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Jessica Jones: AKA Pray for my Patsy

Chasing your dreams can be deadly. Especially when a creep with a science hard-on promises to make them real.

Trish is semi-conscious after being rescued from whatever weird science was played on her; meanwhile, Alisa steps into rampage mode when she discovers Karl's death.

This is a great episode of television. For some reason, that always seems to mean everyone is getting hurt. Poor Trish in a hospital bed, not knowing Alisa is coming for her. I actually felt for Dorothy – she seems powerfully impacted by the injuries Trish has sustained, enough to try to raise the olive branch with Jessica. (Jessica's look down at Dorothy's hand squeezing her shoulder in deep connection made me laugh out loud!) Trish apparently completely sleeps through the initial fight. When Trish wakes up in the hospital – the morgue actually – she shows she's still obsessed with death as a solution – Alisa needs to die. Jessica can't accept that solution because it means any powered person with a problem needs to die, and that's not a solution she can accept. The locale of that discussion might be a prophecy though; by the end of the episode Trish is seizing, and 'put her down' may very well be an epitaph.

Jeri's morality is more complicated. I loved the scene with the pawn shop owner, and her side of fries. It made very clear that Jeri doesn't care about stuff. When she fights to find the people who stole her life, she's fighting to get revenge for the wasted time she isn't going to get back. Jeri's good, however, at not getting her hands dirty (although we never saw the resolution of that business with her partners.) She deftly manipulates Inez, acting all the time like Jeri herself has been manipulated and as if she has feelings for Inez. Then she sits and waits in the car for the gunshot, and reports the shot to the cops. Inez and Shane have now had their lives destroyed.

Jessica is trying very hard to walk a very narrow but much more honest middle path in this episode. I loved that she's trying to work with the police, even the interaction with Sunday (Costa's partner). At the same time, she feels a powered woman with mental illness (and I think this is the first time she's characterized Alisa's condition as a mental illness) is not going to get a fair shake in prison (cough cough Dale) and doesn't want to take the cut-her-off-completely pathway implied by the Raft. I wasn't sure where she was going by the end – I half-hoped that she'd be trying to confront her mother, with police backup. Instead she goes alone with Mr. Shooty. For me the saddest tragedy: they discover that Jessica has the power to manage her mother's rages, but only after Alisa has stepped over the line in attacking the people Jessica loves.

Alisa seems overwhelmed by the real world, now that she's escaped to kill Trish. Her oops with the studio, attacking the blonde instead, shows how out of place she is. Throughout the whole episode they're trying to find out where Mom is running. It turns out she's waiting for the moment when she can kidnap Jessica, so she can run, and maybe have a normal life. So as they go off in the Winnebago, Jessica's handicapped by sentimentality and having her brains knocked out by Mom; Alisa is beginning to accept she can't have a normal life in this world, and her solution is to run like hell. And poor Trish, who only wanted to do the things Jessica isn't with her powers (while failing to see completely how useless those powers can be sometimes) is seizing in bed with her mother watching, and the two sisters seem very far apart from each other physically and mentally.

Bits and Pieces

No sign of Malcolm this episode. I think he's getting a pattern here. Negative interaction with Trish and/or Jessica, lose an episode.

Trish tells Jess to get Simpson's suit, but what Jess gets is a gun.

The death of Sunday. She was a great officer while she lasted, but Jessica was right.

The moment between Trish and Dorothy, with Dorothy admitting how much further Trish has gone in life – it felt like one of a very few set of fully genuine moments from Dorothy. At the same time, for both Patsy and Alisa, love comes with an element of control. It's not pray for Trish and Jessica. It's pray for my Patsy and knock Jessica unconscious so we can get the heck out.

Quotables

Jessica: She always ended up pissing off all of her friends.

Morgue Guy: A celebrity got attacked by a crazy fan.
Morgue Guy 2: That's why I went to work in a morgue. To get away from all this noise.
Morgue Guy: Yeah. Dark times, but good for business.

Jeri: My trust is hard to win, and I gave it to you. And you crushed me.
Inez: For the record, I tried to leave that night and then you came home with frigging champagne.
Jeri: Oh, don't blame the champagne.

Overall

Life is the big bad. I remember Joss Whedon using that phrase for an episode of Buffy. This is what happens when you apply that principle to a world with superpowers, and the team is making it very strong and real for me. 5 out of 5 Simpson-gear bags.

4 comments:

  1. I can't believe they hid Trish in the morgue. Geez, no foreshadowing there. As Jessica confronted her killer of a mother in the dying Trish's apartment. As if we would actually believe Jessica could kill her mother in cold blood. The big question is, will they actually kill Trish, the most important person in Jessica's life? And if they do, what will it do to Jessica? I haven't seen the finale yet and I've been careful not to get spoiled.

    Wow. Jeri may be sick but she certainly hasn't changed. I almost liked her revenge on nursey and faith healer guy. Supply the gun, supply the reason, call 911, revenge accomplished.

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  2. My sympathy with Trish is at an all-time low. She's been selfish and carelessly endangered others. And I loved Trish last season! I guess a relapse into past behaviors is expected, but this hunger for powers of her own feels...almost like a betrayal of her Season 1 self, who was a confident and self-possessed woman.

    I do have sympathy for Jessica, even if I totally disagree with her road-tripping it with Alisa. It's delusional thinking, but I see where she's coming from. She's been betrayed and abandoned so many times, it's impossible not to feel for her.

    Jeri was great in this episode.

    Weird side-note, don't Jessica and Jeri look like they could be related? Jeri looks more like Jessica's mother than Alisa does. Not that I want them to do some weird-ass twist, it's just something I noticed.

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  3. I totally agree, Jonny, about Trish. My only forgiveness model for her involves remembering Trish was on the being-raped side of Kilgrave’s affections in the finale last year, AKA Smile. I feel that a lot of this goes back to that episode and her response to feelings of powerlessness. But on the other hand... she’s never mentioned it.

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  4. Trish will probably get those superpowers yet, but I can;t really tell if she will act as the cavalry or the next season atangonist. That makes me really excited for the finale.

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