Jessica Jones, Season 2 (Review)
Mar. 17th, 2018 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakJessica Jones, season 2, definitely reminded me of Buffy, season 6, or for that matter Angel, season 4. Now I like both seasons - s4 of AtS even is a favourite for that show - , but they‘re definitely not easy on the fannish heart, and you emerge with your emotions pulled inside out, not with a „yay team“ or „aw, bless you, characters“ kind of sense. (Aristotle, he of the „terror and pity“ demand for drama, would approve.) What s2 also is: one hell of a female team effort. Every episode was written and directed by a woman. Most of the central characters are women, nearly all of the relationships are between women. Oh, and whoever made the trailer deserves some kind of award for not giving away any of the twists or what the season is actually about while also playing fair in that all the scenes used for the trailer are real. Seriously, though: so not what I expected. Which is a plus in my book. „Jessica versus Evil Cooperation No. 15564 in the Marvelverse“ is an okay premise, and good writers/actors can do a lot with it, but it‘s hardly original and definitely not as personal as what happened in the first season. So when it turned that the season was about something else entirely, I was transported in delight. In a getting my gut wrenched kind of way.
Now, one of the few weak spots of s1 for me where what felt like two (or one and a half) filler episodes in the last third dealing with Simpson going off the rails on superpowered meds. So I was less than thrilled when Simpson showed up again right at the start, seemingly stalking Trish, and it looked like we were in for a rerun. But no. Simpson himself was removed from the action very early on (and even died a redemptive death of sorts, which brought him full circle with the cop in early s1 who was horrified to find out he‘d been used to assault a woman), but his main (unintended by himself) function in the overall story was to provide Trish with physical means to enable her wanting-to-be-a-superhero addiction. Which, if you think about it, is already hinted in s1 when she does take his pills in an emergency. In s2, she uses the inhaler the dead Simpson left behind. Now I remember one of the few negative reviews of JJ, s1, complaining that Trish was too nice and together a character for her backstory of abused-by-her-mother child star and recovering drug addict. In retrospect, s1 has some hints about how this continues to affect Trish, not least her fear of being defenseless and wish for Jessica to be a superhero, so she can at least live this life vicariously, with the obvious subtext of wanting to be a hero herself. S2 pushes that a lot further. Recovering addict + artificial means to gain powers + continuous frustration at job turns out to be a fatal combination for Trish.
Mind you: „everyone screws up and is screwed up“ is as good a description as any for this entire season. And, the difference between gratitious angst and narratively earned angst, none of those screw-ups feel out of character given everyone‘s development so far. Which doesn‘t make it easier to watch characters whose relationships I‘ve come to care about hurt each other. Trish and Malcolm - that scene with the inhaler and its aftermath pulled no punches, not least in its comment of how addicts can be terrible for each other if one of them falls of the wagon again -, Malcolm and Jessica, and finally, shatteringly, Jessica and Trish.
That the main storyline turns out not to be „Jessica vs. an evil cooperation“ but „Jessica finds out her mother is alive andDarth Vader a superpowered rage monster/ victim of experimentation/flawed human being who wants nothing more than her daughter back“ basically sets Jessica and Trish on a confrontation course which, say, Luke and Leia were spared. I appreciate the show doesn‘t downplay the reality of Alisa‘s victims, by for example letting them all be faceless minions. And Janet McTeer was superb in the role, selling Alisa‘s anger as well as her humanity, and, as important, the fact that by the time Jessica (who had been feeling responsible for her family‘s supposed death-by-car-accident ever since it happened) meets her again, Alisa had internalized the „they had it coming“ or „well, that was regrettable, but in the greater picture...“ rationalizations for her murders too far to ever come back from them. Making Jessica her conscience was essentially the same thing Kilgrave had proposed (and the show did not hide this but let Jessica mention it in dialogue), with the added complication that Alisa‘s real mother/daughter relationship with Jessica pre accident as well as her earnest attempts to reconnect now gave her an emotional power that Kilgrave couldn‘t command save by artificial means. „There is no version of this that turns out well“ Jessica says mid season, and it‘s a fair warning to the audience, too. It‘s an unsolvable dilemma. And the show did not take the sacrificial death way out, i.e. Alisa dying by saving the trucker and/or her daughter. Staying with Alisa with both of them on the run to be her conscience would place an impossible burden on Jessica; leaving Alisa to the law hadn‘t worked; killing Alisa would destroy her. I seriously had no idea how the show would solve this. And yet I should have known, given Trish‘s trajectory throughout the season. It‘s also a pitch black counterpart from last season‘s final death. Jessica killing Kilgrave (thereby also saving Trish and Kilgrave‘s other victims) after Kilgrave had taken Trish hostage versus Trish killing Alisa after (Trish insisted, but the audience knew no longer to be true) Alisa had taken Trish, both right in front of each other, both with absolutely contrasting effects on their relationship with each other.
