Jessica Jones S01 E12: AKA Take a Bloody Number

We pick up scant moments after the last episode, when Luke Cage blew up his bar with himself in it, as per the Purple Man's commands, made sure Jessica Jones saw it. He is of course unhurt, but his bar is toast. As I wondered if he had insurance and what an insurance investigator might make of his story, we dove into flashback - Kilgrave has been busy during the episode where he was missing.

When he left the hanging restaurant with his father, he ran right into Luke Cage, who had been following Jess in hopes of running into Kilgrave. Best line, and our title reference comes when Kilgrave asks Luke what he wants. His reply is to kill him, and Kilgrave's sharp comeback - "Take a bloody number." Then he commands Luke into the getaway car for clarification and interrogation.

The second best line is when Jess brings Luke back to her office/apartment and tells him to mind the mess from the fight with Nuke. Luke asks if he needs to know what happened there, she simply replies, "I guess we're both lousy renters," to which both Luke and I said in unison, "at least it's not on fire." Five minutes in, this one's not so bad so far. I'm smiling.

Of course now that Luke is at her side and Jessica has sworn to kill the Purple Man, there's some creative stalling. Trish is still paranoid about Simpson, asks around and finds the program is a made-up organization called IGH, with initials that apparently stand for nothing. I wonder though, could that H stand for Hydra?

Despite Jessica's warning, Trish's mom comes to visit her estranged daughter in the hospital. What a harpy. Good thing Jess doesn't know. As she joked with Trish earlier regarding Simpson, Jess can only fight one big bad at a time. I guess Nuke and the harpy will have to take a bloody number.

There's mention made of Hammond Labs as being the place where Hope's fetus was sent. This could be a number of different references. There's a Hammond Labs where Speedball, later Penance, got his powers; or it could be a reference to Camp Hammond, a Marvel Civil War era training facility for superhumans; or simply a nod to the original android Human Torch.

The writing is much better in this episode, elevating it above previous ones. I'm not surprised to see the name Hilly Hicks, Jr. on the script. The playwright and screenwriter is also responsible for the excellent "AKA 99 Friends" earlier in the season. Perhaps he can be convinced to write more when the second season of "Jessica Jones" rolls around.

More clues about IGH come from a surprising source. When Trish's mom comes to visit her daughter at home, again against Jessica's wishes, she brings her a folder marked IGH. It contains Jessica's medical records from the accident that killed her parents and brother. IGH paid her bills. But I guess that's a mystery for another day.

The main event is the showdown in a blue-hued theater between the Purple Man and Jessica - and Kilgrave's proxy is Luke Cage. The whole episode, as their chemistry blended and he played sidekick, Luke was in Kilgrave's power, a puppet working her like a dummy. And now they dance. It's a fight we didn't know we wanted, and it's awesome.

It's a fight that can only be stopped by a shotgun blast to the face. Is the "Luke Cage" Netflix series canceled now? To be continued…

Next: Smile!

Jessica Jones S01 E11: AKA I've Got the Blues

Almost as if the showrunners knew I had given up on the show, they open this episode with something to grab my attention. As they've been doing for most of the series, they dangle Patsy Walker in front of us as bait. I doubt we're going to get Hellcat, at least not yet (I still hold out hope for "The Defenders"), but they have given us Patsy.

The flashback begins with young Jessica waking up in the hospital after the accident that killed her family. Patsy is there in her red wig and her mother. We even get a bit of the "It's Patsy" TV theme song. It actually has a bit of the Josie and the Pussycats movie vibe to it. Any chance of that showing up on iTunes? No? Too bad, I know I'd buy it. It's only a it though, and then it's back to the same old dreary "Jessica Jones" business.

Searching through morgues looking for Kilgrave's father, Jessica discovers something else - Clemons, murdered by Simpson. Not only has Nuke gone rogue from Kozlov and 'the program,' he's on his drugs and looking for both Jessica and Kilgrave. He's gonna hit them like a, well, like a nuke.

