All caught up? Good, then let’s keep going. “A.K.A. 99 Friends” brings Jessica closer to Kilgrave’s bigger plan but there’s more pain in store for her and others but it’s not all bad as love is in the air. As always, there will be SPOILERS so tread carefully if you’re not caught up.
1. A New Case
Kilgrave is without a doubt what Jessica is focused on right now but she still has to make ends meet. After the disaster that was finding Hope, she has a new case. This time around a woman named Audrey wants Jessica to catch her husband cheating on her. Because of what’s happened with Hope, Jessica is watchful. She wants to make sure that she’s not someone who’s being controlled by Kilgrave. Turns out, she’s not, she’s just bitter about super powered people. This is something I want to talk about more so scroll down a bit. For the purposes of this first “thought”, I really like giving Jessica another case. I like to see her working because I think you can have a lot of fun with her character in a way that doesn’t necessarily move the bigger plot forward. “Alias” did a lot of this and I think it’s useful for a show that’s going to go thirteen episodes.
2. The Importance Of Human Connection
Like Daredevil, there is an importance put on friendships. In that show Matt didn’t exist in a bubble. What he did had an impact on Claire, Foggy and Karen. Here, in Jessica Jones we see something different as a support group takes form thanks to Jessica’s interviews at Jeri’s office. All of these people come from different backgrounds but they aren’t alone in their pain. They have found each other and can share their stories in a safe way and become stronger from it. What’s interesting is that Jessica has basically separated herself entirely from it. She pushes away human connections with almost everyone (important to note she was on the outs with Trish) and it’s really an honest way of handling this. It’s hard to open up, even harder when you don’t trust people. Then there’s Trish and Simpson. Simpson hasn’t forgiven himself for what he did to Trish and he goes back to her apartment twice. The first time he has a battering ram because he believes he killed her. Once that fear is quelled, he returns to give her a gift, a gun. This leads the two of them to open up to each other through the metaphor that is a big unbreakable door. I kind of love that these two are a blossoming couple but I especially love how it’s happening. In all this pain that all these people are going through thanks to this monster, there is still some heart in this story.
3. My Poor Baby Malcolm
Malcolm has been pretty much a background character up to this point. He hasn’t been an important part of this story and it hasn’t come off like he has any kind of meaningful relationship with Jessica. This changes here because once again Kilgrave becomes even more of a monster than ever before. Malcolm has been the one supplying Kilgrave with photos of Jessica and his drug addiction is something that Kilgrave forced him into. He gives Kilgrave photos and then gets paid to continue buying drugs. Seriously, how truly awful is this? This poor guy had a life before all this and now he’s another ignored drug addict barely getting through the day. Now that Jessica knows this, he becomes another person she feels the need to look out for. Marvel adaptations have had such a hard time making villains that feel scary but I don’t think anyone will ever come close to the fear that Kilgrave instills in the viewer. It’s one thing to have him make someone deliver a message (like the little girl, also how horrible is this) but he makes a man’s life completely collapse just so he can continue creeping on a woman that doesn’t want anything to do with him. I had the biggest crush on David Tennant thanks to Doctor Who but that has all gone out the window thanks to his frightful performance on this show.
Continued below4. “Who’s Side Exactly Would That Be”
One of the things you see on the weird side of the internet is this admiration of Kilgrave’s powers. You should all stop doing that. Jeri getting yelled at by Jessica was pretty necessary in this situation. Jeri, the power hungry goddess that she is steps over a line here by wanting Kilgrave to use his power for good which sends Jessica into a rage. See, Kilgrave takes away someone’s agency as a human being and that’s really troubling. I’m sure some of you reading this will come up with a few very specific ways that this power could prove to be good but it’s an ethical dilemma that can’t be solved by simply saying the person with the power should be on “our side”. Defining “our side” is a tricky thing but I like that Jeri brings this up as a talking point. I’ll leave this debate to all of you.
5. The Elephant In The Room
So we need to talk about super powers and what happened in The Avengers, there’s no getting around this. Audrey had it in for people with super powers. Jessica tracks her down and discovers that she’s with her husband and was trying to trap Jessica. She tells her how her mother was crushed to death when aliens invaded. Both Jessica Jones and Daredevil take place in New York City so the events of The Avengers mean something to these people. What’s weird is that no one’s name is ever mentioned by anyone and it’s kind of a stretch. Jessica shouldn’t know every superhero but I doubt in this world that none of the names are known. “The Green Guy” is funny to someone outside of the city when this happened but surely the news and newspapers always have some mention of these people. Jessica is online quite a bit thanks to her work but doesn’t know their names? I don’t know why this show would avoid naming names but I’d sure like to know why. What I do like is someone who was in the city when this happened being angry about the damage that was done. We tend to forget these big superhero fights don’t happen in a vacuum. People get hurt and often times forgotten about. Audrey was misguided in her anger towards Jessica but it did present a good point.
What did you think of “A.K.A. 99 Friends”? Let me know in the comments!