Incidentally, that Jessica struggles with her acts of killing (both Kilgrave and the later unintended death of the sadistic guard) not because she wants Kilgrave (or the guard) to live again but because she knows she‘s taken lives throughout the season also serves as a counterpart to the far too easy „they had it coming“ rationalisations of not just Alisa but all too many both on the Watsonian and the Doylist level. Mind you, the fact that she‘s stuck in a fictional world where imprisonment for supervillains never works out and/or is an excuse for torture doesn‘t help, but that‘s a meta matter which goes beyond this show.
(Oh, and about the only thing I got right from the trailer is that head!Kilgrave does show up, but solely for one episode, which btw I thought was the correct narrative choice. As a narrative device, it could have gotten old, but in this particular episode he provided a way for Jessica to argue with herself when the narrative had cut her off all her usual venues of dialogues.)
Back in s1, more than one reviewer noted that Jeri Hogarth - middle aged shark lawyer with about to be divorced wife and affair with sexy young secretary - was written in exactly the same way she would be as a male character. This is true for s2 as well early on, when Jeri denigrates the absent Pam who by now is sueing her and the company for sexual harrasment in a sexist way („did you see the way she dressed? She practically did a spread on my desk!“) and responds to the news of her ASL diagnosis by having an orgy complete with coke. But her subsequent storyline seems to me more specific to Jeri being female, first with the way her partners try to get rid of her because of her illness (which somehow I doubt they‘d do in this way with a male colleague) and then with Jeri‘s ultimate revenge on Ines and Shane for the way they exploited her and gave her hope. (Not that we don’t see male characters take revenge through manipulation, but usually not at this emotional point.) Carrie Ann Moss was superb throughout the season, and Jeri continues to be written as one of the shadiest, most ambigous characters of this show, never either a villain or a hero. I hope she‘ll stay with us for a long time to come. Also, if I ever do that multi crossover where Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill gets hired by lawyers from various other shows, Jeri Hogarth definitely will be one of them. (BTW: nice Foggy cameo.) Given Jeri is now two for two in hiring disgruntled friends-of-heroes whom their heroes alienated (first Foggy, now Malcolm), she‘s clearly collecting a talent pool.
Other thoughts: Karl is an interesting sort-of-exception to the MCU (both cinema and tv division) rule that anyone post Abraham Erskine experimenting on human beings (who aren‘t himself, i.e. the Bruce Banner exemption) is evil. Btw, I would not have recognized Rennie in the role without the credits, and I watched the mean for years as Leoben on BSG. Now of course „experimenting on humans is evil“ is, well, not very debatable, especially since in most cases it happens with the „without their consent“ adjunct, but the MCU was in something of a bind there with Steve Rogers, so the Erskine-and-Howard-Stark experiment that resulted in him was presented as something good and heroic, and while Howard subsequently acquired shades of grey, Erskine (especially dying as he did immediately post experiment) remains the MCU‘s sole „good“ Dr. Frankenstein. (Which is why I gave him a bit of a backstory in my „Howard and German scientists“ tale, but that‘s another matter.)