Along the way, Jessica, working on no sleep, gets hit by a truck. There are good moments with Malcolm and Trish. Like Flashback Island on "Arrow," we get short but intriguing vignettes of Patsy and Jess as kids, informing the relationship. It's like watching an alliance be formed, explaining the strength of the current friendship.

Then Nuke attacks. He's powered by his combat enhancers and Jess is battered by her accident, so they are almost a match. He believes that she's lying, and that she's been protecting Kilgrave from the start. The fight is no hallway fight like in "Daredevil," but it's probably the best we've seen so far in this series.

But it gets even better when Trish shows up to 'save the day.' As ridiculous as that sounds, she does. Trish takes one of Will's reds and evens the odds. Between her fighting like a 'hellcat,' and Jess helping, they take down Nuke. Trish nearly loses her life by -I kid you not- forgetting to breathe, it works out and is one of the highlights of the episode.

The end of this one is a bit puzzling. Kozlov and other 'boys from the program' retrieve Simpson, so he's not out of play yet. And Jessica gets a text from 'unknown' saying they ran into her boyfriend. Jess immediately rushed to the bar in time to see it blow up and Luke Cage, aflame, stagger out. Cue credits.

Kilgrave is on everyone's minds and lips this episode but he does not appear, which is refreshing. I liked all the young Jess and young Patsy bits. And of course I loved my sadly non-costumed Hellcat moments. This was better than previous episodes, let's see if they're on a streak...

Next: Take a Bloody Number

Jessica Jones S01 E10: AKA 1,000 Cuts

Another week passed before I picked up watching "Jessica Jones" again. I tired of the moronic plot twists and Jessica's increasingly idiotic plans, and longed for the early episodes that were so good. But I figured I got on this horse, I should finish circling the track at least once, and watch the entire series. There are only four episodes left after all, but then again, it all just fell apart in only three. Sigh. Onward.

As the episode opens, it's seconds after the end of "AKA Sin Bin," and Kilgrave is staggering out of the warehouse where his cell was. Whether by convenient or ridiculous coincidence, Jeri is driving by on her own escape from the madness, and he enthralls her. Offscreen, it should be remembered, they made a deal while he was in that cell. Things don't look good for Hogarth's soon-to-be ex-wife at this point...

Meanwhile inside, it's bedlam. Kilgrave's mother is dead, his father is dying if not dead, Trish is trying to put a bullet in her head, and Clemons has a broken wrist and a Jess-kick to the face. Jessica herself is a mess. Kilgrave got away again. On the plus side, she seems to have broken Kilgrave's control, Jessica is immune.

When it's brought up, Kilgrave's father, who's not quite dead, but still wants to cut his own heart out, intimates he might be able to concoct a cure for Kilgrave from Jessica's blood. Apparently his power isn't mutant, metahuman, or pheromonic - it's a virus. I'm stunned, and feel the same way I felt when I heard about midi-chlorians, or that Santa Claus wasn't real.

Jeri Hogarth brings Kilgrave home to her wife, not to eff with her as one would assume - at least not yet - but for her medical skills. He's been shot and needs help. I have to say it's a bit of brilliance to have the Purple Man act as negotiator between this couple snapping at each other, especially when they must do as he says. Simple phrases like 'tell the truth' and 'shut up' have new power in such conversations. And to cover his escape, once bandaged up, Kilgrave orders wife Wendy to cut Jeri a thousand times.

Back at the holding cell where Clemons is securing the scene, Will Simpson arrives. Not sure if he's now Nuke, still under the Purple Man's control, or just overdosed on two many red pills, but Simpson wants to know where Kilgrave and Trish are. Once he knows, he puts a bullet in Clemons' forehead. Something tells me Jessica has a new adversary.

Two moments, however brief, remind me of what the show once was. There's Malcolm helping Robyn put up 'missing' posters for her brother Ruben, it reflects his change. He wants to tell her, but he can't, so he helps her. Having something to do keeps her on track, even though he knows that Ruben is dead.

