Following her appearance in Defenders, Jessica Jones is back on Netflix for a second season. As ever, we’re going to be reviewing every episode of the series – one per day – providing analysis, easter egg spots and speculation for those who aren’t planning to binge it all in one go. All discussion is welcome but please don’t spoil future episodes in the comments.
This review contains spoilers.
2.8 AKA Ain’t We Got Fun
Okay, things are really hotting up now. And I’m not just talking about Hogarth’s frankly insatiable sexual appetite. I love Hogarth’s confident in visiting Shane and telling him, essentially, that she’ll walk him out of prison in a matter of hours if he agrees to heal her. I can’t see that going well, of course – there’s a price to pay somewhere along the line and surely Hogarth’s ALS isn’t going to go away consequence-free. I’m not sure I see where it’s going, but one thing is certain: Hogarth could carry a spin-off. Especially if Foggy Nelson is in it.
Malcolm continues to get some of the best material in this show as he gets close enough to Jeri’s law-firm partner Chao to do him in, and then immediately bottles it and tells him to go home and be honest with his wife. You’ll never stay an Associate sending clients away like that, mate. The subsequent fight and then giving in to Trish’s completely baseless reassurance was also a great scene, not least the look on his face when he realised Trish was full of crap. Remember kids: don’t give in to peer pressure, even if it’s a celebrity radio host who just had sex with you.
Karl, meanwhile, runs off to plot exile and I’m really unsure what they’re doing with him. We didn’t exactly see a comeuppance – indeed, he does genuinely seem to care for Alisa without realising the harmful and controlling behaviour he applies to her – but I’m still willing to bet he ends up dead by the end of the series (though let’s face it, this is a Marvel-Netflix show, every non-recurring cast member ending up dead is as safe a bet as you get.)
Alisa and Jessica’s relationship gets explored quite heavily in this episode, and it’s immediately compelling stuff. Their interactions, barbed and resentful yet also affectionate, are pretty electric to watch and brings out the best in Jessica’s dialogue especially. I do find myself wishing we’d known more of how Jessica’s mother was in the past – I’m finding it hard to accept that she’s someone important to Jessica when we don’t really see any of how they were together in the past.
I feel like the story’s expecting me to buy into an emotional connection that I don’t really have any reason to accept on Jessica’s end, not least because they’ve literally changed who she is. They’re trying – and to some extent succeeding – but it’s not working quite as well as it might if they’d somehow built this up with some pre-crash flashbacks. (I’m still not clear why they changed her face – I don’t think any of us care that she was recast, and surely they could’ve just hidden her face from Jessica until the reveal?)
Of course, there’s still some great material in there – Alisa “correcting” Jessica’s happy childhood is brutal but fun, and the marriage from Alisa’s perspective certainly plays into the show’s themes – though again, this was all tell without show, and I can sort of understand why there’s a general storytelling rule against that. By comparison, showing her charming Oscar made her seem far more three-dimensional than any of the interior life she merely described to us did.
As for the episode’s final-scene mystery, I don’t think it’s a huge mystery who’s likely to want Alisa dead, but I’ll wait until next episode to say it in case it isn’t super-clear. I’m less worried about this twist than I was, even if the comics purist in me isn’t especially thrilled, and looking forward to the story’s payoff.
Oh, and a nice big reference got dropped in this episode: Alisa says they’ll send her to The Raft, which is the prison for super-powered people seen in Captain America: Civil War. Interestingly, The Raft was actually invented by Brian Bendis in Alias #26 (2003) where it was first used as the SHIELD holding facility Kilgrave was kept in, so it’s nice to see that location coming home (of sorts)…
Read James’ review of the previous episode, AKA I Want Your Cray Cray, here.