Monday, June 14, 2021

Netflix Retrospective - Jessica Jones Season 3 Episodes 1-2

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.


Trish gives him a swift kick in the nuts, then another one in the face. Trish consoles the victim and gets her to ensure the police give her a tox-screen so they can find out what he drugged her with. The police arrive, and the rapist is arrested.

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

No comments:

Post a Comment