At first sight, Karl seems to be yet another version of the standard post Erskine evil mad (or not mad but still ruthless) cooporate scientist, but then turns out to be something more complicatedly driven by urge-to-help, though if he‘s shades-of-grey, his unability to resist one last experiment when Trish offers him the chance means he‘s narratively doomed as well. Which I thought was a pity, because a scientist disdaining company abuse of his science and able to see people as people, not science objects, but still fascinated by experimentation is compelling to me.
In tandem with this: all people post Steve Rogers who want to physically transform themselves to become (super)heroes are presented as at best morally ambigous as well. (Wanda and Pietro volunteering for Hydra I‘d describe as somewhat darker, but fine, it‘s debatable.) With Trish, it‘s definitely seen as part of her overall messed upness and downfall. Since mutants (i.e. people with superpowers born this way) still can‘t exist in the MCU due to Marvel having farmed out the X-Men all those years ago to Fox, this means superpowered people all are either this by accident (Matt and his not-quite-blindness) or non-consented to experimentation (Jessica and Luke, Bucky), with Steve still as the odd man out. I don‘t have a moral to this, it‘s just something I noticed.
Back to the show: Oscar the super (not super powered), the sole cranky New York City building super in fiction I‘ve encountered who is actually a good guy, and his son provide basically the only light for Jessica by the end of the season, with all her other relationships (minus the ones formed or repaired in The Defenders) shattered). And much as I gotten to like Oscar & son, this wasn‘t enough of a counterweight to the sheer amount of emotional devastation Jessica, Trish and Malcolm went through in this season. So here‘s my somewhat paradoxical resume: Jessica Jones, season 2, is without a doubt far better tv than The Defenders - better written, more coherent, more powerful. But I won‘t rewatch it any time soon, whereas I did rewatch some Defenders episodes for the sheer enjoyability of the Jessica & everyone (but especially Matt) interactions in it.
Now, one of the few weak spots of s1 for me where what felt like two (or one and a half) filler episodes in the last third dealing with Simpson going off the rails on superpowered meds. So I was less than thrilled when Simpson showed up again right at the start, seemingly stalking Trish, and it looked like we were in for a rerun. But no. Simpson himself was removed from the action very early on (and even died a redemptive death of sorts, which brought him full circle with the cop in early s1 who was horrified to find out he‘d been used to assault a woman), but his main (unintended by himself) function in the overall story was to provide Trish with physical means to enable her wanting-to-be-a-superhero addiction. Which, if you think about it, is already hinted in s1 when she does take his pills in an emergency. In s2, she uses the inhaler the dead Simpson left behind. Now I remember one of the few negative reviews of JJ, s1, complaining that Trish was too nice and together a character for her backstory of abused-by-her-mother child star and recovering drug addict. In retrospect, s1 has some hints about how this continues to affect Trish, not least her fear of being defenseless and wish for Jessica to be a superhero, so she can at least live this life vicariously, with the obvious subtext of wanting to be a hero herself. S2 pushes that a lot further. Recovering addict + artificial means to gain powers + continuous frustration at job turns out to be a fatal combination for Trish.
Mind you: „everyone screws up and is screwed up“ is as good a description as any for this entire season. And, the difference between gratitious angst and narratively earned angst, none of those screw-ups feel out of character given everyone‘s development so far. Which doesn‘t make it easier to watch characters whose relationships I‘ve come to care about hurt each other. Trish and Malcolm - that scene with the inhaler and its aftermath pulled no punches, not least in its comment of how addicts can be terrible for each other if one of them falls of the wagon again -, Malcolm and Jessica, and finally, shatteringly, Jessica and Trish.
That the main storyline turns out not to be „Jessica vs. an evil cooperation“ but „Jessica finds out her mother is alive and
Incidentally, that Jessica struggles with her acts of killing (both Kilgrave and the later unintended death of the sadistic guard) not because she wants Kilgrave (or the guard) to live again but because she knows she‘s taken lives throughout the season also serves as a counterpart to the far too easy „they had it coming“ rationalisations of not just Alisa but all too many both on the Watsonian and the Doylist level. Mind you, the fact that she‘s stuck in a fictional world where imprisonment for supervillains never works out and/or is an excuse for torture doesn‘t help, but that‘s a meta matter which goes beyond this show.
