jessica jones aka ladies night Reviews 

Five Thoughts On Marvel’s Jessica Jones “A.K.A. Ladies Night”

By | November 23rd, 2015
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Here we are bingers. By now you may have followed Alice’s very entertaining live tweet of Jessica JonesAlice is the best for that and now this week we start my breakdown of each episode of the first season. If you haven’t already, check out our conversation about the comic book series because in that you’ll see where I’m coming from in my analysis of the show. I’m a big fan of the source material despite it’s flaws so my hype level for this was pretty high. I’m also the leader of the Luke Cage fan club so featuring him in this show has also increased the hype to a level I haven’t experienced with a comic book adaptation since maybe The Dark Knight. I will spoil the heck out of this show so before I jump into things, here is your SPOILER WARNING.

1. An Introduction Right Out Of The Comic Book

The first time we see Jessica she punches a client right in the face and through the glass of her already banged up front door. This is a scene right straight from “Alias” and it helps to establish Jessica right away as someone that will not be taken advantage of by her clients, or anyone for that matter (never again at least). I love this kind of thing cause it’s the original art always gets lost in translation. Recreating moments like this help incorporate some of the artwork and that’s always a good thing.

2. A Truly Terrifying Villain Makes His Presence Known

Killgrave is going to be divisive. Some are going to love how he’s a truly evil villain that instills fear in the characters and the viewers. In the first episode we see how his power works and how god awful he is. He’s a psychopath, he’s scary and he doesn’t hesitate in doing these horrific things. Hope, his latest victim, tells Jessica that he always spoke of her and couldn’t stop thinking about her. Unlike the comic book, Killgrave is felt early on in the series and the way this episode ends just hurts in every way. What’s going to be important going forward is how this stuff is portrayed. I see nothing wrong with a really despicable villain if he’s treated like that and not glorified. I mentioned it before but Marvel adaptations have not been super successful with villains. With The Avengers we had fan who loved Loki more than the heroes despite the fact that we were supposed to root against him. The Iron Man movies fared even worse by featuring totally unmemorable villains and wasted Ben Kingsley. These things can’t happen with Killgrave or the whole show will fall apart. As it stands in this first episode, there’s nothing admirable about this guy. He’s a monster and is being treated as such. Hopefully this will be the case throughout the entire season.

3. Finally, Marvel sort of steps into 2015

Jeri Hogarth is a lawyer and sort of employer of Jessica Jones when she needs to hire and outside investigator with certain talents, such as shaking down an impossible to get to mafia guy. Jeri is also a lesbian and while this is great thanks to not shying away from acts of affection, it’s a little disappointing that she’s cheating on her wife with her secretary. On the one hand I really like that she is a complex character in her own right and the cheating falls into kind of work that Jessica usually handles. On the other hand, and what’s really bugging me, is that Marvel finally gives us a character that isn’t straight and she’s cheating on her wife. At this point of the series, we don’t have much background on this relationship but it would be nice to see Marvel embrace well adjusted queer couples.

4. Not Your Average “Strong Female Protagonist

Many parts of current popular media have recently embraced featuring women as their protagonists. While the intention behind a lot of it good, the execution has been poor at times, leaving us with characters who aren’t really well developed as people. Breaking news, women are people and should be written as such. In the first episode we get to see multiple sides of Jessica ranging from her sarcasm to her struggle with PTSD. The latter part is incredibly important because not only do we see a very nice handling of someone dealing with this but she’s not made guilty for feeling it. Trish, despite her initial misgivings, does try to help her overcome this instead of running away from it since she believes she equipped to deal with Killgrave. Jessica is brave but she’s also been hurt and done her share of hurting others which makes her flawed and very relatable. Krysten Ritter, who I was skeptical of does a great job in the role (so far) and I can’t wait to see her really dig in deeper.

Continued below

5. Hello Sexy Bartender Luke Cage

“Alias” is the book that made me seek out more about Luke Cage. Jessica Jones was new, I knew who the other heroes were but I had no idea who Luke Cage was. Once I found out more, he became one of my favorite superheroes. I don’t know if I was fully prepared for how charismatic Mike Colter would be but I am here for it. He and Ritter have a great deal of chemistry between them and there are definitely some secrets still to uncover about Jessica’s attachment to him which already makes them a bit more interesting than their comic book counterparts in “Alias”.

What did you think of this first episode? Let me know in the comments below!


//TAGS | Jessica Jones

Jess Camacho

Jess is from New Jersey. She loves comic books, pizza, wrestling and the Mets. She can be seen talking comics here and at Geeked Out Nation. Follow her on Twitter @JessCamNJ for the hottest pro wrestling takes.

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