The other one is that Pam, now in custody for Wendy's murder, sees Jeri Hogarth for exactly what kind of person she is. She's figured out what Jeri did and what Kilgrave had to do with it - and now she wants nothing to do with Jeri. These two character bits stand out where the main plot, that of Jessica and Kilgrave, has become an implausible sitcom with lives at stake.

When Jessica goes home, yeah, she's apparently got nothing better to do than go home and chill, Kilgrave is there. We find out why he loves her and thinks he can get her, as well as the fact he's known for some time she's immune to his power - obviously part of the attraction. Now that she's free of fear, it almost seems to make this whole trip unnecessary. I'm tired of it.

While Jessica makes plans to trade Kilgrave's father for Hope's freedom, another threat is rising. Malcolm finally opens up to the support group about Ruben, but unfortunately Robyn is eavesdropping. She riles them up, rightfully bringing up that Kilgrave would not have messed with any of them if not for Jessica Jones. Great, now that Kilgrave is close to being neutered, Jessica will have both Nuke and mob rule to contend with.

From there the episode runs quickly like whirlpool to its depressing end. Between Hope's suicide and Jessica's vow to kill the Purple Man, it's no longer a question of is it time for the good guys to win yet, but why am I watching this. If this was not meant to be binge watched, and was a week to week broadcast series, this would be my last episode.

Next: I've Got the Blues

Jessica Jones S01 E09: AKA Sin Bin

After two well done but not well thought out episodes that were on the whole unsatisfying, I was starting to have doubts about the "Jessica Jones" series. I had already stopped watching once, involuntarily due to illness, but one shouldn't want to stop watching on purpose, especially with television meant to be binged. That said, there was a bit of a break for me between episodes eight and nine. Let's see how the resumption went...

Since last time when Jessica incapacitated and captured the Purple Man, she's placed him in the room set up for him way back in "AKA The Sandwich Saved Me," filled with a few inches of water and an open electrical wire so he can be shocked if he's naughty. He's also being recorded so Jess can be extract a confession from him.

I'm not sure how permissible such an admission would be, if given under conditions of torture. But as we've seen last episode from Kilgrave's home movies when he was a kid, he's no stranger to torture. We find his real name is Kevin Thompson and his parents were doctors or scientists, either way, they were fond of experimenting on their kid. And then his powers kicked in, and things changed.

This is where "Jessica Jones" and the previous Marvel Netflix series "Daredevil" are similar. We have a monstrous villain, who when we learn their origins, we are made to feel sorry for them. And I feel sick about it. They made me feel sorry for one of the most despicable and immoral monsters in the Marvel Universe.

While Kilgrave sits in the trap, tortured by these home movies of his parents' experimentation on him and other children, life goes on outside. Jeri is still being screwed by her wife, Hope is being offered a plea bargain, and Trish has her hands full taking Will to the hospital. He got blown up by Kilgrave, along with his boys and Jessica's old neighbor. He's in pretty bad shape but insists he can only see a doctor named Kozlov. This doctor makes us wonder if Will is pre-Nuke or post-Nuke as weird red, white, and blue pills are prescribed and seem to make him a new man. Curiouser and curiouser.

Hours pass and Jessica, Trish, and Jeri take turns with temptation guarding Kilgrave. Jess manages to track down his parents after studying the films and doing a modicum of detective work. Not for the first time nor for the last time in three consecutive episodes I have no idea just what the hell Jessica is thinking. She puts his parents in the cell with him. Kilgrave tries to kill them. Seriously, did no one see that coming??

The whole situation goes to hell very quickly after that. Kilgrave is loose on the streets once more. I'm nine episodes in, but at this point, I'm soured. I will march on however. What began as brilliance has decayed to bullshit. Don't worry though, I'll watch it so you won't have to...

Next: 1,000 Cuts

Jessica Jones S01 E08: AKA WWJD?

Here's the problem, and it's a most disturbing one. David Tennant, who plays Kilgrave here, and played The Doctor for several years on "Doctor Who," is so damned charismatic. As one of the most diabolical and immoral villains of the Marvel Universe, when he's trying to be nice, trying to get into Jessica Jones' good graces, we almost believe him, as if we too have been influenced by his powers...

