Jessica Jones S01 E02 – Awkward ’cause of sex.

Previously: We fell in love with Jessica Jones and were horrified by David Tennant.
—

AKA Crush Syndrome

Samantha: I love this shooooooooooow. Okay. We open with the Marvel logo and the pretty and disarming credits. I love how the music starts kind of low key and quaint and then builds into this more rock thing.

Credits over, Jessica Jones is sitting in a police interrogation room. A detective comes in and she tells him that she’s not sure how much more she can tell him. He comments on her tension and she’s basically like “Yeah. I watched people get murdered by an abused and controlled girl at the end of last episode. Of course I am.” He asks how she got in touch with the Shlottman’s and how she found Hope. She fidgets and snarks her way through the questioning. When asked why she had an overnight bag she deadpans that she was going to Pennsylvania for the antiquing. The dectective plays along for a bit before asking how a girl like Hope gets a gun. “Walmart?” Jessica asks and I loved that. It was an unregistered gun though, so Jessica offers “some asshole” as her next guess. The detective takes that as an opening to show her some of her own photos of Luke Cage, wondering if it could be this asshole. Jessica deduces that they went through her office and the interview deteriorates from there. “The only thing you can charge me with is trying to make a goddamn living in this goddamn city,” Jessica says before storming out.

Cut to the street, where Jessica is getting out of a cab. She grimaces as she sees a NYPD car outside of Luke’s bar. She watches through the window as the detectives show Luke the photos she took of him. She looks anxious and horrified as she waits for them to leave. Legit, girl. This is about to get awkward. (M: Surprise! I saw you getting naked before I saw you getting naked.) She heads inside and Luke says that they aren’t open. She tries to explain, and tells him that she told the cops he wasn’t involved. Hilariously, an old man in the background eyes them and makes the decision to move to the other side of the bar. Jess (can I call her Jess?) (M: It’s so weird that the other Jess we have on this site is Wakefield…) (S: Oh man, I would love this Jess to meet that Jess.) says that she was hired by a man who suspected that his wife was cheating. Luke claims he doesn’t sleep with married women cause he ain’t got time for that dramz. JJ inform him that Gina (I believe the woman we saw him with last episode) takes her wedding ring off before she comes to see him. Luke wonders if Jessica Jones only came up to his place as part of the job. She admits that she shouldn’t have done that. “Because it’s messed up, or because you got caught?” Luke wants to know. “Both,” Jessica honestly responds. Luke kicks her out.

    Jess gets out of the shower and stands in front of the mirror to get her voice over on. “It’s better, being alone,” she tells us. “It’s safer, with Kilgrave out there.” She spots a cockroach on the wall and okay you guys. I’m going to do my best recapping this scene but I squicked and blerghed a lot having to watch this again because djfkdjfkjdnfkjwdf bugs. She flicks it into her pink sink while continuing to think about Kilgrave. “He cheated death. How?” As she wonders this the cockroach makes it down the drain, thereby cheating death, because Kilgrave is a cockroach. And honestly that’s more mean to cockroaches.

Marines: I hate cockroaches so much and none of them should cheat death, whether Kilgrave or otherwise. 

Samantha: JJ walks into the jail and is asked to sign in. She does it much faster than me because I always have to stop and wonder what the date/time is and then fumble for my phone to check. (M: Every. single. time.) She heads into an interview room to talk to Hope. She starts desperately peppering Hope with questions about Kilgrave but Hope doesn’t answer. After Jessica gets pretty disheartened Hope looks at her and asks if she’s a good jumper. Jessica is startled and Hope continues that he made her jump for hours but she was never as good as Jessica. She tearfully says that her 12 year old brother is all alone now. Jess tells her that it’s not her fault. “I know,” Hope says, “It’s yours.” I gasp a little because oof but Jessica doesn’t flinch.

Hope says that Kilgrave told her that Jessica left him there to die, and it’s her fault because she should have stayed to make sure. This seems to verify to Jess that he wants to make her suffer and she wants to know if he’s injured so she can get him. Hope freaks out because she can’t get him, he’ll control her too. Jessica tries to calm her down because the gaurds are taking notice. She swears that she won’t let him. Hope gazes at her and says, “You should kill yourself.” “Probably,” Jessica responds, “but I’m the only one that knows you’re innocent.” She leaves the room as Hope cries and a doctor tries to give her meds.

