final Hogarth scene seems to lead to Kith actually accepting Hogarth because of some of the heroics she did in this episode, turns out that Kith's not a moron, and Kith leaves Hogarth with the pretty unkind words that she's a manipulative bitch that caused almost everything that fucked her over, leaving Hogarth a bitter, lonely woman, and that's a fitting end for Hogarth, I feel.

And the final scene is Jessica, cutting ties with almost everyone in town, having handed over her P.I. job to Malcolm and having no real family left, buggers off to Mexico... before we get the glorious vocal cameo of Killgrave as the scene becomes cast in purple light, and Killgrave mocks Jessica about how she's right to give in, to give up, how it's someone else's job now... and that it enough to cause Jessica Jones to turn around, not run away from the superhero life and finally embrace it. And this sort of 'and the adventure continues, they are superheroes' doesn't serve as just the perfect send-off for Jessica Jones, but to Daredevil, Luke Cage, the Punisher and Iron Fist and their cast as well -- the Netflix Marvel saga might be over, but they have had a good run and this is a pretty well-done, if bittersweet, ending to the whole shebang. Ultimately, this was not a perfect season -- very few really ended up honestly living up to the near-perfect first seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Punisher -- but it's still a pretty solid season, and wrapping up such a long part of Marvel's live-action history since 2015, it's a honestly pretty solid run.