In a bit of stalker-ish sociopathology Kilgrave has purchased Jessica's childhood home, refurnished it just as it was, invited her to live there with him, all done without the benefit (?) of his powers. To say this is effed up is an understatement. Mutual consent, her choice, and her love, is all that he wants.

The edge is thick in the air as Jess tours the home of her past surrounded by ghosts, as well as Kilgrave, and his paid bodyguard Hank, plus a chef and a maid. Through dinner, breakfast, conversation with a neighbor, Kilgrave tries desperately for domestic bliss, all with the undercurrent of sociopathic house arrest.

Trish calls, worried about Jess, and worried about her new beau Will Simpson. He's gone AWOL. We find he's in the house, has planted a bomb to finish off Kilgrave once and for all. Jessica disarms it and sends Will packing. When Trish does catch up to him, he still doesn't tell her the truth - what else would one expect of a future super-villain? Instead he tries to convince Trish to forget about Kilgrave, and that Jessica can take care of herself.

All of it however pales in comparison to the heated discussion at the heart of the episode. Kilgrave raped Jessica. He raped her physically, mentally, and emotionally. He is a true monster. He may have given her everything she wanted, pampered her with fancy clothes and hotels and restaurants - but she wanted none of it. Not to make light of the situation, but bottom line, no means no.

Just when the writing veers into something real, it slingshots back to supermax idiocy. Jessica tries to make the Purple Man a force for good. It's a fun idea, it's a comic book idea, and not one fitting to the psychological crime noir that is "Jessica Jones." Somewhere along the way, and especially in this talky flip-floppy episode, the show has run off the path.

As much as I worried early on about the chemistry between Jessica and Luke Cage, perhaps I should have been more worried about it between her and Kilgrave. Their scenes together are not as tense as they should be. Separately and reacting to each other they are great, but together on the same side, no. It's just one of the flaws of the show, like the Jeri Hogarth divorce that I just don't give a crap about.

But it always comes back to Kilgrave. As earnest and charismatic as the monster is, he always defaults to evil, from having knives at the throats of the paid help to the humiliation of Jessica's neighbor to the brutal final ending of this episode, Kilgrave is ever the villain. Thankfully Jessica remains true to herself as well... even if I never expected her to fly...

Next: Sin Bin

Jessica Jones S01 E05: AKA The Sandwich Saved Me

There is an interesting dichotomy in the life of Jessica Jones. As we open on our girl as a cubicle slave in a dreary desk job eighteen months ago we learn what that is. There's life before Kilgrave and there's life after Kilgrave, that's it. She was still sassy and sarcastic and smart as hell back then, but she wasn't apathetic, mean, paranoid, and in pain.

This is a world of difference. Jessica figuratively and literally trashes her job to join best friend Trish for happy hour. She is actually playful and fun when she teaches the perv a lesson. Believe it or not, Jessica was happy once.

My favorite part, of course, are the thinly veiled hints to Trish's possible future. Trish wants to save the world, and when Jessica suggests she put on a cape and do it herself, she exclaims without hesitation, "You know I would if I could!" Enough foreplay, how long do we have to wait for Patsy 'Hellcat' Walker to arrive??

Back to the present day, having determined that her junkie Malcolm is the Purple Man's unwilling spy, Jessica trails him. It's even suggested Kilgrave made him an addict. A visit to the park leads her to her prey, but just a glance at Kilgrave sends her frantically into her street naming mantra to combat her post-traumatic stress disorder.

I don't know whether it's my comics knowledge that Will Simpson is Nuke, or the fact that I don't even trust the character as portrayed here, but his involvement with Trish is bothersome. He feels like a wedge between the two, and neither Trish nor Jessica seem to be thinking straight when he's around. Could he still be in the Purple Man's thrall? And if not, why doesn't he have PTSD like Jessica?

Along with Trish and Will, Jessica has a plan to capture Kilgrave, but seeing how I don't trust Will, I don't trust the plan. There are times when he talks and acts like Nuke might. More tidbits of background fall through the cracks to us viewers, things like Trish, the highest paid child star ever, took Jessica in after her parents were killed. Hope is apparently in trouble in jail and asked for money from Jessica.

