Note: I realise my reviews are getting more and more behind schedule, but I have them ready and am just gonna schedule a bunch of them over the next couple of weeks.
I guess it’s time we finished the Netflix Marvel shows,
excluding the Punisher which I will never cover as long as I draw breath, and
definitely won’t once I’ve stopped doing that. Jessica Jones had a strong
opening season with a weaker second season to follow it.
Short recap, Jessica and Trish have parted ways after Trish, like a f*cking moron, got someone to give her superpowers, which she used to kill Jessica’s, admittedly psychopathic, mother. Hogarth has ALS and her forced to give up her position at her legal firm, she used blackmail material to take with her a sizeable share of their clientele, including Rand.
AKA The Perfect Burger
We open on a beach in god-knows where, where Jessica finds a
child whose mother came to her after his father brought her out of the country
illegally. He lost custody, and believes that his daughter is better off with
him, and it seems she agrees. He threatens to get physical and Jessica tosses
him across the beach. She drags the child kicking and screaming back to her
mother, who’s ready to sue the father to jail, Jessica recommends against it
and gets yelled at.
She heads back home where we she has a new assistant,
Gillian no last name provided. Vido tells her a video of her throwing the guy
across the beach has gone viral, much to her annoyance. She has a list of
potential clients, none of whom can pay full price. Vido chooses clients 2 and
6 but leaves Jessica to work it out. That night Jessica heads out and bumps
into Malcolm, you might remember last season he quit working for Jessica to
work for Hogarth, and it comes with some perks, like an upgraded apartment and
a new girlfriend, Zaya Okonjo.
Jessica goes to her second favourite place, the bar. And in
the bar she meets Eddy Costa. She reminds him their deal is that he throws her
the occasional case, and she doesn’t break the law. Hard to look the other way
when an assault has 80,000 views, which is chicken sh*t for a viral video. This
was released in 2019, they knew what viral meant.
The next morning, we see Hogarth fall out of bed, further suffering the effects of her ALS, she stops just short of dialling 911. Jessica
is awoken by a loud annoying knock on the door, it could only be Dorothy
Walker, the character I’m going to start using as a yardstick for hateable
characters that have few or no redeeming factors.
That being said this is probably her at her least terrible
and by that she’s absolutely desperate for Jessica’s help so is stopping short
of scolding her at every possible opportunity, but she just couldn’t resist
making one jab about an ugly sofa. Trish has apparently been missing for the
last day, Dorothy had noticed certain issues, she was showing up late, she was
out all night, etc. She thinks Trish might be using again.
Jessica doesn’t want to be involved and knows that Dorothy
is only coming to her and not the police to protect her brand. Because that’s
all she can do. Dorothy leaves, and we Jessica is barely holding back tears as
she gets a call from Hogarth, wanting her to come around. She says she’ll deal
with the video, too little too late if you ask me but…
Anyway, Hogarth has planned to take pills and kill herself
once the ALS gets bad enough but this morning came to the conclusion that she
wouldn’t be able to do it. She asks Jessica to excise her judgment and to slip
her the pill without her knowing when she feels the time is right. Jessica is
naturally horrified by this idea.
Malcolm arrives at the scene of a car accident, no-one
seriously hurt it would seem but the guy at wheel was likely drunk. And
unfortunately for the one guy who sustained minor injuries, he has good
lawyers, Hogarth’s lawyers. Malcolm offers a deal to avoid a lawsuit, they give
him the car, and a place to fix it up, and he stays quiet about the accident.
All is settled with nothing major lost, the guy’s rich so can afford another
car. But Malcolm mentions it’s his third accident now.
Jessica is up studying the case list again but her mind
keeps falling back to Trish eventually forcing her to call Dorothy and agree to
take the case. They meet at Trish’s new place, which looks akin to a dojo. Jessica
finds chains with blood on them, unclear as to whose it is. Jessica finds Trish’s
computer and easily gets on, finding a bunch of emails confirming bookings at a
motel. She also finds an email that drives her nuts.
She heads to the motel, finding equipment for a stakeout.
Malcolm returns to the office and debriefs Hogarth, though he admits not being
happy to be forced to help drunk drivers stay on the road. There’s a case about
a guy named Bower that seems winnable and Hogarth needs to cement herself with
a few big wins so is in.
