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. In the eleventh episode, Kilgrave makes his return and Trish finally hits bottom. Let’s jump into this but be warned, there are spoilers throughout.
1. “JESSICA!”
Before Jessica Jones, David Tennant saying my name this many times in a show would have been a very good thing but now it sends chills down my spine. Kilgrave returns as a vision by Jessica after she kills Dale in their fight. Kilgrave sticks around this whole episode as a very unwelcome interloper in all of what happens this episode. Killing Dale has spurned a bunch of feelings on Jessica. She wonders if she’s becoming uncontrollable like her mother. She’s killed three people now, as he points out, and he tells her that she’s never going to stop. This vision of Kilgrave is just as horrible as he was in life and he’s attacking all of Jessica’s insecurities. This whole thing could have gone wrong very easily. This season has struggled a lot and despite picking things up significantly in the later half, the show is still in need of a compelling antagonist. He was that for the first season and the way he’s used here really works in the context of this season. I mentioned this in the last recap but I really like this discussion around killing. I like that life is valued and taking it means something. It frames having powers in a very different way than anything else in the MCU and it helps keep Jessica Jones feeling like a real person.
2. Clean It Up
While Dale’s death serves a purpose, the way it gets tied it up is pretty quick. Because of the head wound, Jessica can make this look like a suicide and that’s exactly what she does. She writes a fake suicide note and drops his body off the roof of his home. No one calls the cops, no one makes a fuss and Jessica is left to go home and deal with all this emotional trauma that comes with what happened. In prison, because Dale never showed up, Alisa has a new guard – Marilyn. She’s the complete opposite of Dale and even lets her call Jessica before breakfast. On the phone call, Alisa thanks Jessica without directly saying what happens but it’s all very silly because it wouldn’t be too hard for someone to put things together if they really wanted to. Marilyn is a sweetheart and the kind of cop the world could use more of and Alisa takes advantage of her kindness throughout the episode.
3. Betrayal Of The Worst Kind
It doesn’t take long for Jessica to figure out what’s going on when she goes to give Karl his paperwork to get him out of the country. He’s gone and thanks to the little monster in his head, Kilgrave, she figures out exactly what happened. Trish is still stuck on this desire to get rid of Karl and take down whatever is left of IGH. She’s also addicted to the substance in Simpson’s inhaler so Jessica figures that’s where she needs to start her search. She bursts into Malcolm’s apartment and uses his dating app meet ups to figure out where his cell phone is, thus finding him. She gets to a parking garage and finds the three of them but Trish gets away with Karl. Jessica and Malcolm have it out a couple of times in this episode. She confronts him about his sex addiction and how he betrayed her by helping Trish with this. They seem to have a complete falling out at this point as he quits for good and leaves her be. This whole thing with the three of them has hit an impasse and it all falls apart in this episode. Jessica is hurt, Malcolm is hurt and Trish has completely lost it.
4. Trish Hits Bottom
Trish captures Karl and keeps him doing what she wants at gunpoint. She has every single intention of putting him in jail but hasn’t yet because she’s trying to get him to give her superpowers and do the same experiment he did to Jessica. Malcolm wakes up and gets out of the trunk of the car and confronts her about how she used him in every sense and abused him just so she could keep chasing this fantasy she has of having superpowers of her own. Trish almost shoots him because she’s so lost in her addiction to both the inhaler and wanting powers and he threatens that. She’s finally hit her bottom and that becomes clear when she runs off with Karl. Trish’s storyline has been so unbearable over these eleven episodes and it finally comes to a head here when she takes Karl to the IGH facility and he begins the procedure. It almost kills her and Jessica is barely in time to stop everything before it does. Jessica confronts Karl and he goes on and on about how his work failed and this all needs to die with him. It’s all extremely out of character for what we’ve seen so far so it all reads like we just needed something to keep the story going just a little bit longer. His suicide by blowing up the building really comes out of nowhere but it does give that extra little push to go into the last 2 episodes.
5. Prison Break
Karl is dead, Trish is in dire shape, Jessica and Malcolm are on the outs, and now Alisa knows about Karl’s death. She finds out in the worst way by seeing it very unexpectedly on the news and she completely loses it. Until now, she has remained in jail and gone along with things as is expected. When she finds out that Karl is dead, she blows up and (presumably) kills Marilyn and is probably going straight for Trish once she gets out of the prison. That’s where we leave this episode and this is the thing that will close out the season. Alisa versus Jessica, one more time, I guess.
