I don’t want to be all smug and say that I called it – but I did call it.
Anyone who read my review for the last episode of Jessica Jones will know what I’m on about as I predicted that the show’s plot seemed to have peaked too soon and gave us a near-perfect set up to a grand finale – the problem is, we still have three installments still to get through, which by my maths means that’s at least two episodes too long.
As if to prove me right, we go from an episode that killed off three reoccurring characters and even had a former ally turn bad guy right into what feels like a bottle episode that takes season big bad Kilgrave off the board entirely in favour of more internal agonising for Jessica and an unnecessary side mission that’s seemingly setting up future seasons. Dig in folks, because we’re about to get a decent episode that occurs at the absolute worst time…
Hope Shlottman is dead after slicing her throat in order to give Jessica the reason she needs to kill Kilgrave once and for all. But after saving the Kilgrave Survivor’s Group from being compelled to hang themselves, Jones has to order them all to stick to a bullshit cover story to gloss over all this carnage to the police. However, after being awake for over 48 hours, Jessica is in dire need of rest as her judgement is horribly impaired and she gets all the proof she needs after accidently stepping out in front of a truck and getting her super ribs badly banged up for her troubles.
Tired, hurt and back to square one, Jessica reminisces about her childhood and being adopted by Trish’s monstrous mother after her accident for a publicity stunt to aid her daughter’s career. Soon, after a bit of rest, Jessica and Trish are back on the street looking for leads, but before they can get any solid intel on where Kilgrave or his enslaved father could have gone, they have something of a secondary villain to contend with in the form of Simpson.
Whacked out on paranoia inducing combat meds, Simpson is now on something of a crazed rampage to take down Kilgrave, but now us killing people he figures will slow him down. After already putting a bullet in the head of Detective Clemons and burning the evidence, the deranged Simpson has got it into his muddled head that Jessica can’t be trusted to kill Kilgrave and therefore must also be eliminated. However, while Jones’ super strength would usually make short work of a drugged puke like Simpson, her busted ribs leave her at a serious disadvantage – but when Trish tries to protect her by gobbling down one of Simpson’s super meds, the power boost may prove to be too much for her system. Worse yet, it seems that Kilgrave now has set his sights on one of Jessica’s old flames – Luke Cage.
If I was to be lenient with AKA I’ve Got The Blues, there’s a lot of stuff here that proves to be important in the long run. In the chaos of the past three or four episodes, you could argue that the central relationship between Jessica and Trish could have used a bit more attention and it’s good to get an episode that let’s the pairing of the two have some long overdue space to breathe. We also get more flashbacks to their childhood as they eventually bond thanks to the shitty parenting of Rebecca De Mornay’s horrid Dorothy and we even witness the moment when Trish first discovered Jessica’s powers. On top of all that, we also get to the crescendo of Simpson’s arc as his abuse of his psycho super solider drugs turns him full schizo and the Kilgrave Survivor’s Group finally disbands after their traumatic experience – but the problem isn’t from the actual plot. The main problem here comes from the were it’s all been placed in the season.
As it stands, episode 10 would have been the perfect beginning of the end as a final confrontation was all lined up beautifully between both protagonist and antagonist. With Hope’s sacrifice, it was all lined up perfectly for Jones to finally cast away her aversion to killing her enemy, but AKA I’ve Got The Blues mostly throws away all of that momentum in favour of an episode that literally ditches Kilgrave almost entirely in favour of clearing up a couple of subplots. Any time further building up the relationship between Jessica and Trish is time wisely spent, but surely all this business about their childhood would have been better placed earlier in the season when it was needed and wouldn’t hamper the main story.
Similarly, giving Simpson his very own villain episode makes a certain amount of sense considering his comic book roots, but again, watching he and Jessica trash what’s left of her office/apartment as his paranoia fully takes over is just drawing focus from the actual villain and may have been better served as a plotline for another season. In fact, the whole storyline of Trish taking Simpson’s pills and getting a taste of that superhero life seems like that old MCU trick of sewing seeds for later adventures and seeing as Trish’s own comic book history sees her take up the mantle of Hellcat, it seems that everything else has to make way for some good, old fashioned foreshadowing.
Another casualty of the episode is the Kilgrave Survivor’s Group which, despite being something of a cool concept, never really had the chance to really fly. As this ill-defined group disbands offscreen, it gives us a moment with Malcolm as he complains to a bitter and misanthropic Robyn that no one helps each other any more – but again, this all just feels like preamble when our attention should be on a certain purple suited individual. The fact that Kilgrave doesn’t feature in the episode at all is incredibly silly and leaves the season almost completely without any momentum, which is fairly concerning for a superhero series with only two episodes to go.
Yes, the battle with Simpson is nice and dirty and Trish almost ODing on his military drug adds some drams, but much like the last minute return of Mike Colter’s Luke Cage, the show seems to have an attack of brain fog and utterly forgotten what the mission was supposed to be. If anyone of these plot points had occurred at least five episodes earlier or even.four episodes later, I’d probably be applauding them, but as it stands, it seems that Jessica Jones is sacrificing it’s main plot in order to set up future cases. Ironically for the Netflix shows, this proves that the grittier shows have more in sync with the greater MCU shows than just the occasional, vague mention of the Avengers…
Featuring maybe one of the most jarring pump of narrative breaks seen in a Netflix show, I’d hesitate to say that it’s worse than the one that occurred in the second season of Stranger Things (you know the one). But even then, dropping the main supervillain plotvat the exact point when it was at it’s hottest remains a baffling decision that the remaining two episodes will have to work hard to overcome.
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