It’s interesting, I hadn’t even considered that people might not believe that Kilgrave was behind all of this. We were so intimately involved last episode, and Trish was so on board, that it seemed obvious that Hope wouldn’t go down for killing her parents. Realizing that people don’t know/believe in Kilgrave and his abilities makes everything even worse.

Mari: Agreed! I think they did such a phenomenal job of immediately feeding us the world in a way that we bought it as viewers that this moment of, “OF COURSE people won’t automatically buy mind control” was jarring and a little heartbreaking. It means Kilgrave’s victims also have to deal with the fact that people won’t believe them and that is an additional layer of awful.

Samantha: Cut to Jessica in Jeri Hogarth’s office, where the latter is saying that Hope is definitely guilty. Jess tries to explain that she wasn’t in her right mind and Jeri makes the comparison to driving drunk and how you’re still responsible. Sure, but I don’t think that applies here. If I’m understanding Kilgrave’s power accurately, he literally controls you. There’s no will or decision on the victims part. The secretary, Pam, whom we saw hooking up with Hogarth last episode, opens the door to tell her that her wife is on the phone. Jeri says she’ll call back. Jess insists that Hope wasn’t responsible but Jeri scoffs at the idea of someone with Kilgrave’s abilities being real. Pam is still hanging out in the doorway and as Jessica closes the door on her, we hear her say that Jeri’s wife is freaking out. Jeri insists that she doesn’t take Loser Cases. “If there really was a man who could influence people like that, I would hire him to do all my jury selections,” Jeri says, and Jessica freak out a little. She yells that it’s not a joke and Jeri finally seems to really pay attention to her. Jessica says that she’ll prove he exists and she’ll owe Jeri a favor. And with that, we seem to have a bargain. Pam comes back and tells Jeri to talk to her wife because she knows. Lots of awkward due to sex in this episode.

Jessica gets out of a cab to find Trish waiting for her. Trish is pissed, because she texted Jessica six times. Hilariously, that sounds like a lot of restraint to me. If I was hella worried about my bff there would be so many more texts. Jessica says her phone is dead, but Trish presses because the last she heard, Jessica was headed out of town. JJ does her thing of non-answering but it doesn’t matter because Trish saw the news and she’s scared for her bestie. “Don’t have feelings, okay?” Jessica says and honestly I think she’s telling herself that as much as Trish. I’m definitely not chanting that to myself as I make my way through these episodes. Not at all. Trish pleads for a minute of Jessica’s time and Kristen Ritter acts the shit out of some facial expressions. You can just see her fear and frustration and also how much she cares about Trish. A+.

They head into JJ’s apartment and there’s some cute friend banter before Jessica hands Trish an envelope of the money that she owes her. Jessica explains that she’s going to find Kilgrave’s weakness, prove that Hope is innocent, and put Kilgrave away. Raise your hand if you think it’s gonna go down that easy? (M: Big sigh.) Trish wants Jessica to move in with her again (interesting) because she has a security system, a doorman, and a door that actually locks. Jessica’s like “That’s cute but he can literally control the doorman with his mind so.” She also expresses how scared she is all the time, everywhere she goes.

    Mari: Feels on feels. We’ve seen Jessica mostly mask this constant fear with sarcasm and aggressive behavior. It makes so much sense for her to push people away this way, but I LOVE that it’s because she cares about people. It’s because she’s scared. It’s because the person who is after her? His weapon IS people.

Samantha: Jessica wants Trish to steer clear of her because she can’t risk losing her. Trish goes to leave when, looking like she’s fighting a battle with herself, Jessica calls out, “It had the name on it. The door. Alias Investigations.” Trish smiles and says she likes it, so maybe comic people already know the meaning here but I don’t. I just liked the moment.

