Netflix Retrospective: Jessica Jones episodes 10-13 review

And our retrospective of Jessica Jones draws to a close, does the series end a high? Well, let's take a look

AKA 1000 cuts

When you have a villain like Kilgrave in a serious show like this, you can only afford to keep him alive for so long.

Today, Jessica had to tackle that ultimate question of whether the right thing is to kill Kilgrave as they deal with the imploding aftermath of his escape and her ability to fight him off.

I’ll give credit that pretty much everyone in this episode had something to do, including Robyn, but I’ll get to that. We even get a bit of development in the Simpson side-plot as he kills off the Detective and burns the facility down for reasons… I’ll get back to you if I work out exactly what they are. Also, Trish finds out about the pills.

We see the conclusion to the Hogarth side story as Jeri takes Kilgrave to her ex-wife for medical treatment. Because of Kilgrave’s abilities things quickly turn on their head as Jeri is injured, the ex-wife is killed by the current one who ends up in jail, disgusted at Jeri’s role in events.

We also see the end of Hope Shlottman as she is released from prison thanks to Kilgrave’s machinations but ends up his captive after Jessica is knocked out. She sacrifices herself to convince Jessica to kill Kilgrave and she finally agrees to. To be honest, I doubt there’s any other end for Kilgrave. It’d be too easy for him to escape prison; 1 guard is all it would take to let him out.

Meanwhile, Trish and Kilgrave’s father are using a blood sample from Jessica in order to create a potential vaccine for the ‘virus’ that Kilgrave emits. It’s seemingly successful but they don’t really try it on anyone so it’s difficult to tell.

So, Robyn’s back in the picture, and is annoying as ever. I’m glad they got the fact that Ruben was dead out of the way. This could’ve lingered like a bad soap opera plot. Not sure what she was thinking hitting Jessica over the head with a… Whatever it was. And how did she convince the others to attack her. Question her sure but this was an attack. Either way, she ended up as Kilgrave’s prisoner.

It’s a strong episode tying up a few threads and closing off a few plot-lines whilst leaving just enough for the final 3 to take centre stage.

Rating 8/10

AKA I’ve Got the Blues

Not quite the blues you’re probably thinking of though

So, this episode is pretty much entirely dedicated to the Simpson plot, you know the one that I had earlier said was a plot that just screamed TO BE CONTINUED IF WE GET A SEASON 2, so yeah… I didn’t like this episode very much

To be honest, I never really liked Simpson. To quote Robyn in this episode he’s an “a**hole at best, a zombie killer at worst” and was by far the least interesting of the Jessica Jones cast. I get where they were going with him but honestly I do not see the necessity of him even being in this season.

Look at his arc for the season. He was one of Kilgrave’s victims, he had a Kilgrave prison set up, after a failed attempt to capture him he started going on the warpath, ending up being injured in an explosion. His Doctor gives him pills which he uses to murder Detective Clements and generally be even more of an a**hole than usual.

Following the failed attempt to imprison Kilgrave, what would’ve been different if Simpson hadn’t been in the script. Absolutely f*ck all! I’ve praised this series for integrating its sub-plots much better than a show like Gotham did but this is the one exception. All I can say about Simpson is that he’s someone who can match Jessica on a physical level, but they don’t take advantage of that because Jessica is injured and takes a beating in the fight (plus, see my comments on the next episode)

But it’s not 100% about Simpson, just around 89%, the other 11% revolved around the aftermath of last week’s episode. Jessica believes that Kilgrave’s father is a dead man walking and is searching the morgues for him. She doesn’t find him, he’s not dead yet.

Oh and Robyn continues to be annoying as he drains all the hope out of Malcolm. Also, we see a little more of Jessica’s origin (specifically her friendship with Trish) but these are just footnotes in the main story revolving around the most annoying character they have (Robyn notwithstanding) oh and Kilgrave tells Luke Cage to blow up the bar, no biggie.