Jessica spots Trish seemingly stalking a target into a
nearby building. Luckily the guy keeps his windows nice and uncovered so
Jessica can see the fight as it ensues. The guy draws a gun and Jessica jumps
in for the save. She tries to restrain Trish but Trish’s new abilities make her
more illusive than she used to be. She was eyeing something he had locked up,
but the two ladies’ fight bought him time to take it and run.
Apparently that statue had evidence to link him to an
assault, Trish deliberately set off the alarm to make the guy go for his gun
and leave the safe unlocked. Now he’s in the wind. They talk but there’s still
pretty bad blood between them. Malcolm’s trying to keep an eye on our
continued drunk driver, more than that he rams a cheap car right into him.
Hogarth enjoys a nice string quartet, lead by Kith Lyonne,
the fundraiser was part of their arts scholarship fund. Hogarth had been
anonymously making donations for years but decided to attend, especially given
that she has some history with Kith. We’re also introduced to Peter, Kith’s
husband who holds a particular interest in Hogarth’s defence of superpowered
vigilantes.
Jessica and another guy at the bar get along pretty well. He
gets an invite over burgers of all things, but hey, the two have sex on
Jessica’s desk. Or at least they do until they hear a knock on the door. She
thinks it’s Vido but it’s someone in a ski mask who shanks her in the spleen.
Malcolm finds her bleeding out.
It’s a solid opening but it might just be my current mindset
but it felt 10-15 minutes too long. The main story was over after the confrontation
with Trish, the rest felt like setup. A good opening needs to weave the setup
into the main plot.
Rating 7/10
Before we get into episode 2 I want to briefly talk about
how Netflix seems almost embarrassed to call anyone by an alter-ego. Daredevil
spent most of season 3 out of costume, and the name Daredevil is usually
replaced by ‘the devil of hell’s kitchen.’ Luke Cage was embarrassed by the
name Power Man, Iron Fist might be the exception here, but that’s only because
it’s a legacy power and finally we have Jessica Jones, she has no alter-ego,
she never really did, but her antagonists often did.
It’s Killgrave, not Purple Man, it’s Erik Gelden, not
Mindwave and later we’ll have Sallinger, not Foolkiller. A lot of these
alter-egos are silly, I do understand, but by taking such a strong stance
against alter-egos, they take away a lot of the fun of the super-hero genre.
And I’m not saying it doesn’t always work to their advantage but it distances
itself from the Marvel Universe so much in terms of tone it’s not easy to
reconcile.
AKA You’re Welcome
And in another of what’s become a regular occurrence over
stuff I’ve reviewed this last year, let’s welcome our new director Kristin
Ritter. Not entirely a new thing for Rage4Media, Clark Gregg directed an episode of Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. I reviewed years ago but whatever.
We open back where we were with Trish at the end of season
2, her discover that she has developed superpowers but is saddened that she
can’t share it with Jessica, but knows that she can’t rush it and needs to give
her time. She begins training herself to reach his physical peak and begins
boxing. She’s doing this in broad daylight, how is it no-one’s watching her?
She begins working on her next move by googling ‘how a hero
fights crime in New York City’ and there isn’t a single mention of the
Avengers, or Daredevil or Iron Fist or Spider-man. Keep that disconnect clear,
guys. Just one about Jessica Jones stopping a shooter.
She meets with Dorothy for some reason, but stops short of
saying that she has super-powers now. Dorothy has a number of ideas to put her
back into some money as Patsy residuals aren’t worth much and… Dorothy is
toxic, we’ve been over this, I know she’s your mother but at some point you
have to put your own needs first, ditch this woman!
Still, what she said about money isn’t entirely wrong. She’s
got police band on radio because it’s that easy to hack, I guess. She hears
about an armed robbery in the local vicinity and rushes over to help but by the
time she gets there the police have already arrested the suspects. She sees
Jessica walking down the same road and tries to call her, Jessica lets it ring
to voicemail.
Trish then overhears a phone robbery in progress and stops
said suspect, recovering the phone. I mean, at least she has his foot against
his chest, because we all know what happens when the foot’s a little higher up,
don’t we… Unfortunately for her, she’s recognised as Trish both by the thief
and the thief’s victim. She heads into a Halloween store needing something to
disguise herself and naturally rejects outright the costume most like her comic
counterpart.
