One snag that’s tripped up virtually every installment of the Defenders Saga so far is the problem that the writers constantly find it difficult to marry up their stories with the strict episode count that Netflix seems to have forced upon them. As a result, the pace of some of the shows have fluctuated wildly, as the various adventures alternate from dragging some plots out to an irritating degree in one episode, to hurridly speeding through matters during another. It’s an issue I’ve discussed ad nauseam throughout various seasons of the entire shared universe thus far, but it seems that Jessica Jones’ second season is trying to counteract this in its early days.
The noir aspect of the show has always insisted that Jones tends to run at a more deliberate pace that some of its more excitable peers, but even by this metric, the season is so far running noticably slow. Is this an attempt to finally push all the slower episodes to the front of the season in favour of a final act blowout? Well, considering some of the reveals we get here, I don’t think things are going to remain slow for very long.
Something is stalking the former employees and patients of IGH, a company that used experimental treatments to save the lives of the seriously wounded at the expense of giving them super powers. Numerous people – including a doctor named Kozlov, a speedster named the Whizzer and defective super soldier Will Simpson – have fallen to this mystery assailant who has the ferocity and strength to twist a man’s head all the way around. After such a fate befell Simpson, Jessica Jones and Trish Walker dispose of his body at a place Jessica’s family used to holiday at, and it gets her in a thoughtful mood. As she herself was once a patient of IGH and owes her superpowers to their genetic tinkering, doesn’t this also mean that she is also a target for this “monster”?
Attempting to crack open some repressed memories of the time of her operation, Jones finds that the people in her orbit have their own issues too. Lawyer Jeri Hogarth has been diagnosed with ALS and needs dirt on her partners to stop them using a loophole to force her out of her law firm; her building’s new superintendent is trying to get her evicted as he fears those with powers; and Trish’s relationship with anchor man Griffin Sinclair is hitting an icy patch due to her desperation to break the IGH story.
Soon their investigations lead them to doctor Leslie Hansen, who not only used to work for IGH, but worryingly has a charred skull hidden in the basement of her abandoned apartment. But after Trish puts out a request for the doctor on her talk show, it seems that Jessica finally has that lead she’s so desperate for. However, it’s not long before we discover that this woman claiming to be Hansen is actually the woman who has murdered both her and every other victim Jessica has come across the past few days. After disclosing a few uncomfortable truths about Jessica’s childhood treatment (she actually died at one point), the strange woman reveals that she also has super strength similar to Jones. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: your season 2 antagonist.
While it’s only been three episodes, it’s felt like season 2 has let it’s touch paper burn a little longer than usual, and I’m not entirely sure why. After all, revealing it’s central villain (i.e. the “monster” that’s been twisting people into human pretzels) after only a trio of episodes is actually kind of zippy once you remember that the previous season couldn’t actually get Kilgrave and Jessica face to face for ages. Still, while the season has been running a little slow, it’s still maintained a high level of set-up that kept all of its characters nicely busy. However, I will say that in some cases, some of the plot threads that are being spun seem like eventual, planned speed bumps to complicate the main plot. Hogath’s admission that she has a neurodegenerative disease (to a cameoing Foggy Nelson, no less) will no doubt cause the determined lawyer to look into the miracle company that gave Jessica her super abilities, and Trish’s desperate desire to be of some heroic use is already causing friction with her boyfriend. Further more, Jessica’s issues with powers-phobic building superintendent and sue happy P.I. rival, Pryce Cheng, are also all set to be major thorns in her side – but while these are all matters that’ll be picked up soon enough, the main narrative thread remains suitably gripping the more facts we get.
For a start, Jessica’s memories of a rampaging “meat faced” person during her time at IGH suggests that this is also the killer that’s conceivably been cleaning house, and as her investigation (and Trish’s media outreach) gets them an audience with Leslie Hansen, we discover that this monster is far more human that we have originally been led to believe.
Masquerading as the woman she’s long since murdered, the woman meets with Jessica during a tense climax that delivers some alarming truths. For a start, this woman is not only incredibly intense and owns something of a hair trigger temper (she gets especially outraged when Jones states she wishes she had died after the crash), but after revealing that the powers are actually a side-effect and not the main intention of IGH’s original work, this stranger shows off her own abilities and delivers a major butt whipping to the boss of Alias Investigations. While the production values of the Neflix shows tend to get a little iffy when sizable acts of super strength are involved (see isolated instances of Luke Cage), Jessica Jones has always treated it’s setpieces rather sparingly, which has led to them usually being way more effective when they actually happen. So rather than having Jones and her brand new antagonist (whoever she may be – although I think I can make an educated guess…) rip a bar apart to show off their abilities, the fight is much more subtle, focusing far more on tension and surprise rather than delivering a big, budget-consuming MCU-style example of destruction.
While the street-level drama of Jessica Jones still remains as gritty as ever, it’s good that the major plot thread is kicking into high gear. However, I can’t help but wonder how much it will be affected by all the other storylines waiting to be activated. After all, watching Trish get overly involved in catching a super powered killer, or seeing Hogarth involving herself for some sort of personal gain is all stuff that’s already occurred in the first season. Maybe the residual effects of the underperformance of both Iron Fist and The Defenders have gotten me all jumpy and has me trying to look for issues in Jessica Jones before they even appear. But despite my wariness of Netflix’s methods, “Sole Survivor” plays to Jessica’s real strengths – her detective skills.
Three episodes in and we find our brand new villain and a whole wealth of side-plots all installed and ready to go. Whether Jessica Jones can balance them better than some of the other Marvel shows remains to be seen, but despite some worries concerning the put falls suffered by other shows, this second season is building its threat rather nicely.
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