(Oh, and about the only thing I got right from the trailer is that head!Kilgrave does show up, but solely for one episode, which btw I thought was the correct narrative choice. As a narrative device, it could have gotten old, but in this particular episode he provided a way for Jessica to argue with herself when the narrative had cut her off all her usual venues of dialogues.)
Back in s1, more than one reviewer noted that Jeri Hogarth - middle aged shark lawyer with about to be divorced wife and affair with sexy young secretary - was written in exactly the same way she would be as a male character. This is true for s2 as well early on, when Jeri denigrates the absent Pam who by now is sueing her and the company for sexual harrasment in a sexist way („did you see the way she dressed? She practically did a spread on my desk!“) and responds to the news of her ASL diagnosis by having an orgy complete with coke. But her subsequent storyline seems to me more specific to Jeri being female, first with the way her partners try to get rid of her because of her illness (which somehow I doubt they‘d do in this way with a male colleague) and then with Jeri‘s ultimate revenge on Ines and Shane for the way they exploited her and gave her hope. (Not that we don’t see male characters take revenge through manipulation, but usually not at this emotional point.) Carrie Ann Moss was superb throughout the season, and Jeri continues to be written as one of the shadiest, most ambigous characters of this show, never either a villain or a hero. I hope she‘ll stay with us for a long time to come. Also, if I ever do that multi crossover where Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill gets hired by lawyers from various other shows, Jeri Hogarth definitely will be one of them. (BTW: nice Foggy cameo.) Given Jeri is now two for two in hiring disgruntled friends-of-heroes whom their heroes alienated (first Foggy, now Malcolm), she‘s clearly collecting a talent pool.
Other thoughts: Karl is an interesting sort-of-exception to the MCU (both cinema and tv division) rule that anyone post Abraham Erskine experimenting on human beings (who aren‘t himself, i.e. the Bruce Banner exemption) is evil. Btw, I would not have recognized Rennie in the role without the credits, and I watched the mean for years as Leoben on BSG. Now of course „experimenting on humans is evil“ is, well, not very debatable, especially since in most cases it happens with the „without their consent“ adjunct, but the MCU was in something of a bind there with Steve Rogers, so the Erskine-and-Howard-Stark experiment that resulted in him was presented as something good and heroic, and while Howard subsequently acquired shades of grey, Erskine (especially dying as he did immediately post experiment) remains the MCU‘s sole „good“ Dr. Frankenstein. (Which is why I gave him a bit of a backstory in my „Howard and German scientists“ tale, but that‘s another matter.)
At first sight, Karl seems to be yet another version of the standard post Erskine evil mad (or not mad but still ruthless) cooporate scientist, but then turns out to be something more complicatedly driven by urge-to-help, though if he‘s shades-of-grey, his unability to resist one last experiment when Trish offers him the chance means he‘s narratively doomed as well. Which I thought was a pity, because a scientist disdaining company abuse of his science and able to see people as people, not science objects, but still fascinated by experimentation is compelling to me.
In tandem with this: all people post Steve Rogers who want to physically transform themselves to become (super)heroes are presented as at best morally ambigous as well. (Wanda and Pietro volunteering for Hydra I‘d describe as somewhat darker, but fine, it‘s debatable.) With Trish, it‘s definitely seen as part of her overall messed upness and downfall. Since mutants (i.e. people with superpowers born this way) still can‘t exist in the MCU due to Marvel having farmed out the X-Men all those years ago to Fox, this means superpowered people all are either this by accident (Matt and his not-quite-blindness) or non-consented to experimentation (Jessica and Luke, Bucky), with Steve still as the odd man out. I don‘t have a moral to this, it‘s just something I noticed.