She works out after making all those purchases that a face
covering and a beanie, whilst training she’s served notice from the guy who she
pinned down, he was injured during the fight and is suing for damages. She goes
to Hogarth for advice and whilst the case is flimsy it does have merit. Hogarth
could spin in in her favour but she has to accept some kind of lie of omission
to make her defence credible.
That said there may be other options here, Trish agrees to
retain her services, and Malcolm is tasked with finding a weakness to exploit
in the plaintiff to get him to settle out of court. Since the perception is
she’s rich, any settlement will still be quite expensive, so Hogarth advises to
look at liquidating any assets before a judge forces her to.
Outside, Trish and Malcolm have a morality debate over the
cost of their collective actions. Trish spots a guy struggling with some legal
documents and deliberately trips him up, stealing him… no, that’s too many
files, no way she did that unnoticed. She’s moved into a semi-converted loft to
cover the bills related to the legal case. Dorothy pays her a visit and they
begin making the best of the place.
Trish begins following one of the targets from the files, spying him slipping a little something into a lady’s drink. Flustered, she calls Jessica for help but still gets no response. He takes her into an ally-way and begins to sexually assault her and Jesus Christ, you’re only just in ally way, you’re in clear view of houses.
She goes to Jessica’s place and it seems that Oscar and
Jessica have parted ways between seasons 2 and 3. It’s sad but it explains why
neither he or Vido show up that much during the show. Trish decides after
hearing talk about how Jessica struggles to let people in when most she does
end up dead to leave. She trains even harder even putting her professional
trainer through his paces and I guess it quickly becomes a bit more than that…
There’s news about a guy named Andrew Brandt arrested in
relation to an assault on his sister over a valuable statue, he’d allegedly
hired thugs to do it. He’s the guy from the opening episode. But before we get
to that Malcolm has arrived for the settlement, he found an interesting aspect
about the thief to get him to back down to $50,000, a lot less than Hogarth
predicted. He has a 12-year-old ‘son’ he’s not the real father but the son
doesn’t know that. Malcom threatened to tell him, even calling the kid to call
his bluff.
Malcolm does warn her that sooner or later, her absence will
be noticed by the media and they’ll start asking awkward questions. So, she takes
a job selling clothing on a TV shopping channel. After that got sorted, Trish
finds out that Andrew Brandt walked free, as they couldn’t find the one thing
they needed to link him to the attack, the statue.
Trish begins analysing spec from his home security system,
which she knows he has because of reasons. She continues an email she’s been
crafting all episode asking for Jessica’s help, even claiming that she may have
been wrong to do what she did to Jessica’s mother. She ultimately decides to
delete it and re-type as the email we saw in the last episode. She saves it but
stops short of actually sending it. She follows Brandt and enters his
apartment, disabling his alarm but discovering the safe where the statue likely
is. She looks across from the building and sees the hotel opposite, she rents
the room so she can stalk her target.
She missed work that day and Dorothy calls, Trish rejects
the calls and keeps watch over the guy who really should invest in a pair of
curtains or actually put down his blinds. She sees him open the safe and take
stuff out, including a loaded gun. She assumes he’s taken the statue and
follows him again. No sign of the statue, just a large amount of money. He
follows him back home and this time decides to try a more direct approach,
breaking back into the apartment and deliberately tripping the alarm so he’d go
for his gun.
And we know how this fight goes so they spare us the
details, we just jump ahead to Jessica and Trish’s discussion afterwards.
Dorothy and Trish meet afterwards and Trish really needs to work on some kind
of cover story because right now her mother is assuming that she’s an addict
again. Still, Dorothy was able to save her career but this might be the last of
her clout that she can use.
Trish gets a call from Malcolm, Jessica’s in the hospital
and asked for her. He wants the name of the guy Trish was after. If Trish
believed this was an attempt at reconciliation, she’s much mistaken.
Trish’s actual super-powers are a little vague, there’s
nothing in this episode I couldn’t imagine a fit enough normal person doing.
But it’s a decent start to Trish’s arc this season.
Rating 7.5/10
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