Luke Cage’s Bar of Sexual Tension. Luke starts unloading liquor while Gina asks for a Long Island Iced Tea. It is daylight outside. I wish I had nothing going on and could drink a Long Island in the daylight. Luke coldly tells her that they’re all out, but homegirl doesn’t take the hint and wants to go straight upstairs. Luke lets her know that he knows she’s married and her face goes from shocked to “okay, okay, I can fix this.” She insists that her marriage is over and her husband doesn’t care. Luke’s all “uh, he hired a PI named Jessica Jones so he probably maybe cares, you know?” She looks panicked and flees.

Jessica’s Apartment. She takes down a file folder and dumps its contents on the desk. It has newspaper clippings about a bus accident, including one about a woman who was killed. There’s also a picture of Luke Cage at a grave-site. Jess’s Feels and Thinking Session is interrupted by lots of noise coming from the apartment above hers. She storms out of her apartment, past Malcolm the druggie who lives in her hall, and up the stairs. I avoid confrontation like I avoid members of my family when they have a cold, so I can’t even imagine not putting on some headphones with some white noise.

Mari: I don’t really seek out confrontation, but once I’m in it, I shine? Is that weird? I’m really good at confrontation. I’m a really good hypewoman too, so I’d be standing behind Jessica saying encouraging things and looking menacing.

Samantha: Not weird Mari, awesome. Awesomesauce even.

But our Jessica bangs hard on their door where deranged shrieking about salmonella is coming from. A youngish man open the door and Jessica says to shut.up. A youngish woman comes into view and says “Mind your own business. Lush.”  Oh my god you guys, I hate this woman in a visceral way, I don’t know what it is. The weird couple starts arguing about asking Jessica’s opinion on cordon bleu and Jess tells them to zip it. When the woman tells her to go to hell, Jessica busts open the door and grabs her. She shoves her roughly against the wall.

She also tells her, “I don’t give a bag of dicks what kinky shit you’re into. Just be into it quietly.” I know that it’s wrong to use violence and physical intimidation but holy shit that was satisfying because I weirdly hate this lady.

Mari: I think it also plays to the little, little part of us that has ever wished we could intimidate an annoying neighbor or coworker or random person.

Samantha: Jessica storms away and we see that the man is just wearing a shirt and tightie whities. “Get inside,” the woman says, “you’re naked.” Uh. Except for the part where he’s not? Anastasia Steele is that you? (M: A+)

Back in her office, Jessica stares mournfully at a clipping about the bus accident. This send us into a flashback, where Jessica is stumbling away from a shouting Kilgrave. “Come back here!” he yells at her, as she confusedly walks away with blood on her hands. As he walks after her into the street, a bus swerves to avoid hitting him. It flips over and its back end hits him and he goes flying.

Cut to the present, where Jessica now stands on the street, staring at the spot that the flashback just went down. She approaches a mechanic and asks where the nearest hospital is for if she, oh I dunno, got hit by a bus around here. He makes some jokes before telling her the name of a local hospital. She doesn’t say thank you so the man yells, “Rude girl is lonely girl,” after her. Jessica continues to be my hero by calling back, “Counting on it.” 

Jessica heads into the hospital and creeps around a Nurse’s Station. She learns that you need an access card to get into the computers. She sneaks into a locker room and rips a lock off of the nearest locker. She dismisses the contents and her phone starts ringing. Side note: I really like that her ringer is just an old school classic ring. Lends to the noir vibe in a subtle lovely way. The call is from Trish and she ignores it. She busts into another locker and finds the kind of badge she needs, but groans in disgust at something else inside.

Cut to Jessica walking down a hallway in bright pink scrubs with multi colored hearts. She tries her hand at the computer but ends up asking another nurse for help. She acts a little perky and a little flighty as she explains to the harried nurse that it’s her first day and she can’t figure out the computers. She claims that “Dr. Carter” already hates her. The nurse asks her where she’s from and this happens:

I chuckle. This isn’t a show that would work with a lot of Pop Culture references, in contrast to a show like Supernatural. But, this one is tiny enough to not hurt the vibe. (M: They also picked a show that’s been on for 10 years. It’s a good, general reference.) The nurse wonders why a cancer doctor wants ER records but Jessica claims that she didn’t ask. The nurse grumbles that he’s probably testing her and this frustration at doctors from nurses is so legit. They access the night of the bus crash but only two people are listed as having come through: the bus driver with cuts and bruises and a woman DOA. Jessica prints the file and heads out.

