 |
| Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com |
Before Jessica Jones
was released, one of my biggest questions was just how much of Jessica’s
aborted superhero career we would see in this series. That question finds its answer in episode 5,
when Jessica performs her first couple heroic acts and is first pushed in the
direction of becoming a superhero. In
addition to this exploration of Jessica’s superhero career, the episode also
gives us our first glimpse into both Jessica’s attempts to capture Kilgrave and
the protections Kilgrave has put in place to prevent that from happening.
The episode starts off
with a flashback of Jessica attempting to work a 9-to-5 job for the post office
and failing resoundingly. However, when
the boss attempts to fire her, Jessica uses her investigative abilities to extort
him into giving her severance pay and a glowing recommendation. Not exactly the most auspicious beginning for
a budding superhero career, but it does demonstrate Jessica’s impressive
deductive abilities! Afterwards Jessica
meets Trish for lunch at a bar, where Trish comments that she doesn’t think any
of the various jobs Jess has attempted have challenged her quite enough; she
thinks that Jess should try using her abilities for good by becoming a
superhero. The flashback only notes that
it is “18 months ago”—which doesn’t give us much to go on as far as where it
fits with regards to The Avengers (May 2012, which could be right around
that same time)—but I would guess that it’s before The Avengers, since
otherwise Trish probably would have mentioned the alien invasion as a reason
for becoming a hero. Jess comments that
maybe Trish should try fighting crime, to which she responds that “I would if I
could.” However, they are interrupted
when one of Trish’s creepier fans starts hitting on them, prompting Jess to
challenge him to a “Strength Tester” game.
He punches the thing with quite a bit of force, but she pretty much
breaks the machine, leaving him speechless and sheepish.
 |
| Image Courtesy www.denofgeek.com |
The next flashback
shows Jessica working for a sandwich place as one of those street corner
advertisers, dressed as a hoagie. She’s
giving out free samples when a little girl runs out into the street and is nearly
hit by a taxi. Jessica runs into the
street and saves the girl’s life by stopping the taxi dead in its tracks
(denting the hood in the process). I
think this is to be understood as the event which prompted Jessica to become a
superhero; the next flashback shows Jess and Trish talking about better
superhero costumes than going out dressed as a sandwich! This may be the most purely-fun scene of the
season, as we see them debating the merits of Jessica’s first hero name and
costume in the comics: Jewel. Trish suggests the name “Jewel,” but Jessica
comments that “Jewel is a stripper’s name.
A really slutty stripper.” And to
be honest, she’s kind of right! Trish
also shows her the exact Jewel costume from the comics, which may be the first
purely-non-functional hero costume we’ve seen in the MCU, as it’s pretty much
just spandex. Ultimately, Jessica
rejected both the costume and the name.
As far as comic book Easter eggs go, particularly for something like
this, I thought that this was a good way to include that type of callback to
the comic book source material without becoming too weird. I also like what this does for both Trish’s
character and her relationship with Jessica.
First, we get to see how close the two of them were before Kilgrave
happened, and that Trish is Jessica’s biggest fan (something which doesn’t
appear to have changed in the present).
Second, we also see that Trish has something of a “hero complex”: she seems to have it made, but she really
wishes she could have what Jessica has, an opportunity to be a superhero. It’s not explored much further in this
season, but I do wonder if part of the reason for Trish’s desire to learn Krav
Maga also came from a desire to use it as a superhero if the opportunity
presents itself. Regardless, this does
make me think that Trish as Hellcat will appear in The Defenders in some
capacity, depending on how the team-up comes about.
The present action of
the episode centers on Jessica’s response to learning that Malcolm is
Kilgrave’s spy. Jessica first follows
Malcolm and watches him meet with Kilgrave to hand over his latest pictures of
her. Though she has a syringe of
Sufentanil all ready to go, she does not attempt to drug him at that time
because she doesn’t think she can get him away—and she doesn’t have anywhere to
take him. However, this is the first
step in coming up with a plan. For the
rest, she goes to Trish for help.
When Jess arrives at
Trish’s apartment, Trish is in the middle of an… intimate… moment with someone
who turns out to be Simpson (that escalated quickly!). Simpson, who is a former soldier, kind of
elbows his way into Jess and Trish’s planning meeting, offering a former CDC
facility his army buddy used to work at as the location where they can stash
Kilgrave once they’ve snatched him.
