We are in the same universe of Daredevil, taking place in the same city, right after the events of the first season, introducing also a couple of new characters that appear in season 2, as well as opening up the way to new shows that will be released by Netflix in the next months. Therefore, before focusing on this show, I have the chance to point out a good aspect of this new Netflix policy. They started with Daredevil (that is amazing), that has some common characters with Jessica Jones, that introduces few heroes and villains appearing in future shows. This is a smart move by itself to capture the fans and it is also executed in the best possible way. You can easily follow every single one of these shows separately, without losing any information vital to the plot (at worst you don't get some reference, but it really doesn't matter). The other analog that is coming to my mind is The Flash/Arrow/others universe, doing more or less the same thing, but in a bad way. In fact, if you don't see all the shows, you miss something in the plot, you lose some important information. Or also, to leave the superhero madness for a second, in the Chicago Fire+spinoffs production, it just happens that you miss important parts of the plot, understandable to attract viewers to the smaller shows, but sometimes you don't have the time for the smaller shows. You know, sometimes you see people and go places.
This huge amount of superheroes on TV and in the movies will be a reason for a future post as soon as I find something interesting to say about it.
Going on topic, Jessica Jones is a private investigator with superpowers and a huge drinking problem. She was traumatized by some mysterious event and she lives as an outcast, essentially being for some aspects a bad person. The style of the narration is very similar to the Daredevil's one, thus giving us a product of good quality, a nice plot and, most of all, a truly terrifying villain.
One of the aspects that caught my attention is that, probably for the first time in recent years, the authors make us live the drama of the victim of a rape. The traumatizing event, that, besides the origin story, defines the essence of the main character, also involved rape. It is fully acknowledged by the victim, never by the rapist. I found this a very powerful message that was somehow lacking in other shows. For example, the rape of Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones has basically no consequences on the poor Sansa, while we move our attention to the drama that Theon Greyjoy is living for looking at that rape. It makes no sense on a human level. Here we are, as it should be, fully focused on Jessica's problem, on how her life changed for that event, her pain, her rage, her need to escape.
If on one side we have Jessica dealing with the consequences of her actions, on the other we have Kilgrave, the villain that never cared about them. He is very well constructed and presented, improving the show significantly. He is extremely scary for the entire season not only because his power, mind control, is so potentially devastating (and we see the effects on how broken Jessica is) but also because he is clearly a selfish spoiled prick. He is so human to be the perfect incarnation of evil. He acts only for his own interest, stepping on everyone else, killing everyone, ruining their lives. He also tries to justify himself with a horrible childhood, but it turns out it wasn't true that either (and it was brilliant).
So far it seems a show that will be remembered, a great show, so here come the bad aspects of it.
Starting from the end, the entire scene of Kilgrave's murder is absolutely underwhelming, the plot was clear since the very beginning, the scene has no tension at all. Although I appreciated the fact that Kilgrave, after being careful for 12 episodes and calling out Jessica's bluff, lowered his defenses to give up to his obsession (or, to say it better, to the realization of his obsession), they could have played that much better, considering the quality of the rest of the show. Also the fact that Jessica gets away with murder charges in like 3 minutes is way too rushed. In other words, they needed some extra time to make it right and the next point is where they could get it.
Agent Will Simmons is absolutely useless for the plot. He starts by being a random cop, victim of Kilgrave, then it turns out that is some super soldier on drugs, for no reasons at all he kills a detective (yes, there was a reason, but the transition is too damn fast), then he betrays his obscure organization in like 2 minutes and 10 minutes later he gets captured by them. The end. Yes, I know that he will be a villain in the Marvel universe and yes, I know that his drugs are somehow connected to Jessica's superpowers (another thing that is so stretched that not even Jessica cares about it), but I found his appearances a big waste of screen time since when he goes to the hospital.
Some people didn't like that there is no evolution in Jessica, only in who is around her. She is exactly the same person of episode 1. It is not necessarily a problem and probably we can see some change in the next season, but for some people can be unsettling since the evolution of the main character is something that canonically happens in all the superheroes' stories. I actually liked that, it is something different than the usual plot, it is extremely realistic: she killed her enemy, but she still feels miserable, her problems are still there.
To conclude, it is not a great show, but it is for sure enjoyable and made me very curious on how is Netflix going to play the multiple spinoffs coming out in the next few months, especially the one that is supposed to collect all these heroes in a TV version of the Avengers (The Defenders, coming out the next year).
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