She takes the elevator up to her floor in her building, noticing the blood stains still on the ceiling from Hope’s parents. As she exits the elevator she sees that the door to her apartment is ajar and someone is rustling around. This is probably where I’d GTFO and call the cops but I do not have Jessica’s abilities. She busts in and knocks a man down. She tears through the apartment, checking every corner, while demanding to know who sent him. Turns out he was sent by Patricia Walker to fix her door. Wah wah wah. He’s bleeding from the leg and Jessica calls 911, looking upset. He calls her a lunatic but honestly, there was a strange man in her apartment in the dark. It’s not that crazy she attacked.

Mari: If you are the man with a bleeding leg wound right now, though, the person who caused it is the craziest. (S: Fair.)

Samantha: As the man is being loaded into an ambulance Jessica is, rightly I think, yelling at Trish. Trish defends herself by saying that she left Jess a message. Girl. You know you’re bff is a jumpy, super powered, PTSD survivor. Probably make certain she is informed before sending strange men to her apartment. As they talk, we cut over to Trish’s side of the conversation and see that she is at work and her arms are covered in bruises. She covers up as people walk into her studio and the girls continue to argue. Jess hits a low blow when she tells Trish that she is turning into her mother. As she hangs up, Creepy Guy from the Creepy Upstairs Couple starts talking to her. “Sorry about the noise last night. But you sure calmed Robin down. Not even our parents could do that.” And that, my friends, is how we learn that the Creepy Couple are actually Creepy Twins. Jessica turns back to the ambulance and has an epiphany. She ignores Creepy Guy and leaves. (M: I would like to ignore Creepy Couple Twins as well.)

We get a cool transition shot of the city that’s just a little bit artful. Jessica sits on the subway and the lights flicker as she people watches. She is notably alone. She starts to have a PTSD flashback, highlighted by flickering subway lights, and we see Kilgrave’s sillhouette yelling “Come back here!” in her ear. She panics and smashes her fist into the subway glass, where his silhouette just was. People look on disapprovingly and she chants her “Birch Street, Main Street, Higgins Drive, Cobalt Lane” to calm down.

The next we see her, she is walking up to a house, when an older woman stops her to ask what she needs. Jess pleasantly replies that she just wants to talk to Jack Denton. She claims that she’s an investigator looking into the bus crash and knows that Jack drove one of the ambulances that was on the scene. The woman bitterly replies that Jack has nothing to say to “you people” because they turned their backs on him. Jessica expositions that Jack went AWOL from the accident scene and if she could understand why, maybe she could get the ruling on workers comp reversed (sad, necessary lies). “Maybe God sent you, maybe he didn’t,” the woman says as they head inside. Jack is hooked up to a large machine because he had a stroke. Mom says that, even though he’s young, he had one after he donated both of his kidneys. Crazy Mom seems to think this was noble and brave instead of insane and suspicious as fuck. He disappeared for 3 weeks and turned up half dead in an alley. Crazy Mom continues about what a blessing in disguise this all is because she lost her son to liquor and now he is returned to her. “You can never see God coming,” she says. Uh. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh. So then Crazy Mom asks Jessica to pray with them and her response is everything. Homegirl declines with, “I’m just getting over a cold.” I wanted to find a gif of this so badly.

She asks how they afford the expensive machine for Jack and Crazy Mom tells her that an anonymous donor sent it. Jessica asks Mom for some water and takes a picture of the machine’s information once she’s gone. She looks at Jack, face filled with pain, and says, “God didn’t do this. The devil did. And I’m gonna find him.” Jack can’t speak but he reaches for a pen and slowly starts writing something down. Jess sees the first 3 letters are KIL and assumes he’s trying to tell her about Kilgrave. But no, the reality is a thousand times more heartbreaking. He’s writing “KILL ME”. Jessica and I look at him in horror and she tells him that she can’t. He looks at her pleadingly and Crazy Mom gets angry with her for upsetting him. Jessica apologizes and leaves as Crazy Mom intones to Jack about God. That was a rough ending to that scene, you guys.

