Jessica Jones

Look, I still don't understand why we will never get a Black Widow movie. I still maintain they had the perfect opportunity for it too after Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Think about it. We know Natalia has history with Bucky (or at least, it's implied in the film). She's also part of Cap's team working to locate him after the events of the film. Plus, she's portrayed by Scarlett Johansson, who is one of the world's biggest actresses and had already started in an action film that topped the box office. Access to an actress with known box office draw, plus a story perfectly built in with the means to both explore Black Widow's history and actual character while bringing Bucky back into the fold more fully? You literally can't get a better opportunity than that for your first big female-protagonist work.

Jessica Jones is the first relevant female-lead effort from Marvel Studios, really. (Sorry, Agent Carter isn't really relevant to the current MCU.)  She's the first superheroine to get her own thing, and she takes place in the current Marvel universe. Though she doesn't really connect much to the other events, it's still a big deal that she's in this world.

More importantly, while it might be the second show to follow a female character specifically, it's the first of any Marvel Studios work to be helmed by an actual, living, functioning woman. Yes, the talented Maurissa Tancharoen was involved in Agents of SHIELD, but she shares creator credit with Joss and Jed Whedon. Jessica Jones is run and largely written by Melissa Rosenberg.

It's this embracing of a female perspective that makes the show stand out among the rest. Marvel's Netflix stuff is clearly designed for more mature audiences. It's a means to tell more serious stories and get away from the more fun-oriented and easy-going nature of their films and basic cable shows. Tonally, Jessica Jones shares much with its predecessor, Daredevil. They utilize a similar visual style, although Daredevil is visually darker and more noir-like. And there's a level of brutality in both that can be hard to watch.

But Jessica Jones is a show written and directed by a woman, focused on a woman, and dealing with issues largely pertaining specifically to women. At its core, it's still a really solid crime noir story. The mystery unravels at a fluid pace, though it maybe takes a little longer to really pick up than Daredevil. What stands out on this work though is that while the Man Without Fear was utilized to basically just be a cool comic book adaptation (although it's arguably warning against the nasty nature of gentrification - sort of), Jessica Jones tackles larger issues.

Rape, domestic violence, and abusive relationships are the central themes of the story. Everything functions to serve this core. In pushing those elements, choosing Kilgrave as the primary villain is the perfect choice. Better known in comics as the Purple Man, Kilgrave has the ability to command people to do his bidding. If he tells you to do something, you have no choice. He can basically mind-control you. Inherently, you can see a connection between that power and, say, drugging women.

So much of Jessica's struggle is breaking away from Kilgrave's control - an obvious parallel to abusive relationships. In the real world, people often shrug it off by just saying, "If he's bad to her, why doesn't she just leave him?" Well, it's not usually mind-control, but a lot of times, it's a lot more complicated than that. Even Jessica's best friend/sort of sister Trish deals with this a bit with her quasi-boyfriend Simpson. Both women, at some point, just want to get away from this guy who's "bad to her," but they can't.

Even more is the idea that Jessica can't really go to anyone for help. She basically starts off wondering what she's supposed to do. When she finds out Kilgrave is alive and after her again, her initial instinct is to flee. Others suggest she go to the police for help, but she's stuck wondering what that's supposed to do. What, she's supposed to tell them she was raped and abused by a guy using mind-control? Obviously, no one will believe her, not unlike many real life rape victims who often risk being mercilessly scrutinized themselves should they report a rape. There are a bunch of reasons why many women don't step forward to report it. This is manifested in the show through powers.

Given that both Trish and Jessica deal with sleazy, abusive, obsessive men, it would be easy to think of "men" as the villain, but that's not true. (Although I'm sure meninist morons are boycotting it anyway.) Jessica in particular is largely able to grow and overcome with the support of people around her, and that includes the aid of Luke Cage and Malcolm. The show might feature these men who don't understand that no means no as their primary villains, but it also presents other male characters as part of the solution. By all means, the show itself highlights what absolutely never actually needs to be said: "not all men." (The reason that's always annoying is that we already know that! No one has ever accused "all men" of being a problem or of being rapists or abusive or whatever. You don't need to say it. Jessica Jones similarly doesn't go out of its way to depict caring, forgiving, and helpful men. It just does it organically because obviously not all men are the wrost. Duh!)

Outside these surprisingly mature themes, the show is refreshing in its lack of "origin story" elements. To be sure, we do get some origin to the character. Through a series of interestingly composed flashbacks, we do learn a bit more about Jessica's history. Plus, one of the big plot points left hanging by the end of the season is the one involving how she obtained her powers. We even get backstory on her past relationship with Kilgrave.

Yet it's not an origin story. It just starts. Kilgrave has already gone through a period of time controlling Jessica. Jessica has already broken free from his grasp and assumed he was dead, making an effort to rebuild her life after. She already knows who Luke Cage is. She already has powers and uses them occasionally. This is an "origin story" in the sense that it's about her learning to step up as a hero-esque character, but she's already fully in control of her powers.

