The Marvel-Netflix duo has struck again! Similar to last year's phenomenal hit — Daredevil, Netflix managed to keep the scales high with their second original Marvel show — Jessica Jones. It was a risky move for them, but I can assure you that season 1 of Jessica Jones stands much more superior than other superhero shows.
Since plenty of you probably haven’t heard of Jessica Jones before, she is a superhero with an intense backstory involving rape, alcohol and physocological abuse. Jessica’s comic series which debut back in 2001 was featured on the Max line; Max comics promised to feature more adult oriented material and it did just that. Jessica Jones is the only Marvel hero that takes the realism and grittiness of the world and exploits it to the tenth power.
The Purple Man aka Kilgrave who is played by former Doctor Who — David Tennant, is Jessica's biggest villain in both the comic series and the new Netflix original show. He has the ability to control people's mind by just telling them what to do; to get a better understanding on what he did to Jessica in the comics, read our top 5 facts you should know before watching Jessica Jones.
Since Jessica Jones is a ‘Rated R’ character, a lot of people, including myself, was not sure how Netflix was going to handle it. But trust me when I say that they didn’t hold back, there were plenty of sex scenes, cursing and alcohol throughout the entirety of season 1. There was also a boatload of easter eggs from the Alias comic series including iconic scenes from a client being tossed out of the Alias office window, Jessica and Luke’s intense sex scene and the deep cut reference of Jessica’s old hero name ‘Jewel’ and the fitting outfit.
Breaking Bad’s Kristen Ritter does an absolutely phenomenal job capturing the essence of Jessica Jones and brings her straight to your screen. The paranoid, reckless and vulgar hero that is Jessica Jones, is portrayed perfectly. Similar to Daredevil, Jessica Jones brings the happy whimsical tone of Marvel down to a much deeper and scarier place that many heroes don’t experience. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in full effect throughout Jessica Jones, with little nods the “Big Green guy and his gang” to the subtle images of kids dressed up as Captain America.
As I just stated, Jessica Jones stays clear from typical Marvel one-liners and more or less corny jokes and brings itself to a darker more realistic place. The main antagonist Kilgrave, manages to do that in great effect with his mind control ability. With mind control sounding as crazy as it does, Kilgrave manages to use it in such a scary way which ultimately makes him one of the most diabolical villains across the MCU to date. I won’t go into spoiler territory about Kilgrave and his motivations within season one, but I would like to say that David Tennant did a fantastic job as the main villain. He is both super evil and creepy while serving as a great threat throughout the entire show.
Alongside Kilgrave and Jessica, the supporting cast is one of the best for a superhero TV series. Some of the best are Rachael Taylor as Trish Patsy Walker, Jessica Jones' best friend and Mike Colter as Luke Cage, the romance partner for Jessica. These two characters are prominent characters in the MCU and both are there for Jessica when she needs it the most.
Eka Darville as Malcolm is another big hitter, but it will take some time to warm to him; there is a joy around him though that makes you see that by not having superpowers doesn’t mean you can’t be a hero. Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth also fits the bill in the 'great supporting cast' statement. In the original comics, Hogarth was originally a male, but Marvel decided to swap the role to female and also made her lesbian.
Hogarth is the best attorney in NYC which sometimes come across cases for Jessica Jones to handle. There is no doubt, especially if you're into comics, that Hogarth will be making another appearance throughout the next couple of Netflix Marvel series. There were a lot of her own personal life problems that were focused on throughout the show, and the reason why they were probably added was because she is another recurring characters in the MCU, but besides that, I didn’t really care about her scenes.
The main plot for the show is good, it makes a great use of the adult oriented content and uses it in a way that doesn’t burst the envelope. They handle Kilgrave excellent, allowing him to do some crazy villainous things while keeping it out of an ‘R’ rating. There are some problems, though, without spoilers it is hard to go into detail, but at times the show feels like there is nothing significant happening. At times the shows pacing is not as its best, one point major plot point will happen then it will simmer down just to leave the viewer a little bored during these intervals; thankfully there aren't too many times the show does this.
The returning of Claire from Daredevil was also awesome to see. Sadly there were no Daredevil/ Matt Murdock cameos, but Claire does mention a couple of times her fair share of working with these ‘gifted’ heroes. As we already know by know, Jessica Jones is the second of the four planned shows for the Marvel-Netflix series. Luke Cage will be releasing sometime next year while we still wait to see some sort of mention of the Iron Fist. Once each hero has their own show, Marvel will team all of them up to create the ‘Defenders’, the street level heroes equivalent to the Avengers.
Jessica Jones manages to exceed everyone's expectations by bringing one of the most badass female heroes to life. From Jessica, Kilgrave and the entire cast, Jessica Jones was a blast to go through, it is another must watch Marvel produced content. Stop what you're doing and watch it now!
