Right now, Jessica Jones is as successful for what it doesn’t show us as for what it does. It’s almost as though the show is building a rich world behind the narrative that’s actually unfurling, and lest that sound like a complaint, let me be clear and say that it serves to deepen the show’s mythology by suggesting that, as with all good myths, there’s a whole lot we don’t know. While the show, this early on, lacks the gravitas or visceral thrills of Daredevil, it’s nevertheless off to a damn good start.
A lot of the momentum achieved by “AKA Crush Syndrome” is due to its villain, David Tennant’s Kilgrave, who we get the merest glimpse of. He engenders the same kind of fear as did Daredevil‘s Wilson Fisk, and Tennant is clearly having a ball with Kilgrave’s undisguised menace. Seen only in shadow and from behind, Kilgrave doesn’t even bother pretending to be anything but a villain. It’s an inspired performance, and the scene near the episode’s end where Kilgrave walks into a couple’s home, sends their children into a closet, and announces he’ll be staying indefinitely, is almost unbearably tense – again, by virtue of what we don’t see.
Elsewhere, “AKA Crush Syndrome” – I have to admit, I’m not a fan of the similar episode titles, and I know they serve as a reference to the original comic title AKA Jessica Jones, so don’t bother pointing it out – unfolds as a mostly straightforward procedural. It’s a smart move on the show’s part to show Jessica’s skill as an investigator, and it’s honestly a hoot to watch her dress up and play the part of a ditzy nurse (especially after a casually badass scene of Jessica ripping the locks off of locker doors).
The show so far is doing a great job of letting us know who Jessica is, which sounds like TV making 101, but you’d be surprised how often shows fuck this up. She’s not particularly concerned with being likable, either to her fellow characters or even to the audience. The revelation that she’s been spying on Luke Cage free of charge actually casts her in a pretty creepy light, which is only slightly lessened when Luke puts two and two together and realizes that she’s been tracking him because she has powers as well. This revelation comes on the heels of a very cool fight scene, with Jessica and Luke fending off attackers in a bar as casually as possible. It’s cool but also very funny to watch Luke nonchalantly throw someone across a room. But I gotta say, since I can’t stop making these comparisons, it doesn’t quite match Daredevil‘s second episode “Cut Man” for sheer jaw-dropping execution of a fight scene. I hate to keep bringing up Daredevil, but “Cut Man” had the best fight scene I’ve seen all year, so I won’t apologize.
As it stands, the main stumbling block of Jessica Jones is Jessica’s relationship with Trish. I expect the show to deepen and define their friendship as the season goes on, but the relationship is so ill-defined that I thought the two were sisters until Jessica explicitly called her “my best friend.” I also don’t get a friendship vibe from the two of them – for as dour as Daredevil was, at least we got to see Matt, Foggy, and Karen having fun together. Jessica and Trish seem like friends because the show needs them to be, and if the relationship is going to have any impact on the narrative, we need to believe there’s something deeper there.
A Few Thoughts
- “Live your life, woman, I gotta go clean up some shit”
- Erin Moriarty is doing a fantastic job as Hope Schlottman. The way she looked at Jessica and asked “Are you a good jumper?” nearly broke my heart. And following it up with her hollow-voiced advice of “You should kill yourself” finished the job. Bravo
- Some more good hard-boiled dialogue for Jessica. My favorites: “Massages make me tense” and the very private eye line of “My greatest weakness: occasionally I give a damn”
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