Netflix Retrospective - Jessica Jones Season 2 Episodes 10-13

AKA 3 Lives and Counting

Jessica is distraught from having killed someone again and begins hearing voices in her head, including Kilgrave. She begins using a convenient bucket of cleaning stuff to stage the murder to make it look like a suicide. It’s honestly a pretty sloppy job too. She throws Dale off the roof to finish the deal and with that Kilgrave has established a presence in her mind.

Alisa is surprised when another guard feeds her breakfast, asking if it’s unusual for Holiday not to show up for work. She asks to make a phone call to Jessica and the guard agrees. Jessica arrives home and is quick to her booze as per usual. She spots some blood on her jeans and is quick to take off her clothes, she breaks down as her phone rings

Naturally it’s Alisa, this conversation is awkward on both ends. Jessica knows she can’t say too much, especially since the call is likely being monitored and Alisa knows she can’t imply anything either. Jessica takes a shower and feels Kilgrave in with her. An envelope is posted under the door, it’s the passport from Oscar. Kilgrave talks to her again, she tries to use her therapy mantra but it doesn’t work.

Jessica heads out to enact her plan with Dr Morris but of course Trish was there the night before. She breaks in and finds Morris gone. Kilgrave shows up again and helps her and provides some exposition as Jessica searches for clues. Jessica needs to find him before Alisa finds out or the police find him.

Regrettably, the first place she goes is the prison where the talk of the day is Holiday’s suicide. Alisa manages to convince the new guards to leave her and Jessica alone. Alisa immediately suspects Trish, although Jessica is immediately adamant that it isn’t. Jessica makes a promise we all know she can’t keep.

Kilgrave resurfaces to point out that Trish is a possible candidate, although Jessica says it’s because of the drugs. Kilgrave continues to taunt her at home, opening her laptop and finding the location data of Morris still on the screen. Jessica bursts into Malcolm’s room but finds him gone and Trish’s sunglasses in the room. She uses the location of some of Malcolm’s ‘dates’ to try and find something.

Trish is in the process of helping Dr Morris recover some of his stuff from a storage facility. You’re gonna f*cking love where this is going. In fact, let’s get this out this, Trish has become an awful human being and will continue to be for the remaining episodes of this series. Turning Karl in, exposing his work or hell, even killing him might have kept her likeable but instead but instead she wants to revive his project to get superpowers for herself, and it’s hard not to get the impression that that’s all ANY OF THIS has been about.

One of Patsy’s fans takes a photo of them, she’s there for the sole reason that Jessica will use this photo to start tracking them, or so you might think, it’s actually entirely pointless. Jessica phones all Malcolm’s girlfriends, claiming he’s an addict back on the drugs and using their location data to narrow down the search. Malcolm manages to escape the trunk but Trish confronts him with a loaded gun, which she proves she will use, even if not to kill him directly. Jessica confronts them but is unable to stop them.

Alisa is growing more and more agitated, but seems to calm down a little watching a documentary the guard had on, the ocean calms her but it also reminds her of Dr Morris. It’s around the time they closed the clinic down, Morris cites that its because he can’t trust the other scientists. He offers to buy them a place for the two to live, which is what they’d been doing since.

Jessica and Malcolm argue a little as 2 Kilgraves start addling with Jessica’s mind, as if one wasn’t bad enough. I jest, Kilgrave was one of the best parts of the last series and Alisa really isn’t filling in his shoes. Partly because the end is a forgone conclusion by this point. Malcolm finds that they bought something from a veterinarian. Jessica interrogates one of the staff, permanently locking her in a dog kennel and concludes they’re not planning the replicate the inhaler.

Yup, turns out Trish wants the experiments to be performed on her, she wants Morris to give her powers. Morris warns that the procedure unlocks stuff coded into her DNA so what powers she actually gets, if any, would be a crapshoot, if she even survives the process. Kilgrave is growing stronger in Jessica’s mind, appearing basically everywhere, which leads to her randomly assaulting a guy on the street. Malcolm stays behind to sort that out as Jessica heads to the IGH facility

Unfortunately, the procedure has already begun. Jessica manages to interrupt it but Trish is not in a good way. Jessica shouts angrily at Morris, goaded on by Kilgrave. She stops shy of killing him, taking Trish to the hospital. But Karl takes the gun from Trish’s bag and decides to shoot the chemicals in the lab, blowing up the facility with him inside. All of this could’ve been avoided if Trish hadn’t been a selfish prick, just sayin’.

Trish is taken to the hospital, and Jessica decides she can’t standing facing Malcolm any more, he quits at the same time. Jessica eventually gets Kilgrave to f*ck off but of course news of the lab explosion reaches Alisa and so does the news of Morris’ death. She’s distraught and the guard goes to check on her, a fatal mistake as it turns out. Alisa breaks out of prison.