Jessica herself is one of the more compelling characters in the Marvel cinematic universe. Where most characters are simply pure good, Jessica is a bit more realistic. When she finds out Kilgrave is back, she doesn't immediately strap up to go out hunting him. No, her first reaction is to pack up her stuff and get the hell out of dodge. Sure, she ultimately decides to stay and track him down, but that's not her first reaction. Regularly, she describes this trait of "caring too much" to be a weakness. She's not like all these other heroes like Daredevil or Captain America who just inherently want to do good. She's not like Spider-man in that she inherently believes her powers mean she has responsibilities.

The show also doesn't seem to be full of references to other things. Sure, there are connections or references to the Avengers or other Marvel events, but they don't spend too much time cramming them in there. They also don't waste time stuffing scenes full of Easter Eggs. Yes, you get the lawyer Hogarth - gender swapped for the show (to further the female-centric perspective), but who in the comics, worked for the Rand Corporation. And sure, one of the main secondary characters is Simpson, who - despite the first name being changed - is clearly a D-list villain from the comics.

By and large though, Jessica Jones takes minimal elements of the comic it's based off of. It mimics one of the (few) strengths of The Walking Dead. I've admittedly never understood this about something like Game of Thrones. If you are already familiar with the book, why would you just want to see them copy and paste that story on screen? And if you're not, surely you know the books are out there and you can access them. Why would you want your episodic television shows to literally just do exactly what the book does with minimal changes? Though a pretty terrible show overall, The Walking Dead wisely recognized that the big appeal of the book was in its shocking and unpredictable nature (well, that is, before it got 150 issues in and started creating its own tropes you've come to expect). So, they use some key moments as tent poles, but largely avoid simply doing whatever happened in the book. Jessica Jones does that same thing.

It's probably a good idea to talk about how great the cast is. Krysten Ritter might not physically resemble the character of the comic, but she definitely nails the character. She's that distant, hard drinking, no nonsense woman from the book. Carrie-Anne Moss does a solid job as the cold and scheming lawyer Jeri Hogarth. Eka Darville is plays a compelling Malcolm, who goes from drug addict informant for Kilgrave to brave social worker trying to help the people who have also been controlled by Kilgrave. Wil Traval is fine as Will Simpson, but I keep thinking they should have just gotten Troy Baker.

But of course, you have to talk about David Tennant as Kilgrave, and Kilgrave as a villain overall. Funny thing is that Tennant sounds like one of the sweetest, nicest guys in the business. There's a reason he's been honored with a lot of awards in British television. He's great. Here, he plays a slimy, manipulative, heartless bastard that you just hate. It's natural to compare his villain to that of Wilson Fisk from Daredevil. It's a little unfair because they're different shows with different agendas, but it's hard to argue that Kilgrave isn't near the top of best Marvel villains so far (granted, not a tough feat to accomplish, really).

The thing I found most interesting about Kilgrave is that he isn't just a guy who knows he's powerful and doesn't care to abuse it. Sure, he doesn't care that he abuses it, but he's manipulative in other ways too. He's clearly an intelligent guy. It was always neat seeing that he doesn't always have to use his power to control you. He controls Malcolm by turning him into a drug addict and then promising drugs in return for snapshots of Jessica. And he twists his tongue and words a lot to avoid responsibility and culpability. For example, when Jessica calls him out for making her murder someone, he casually points out that he just told her to, "Take care of her." He notes that he never said anything about killing anyone.

He does this a lot. To the end, he denies having ever murdered anyone, even though he's told people to do things like jump off a building or kill themselves. He didn't kill them, he insists. They did. Even when you get his backstory and start to feel weirdly bad for him, it turns out later that most of what he said was a lie, or rather, an incomplete version of the story. Kilgrave is able to manipulate the audience just as badly as he can twist others. Kingpin was interesting in the way that he wasn't a pure bad guy and that, even though he did horrible things, you could at least see what he is trying to do, and what he's going for ultimately isn't "evil." Kilgrave is interesting in the way that he plays with words and how he often comes off as something of an immature child - which makes sense given he never really had a normal childhood, so he kind of is stuck in this juvenile mental state.

Even the reveal that he's obsessed with Jessica because he's in love with her is smart. Look, I can't blame anyone for finding that motivation to be cheesy and oversimplified, but it really fits the character and matches the function of the narrative. If Kilgrave is stuck in a rather childish mental state, then it makes sense that he would become obsessive over this woman. Plus, it totally fits in with the greater themes of the show. It would have clashed more if the show had been all about rape and abusive relationships, then have the main villain simply trying to control Jessica because he knows about her powers. Sure, domestic violence and rape is often about exerting power. It's not usually about expanding it. It might not be as complex a motive as Kingpin's was in Daredevil, but it fits perfectly with the themes and tone of Jessica Jones. 