Rating 4/10

AKA Take a Bloody Number

This episode features the full on return of Luke Cage, and a battle between 2 opponents of similar strength, so I ask again, what was the point of Simpson?

This episode was more or less the tale of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones hunting down Kilgrave before his powers increase exponentially and he becomes unstoppable. Of course the bulk of the rest of the episode features Trish Walker finally confronting her mother, who has vital information that like the Simpson sub-plot in general, is not needed in this arc at all.

It’s at least something to see that Trish’s mother has developed from the selfish, disgusting excuse for a human being. Well, she’s still selfish but less disgusting. She wants to have a genuine relationship with her daughter and honestly makes genuine attempts to get it, providing her with critical intel about the program Simpson was a part of.

In the other sub-plot we find that Robyn had almost succeeded in making Malcolm an a**hole but effectively they turned each other around in this episode. It was sweet if a little uninteresting compared to everything else going on

So, let’s get to the big reveal here. Luke Cage was a puppet of Kilgrave the entire time and had been stringing Jessica along the entire episode pretty much. It was frankly a great twist in line with Kilgrave’s increasing powers, and implies he can influence people over the phone

Which all lead to another pretty brutal fight scene. There isn’t a lot of choreography in these kind of fights because both characters favour strength over technique. Trish’s fight with Simpson kinda demonstrated a better bit with this but.

But man oh man, Jessica ended that fight by shooting Luke in the head. I’m no idiot, we all know he’s gonna survive this, I think he has his own series coming out but that was one hell of a cliffhanger

Rating 8.5/10

AKA Smile

Anyone else disappointed that the serum didn’t give Kilgrave his notorious purple skin complexion like he has in the comics?

And the day will be saved by a Daredevil cameo! Sorry, couldn’t decide which opening to go with so I just put them both in.

Claire Temple, the nurse who healed Daredevil on several occasions makes an extended cameo in this episode. It’s actually quite refreshing, the fact that she’s an optimist in the face of everything that’s happening in her life is quite the contrast to pretty much everyone else. Her inclusion also helps form the interconnectedness of the two series although I would’ve preferred it if she’d made a cameo earlier in the season, there are plenty of scenes in hospitals that could’ve been used for this.

Meanwhile, it’s pretty much all down to the big showdown between Jessica and Kilgrave who bites the bullet with a serum to give him power over a massive distance. It’s also time to say goodbye to his father in a pretty gruesome way as his arms are removed from his body, whilst still alive mind you and put into one of those waste disposal pieces of equipment you get in a kitchen. It really wasn’t pleasant

Let’s talk about Tennant as Kilgrave because I don’t think I’ve really mentioned him much other than going over his actions. A lot of people, myself included, see Tennant as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor. Such a big part is hard to overlook but this is not the first time he’s played a mass-murdering psychopath. He played Barty Crouch Jr in the Harry Potter series. Some of his dialogue does come off as a bit Doctor-ish, particularly if he goes off on a tangent during a speech. But he pulled it off, Kilgrave is intimidating, particularly psychologically and that is at least in part down to Tennant’s portrayal of the character.

But there is a problem. Because of the spontaneity of his personality, he doesn’t have an agenda, no overall grand design (aside having Jessica love him, but he ignored that on several occasions) his threat doesn’t escalate until the final couple of episodes, so the tension doesn’t build up as well. As such pacing also was an issue, hence the need to stuff the series with subplots, including the one with Simpson.

Having said that, it’s fitting for something that focuses more on personal drama than superhero action would have a villain like Kilgrave. We also get some interesting closure to Jeri’s story as she fights disbarment and defends Jessica who killed Kilgrave in the end. I actually think the closure they put on the main story whilst leaving the open ends works pretty well.

A strong series indeed, not as good as Daredevil in my opinion but it’s a very different sort of show. Its strengths come when it’s focused on Jessica, and less on the side characters. But it’s a strong foundation on which new things can be built

Rating 8.5/10

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Images/clips used in this review are from Marvel's Jessica Jones and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use