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Jessica Jones: AKA Sole Survivor

"There is dirt everywhere. You just have to know where to look."

The theme of this episode, as indicated by the quote above, is dirt.

Everyone's got dirt and dirt is everywhere, both literally and figuratively. In Jessica's latest dream, she is lying on her bed and dirt is slowly falling from the ceiling and on top of her. Later, it's dirt that helps her find the name of doctor Leslie Hansen, and it's the complete lack of it on Hansen's apartment that tells Jessica that something is off. Nothing can be that clean (she's never been to my mother's place, obviously).

Jessica also digs dirt for a living. She is quick to look into people's past and present to evaluate them. She did that with Sinclair – although she probably missed something there – and she does it with Oscar, the super that's giving her a hard time. She has no ill intent, though. She means no harm to Oscar, she just wants him out of her way. She only wants to make sure Trish will be fine. And later when she agrees to investigating Jeri's partners, it's because she cares about Jeri.

We finally learned what Jeri has been diagnosed with and it's not pretty: ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). What's worse is that her associates can kick her out of the firm because of it. No, wait a second, that's not worse, that's what Jeri is treating as worse. She knows that what the future holds for her ain't pretty – she even calls it a horrorshow – but she believes that her legacy is all that matters. I believe that's a coping mechanism, though. Jeri can't fight the disease – it's a done deal – but she can fight her associates. And so she will.

Jeri and Jessica shared a powerful scene as Jeri asked Jessica to help her. One is wealthy, the other is plebeian, but when it comes to the basics, they are both very similar women. They take shit from no one and they know how to hold their ground. They are also very lonely, but as of now Jeri is lonelier. Jessica has Trish and Malcolm, Jeri has no one. Unless you count Jessica, which is the person Jeri turned for help. She had someone but she destroyed that, and now she lives with the guilt and the fear that there will be no one for her when her "horrorshow" begins.

Onto Sinclair, I usually have trouble trusting a new character that, when introduced, is already in a romantic relationship with a main character. It's like we skipped stages, missed an important part of the story, and that immediately casts a shadow of suspicion over the new character. But I kind of didn't mind Sinclair until Jessica caught him sneaking into Trish's files last episode. And now we have confirmation that there is something shady going on with him. What is he up too? Jessica already did her research on him and found nothing, so my guess is that he wants to steal Trish's story. He keeps telling her to dig deeper, after all.

I have been enjoying Trish's direct involvement in the main arc this season, and how aware she is that this is their case, not only Jessica's. Jessica might prefer to fly solo, but this episode showed how valuable the help from Trish and Malcolm is. Whatever dirt Jessica has in her own life, from what IGH and Kilgrave did to her, it's by going after the ghosts from her past with the help of her allies that she will be able to find peace and know in her heart what she wants to be true: that she is not a monster.

Bits and Pieces

- Doctor Hansen is dead and the woman that pretended to be her is superpowered like Jessica. Very interesting. Was she the one who killed Simpson? She said Jessica died, they brought her back and the powers were a side effect.

- "Sole survivor" refers to Jessica, the only one who survived the car accident that killed her family. Except that she now learned that she didn't survive.

- In Jessica's dream, the light from the outside turned purple and then the monster appeared. Is all of this a reference to Kilgrave? Is the monster Jessica herself?

- I love the opening credits so much that I watch them at least twice every episode. Those colors, that guitar solo, the drums. It's delicious.

- Another thing I love: how unapologetically feminist the show is. Trish addresses Sinclair's sexist remark right away and Jeri refers to God as a "she."

- I've been enjoying Jessica and Oscar's bickering, but I didn't like Oscar asking her if everyone that mattered had run away from her. That's pretty insensitive.

- Minor continuity mistake:


- Jessica said "my past is killing people now, so I don't have an option [but to do something about it]," which is consistent with what she said to Matt Murdock when he was hiding his past from her and the other defenders.

- Foggy! Foggy made an appearance on Jessica Jones. Yay! But, man, Jeri was so rude to him. Jeri, he is not an asshole like yourself and your partners. He means well.

- Jeri's exact words to Foggy were: "Exercise some goddamn discretion and bury your head in the sand, because that's where it belongs, instead of up my ass." That was so brutal. Poor Foggy. I hope that's not his only scene on the season, he deserves better.

Quotes

Jessica: "Can I have another pillow?"
Trish: "You have seven pillows."

Jessica (re: Trish and Sinclair about to have an argument): "Aren't relationships great?"

Malcolm: "You've been working. So have I."
Jessica: "What do you want, a drumroll?"

Jessica: "People don't usually panic at the sight of a cop unless they've ridden in the back of a cruiser."

Jessica: "You have often needed protection from your own vagina."

Malcolm: "Next time you plan to objectify me, at least tell me first."

Sinclair: "I've survived this long without having my dick shot off."
Priorities.

Jeri: "Never been to your place of business."
Jessica: "Bucket list complete."

Jeri: "If I believed in God, I'd say her sense of humor is for shit."

A solid installment of this delicious TV series. Three out of four identified skulls.
--
Lamounier

4 comments:

  1. I, at least, find Trish to be almost unbearably annoying, especially in this latest series. Can’t give things away, but two-thirds through and she’s only getting worse. I’m hoping she’ll have to sacrifice herself to save Jessica or something....

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  2. NomadUK - Go read "I don't want to F*** Him, I want to be him" over on Tor.com - - - may put her into perspective. I thought it was an interesting read.
    Sooze

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  3. The Foggy scene felt like a cameo to stop people from complaining that he's been forgotten. I hope he gets more scenes but I doubt it.

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  4. "- Another thing I love: how unapologetically feminist the show is. Trish addresses Sinclair's sexist remark right away and Jeri refers to God as a "she.""

    It is quite refreshing to see a show with such a strong, but nuanced feminist message. You can clearly see the 'all men are potential threats' mindset, which as a male viewer, feels quite uncomfortable. It would be easy for the show to devolve into man-bashing, but I think the show adeptly walks the fine line. For example, while Simpson is definitely a hyper-masculine threat, he is not an outright evil dude, but a victim of the same organisation that made Jessica into a powered person. Similarly, Sinclair's remark that Trish shouldn't put herself in harm's way is initially viewed as just plain boring sexism, but then he reveals that his ex left him because he was always in danger, and he's afraid that history will repeat itself. (That might turn out to be a manipulative lie, since he's obviously evil, but I haven't watched beyond this episode.)

    In my opinion, this puts the show in a long line of ever-evolving feminist storytelling. It is not enough anymore to have "strong female characters" who battle sexist villains to save the world: we want our shows to go a bit further and delve into the minds of our antagonists.

    Except Killgrave. He was about as one-dimensionally evil as possible. It's even more astonishing how the show could remain so even-handed elsewhere when the first season was essentially about escaping from an abusive boyfriend.

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