OK, so Jessica’s stuff with Kilgrave is entertaining but ultimately filler. The only major plotpoints in this episode are Morris’ death and the breakout, Trish is at her absolute worst in this episode and there’s a disturbing lack of Hogarth. Yeah, I don’t like this episode

Rating 5/10

AKA Pray for My Patsy

Jessica and Dorothy are by Jessica’s bedside, they don’t know what’s going to happen to Trish. For once Dorothy is not an asshole… This will last all of 5 minutes… Jessica gets a call from Detective Costa as we see that Alisa has smuggled herself out of prison in a laundry van and goes to find new clothes for herself.

She walks through the New York streets, barely able to keep her composure, especially seeing Trish’s face on a poster. Costa and his partner question Jessica but she doesn’t know anything. She begins reciting stuff from Dr Morris’ journal as Alisa breaks into the radio station with intent to kill Trish but she’s obviously not there

Dorothy manages to make things worse, back to her normal self then, by revealing Trish’s location on TV. I actually understand her intentions, she doesn’t know about Alisa yet and wants to control the narrative to keep her star alight. Alisa steals a caravan, somehow without the idiots noticing. Jessica is in the police car on the way to hospital when they hear about the attack at the radio station, with the car in traffic, Jessica breaks out and makes a run for it

And we’re back with Hogarth, calling various pawn shops to find the stuff that was stolen from her. She gets a call from someone who has some and finds her location. Alisa arrives at the hospital and interrogates a guard for Trish’s room. Jessica arrives just in time to stop her, managing to talk her down but the police arrive. Alisa escapes, but takes a bullet in the leg, and kills the other detective by jumping out the window with her.

Naturally this incident makes Dorothy change her tune on Jessica to a violent degree. And Costa is no longer tolerating Jessica either. They’ve brought Trish to the morgue and Trish, even only barely conscious continues the trend of being the worst part of the show

“All I do is try and save your ass and all you do is raise your expectations and make sure that I feel worthless”

Tell me that doesn’t describe the events of this entire f*cking season. I’ll give Trish this one positive, when Alisa calls and wants a place for them to meet, Trish volunteers her apartment. I think she at least knows who’s on the other line. But of course, she has Simpson’s gear and tells Jessica to use it to put her down.

Back with Hogarth, she arranges the purchase of a gun via Turk from Luke Cage. Neat. He agrees in exchange for a favour at a later time. Jessica heads into the ladies bathroom and escapes via convenient. She sneaks into a van filled with dead bodies and eventually scares the driver. Hogarth eventually confronts Inez. Hogarth convinces Inez that Shane had more on the side than just her and somewhat bigger a nest egg than she believed. She tells her Shane is a serial manipulator, using women like her and conning them into stealing money for him. She tells Inez to protect herself, giving her the gun.

Hogarth watches from her car as she confronts Shane with this new intel. Jessica arrives at Trish’s apartment, discovering Simpson’s weapons cache. The argument between and Inez intensifies until Inez finally kills Shane with the gun. Hogarth shows use that the files she claimed to have are fakes and reports the homicide to the police, concluding her revenge. This is my favourite part of the episode, Hogarth is an absolute bitch but ultimately against people who have completely destroyed her

Trish’s body begins to spaz out as Alisa arrives at Trish’s apartment. Jessica confronts her with a gun. Alisa tries to talk her down, saying that Jessica can break through. Jessica tells her to go to the raft or die but Alisa has nothing else to live for without Jessica and Jessica can’t go through with shooting her, Alisa knocks her out. The episode ends with them driving away in the caravan.

Hogarth’s revenge is the redeeming feature of this episode, my mockery aside, her subplot has been the most consistently good of the series. I’ll hold off my thoughts on the main arc for the final episode but Trish has officially exhausted any good will I had towards her.

Rating 6/10

AKA Playland

Alright, series finale time. Jessica wakes up to the sound of tape. It’s Alisa patching up her leg. Jessica finds that they’re in a caravan in the middle of nowhere. Alisa doesn’t want to go back to prison, she’s sick of being locked up but thinks with Jessica able to reach her, she may able to live again. If you see the flaw in this, wait, it will dawn on her.

Yeah, if you’re also getting Kilgrave vibes with what she wants, yeah, I can see them too. Which is why Jessica is far from happy with this idea. A car approaches and Jessica gets Alisa back in the van, before sending the guy on his way

Dorothy manages to wake Trish up… And gives her a much-needed reality check. These are things she really needs to hear but coming from Dorothy’s mouth… I want to punch both of them, hard and repeatedly, and I don’t care that Trish is weak and barely conscious. I’ll say this, at least she isn’t bad-mouthing Jessica for this scene.

