Jessica Jones
Marvel/Netflix
Grade: A
The story of Marvel’s PI and would-be superhero whose life gets derailed when she runs into Kevin Kilgrave, whose power of mind control is frightening enough without the fact that he’s a complete and utter sociopath. She thinks she’s broken free of her time with him when the case of a young missing girl called Hope brings them both back into each others sight lines.
Only to find out she never really left his.
Mind control freaks me out but even so I did not think I’d enjoy this one as much as I did. I have to admit that I couldn’t binge like so many other people did. You’ve got a couple of episodes (mainly 8,9, 10 & 11) that were just so tense and so brutal and dark that I needed breaks before and after watching them.
Krysten Ritter and David Tennant are so good. Tennant plays Kilgrave, and I totally saw a Doctor Who resemblance in a couple of scenes. Purposeful? I don’t know. The whole cast was excellent. Trish Walker was probably the best surprise in terms of character.
The friendship between Jessica and Trish is really a standout here. You saw the deep bond between them and the importance Trish held in Jessica’s life even in the beginning when she was pushing her away. The flashbacks to their childhood were not overplayed or out of place. Carrie-Ann Moss is also excellent though her side story seemed a bit out of place I really loved it toward the end. (I don’t want to give away spoilers.)
The show really is a great character study- people making moves under the worst stressful situations. Are they wrong? Right? Would you do the same thing? Can you say they are bad people? There were just so many times when the episodes hit their stride around eight that I was just glued to the television.
As for Kilgrave I think the show did a great job with him. I couldn’t help compare him to certain other shows where the “villains” have to have shades of grey or be understood. (Yep, thinking of you Game of Thrones.) We don’t even really meet Kilgrave until a couple of episodes in. The show introduces him through his victims and never lets up. You see the damage and destruction he causes so much so that even when you meet him and even though Tennant is incredibly charismatic my stomach was turning.
Even better when the show does give you some back story it doesn’t excuse him or let him off the hook. It was almost refreshing to see. When he does try to bring up his issues with his parents I wanted to cheer Jessica when she told him he wasn’t a child anymore and needed to grow the hell up.
Tennant and Ritter are fantastic together (sick and twisted but fantastic acting wise). That dynamic along with Jessica/Trish really made the show for me.
Downsides? There are some dragging moments and the characters and actors for Simpson and Cage didn’t really do anything for me. I understood the point of them but honestly at a certain point I was just done with Simpson and when Cage showed up after a long absence it was like, “Eh, you. Okay…”
Recommend: Yes. I would just warn that if you aren’t familiar with the character this story deals with some really brutal and dark stuff.