 |
| Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com |
We are now entering the
final third of Jessica Jones season 1, and it is only now that we really
get any back story on the main villain of the series. Actually, in all honesty I was not expecting
Kilgrave to get any back story before the season began! I was really thinking about him in the same
way as Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight: more like a force of nature than anything
else, someone that pushes the hero to the breaking point in every possible way
and feels more like an insurmountable obstacle, rather than a simple
antagonist. That’s not to say that I was
disappointed with the portrayal of Kilgrave in Jessica Jones; on the
contrary he exceeded my expectations.
And I thought that giving him a back story actually helped his character
much more than I originally thought it would.
The previous episode
ended with Jessica taking Kilgrave into custody; this episode begins with
Kilgrave waking up afterwards. He is in
the safe room Jessica and Simpson set up, with the doors locked and water on
the floor. Jessica forces him to watch
and listen to the recordings from his flash drive, which detail the experiments
which his parents performed on him which eventually gave him his ability. Evidently Kilgrave (which of course isn’t his
real name) was only one of several subjects in this experiment, though he never
bothered trying to track down the others.
Now that she has Kilgrave in custody, Jessica can move on to the second
part of her plan: force him to use his
powers in a way which can be documented and verified by witnesses, evidence
which she can use to exonerate Hope. Her
first call is to Hogarth, whose initial reaction is that she needs to free him
and hope he won’t press charges—she still doesn’t believe that his mind control
is possible. However, she is still
willing to work with Jessica and tells her that legally she needs a police
officer to certify that the video of Kilgrave’s powers is legitimate, and
Jessica immediately goes to Clemons for help, leaving Hogarth alone with Kilgrave. Though we don’t immediately find out what the
two talked about, it becomes clear by the end of the episode.
At first Jessica
offers to use herself as a target and goad Kilgrave into mind controlling her
into having sex with him, but instead of using his powers he makes himself
appear utterly helpless while Jessica beats and taunts him. Finally Trish has to hit the shock button to
keep Jess from killing him. However,
after this they settle on a different approach:
finding Kilgrave’s parents. I really
like the various scenes throughout the series which show Jessica’s
investigative skills. In this case she
analyzes the experiments and realizes that Kilgrave’s parents worked for the
University of Manchester, which gives her their names (Albert and Louise
Thompson) and pictures, along with Kilgrave’s real name of “Kevin.” Jessica puts the pieces together and realizes
that Louise is actually “Betty,” one of the support group members. This enables Jess to track down the Thompsons
and convince them to help her stop Kilgrave.
Along the way, they also reveal that their intention was never to give
their son “abilities;” they were trying to save his life because he had a
degenerative neural disease and the virus they gave him was supposed to repair
his DNA. Unfortunately, that virus had
an unexpected side effect in that when someone becomes infected with it they
become susceptible to Kilgrave’s suggestions.
They stayed with him for several years after his ability manifested, but
eventually they managed to escape from him.
I find this whole back story to be very interesting, particularly in how
Kilgrave either straight-up lied about the experiments or else twisted his
memories until he actually believes the lie.
The fact that his parents ran to escape from him—and that he’s been able
to do this since he was a child—also helps to explain his decided lack of
remorse or empathy, as well as his attachment and fixation problems. I was afraid that pulling back the curtain
would hurt the character, but I do not think that was the case with Kilgrave.
 |
| Image Courtesy www.heroichollywood.com |
However, this is where
things really go sideways: Trish leaves
Hogarth alone with Kilgrave again, and Hogarth is about to release him when
Jess returns. This sounds confusing, but
in the context it makes sense: Hogarth
thinks that Kilgrave can coerce Wendy into signing the divorce papers without
taking everything away from her in the settlement. This would make Pam happy, which would in
turn make Hogarth happy, since Pam essentially emasculated her (“effeminated
her”? Is there a politically-correct
term for this?) earlier in the episode over her inability to handle the Wendy
situation.