More of Alisa trying to convince Jessica to join her… Cut to Malcolm finishing up Jessica’s apartments for the 50 millionth time, then handing over his key and immediately calling Linda Chao to deal with the Hogarth subplot that’s been dormant for most of the series. He shaves his hair and puts on a smart suit

Jessica and Alisa come across random burning wreckage, the two work together to rescue the survivors, they see that the truck driver is also alive, but being so close to the wreckage, Alisa has the better chance of surviving it. The truck explodes and briefly we have the blessed idea of Alisa being dead, crushed soon after. Jessica is relieved and the two hug

Hogarth is doing Yoga after her epic revenge when she gets a knock at the door. It’s Malcolm who reveals in the meeting with Chao, he stole her laptop. Back with Jessica, that set-piece has convinced her to try but with what happened, they need to head to the border asap. Alisa is ecstatic. Jessica makes a call to Oscar. Oscar is having trouble believing that this is what Jessica wants and he’s not wrong to believe that. When it’s family, people tend to forgive a lot, perhaps more than they should. Just look at the relationship between Trish and Dorothy… And yes, that relationship is part of the reason why Trish comes off as extremely unlikeable this season.

Jess soon notices a wire tap on one of the patrons, and realises the police have worked out their relationship from the paintings and have followed them. They’re not acting, because they want Jessica to lead them to Alisa and Oscar advises that she does so. Jessica makes a run for it, using a truck to hide her escape from the cops. Lucky the dump site was right where the caravan was parked.

Hogarth goes to her place of business and now we see what Malcolm’s plan was. He spoke to Chao about laundering drug money. Hogarth threatens to release the tape and send all their clients running scared unless they double the offer and let her leave with all her billable clients, including Rand. Yup, she’s a badass and I love it. Unfortunately for Malcolm although she’s grateful she won’t hire him as a PI, given his lack of experience.

Jessica and Alisa soon have to swerve to avoid a roadblock and find a phone, belonging to the child they rescued earlier, ringing, it’s Detective Costa. He begs her to stop but it’s enough that she picked up, as they managed to trace their location. Alisa is beginning to doubt her intentions, she doesn’t want to get Jessica killed.

Costa asks Trish where they might’ve hidden, and of course this is where Trish realises where Jessica might be going. It’s an old theme park, with a Ferris wheel that it was their thing. Alisa heads to the ferris wheel, telling Jessica to walk away. She turns it on, knowing that it’ll lead the cops right to them. Alisa says goodbye as she waits for the cops but is soon shot by Trish.

Jessica jumps down from the Ferris wheel, pushing Trish away and grabbing the gun. Trish’s intention was to stop the police shooting both of them, not sure if this redeems her but it’s something, I guess… Jess grabs the gun and tells Trish to run, so the narrative from the cops’ perspective is that Jessica is ultimately the one who killed her. Considering they were on a moving ferris wheel, that was a fantastic shot.

The police arrive, with Costa telling Jessica she did the right thing.

Jessica is back doing work as a PI, and spending her earnings on booze. A robber attempts to rob the place and Jessica stops him. She arrives home to find Trish waiting for her and… Jessica can barely look at her at this point and I can’t say that I blame her. Trish drops her phone and manages to catch it with her foot. This implies she may have gotten powers

Hogarth is busy setting up her new establishment and has formally hired Pryce Chang and his knew associate Malcolm for the kind of sh*t Jessica might object to. I’m not sure if I care for giving Chang a position of victory after all the sh*t he pulled this season. Jessica finds she can’t concentrate, after having lost pretty much everything.

So she finally agrees to have dinner with Oscar and Vido and can actually smile when reciting the story of how she broke up the robbery earlier.

So this was Jessica Jones season 2. Jessica’s character arc is a fairly solid one, with the ending providing a deal of closure in spite of everything she lost. Alisa, compared to Kilgrave is a step down, it would’ve always been difficult to top him though, especially given the relationship between them. Maybe she is still a little too similar, especially in this episode. Her ultimate fate was basically a given, especially with this show’s tone.

Trish’s arc makes me hope for season 3 to give her a taste of what it’s like being Jessica. She does suffer in this season, but she suffers for her own actions, never for what she inflicts on others. It’ll be interesting to see where she goes from here.

Hogarth’s arc was the standout of the season, thanks in part to a fantastic performance by Carrie Ann Moss.

What killed this season really was the pacing, it is far too slow to get anywhere and perhaps could’ve done with being trimmed a couple of episodes.

Rating 7.5/10