This is a weird, wild world.
By Eric Goldman
Note: We’re writing up separate reviews for all 13 Jessica Jones episodes, though for the purposes of binging brevity, some may be notably shorter than our usual reviews. Click here to see all of our Jessica Jones episode reviews.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
This show sure knows how to make you feel uneasy, huh? Jessica living in the same house as Kilgrave just felt gross and the entire episode was unsettling in that regard.
As the episode progressed, I was feeling very wary about the idea that Jessica might try to redeem Kilgrave or that we might get any sense of compassion for him, given how he’s been portrayed. Because as Jessica noted, his horrible childhood still didn’t excuse his actions. That being the case, it was such a relief and a thrill when she got the better of him and knocked him out at the end (great move drugging the food of his hostages, but not his that he’d be wary of).
Fans of the comics will know that in the source material, Kilgrave actually didn’t physically rape Jessica, but – in a different, sadistic move – had sex with women in front of her while making her beg for him to touch her, which he never did. The switch in the show is noteworthy, though regardless, in both versions, he utterly violated her as a person (not to mention others). The point is, there’s no way to turn that around and even if Jessica could somehow help people using Kilgrave (and its not clear if there’s any part of her still considering that, now that she’s taken him), the toll it would take on her as a person is pretty ghastly to consider.
It was good that this episode made it even more explicit that Jessica’s main goal right now is to get Kilgrave ID’d as the man responaible for Hope’s parents deaths and free Hope. While there was some mentions of this earlier, it wasn’t quite at the forefront enough to overcome the, “Just kill the bastard!” thoughts. But her wanting to make sure that Hope doesn’t spend the rest of her life behind bars is a very convincing motivation.
Simpson showing up to save Jessica was a cool moment, after all of his own strangeness (and trying to get Trish to let her friend go). Though come on, man, your bomb failed to go off – wouldn’t you find it a bit more suspicious when that woman walked up to you saying she had something form Kilgrave?
This was probably the episode with the most on-screen material for David Tennant so far and he was excellent throughout – and was able to throw in some dark comedy, as well. His, “I want cake!” moment alone was pretty amazing. But even as he went along with Jessica to save that family, he still was ordering his “servants” to do unspeakable things to each other should Jessica not return. Scary stuff.