But the biggest treat was in flashback. After saving a little girl while dressed as a hoagie (yeah, thus the episode's title), Trish designs a costume and name for Jessica - Jewel. Yeah, it's the pre-Alias costume, looking pretty sad in live action reality. I would still like to see her wear it at least once though, just for kicks and giggles.

Just when the plan seems to be going so right, Kilgrave drugged, out, and being taken to the safe house, it all goes horribly horribly wrong. He has a tracker on him, and a security detail. He's not as dumb as our erstwhile heroes think. They might not have underestimated his power but they definitely underestimated his brains.

When Jessica tries to get a clue from Malcolm about Kilgrave, a horrible truth presents itself. She saved him once when she was trying to do the right thing, when she was trying to be a superhero (if not dress like one), and that's the night Kilgrave discovered her, and took her away as his prize... Serious props to Eka Darville who plays Malcolm here. He's terrific in this role, and previously has been in a number of projects varying from "Power Rangers" to "Spartacus."

Jessica determines to make/help Malcolm kick in the end, but Kilgrave has a demand. She does Malcolm's job, send him a photo of herself once a day, and Kilgrave will leave the addict alone. It's heart rending, but in a way, Jessica both wins and loses this round...

Jessica Jones S01 E04: AKA 99 Friends

Producer/writer Hilly Hicks Jr., late of "The Big C" and a show that didn't get enough of a chance, "Kidnapped," wrote this one, with David Petrarca directing. Petrarca's resume includes "Boardwalk Empire," and "Game of Thrones," among others. That Marvel can command such talent amazes me. Comics have truly grown up.

As we open Jessica is pondering the eyes of the Purple Man. They're everywhere. Anyone could be in his thrall, watching her, taking pictures of her. It's maddening, and a lesser person would break. Jessica, she goes to work, and finds a new case on her doorstep.

Standard stuff - mad wife needs in flagrante photos of her philandering husband for the divorce, but it's the reference that's fishy. Paranoia's gonna getcha to paraphrase the Kinks. Once bitten, twice shy, to quote Ian Hunter. Jessica is remembering the Hope case from "AKA Ladies Night," which Kilgrave sent to her door.

Meanwhile Patsy, I mean Trish calls. The cop who tried to kill her last episode is back, and it's Jessica to the rescue. Trish isn't in danger; the cop is out of Kilgrave's power and now worried he had killed her. Jessica talks him down, her cover is blown, and now this cop knows more than she wants him to, but she calms him down.

While this could be a lesson in the scope of the Purple Man's powers and what happens to the people he throws away, there's a little more to this. We will see this guy again, I think. The cop was identified as Will Simpson, former special forces, and that matches up to something in the comics… Nuke. That Will Simpson was subjected to the same super soldier programs that created Captain America and Wolverine, became a cyborg, tattooed an American flag on his face, and fought Daredevil while rampaging through Hell's Kitchen.

Back on the case, Jessica, thinking Kilgrave is behind it, follows the wife not the husband. She sees her practicing her gun skills, and when Jessica is sure she's not mind controlled finally follows the husband. Like Admiral Ackbar always says, it's a trap, and not by the Purple Man, by the wife. She lost her mother in the Battle of New York, and blames superheroes. Learning that Jessica is 'special' and 'gifted,' she went after her. Big mistake.

Also in this episode we had the intriguing concept of a support group for Kilgrave's victims, a slowly growing at gunpoint friendship/relationship between Trish and Will, and the revelation of who's been following and taking pictures of Jessica. The Trish and Will thing is a bit creepy, and by the middle of this one I knew Malcolm was the spy.

Despite the twists and turns in this episode, and the lack of Kilgrave's physical presence, I dug this episode quite a bit, and I was relieved the Purple Man was not the major villain of the piece. The only letdown was the Hogarth divorce, which was as interesting as watching Diggle just stand around and do nothing on "Arrow."