Jessica Jones (Netflix Original Series: 2015)

It’s no secret that I really enjoy superhero movies and Tv shows and I do agree there is an abundance of them currently but I feel Netflix truly have the best of the bunch currently as well as the best format. Jessica Jones is the second of four Marvel characters to get their own original series which first began with Daredevil in early 2015, this will be followed by Luke Cage later this year and eventually Iron fist which will then bring them all together in their own Avengers style show called The Defenders.

Jessica Jones follows the title character, a sometimes hero sometimes Private Detective after a tragedy struck her early on during her superhero career, Jessica attempts to rebuild her life but is drawn into something much bigger when an old acquaintance shows up in Hells Kitchen New York. The show was put on Netflix in Late 2015 and followed the same release schedule as most of their original series in that all the episodes of the season were put online at the same time.

What I like about Jessica is that although her power set is something you’d probably consider to be overpowered at times with super strength and ‘flight’, in this show it’s pretty grounded. She doesn’t really show off her leaping much which is fine and although she is physically strong It is not so much that she can just beat anyone super easy like Superman, she generally struggles when there are quite a few people against her at once. Whether this was done just to create actual threats towards her I don’t know but I felt it worked well, I wouldn’t want her to be overpowered and just wrecking shit all over, at that point put her in the Avengers or something.

Saying that though there were a few examples where she seemed to be utterly incapable against some people which felt odd considering it was one on one at the time, While she has a more grounded power set its not an excuse to make the minimal combat scenes lack in the way they do, I feel the focus of the show was more on her Detective work which was fine and I enjoyed that but if you’re dealing with characters with these kind of powers then don’t treat the audience like idiots.

I felt she was a good example of a female ‘superhero’, yes the focus was on her past issues and ongoing problems but that made her a much more real character with a lot of substance, this goes for Daredevil too actually. There was no reliance on her just being some 10/10 super sexy hero who can ‘do stuff just as good as the boys can’. She’s her own kind of ‘hero’, a lone wolf type who isn’t really sure she even wants to be a hero. She doesn’t like to compare herself to the Avengers or better known heroes, she tries to live a much more normal life.

With that though I do find Jessica Jones feels the most far removed from the MCU, this is not a bad thing in anyway though. It is a very different show from even Daredevil and I did struggle at times to imagine them running into each other, if not for Claire (the Nurse from DD) showing up I would honestly believe there was no connection at all other than a few references here and there. I feel as the shows continue and they do eventually cross over they will alleviate that feeling for me but at times I hope they really keep them away from any of the movies, the Netflix series just always seems so much more ‘grounded’ in reality which is not something everyone wants from a superhero piece of media but I feel it works.

I liked that there was no real origin story for a change, there were super brief scenes of her as a teen first finding her powers and an off hand comment and lead about how she may have originally got them in the first place but other than that there was nothing really, it was oddly refreshing to just be thrown in at the deep end.

Although I said the show was grounded there were some really 'Comic booky' moments like the Cop taking a bunch of pills to gain super strength and shit, like that’s something to me that belongs in Agents of shield or the proper MCU, it just felt really out of place at the time when we’re dealing with all this serious shit this dude just pops a few pills and goes all semi Hulk mode.

Moving on I have to say the casting was really good! David Tennant was perfect for the role he played as I’ll discuss later and Krysten Ritter as Jessica fit really well too! I’m not familiar with the character too much but I felt she is great at coming across as a dry and sarcastic person but also having the range to become super emotional and supportive of her friends throughout the show, you can tell just by the way she portrays the character without her saying so that she is an individual who has been through a lot and continues to punish herself for the mistakes of the past.

The supporting cast were some of the best parts of the show though, Jessica's crazy acquaintances in the apartment were really comical at times, especially the Sister as she just wouldn’t leave Jessica alone and always came out with bizarre statements about Jessica and her own Brother. She began just as a sort of background character but as the show progressed she became a lot more important to the central plot and played that off really well, especially her more emotional scenes when talking about her deceased Brother.

I think my favourite side character was Jessica's friend Malcolm played by Eka Darville. He started off as just some Junkie we would see laying out across the hallways who wasn’t really all there but was always helped by Jessica no matter what. Even when he was like this he was always a friend to her and her to him, but as the plot continues we find out he’s actually been working for Kilgrave to spy on Jessica for him, the worst part being he is doing it due to his addiction and is in no way under the control of Kilgrave at this point. He does eventually go clean as a means to repent and at that point becomes a much better character all around, someone who feels helpless as he has no powers but is able to use his gift of helping others to bring victims together as a means of closure.