Things aren't perfect, of course. I found that powers are sort of ambiguous. Jessica can hold a speeding car in place by holding it, or punch through brick walls, but she gets knocked out pretty easily. This has been a common point of contention. I agree it's kind of unclear - although that also matches the books - but I don't necessarily find those two points that unusual. If super strength comes from actively flexing your muscle, then it stands to reason that does not inherently translate to super durability. It's kind of like how competitors in the World's Strongest Man competitions can pull tractor trailer trucks with their legs, but they can get knocked out if you slam a plank into their head. You can't exactly flex your head muscles to absorb the impact.

However, I did find Kilgrave's powers a little unclear. They try to explain how it works by saying he emits some sort of virus that gets in your brain when you're nearby, which allows him to dictate what you do on command. But, that's kind of a strange explanation that doesn't really make sense, even with comic book logic. The rules of how it works aren't particularly consistent either. Sometimes, the powers only work when he issues a command. Suggestions and questions and casual statements sometimes don't result in the controlled person doing what he says. So sometimes it's implied that Kilgrave's inflection is the cause of the power. Sometimes it's implied that it's simply the words that hold the power.

The whole virus thing is strange too because they go back and forth on whether he needs to be actually nearby for it to work. He definitely needs to be near you to get the initial order into your brain, but then it seems like the virus is just there and he can go wherever the hell he wants and his powers are still in effect. This is evident when Hope kills her parents, or Simpsons tries to kill Trish. They never specifically state that Kilgrave was actually in those buildings at the time of these attacks, which implies that once the order or virus is in your brain, you can't stop until you do it. Yet the conclusion is to kill Kilgrave, and somehow that breaks the spell on everyone he's controlling. But...why would the virus stop affecting them? If Kilgrave doesn't need to be near people for it to work, why would killing him change anything?

Additionally, Jessica's powers look a little goofy on screen. The action gets better by the end, but it is a lot choppier and less fluid. A lot have compared it to Daredevil's action, but that's unfair. Matt Murdoch had ninja and boxing training. He is a trained martial artist. Jessica Jones is not. She's relied purely on her powers for fighting. She hasn't been trained, so it's only reasonable that her fighting style is almost jarringly undisciplined and unpredictable. The problem comes with when she uses powers though. The way she leaps, or lifts heavy objects, or throws people around looks like low budget television sometimes.

The show concludes with one of the most unpredictable finales. Left feeling like there were no alternatives, Jessica straight up snaps Kilgrave's neck to kill him, a la Man of Steel. The main difference is that A) Jessica Jones wasn't presented as having the power to save everyone and B) she's not flipping Superman and doesn't hold the same strict moral principles! Many have commented on this by saying there was really no other way for it to go. Kilgrave was presented as too powerful, and how else would Jessica have resolved it? I disagree with the idea that there were no alternatives. Surely, the writers could have figured out a way around this and presented other options. Jessica was even pretty close at containing him throughout the show. What I appreciate about this ending is that it really did feel like there were no other options. It felt like Kilgrave was too powerful. Though I disagree with people who've said this, it does suggest that the audience felt similar to Jessica.

Either way, it's a sharp contrast to what we see in the movies, where the good guys don't kill. (Well, they do, actually. Kind of a lot. But it's never presented as obvious killing. Even Tony Stark killing Obadiah Stane in Iron Man doesn't feel like Stark straight up murdered that guy, even though he basically did.)

The show ends as it begins: with a shocking scene in context of Marvel products. When Jessica Jones: Alias kicked off Marvel's Max imprint, the first panel featured Jessica screaming, "Fuck!" in giant, bold letters. Uncensored. This was huge! Marvel was producing a book that had uncensored F-bombs! We had never seen anything like this before! This established right away that this was not an all ages book. This was going to be different.

Jessica Jones begins similarly, only instead of the F-bomb, we get a sex scene. Quick: count on your fingers how many sex scenes you've seen in a Marvel movie? Trick question. There are none. There's actually a fair amount of sex scenes in the show. Again, this is how it opens, letting everyone know right away that this isn't your Captain America or Iron Man movie. The show ends similarly, with Jessica straight up killing Kilgrave, further cementing that this isn't like your typical Marvel movie.


Overall, while not perfect, Jessica Jones stands out from the rest of the pack, including Daredevil. I think I might have liked Daredevil a tad more, Jessica Jones seemed substantially more ambitious thematically, and that is what I appreciated the most. It took a little while for me to be fully "hooked" to the point of marathoning the rest, but it might be more consistent overall. It features a better conclusion that its predecessor, at least.

I'm really excited to see more from Marvel's Netflix stuff, and it will be awesome to see Jessica and Luke continue to grow their relationship.