Going into its second season, Jessica Jones was probably the series with the biggest question mark. Jessica Jones is not a character with a long history so it will be interesting to see what the show chooses to do and be. The first episode of Jessica Jones feels quiet but it actually sets a ton of things up and basically tells us exactly what we’re in for this season. Let’s jump into this but be warned, there are spoilers throughout.
1. Back To Work
After killing Kilgrave and saving New York City with her new pals Daredevil, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, Jessica Jones is back to work. The first shot we see of her is a cheating boyfriend case and in typical Jessica Jones fashion, it goes badly. The woman she was helping gets angry about her boyfriend cheating on her and asks Jessica to kill him. This woman tells her that she killed Kilgrave but can’t do it for her so what even is she? A superhero or a vigilante? Jessica flips out about this because she doesn’t view herself as a straight up murderer. She thinks she did the right thing (she did) but it seems that people who know who she is thinks that she’s here to kill whoever for whatever reasons as long as they are “bad.” Jessica flips out and leaves after making a bunch of threats. If Jessica Jones had been picked up on ABC, this is the kind of thing we’d have seen more of. We would have had episode centered around individual cases close to something like The X-Files in structure and that would have been pretty cool to me. The problem with the Netflix series is that they are structured to tell a season long story. There are too many episodes in these Netflix series in the structure they all have but Jessica Jones could remedy that by actually telling one off stories. I find it really interesting that the show is trying to have the discussion about people with powers killing bad guys like Kilgrave. I wonder what the payoff of this will be.
2. It’s Patsy!
Trish Walker has become obsessed with superheroes. Her show, Trish Talk!, has basically become a show about what The Defenders did and the aftermath of it all. It’s about living in a city with super powered people and the things that they do. She mentions Jessica all the time and it’s caused a little bit of an issue between them. Trish has also become obsessed with Jessica’s past and making her face it. She’s been digging for information and she’s had to do some things to get that information. One of the things she’s had to do is sing as Patsy for a security guard’s kid’s birthday party in exchange for a file that will help Jessica get closer to finding out more about how she got these powers. She also mentions that she has 20 days missing between her accident and when the hospital actually admitted her. Trish is very much on her own with this crusade for most of the episode but her heart is in the right place. I don’t think we’re ever going to actually get Hellcat on Jessica Jones but clearly Trish wants to be more than just a radio show host. She is ingraining herself in what is going on with the street level, non Avenger heroes and I’m into it.
3. A Business Opportunity?
Back at the office, Malcolm helps Jessica sit with clients.
I’m going to just stop for a second and say right now that Malcolm is too good and pure for this world and he tries so hard. He’s had it rough and he was also manipulated for so long by Kilgrave. Malcolm is so loyal to Jessica and really, she doesn’t deserve him.
Okay, back to the action. After listening to a bunch of clients, including one man who calls himself the Whizzer and also claims he can run really fast (we’ll get to this), Jessica is greeted by Pryce Chang. Pryce is the owner of another private investigator firm but it’s much bigger and better than what Jessica has put together. Pryce works with very high profile clients and he has come to Jessica’s office to ask her to join him. He wants to buy her out and basically make her his employee but without stepping in her way. He wants to bring her into the fold because if he had a super powered person on his team, he would make more money. This conversation is full of tension because Pryce knows exactly what not to say. He’s a guy who says he won’t take no for an answer (to which Jessica says “how very rapey of you.” zing) and this meeting ends on a bad note. Jessica decides to follow him a bit to try and get some dirt on him. He retaliates by giving her an entire file about him and then steals a client from her. Jessica returns the favor by helping out one of Pryce’s biggest clients and thus stealing him away but on this night, things go very badly. Pryce knows a lot about her and they get into a verbal argument that turns physical very quickly thanks to Pryce’s big mouth. He has no idea how strong Jessica really is and she messes him up badly. He ends up pressing charges against her but thankfully Trish is there to bail her out. Pryce is an interesting wrinkle to Jessica’s story but I find his whole thing of taking legal action against her really annoying and petty which is probably the point when his connection to Jeri is shown to us. I love Terry Chen. I think he’s amazing and I really hope that this show doesn’t waste him on a role that ends up just being annoyance.
Continued below4. Jeri Hogarth Is Back
Jeri Hogarth is the actual worst but also it’s kind of amazing to see this in a show like this. Older women don’t usually get roles like this. They are moms and motherly figures. Jeri though is like an actual terrible person and doesn’t really have any shame about that. Is she actually the best villain of the Netflix shows? We’ll see. I think it’s one of the more well written roles in the Netflix universe of shows in all honesty so I’m glad she’s back even if I want to punch her all the time. When we first see Jeri, she’s accepting an award that was basically bought by the firm for good PR. Jeri is looking at a very messy lawsuit from her former assistant who was involved in her wife’s death. Jeri, in the creepiest and grossest line, blames the assistant for the situation anyway because according to Jeri, she was begging it. The contrast of Jeri being so pro-women in her acceptance speech compared to this incredibly sexist comment is so jarring but it works for Jeri, who is the worst. Jeri is also dealing with an undisclosed medical issue that’s far bigger than she though. We don’t know just what it is yet but it’s bad. Jeri is also the one who sent Pryce to see Jessica so there’s that connection. What Jeri’s bigger role in all this will be, who knows, but I want to know.
5. The Whizzer And A Homecoming
The tail end of this first episode sets up just exactly what we’re going to be dealing with as the overaching plot for this season. Jessica’s origin will be dived into in detail and she’s forced to action thanks to a guy named The Whizzer, who she thought was just a mentally ill guy who was confused. The Whizzer ends up coming back to Jessica’s office and threatens her with a gun. He claimed his powers were fear based and they were, as he start to run around the office like a race car. He tells her that he needs protection because they’re trying to kill him but he won’t listen to Jessica as she begins to tell him that she’s going to help him. She chases him to a scaffolding and it falls on him but not by coincidence. It seems someone was trying to kill him and when Jessica digs around a bit, she ends up at a warehouse with the initials IGH. Once there, she starts to have flashbacks to what she went through and realizes that it’s time to find out what happened to her. I don’t know how I feel about finding out Jessica’s entire origin. I think it’s a natural thing for the show to want to do but I don’t know if that’s something that can sustain a full 13 episodes. This is episode one so all I can say again is…we’ll see.