I don’t want to say much about Luke Cage as he will have his own show soon but I liked him, he wasn’t overused so there is much to see when he gets his own show but he was certainly a welcome edition, you still don’t know much about him at this point which is great, using this show as his introduction and prologue to a degree was a wise choice especially considering the links between him and Jessica. Mike Colter was a great match and generally looks like the character too!.

Trish was an alright addition I didn’t dislike her or particularly enjoy her too much she was just kind of there but she brought enough to the show to warrant her being such a large part of the plot, she was a good support for Jessica and did not just stand by and let Jessica handle everything she actually helped in a lot of circumstances.

As I said with Fisk in Daredevil the Netflix shows so far have way more compelling villains than anything the movies have ever thrown at us, Kilgrave is no exception, I feel Tennant was the right choice for this character and the changes they made to him compared to the comics worked very well, I really think having him have pure purple skin would be laughable and make the serious subjects dealt with in the show seem almost trivial at times. Netflix seems to know that the audience needs to see why a villain considers themselves to be in the right, we need to see their motives and aspirations rather than just have them as a threat to the world for reason X Y and Z.

Tennant really is the strongest point of the show, although he’s a really horrible human being in it he also comes across as so likeable. He essentially plays a man that always gets his own way thanks to his powers obviously, but when he doesn’t get his way he acts like a petulant child. It’s quite funny to see but shows the extent of Kilgraves powers, mentality and overall grip he wishes to have on others. I think it was good to have a villain with some form of power set this time around, he felt like a true threat to someone with super strength rather than someone who could match her physically.

I did enjoy when he was being used by Jessica in a total role reversal with him using his powers to aid others. Although he enjoyed it and got a true rush from it he only did it to please Jessica and that really did not last long but it made for a number of great scenes. I was surprised how ruthless he could be when he wanted to though, the way he would take out anyone without question if he needed to, being so bold as to just go into a police station and make them all put a gun to their own heads.

This was a truly great villain all the way through, the only disappointment being he kind of died like it was no big deal, it just happened in a second, of course it was building up to it but I just felt perhaps it was too soon to kill off such a great character, perhaps have him in prison and return a few seasons later, but at least he will not be shoehorned in later I suppose.

The support group aspect was great, to see all these people come together because they were used by Kilgrave and showing the mental effect that actually had on people was cool, you never really see people deal with the aftermath of attacks or incidents with super villains or even super heroes, exploring that was a nice touch I thought. More so because it showed just how serious or trivial some of these victims were to Kilgrave but how it still effected them none the less. Jessica shunning away from this group overall was good too, it showed her focus on trying to bring him to justice rather than dwell on the past and stay a victim.

I had never heard of Jessica Jones until this series, I was vaguely familiar with Luke Cage and I have no idea who Iron Fist really is but I’m really happy this focus on lesser known characters is happening, I hope after these initial series we will see the adaptation of more, especially if Netflix is in charge. It may even be worth Netflix doing a series on Black Widow or Hawkeye, they are both characters I have little interest in but I feel these shows could make them as compelling as Matt Murdock and Jessica easily.

I  feel that a lot of people did not give this show a chance, it’s not as good as Daredevil by any means but it is still worth a watch for sure, I did feel that it had a poor start as it just did not seem to really go anywhere almost like we were dawdling before Kilgrave shows up, I think this is a point that a lot of people chose not to go to because the start was so poor, which is a shame… I’d say if this was you please continue at least until Kilgraves in it more and then decide if you want to continue on.

I feel like the show ended just as it really got going, it really did start slow and turned into a really captivating story once Tennant was featured more heavily, I loved the direction it went in towards the end and hope it can be replicated in season 2 and when Jones joins the Defenders but I worry it will not. Truthfully I still do not know much about the character and her story or villains save for a few things I've read online about pre-existing characters so hopefully a second season will have the same sort of tone and talent as this one.

Overall I’d say Jessica Jones is worth a watch if you enjoyed what Netflix did with Daredevil, you have to remember this is a different show with a different theme and feel it will not be just like Daredevil it is it’s own thing. It does have a poor start but if you can get past it you are in for a real treat, especially with Tenants performance. I feel this was a decent season overall and a second has been confirmed,  I do wonder where they will go with it but I’m excited to see that, I hope they have a few more crossovers before the defenders comes around even if they are brief, having Claire from Daredevil become a character that is appearing all over is a great start to this.