However, Simpson is not a huge fan of the premise behind their
plan: he doesn’t think that someone as
dangerous as Kilgrave should be “snatched” at all because of what he is capable
of doing; Simpson thinks that the most prudent course of action involves acute
lead poisoning from close-range. This is
where he and Jessica disagree (well, that and the fact that he tried to kill
Trish and now he’s sleeping with her!):
being a private investigator, Jessica is very interested in getting
evidence which she can use to free Hope (and possibly put Kilgrave in
prison). Murdering Kilgrave in cold
blood would not further that goal. The
two of them even have an interesting scene together when Jess locks Simpson
inside the soundproof room at the CDC building and they talk at each other
while the other can’t hear. Afterwards
Simpson gets a van for them to use in the snatch-and-grab, and they decide how
they are going to get Kilgrave to the sealed room. All through the planning and execution of the
snatch-and-grab, it is very clear that Jess and Simpson do not get along, but
it’s not entirely clear how much of that comes from their differing ideologies
of how to handle Kilgrave and how much of that is Jess’s implicit mistrust of
anyone with whom Trish gets involved!
Regardless, Trish is absolutely the glue holding this team together.
 |
| Image Courtesy www.twitter.com/TheDefenders_TV |
The three of them
stake out Malcolm’s next meeting with Kilgrave, and Simpson gets in close with
a dart gun to shoot him with the Sufentanil.
When she realizes that Kilgrave is looking right at Simpson, Jessica
distracts him, giving Simpson the opening he needs to shoot him. Jessica immediately grabs Kilgrave, knocks
down a couple bodyguards, and gets into their van with Kilgrave. They drive to the CDC building, but it’s not
until they arrive that Jess realizes that Kilgrave is wearing a GPS tracking device. They are suddenly attacked by a couple SUVs
of bodyguards, who knock Trish unconscious with a taser. Jess and Simpson attempt to fight them off,
but are distracted/subdued long enough for them to rescue Kilgrave. They are left with a single bodyguard, whom
they interrogate. From him they learn
that these bodyguards were hired, rather than mind-controlled, because Kilgrave
thought that Jess had figured out a way to neutralize his powers. I actually like this, as it demonstrates
Kilgrave’s intelligence: even though he
has the ability to make anyone do anything he wishes, he’s not so foolish as to
ignore other methods of controlling people, such as money. Additionally, we learn later on that Malcolm
was not being mind-controlled the whole time; Kilgrave controlled him by
getting him addicted to drugs and then giving him drug money in exchange for
pictures of Jess.
The “before and after”
theme of the episode really comes through with Malcolm’s story. We learn that Kilgrave first mind-controlled
Jessica after she saved Malcolm from a couple thugs who were beating on
him. At that time he was planning to
become a social worker. However, six
months before the season Kilgrave took control of Malcolm and got him hooked on
drugs in anticipation of placing him in Jessica’s building to keep tabs on her. Now that Kilgrave knows that Jessica is on to
Malcolm, Jessica decides that it is high time to save him from Kilgrave
(again). She chases off his drug dealer
and locks Malcolm in her bathroom, where she offers him a choice between taking
the drugs (failing her) and resisting the drugs (saving her). While she was doing so, Kilgrave woke up and
called her, threatening to come back for Malcolm unless Jessica takes his place
in sending him pictures. Jessica is
unsure about opening herself up to that degree of violation—having to send
daily pictures to her abuser is nothing less than a daily violation. However, when she sees that Malcolm is going
to try to overcome his drug addiction and work past his Kilgrave trauma, it
gives her the courage to take his place in sending the pictures.
One other interesting
moment from this episode for how it builds into the rest of the season is that
Hope calls Jessica begging for some cash, which Jessica gives her. Near the end of the episode, we see Hope
being attacked by one of the other prisoners.
What is going on here? We don’t
have to wait too long to find out; the next episode explains it.
 |
| Image Courtesy www.comicbookmovie.com |
Watching Jessica put
together a team and attempt to take Kilgrave into custody may have been the
most interesting part of the episode, but I think my favorite scenes were the
flashbacks, particularly Jessica deciding to try her hand at being a
superhero. From a thematic standpoint,
everything ties together pretty well with the concept of how Kilgrave changes
people. We see Jessica and Trish and
their relationship beforehand, and it is worlds better than their relationship
and demeanor after Jessica’s first run in with Kilgrave. We see Malcolm before Kilgrave took control
of him, and he had a purpose and meaning in life; after Kilgrave he is left a
pathetic drug addict. Overall, I really
enjoyed this episode.
What was your favorite
part of this episode? Did you like
seeing them give a nod to Jessica’s comic book origin? Did you want to see her actually put on that
Jewel outfit? Let me know in the
comments!
If you want to get an
email whenever I publish a new article, go to the top of the page and enter
your email address in the box labeled “Subscribe to Mostly MCU Reviews” and
click “Submit.”
No comments:
Post a Comment