Caught up yet? Good. Let’s keep going. “A.K.A. It’s Called Whiskey” introduces a new character and delivers some of the sexiest moments the Marvel Universe has ever seen. Let’s jump into this episode but be warned, there are SPOILERS everywhere.
1. Sweet Christmas Indeed
I don’t know about you but Jessica Jones and Luke Cage having sex everywhere and anywhere in the first 10 minutes of this episode were the sexiest thing I’ve seen on television all year. I touched on this in the last episode but this is where things really pick up for them. After revealing their “abilities” to each other, they just go at it knowing they can’t hurt each other. I was expecting sexual tension here but this was HBO level sexy times that is kind of jarring at first when you remember this is a MARVEL SHOW. This isn’t a complaint but it does take you aback. The heat between them is very real and I absolutely love how they work in Cage’s catchphrase here. We also get a huge revelation about how Jessica and Luke are connected. Under Kilgrave’s control, Jessica killed Reva, Luke’s wife. That’s what brought her into his orbit and while she still hasn’t told him, she does decide to break things off. As much as I love (and it’s a strong love) Luke, this isn’t his show so a couple episodes off with the focus shifting towards Jess and maybe a new case isn’t a bad idea.
2. Jessica’s Master Plan
So very obviously, something has to be done about Kilgrave. What exactly that is was undecided until this episode. Jess has put together that the reason Kilgrave kept himself awake during his kidney transplant was because if he went under anesthesia, he would be powerless. Jess figures out that she can neutralize him by injecting him with a power anesthesia and sets out to steal it. There are a couple of things here worth talking about a bit here. First is that this plan is kind of ridiculous. She’s going to steal it and hope she can get close enough to him without him doing something to control her? Then there’s the use of Malcolm in her mission to steal the drug. He ends up being used to talk about racism and snap judgments before he gets his own agency as a character. I give them credit for tackling it but there’s gotta be a little something more for Malcolm to do.
3. Poking The Bear
Hope has been all over the news since what happened with her parents. Everyone has an opinion and Jeri, who’s defending her, agrees to do an interview with Trish on her radio show. Unlike Daredevil, this show is dealing with a lot of powered up people so it has to be talked about. Kilgrave can control people and despite what Jessica can do and despite what happened in the city, there are still people, like Jeri, who don’t believe this to be a possibility. All this is still very new to the world so I can’t knock the skepticism too much. Trish, being the bad ass she is, decides that her radio show is the perfect chance to call out Kilgrave with Jessica in the background doing all she can to stop her. What’s so great about this scene is that we’ve gotten enough background about Kilgrave to find him terrifying. The more Trish says, the scarier things get. This is the kind of fear that exists in real life when someone as manipulative and abusive as Kilgrave is involved. You just know that something horrible is going to happen to her, which brings me to my next point.
4. Enter Nuke?
Will Simpson is a NYPD officer who gets pulled into Kilgrave’s mind control. Trish, back at her fortress like apartment gets approached by him. She’s looking at an assault charge for hitting a guy at her work building because she thought he was someone working for Kilgrave. Simpson convinces her to open her locked, bulletproof steel door but that’s when things go horribly wrong. Trish is almost killed in a fight with Simpson because he’s been taken over by Kilgrave. This scene is really brutal and plays into a lot of fears people who live alone have. Thankfully for Trish, Jessica enters and uses some of the anesthesia on her to make Simpson think he killed her so he can leave. For those maybe new to the Marvel universe, Will Simpson is also the name of Nuke, a mostly Daredevil villain. We really don’t know enough about him to make any kind of guess if that’s the direction he’s going. I don’t think the show needs another villain given that Kilgrave can make his own minions. Keep things focused on this deeply personal conflict and shape some of the supporting character more. I would be very into Simpson being a heroic character.
Continued below5. Dat Staredown Tho
So once Jessica saves Trish, she follows Simpson in hopes to find where Kilgrave is hiding. She succeeds and what we get is a chilling ending to the third episode. Kilgrave is, for whatever reasons, not ready to face Jessica so he runs away, leaving her to fight off the people he has under his control, including the poor family who lives in this apartment. The staredown between the two of them sends chills down your spine. There’s something inherently terrifying about a victim coming face to face again with the one who hurt them. Unlike many other super powered characters, Jessica has a deliberate way of taking out the people under his control. She doesn’t want to kill them and she doesn’t want to debilitate them permanently. It’s about keeping them down so she can get them out of his control. Kilgrave gets even creepier (it’s possible) when Jessica uncovers his deep obsession for her. He has thousands of photos of her culminating in one big collage of her spread out on the wall. She knows she’s being watched but she doesn’t know by who. She is surrounded by Kilgrave because anyone at any given time is watching her for him. Three episodes in, it’s still a bit unclear what Kilgrave’s goal is. Is he trying to force Jessica to be his companion again? If so, why not just command it? It seems like he wants to destroy her or make her willingly come back to him by hurting everyone around her.
What did you think of “A.K.A. It’s Called Whiskey”? Let me know in the comments below!