Back to the show: Oscar the super (not super powered), the sole cranky New York City building super in fiction I‘ve encountered who is actually a good guy, and his son provide basically the only light for Jessica by the end of the season, with all her other relationships (minus the ones formed or repaired in The Defenders) shattered). And much as I gotten to like Oscar & son, this wasn‘t enough of a counterweight to the sheer amount of emotional devastation Jessica, Trish and Malcolm went through in this season. So here‘s my somewhat paradoxical resume: Jessica Jones, season 2, is without a doubt far better tv than The Defenders - better written, more coherent, more powerful. But I won‘t rewatch it any time soon, whereas I did rewatch some Defenders episodes for the sheer enjoyability of the Jessica & everyone (but especially Matt) interactions in it.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-17 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-18 09:40 am (UTC)Still, so far it leaves us with Steve Rogers as this one exception where someone volunteering to be given powers is portrayed as Doing The Right Thing (because patriotism and the war against fascism), while everyone else is at best misguided for wanting the same thing.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-17 11:11 pm (UTC)Also is this one of the first times we've ever seen a mother/daughter superhero team? Which is kinda nice, since Jessica and her daughter Dani are both supers in the comics, although I don't remember if they ever fight together.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-18 09:32 am (UTC)Re: s2 of Jessica Jones, yes, that’s it precisely. I loved it but it will be a long time till I can bear watching it again.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-18 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-18 07:04 pm (UTC)I didn't post on it, since I watched the whole thing on day 1 and knew nobody would read it, so I'm enjoying responding to people's posts now. It reminded me a lot of Daredevil season 2 where you begin the season with three people who are so good together and end it with them splintered. I am struggling because Trish killed Alisa, which may be the one thing Jessica can't forgive, but Jessica and Trish have been there for each other for so long, in so many messed up circumstances, and there's that "I love you" at the end of s. 1 which was so perfect and . . .
I think, if there is at least one more season, this will work well as the book 2 of a trilogy thing -- where the separations that have been set up will be at least partially, tentatively undone in s. 3. Narratively, that would make excellent sense. But I'm also clutching at straws here, because I'm pretty devastated about the Jessica and Trish breakup.
I did like Oscar and Vido -- not at first, but they grew on me quickly. But Oscar is, of course, not-Luke. (Mike Colter, adorably, posted on Instagram that he was up to episode 4 and it had just occurred to him that he was probably not in the season.) I know they often go a different way with these things than the comics, but now I have two relationships to mourn -- and Malcolm, as well, though as there was no death involved and as he still lives down the hall, I can at least hope for some kind of rebuilding there.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-20 03:46 pm (UTC)I think, if there is at least one more season, this will work well as the book 2 of a trilogy thing -- where the separations that have been set up will be at least partially, tentatively undone in s. 3. Narratively, that would make excellent sense.
Agreed. And hey, there's precedent - to wit, Daredevil. (The Defenders already had Karen and Foggy in a somewhat better place with Matt than they were at the end of s2.)
And yes, Trish killing Alisa is different from Matt having been a dick to his friends as a cause for separation, but the show made the Jess & Trish relationship so important in both seasons that I can't see them NOT doing so in s3. Nowe there's of course one way in which it could be central yet hostile, to wit, if Trish went supervillain, but I doubt it. Precisely because Alisa was "person our heroine loves who is also a villain"; been there, done that already. (Just like I doubt that Matt, post-Elektra, will get any similar storylines.)
But Oscar is, of course, not-Luke.
Well, yeah, but think about it: meaningless sex aside, Jessica's love life so far has been a catastrophe. Her early love died in front of her (and years post death turned out not to have been quite the guy she thought he was), then there was Kilgrave who forced the entire relationship into being to begin with, and with Luke, she screwed up by not telling him about the "I killed your wife" factor before having sex with him (repeatedly), he called her a piece of shit, and then their reconciliation turned out to have been a Kilgrave engineered fake, with the real reconciliation in Defenders being at least a good base to build a friendship on, but it's really too early for another romance. I think having a relationship with a man that doesn't end in blood and tears will be good for Jessica's perspective and self esteem. And for what it's worth, comics Jessica dated Scott Lang during the early stages of her relationship with Luke as a temporary alternative!
no subject
Date: 2018-03-20 09:00 pm (UTC)(I have since read the Alias comics, and yeah, I could see Scott as training wheels for her to have a normal relationship again . . . so I see your point of a parallel here. But I hope Vido's heart doesn't get broken, more than Oscar's.)