Jess is in her building on the phone with the company that makes the machine and they are being less than helpful. She tells them to give her a call first thing in the morning. As she enters the elevator the Creepy Twins are getting off of it. Creepy Lady tells Jessica to keep her hands off of her brother. “You’re all alone so you have to pick away at other peoples happiness.” Jessica responds, “Lady, you’re a very perceptive asshole.”

    She heads inside her apartment and is just getting ready to pour a drink when there’s knocking on the door. She cautiously answers it and it’s Gina. She wants to know why Jessica followed and took pictures of her and Luke when her husband definitely didn’t hire her. So, maybe I’m the last one here, but this surprised me. I never considered that Jessica wasn’t hired by someone and that adds a super weird creeptastic level to her taking pictures of them having sex. Also, more awkward interactions cause of sex.

Mari: You know, when she was taking pictures of them, I really didn’t get the impression that it was a job because she was having a lot of feelings about it. Plus, she picked up her camera and went when she couldn’t sleep. It seemed like something she was fighting, not supposed to be doing. But then, this whole part happened and I went, “oh. It was a job.” It didn’t occur to me that Jess was lying about it being a job, so it still surprised me.

Samantha: Gina bitches for awhile before telling Jess that her husband and his rugby league are all headed out to Luke’s to beat him up. She leaves and Jessica takes off.

She arrives at the bar just as the men start attacking Luke. Okay, so, this scene is just really cool. Luke and Jessica start kicking some major ass. Luke is knocking guys down with a deadpan expression like it ain’t no thang. Jessica is tossing guys across the room (causing Luke to make confused/intrigued face at her.) Luke just rolls his eyes as someone breaks a bottle on his head.

The husband tries to slice Luke’s neck with a broken bottle (uh, straight up murder?) but it can’t break the skin. Luke Jedi mind tricks the guy and tells him he’s had a lot to drink and doesn’t know what’s he’s seeing. After they leave, Luke storms over to Jessica.

He tells her to leave because she’s bad for business. This is a great juxtaposition to the first episode, where she was good for business.

Mari: Soon, she will have absolutely no effect on business and will maybe even be allowed to stay for more than one scene.

Samantha: It’s the next morning and she’s sleeping when her phone starts to ring. It’s the kidney machine people and Jessica ad libs that the machine isn’t “dialysising”. She asks for the name of who leases the machine, to authorize a service and these people give it to her? I feel like their should have been more steps to ensure she has any authority to this information? But okay, she has her information: Dr. David Kurata.

Mari: I find that when dealing with very small and specialized companies, sometimes the security is willy nilly because honestly, who the heck is trying to find out the name of a doctor who authorized a dialysis machine for nefarious reasons? 

Samantha: Interesting. You are right, outside of the world of TV Plots, no one.

Cut to a college classroom where a handful of students listen to Dr. Kurata talk about their most recent test. Our girl walks in and sits in the back but it’s hard to be inconspicuous when there’s hardly anyone there, as any late student knows. The good doctor stops mid lecture and takes off running. She chases him though the school and into a Basement of Don’t Go In There. She yell tells him that she’s not going to hurt him (um, bad guys always say that Jess). She wonders out loud why the best transplant surgeon in the area is teaching undergrad. She wants to know why he’s hiding and Dr. Kurata finally speaks from his hiding spot. “Is he here?” Goosebumps. She knows that he forged the death certificate for Kilgrave but Kurata only questions again if Kilgrave is with her. He had pictures of Jessica and was obsessed with her.

Jessica tells him that Kilgrave isn’t with her, although that isn’t much of a promise because Kilgrave could always make someone say that. We learn that he performed that kidney transplant surgery between Jack and Kilgrave because one of Kilgrave’s was destroyed and the other started to deteriorate. “It’s known as Crush Syndrome,” he says. I mean that’s pretty close to AKA Crush Syndrome so maybe a gold star? (M: Sorry. We’ve got really strict rules.) He could have survived with only one of Jack’s kidneys, but he wanted both to be “made whole.” Jack’s kidneys weren’t a match but apparently you can survive with any old kidney for a couple of years? Huh, okay. Kurata also tells us that he stayed awake, with only an epidural, for the entire 10 hour surgery. For real?! For real? Is that even physically possible? Damn, Kilgrave. Jessica tries to work this out and lands on the fact that he didn’t want to be unconscious, even though he sleeps. Kurata says that surgical drugs take out a different functions then just sleep. Jessica realizes that this is his weakness, his powers can’t last through surgical anesthesia. She dials Jeri and puts Kurata on the phone as proof of Kilgrave’s existence.

