So after twelve episodes that featured slow burn, noir-tinged anti-heroics, it’s time to find out what the season finale of Jessica Jones’ second season has in store. However, those expecting an emotional, tear-streaked final face off between mother and daughter obviously haven’t been paying much attention, as the season in general has done everything in it’s power thus far to avoid such typical MCU tropes.
In fact, it’s tough to think of a project set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (although those links still strictly go only one way) that’s strived and strained so hard to break every recognisable convention that the connected comic book universe has built itself on – Hell, even Daredevil got to have a big, rock ’em-sock ’em final showdown in the end with Kingpin. But has Jessica Jones succeeded in only pushing herself too far from expected norms? After all, there’s nothing like a big superhero scrap to offer up some easy-to-digest catharsis.
Waking after being knocked out and kidnapped by her super powered mother, Jessica Jones has discovered that once again, the status quo has changed. After discovering that her daughter is the only one who has ever been able to reach her while she’s been consumed within one of her destructive rages, Alisa now reasons that a semblance of a normal life could be obtained if she and her daughter sticks together and just flees the country. However, it’s taken a lot of dead bodies to get to this game changing discovery – some of them cops – and this still leaves Jones in something of a moral quandary about what to do next. Yes, Alisa has unrepentantly done unspeakable things, but that long lost, mother/daughter bond is proving to be stronger than ever.
But while Jessica twists in the wind, her supporting cast are all getting on with their lives – well, mostly. Ditched for the last time, Malcolm goes into the P.I. business for himself and decides to prove himself by finishing Jeri Horgarth’s request to find dirt on her partners in the midst of a push out. Seemingly more at peace with her terminal illness after taking cold-blooded revenge on the con merchants who targeted her, Jeri uses Malcolm’s info to leverage a massive severance which allows her to start her own firm and keep her old clients.
But while Malcolm and Jeri are seemingly bouncing back, Trish is still stuck in the same old delusions. After her near-death experience trying to give herself powers, Jessica’s adopted sister is still operating under the misguided belief that everything Jessica has done is because Alisa has some form of control over her. Once again she assumes that she, and only she can make things right again, but after a shock twist, it seems like that sisterly bond between them may have been irrevocably destroyed.
No doubt there will be some who will come away from “AKA Playland” feeling somewhat underwhelmed that their basic, MCU needs aren’t being met, and yet I would actually agree that at times, the finale falls foul of its decisions to look past its own story to line various things up for the future. With no Defenders reunion on the foreseeable cards, there seems to be a sizable push towards stacking various decks in order to provide bedrock for a possible third outing, but in doing so, the show sort of ends up marginalising it’s biggest plot point. There’s also the fact that the entire season has been on such a slow burn, that for once it seems like thirteen episodes wasn’t actually enough for a Marvel/Netflix show, as the episode is forced to speed-walk through some of its weightier themes. However, in the absence of a big fight and left with a shocking abrupt resolution to the whole Alisa plotline, the show never loses sight of its main objective: keep Jessica Jones emotional state in constant motion.
Considering the way the season has been moving, you probably could have gotten an entire episode or two out of the notion that Alisa has been given hope that her daughter can break her deranged states of rage and is even going as far to suggest that the pair go far away and become a mother/daughter duo that could use their powers for good. While it’s certainly a sizable leap from fatally dragging a cop out of a high window in order to facilitate her own escape (that was only last episode, remember), once again, Jessica has to ponder what her next move should be. Turn in her mother once more and risk losing her to the Raft forever, or actually go along with her plan in the hope that she can curb those psychotic rages – either way, the longer she waits, the more chance she’ll be seen as an accomplice by an increasingly vengeful police.
Meanwhile, we neatly clean up the various storylines Jones’ absence has left in her wake. Without her to call shots or make their lives more complicated, both Jeri and Malcolm have seem to both landed on their feet – for now. With a new haircut and a smart suit, Malcolm finally goes into the P.I. business for himself and ultimately ends up working for rival Pryce Cheng, while Jeri manages to put herself in charge of her own destiny once again even though the scourge of ALS still looms over her. In fact, the only one who can’t put Jessica behind her is Trish, who is fast becoming the series most tragic character. Utterly unable to accept that her sister would abandon her for a murderer, Walker’s unshakable opinions of right and wrong kick in when she realises where the pair may be headed and it’s here where we get to the season’s most controversial decision. Rather that ending Alisa’s story in a blaze of glory fighting the cops, a gut wrenching showdown with her daughter, or a tearful farewell as she surrenders herself to the Raft, the season’s big antagonist is suddenly taken out, out of nowhere when Trish puts a bullet through her brain as she shares memories with her daughter on the big wheel they used to ride years earlier. It’s shocking, bold and utterly unsatisfying if you were hoping that the story would go another way and I have to say, selling out Alisa’s ending in order to swing focus back to Trish may work out well in the bigger picture, but I can’t help but feel that the character deserved more than just being taken out with a gargantuan rug pull.
But then, that’s Jessica Jones in a nutshell, isn’t it? Constantly going against the more colourful and predictable grain may mean that it rubs you up the wrong way – but isn’t that what the character essentially is? With her entire supporting cast scattered to the wind and with the promise of Trish finally obtaining super powers on the horizon, Jessica Jones gives us the most surprising ending of all – a strangely happy one as she opts to ditch the rage and frustration and try to make something of a normal life with Oscar and his son. Obviously it’ll last about as long as a lemming in a lion cage, but if anyone could use a modicum of peace, it’s our Jessica.
A well paced, well judged season comes to an end with a climax that doesn’t quite stick the ending in the ways you’d expect. While the abrupt, almost casual, dispatching of the central villain will no doubt mean plenty of drama between Jessica and Trish, it’s still a pretty jarring end to a thirteen episode run that wisely ditched bursts of frenzied superheroics for more of an inner struggle. Still, I’ll happily take a well-crafted slow burn and a divisive ending over whatever the hell Iron Fist was supposed to be…
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