Hogarth doesn’t get
the opportunity to release him at this moment, but that doesn’t mean she
couldn’t royally screw them over with Kilgrave.
Once Clemons is there and handcuffed to serve as an unwilling legal
witness, Jess asks the Thompsons to enter the isolation chamber with
Kilgrave. The Thompsons agree, and
Louise immediately rushes over to him and hugs him, but suddenly stabs him with
a pair of scissors. However, Kilgrave
largely shrugs the stab wound off, telling Louise to pick up the knife and stab
herself for every year she left him alone.
Jess tries to shock them to save Louise, but the shock button won’t
work, leaving them to watch helplessly while Louise kills herself before
Kilgrave turns to Albert and tells him to cut his own heart out. Trish shoots through the glass to try to kill
Kilgrave, but only succeeds in making a hole big enough for him to escape, at
which point he orders her to put a bullet in her head—fortunately the revolver
is empty. Jess knocks Albert out so he
can’t cut his heart out, and goes after Kilgrave. Kilgrave orders her to let go of him, but she
doesn’t, at which point Kilgrave tells Clemons to fight Jessica so he can get
away. Clemons distracts Jessica long
enough for Kilgrave to get away, and Jessica has no idea where he went. But Jessica now knows that she is immune to
Kilgrave’s power.
The other key subplot
in this episode deals with Simpson and the fallout from the bomb blast which
killed his army buddies at the end of the previous episode. At the beginning of this episode, Trish
brings Simpson to Metro General, where he asks to be treated by a Dr. Kozlov (a
comic book character, but not really associated with Simpson/Nuke). Then, when Kozlov arrives to treat Simpson,
he tells the doctor “I want back in.”
This is when we get some more back story on Simpson, who was evidently
part of a super-soldier experiment conducted by the U.S. Military. Nothing in this episode indicates a
connection between this super-soldier experiment and the other super-soldier
experiments we’ve seen in the MCU (Captain America in Captain America: The
First Avenger, Hulk and Abomination in The Incredible Hulk, the
Winter Soldier in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Luke Cage in Jessica
Jones), but it would not surprise me if they are all connected in the sense
that the later experiments are all attempts to recreate Dr. Erskine’s
Super-Soldier Serum—which is very much comic-book accurate.
 |
| Image Courtesy www.gloveo.com |
This also gives us
something of an origin story for Simpson’s transformation into the minor Marvel
villain/antihero Nuke. Simpson is given
three different pills to take which will give him a major adrenaline rush: red keeps him going, white keeps him even,
and blue will bring him down. However,
Simpson has little interest in following the doctor’s orders, and takes extra
of the red pills. Overall, this works
quite well as the origin for a psychotic super soldier with rage issues. Even the random “super pills” actually work
rather well as a plot device: they are
more than just steroids, but still believable.
I actually wonder if there couldn’t be some connection between this
super-soldier experiment and whatever “experimental steroid” it was that gave
Francis from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
(2x13) his super strength. If that is
the case, it could allow for some interconnectivity between AoS and
Marvel Netflix.
In general I liked
this episode, especially the back story it gave us on Kilgrave. I wasn’t terribly thrilled with Hogarth in
this episode, particularly the fact that (as we find out in the next episode)
she allowed Kilgrave to kill his mother and escape. Of course, Hogarth is one of my 2
least-favorite characters in this series, so I suppose that’s to be
expected! While her motivations are
quite clear—she wants an easy divorce so she can move on from her stodgy
ex-wife to marry her attractive, younger assistant—she is the only character on
this series for whom I as a viewer have no sympathy. Maybe she will play a part in either Jessica
Jones season 2, Iron Fist, or The Defenders and become a
little more sympathetic, but until that happens I’m glad that the other
characters are more interesting and sympathetic to make up for it!
What did you think of
this episode? Do you like Simpson as
Nuke? 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