We see Jeri walking into the prison. She enters a visiting room where Hope is waiting and tells her that she is her new lawyer. When Hope doesn’t respond, Jeri tells her that Jessica Jones sent her because there’s another victim who can corroborate her story. Hope looks up amazed, “There are others? Besides Jessica?” Jeri looks interested in this piece of information and tells Hope to walk her through it all.

Jessica cleans up her Kilgrave files and leaves only a notecard with Sufantanil and Propofol written on it. These are the anesthesia drugs that the doctor mentioned. She notices a wrapped package propped against a dresser and opens it to find a new windowpane that reads Alias Investigations. Jessica smiles and calls Trish. (It’s so weird and nice to see her smile.) She tells Trish that the font logo on the old door pane was different, but Trish says that hers is better. Trish tells Jessica not to cut her out in order to protect her because she doesn’t need or want it. Jessica asks her if she wants to grab a drink but Trish’s nose has started bleeding so she tells her that they’ll get lunch soon. After they hang up, we follow Trish into a room where she is learning some serious self defense with her trainer. I am impressed and proud and happy about this.

Mari: I love everything we learned about Jessica and Trish’s friendship this episode.

Samantha: A man knocks on the door of a penthouse apartment. Another man answers and we hear David Tennant’s voice say “You’d like to invite me in.” He enters and makes himself right at home by announcing that he is their guest indefinitely and stomping on a little boys toy car. The little boy protests this action and Kilgrave tells him to go into the closet. He also tells a little girl to go in the closet. When she protests that she has to go to the bathroom he says, “Go in the closet. It’ll be fine.” He shuts the door on them and we hear as they start to cry and urine oozes out from underneath the door. Doctor, no. 🙁

The parents serve him dinner. Part of the creepy genius of this scene is that we never get a good look at Kilgrave’s face, he’s just this ominous, awful shape of a man. There is also very little,very soft, sinister music.

We are once again with Jessica as she brushes her teeth. She voice overs, “My greatest weakness? Occasionally I give a damn. And Kilgrave knows it.” She spits into the sink as that damn cockroach crawls back out of the drain. “But now I know his,” she says, as she smashes it this time. “Game on.” She walks into her front room, getting dressed as she goes, when Luke Cage’s voice comes out of the corner. “I saw you,” he says. Luke. Dude. No. I know her door is broken but DON’T lurk in people’s homes. Shit, between her creepy sex spying and his creepy lurking these two are perfect for each other.

He’s there to confront her about how she tossed men twice her size around the bar. She tries to blame it on adrenaline but he isn’t buying that lemonade. He tells her that they saw each other and she tries to play it off that she was just trying to fix things. He stone faced picks up the sander saw thing that the door guy conveniently left behind. (M: I mean. His leg WAS bleeding pretty badly.) He stares at her as he turns it on and puts it up against his abs where it doesn’t break the skin or leave a mark. She walks forward and touches the spot where the saw thing just was. “You can’t fix me. I’m unbreakable,” he says and we fade to black.

So this show was harder to recap than any other show that I recap. I think it’s because it’s SO GOOD and so it’s harder to snark and because I want to write down every single detail. Plus, it’s a longer run time. It’s cool that we figured out a Kilgrave Weakness so early on but makes me apprehensive about how far we still have to go. Jessica continues to be a very flawed, very interesting, very real, human. I love that Trish is learning how to protect herself, she’s taking control as much as she can, refusing to be a helpless victim. I feel like the friendship between Trish and Jess is going to be one of my very favorite things.

 

Originally published: January 4, 2016

 

Next time on Jessica Jones: Jess works on her Take Down Kilgrave plan on S01 E03 – It’s Called Whiskey.