Jessica Jones: AKA Crush Syndrome
November 20, 2015 6:48 PM - Season 1, Episode 2 - Subscribe
Jessica investigates the bus crash that she thought Kilgrave died in to see how he survived. She also chats with a friend, gets a new door and gets into a bar fight.
Jessica talks to the cops about how the Hope case went terribly wrong--naturally she doesn't mention mind control. She interviews Hope about what was up with Kilgrave--he's mad at Jessica for abandoning him to die, he made Hope jump a hell of a lot and said Jessica was better at it, and Hope thinks Jessica should kill herself. Jessica is all "Hey, I'm the only one who knows you're innocent" and talks Jeri into taking Hope's case if she can prove that mind control is a thing.
Jessica snoops around the hospital, borrows someone's adorable pink heart scrubs (hah) and does a terrible job pretending to be a hospital employee, but eventually finds out that Kilgrave suffered massive kidney damage and used his mind control powers to force the nearest ambulance driver to donate both of his, and forced a doctor to do the surgery to solve his "crush syndrome" (i.e. both kidneys are going) problem. Kilgrave insisted on being conscious for all of this, which to Jessica indicates an Achilles' heel. She also puts the doctor on the phone with Jeri, which convinces Jeri to take Hope's case.
Notable other moments:
(a) Jessica gets busted for having taken photos of Luke and his married paramour, which she claims she was hired to do by the lady's husband. Turns out this wasn't the case, and the husband and his rugby buddies decide to go to the bar and rough him up. The wife notifies Jessica of this, so Jessica runs down there to hop in the fight. Actually watching the fight and how people lined up to get their asses beat one by one was really funny, especially watching Luke roll his eyes during it. Oh yeah, and Luke can't be cut by anybody and noticed Jessica throwing dudes around, so they're both in on each other's secrets now.
(b) Trish is Jessica's best friend, and Jessica has dropped her to keep her safe from Kilgrave. Trish is unwilling to be dropped, and not only pays money to repair Jessica's door, but is apparently learning how to fight and disarm someone in the privacy of her own home. Such a good friend!
(c) Jessica has some really weird brother and sister neighbors. The girl is a crazy screamer, the guy runs around with no pants but otherwise seems to admire Jessica for some reason.
(d) Kilgrave takes over a family's home and makes the kids go in the closet while they have dinner.
(e) Oh, Jeri's wife figured out she's cheating.
Jessica talks to the cops about how the Hope case went terribly wrong--naturally she doesn't mention mind control. She interviews Hope about what was up with Kilgrave--he's mad at Jessica for abandoning him to die, he made Hope jump a hell of a lot and said Jessica was better at it, and Hope thinks Jessica should kill herself. Jessica is all "Hey, I'm the only one who knows you're innocent" and talks Jeri into taking Hope's case if she can prove that mind control is a thing.
Jessica snoops around the hospital, borrows someone's adorable pink heart scrubs (hah) and does a terrible job pretending to be a hospital employee, but eventually finds out that Kilgrave suffered massive kidney damage and used his mind control powers to force the nearest ambulance driver to donate both of his, and forced a doctor to do the surgery to solve his "crush syndrome" (i.e. both kidneys are going) problem. Kilgrave insisted on being conscious for all of this, which to Jessica indicates an Achilles' heel. She also puts the doctor on the phone with Jeri, which convinces Jeri to take Hope's case.
Notable other moments:
(a) Jessica gets busted for having taken photos of Luke and his married paramour, which she claims she was hired to do by the lady's husband. Turns out this wasn't the case, and the husband and his rugby buddies decide to go to the bar and rough him up. The wife notifies Jessica of this, so Jessica runs down there to hop in the fight. Actually watching the fight and how people lined up to get their asses beat one by one was really funny, especially watching Luke roll his eyes during it. Oh yeah, and Luke can't be cut by anybody and noticed Jessica throwing dudes around, so they're both in on each other's secrets now.
(b) Trish is Jessica's best friend, and Jessica has dropped her to keep her safe from Kilgrave. Trish is unwilling to be dropped, and not only pays money to repair Jessica's door, but is apparently learning how to fight and disarm someone in the privacy of her own home. Such a good friend!
(c) Jessica has some really weird brother and sister neighbors. The girl is a crazy screamer, the guy runs around with no pants but otherwise seems to admire Jessica for some reason.
(d) Kilgrave takes over a family's home and makes the kids go in the closet while they have dinner.
(e) Oh, Jeri's wife figured out she's cheating.
Yeah, I felt some of the dialog in the first episode was a bit wooden, and I wasn't sure if it was the script (possibly directly quoting the source material, I'm not familiar enough to know) or the delivery. This episode didn't have that issue at all. This is a really good series.
posted by figurant at 8:17 PM on November 20, 2015
posted by figurant at 8:17 PM on November 20, 2015
I have even come to like the opening credits theme music, which I wasn't crazy about to start with.
posted by figurant at 9:08 PM on November 20, 2015
posted by figurant at 9:08 PM on November 20, 2015
I like the series so far but the thing with the kids was so disturbing to me that I think I may have noped out of this one.
posted by selfnoise at 5:57 AM on November 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 5:57 AM on November 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
The thing with the kids was odd, especially because Kigrave intends to stay with them awhile. Because that closet is going to be reeking by morning and who wants that when you're vacationing.
So that move feels like Kilgrave was being a cookie cutter villain. The best thing about the Kingpin in Daredevil was that we got to know him and see what lead him to be the man he was. Kilgrave is just plain evil from the beginning, which makes him more distant and comic-booky. I hope we get some background on him, because it's potentially rich narratively. Who was he before he got his powers and how did they change him are questions I'd like to see answered.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:34 AM on November 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
So that move feels like Kilgrave was being a cookie cutter villain. The best thing about the Kingpin in Daredevil was that we got to know him and see what lead him to be the man he was. Kilgrave is just plain evil from the beginning, which makes him more distant and comic-booky. I hope we get some background on him, because it's potentially rich narratively. Who was he before he got his powers and how did they change him are questions I'd like to see answered.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:34 AM on November 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
So that move feels like Kilgrave was being a cookie cutter villain.
I think it speaks to Kilgrave's perspective, actually: people are just *things* to him. The children are small annoyances he doesn't even want to look at. The parents are just meal dispensers. This seems like a reasonable - horribly evil - way for him to act, given his powers: he never has to consider what anybody else wants or thinks, just what they can or cannot do for him.
It also gives us subtle clues about how things will go when the two of them do interact: Kilgrave doesn't have to concentrate on his mojo. Seems like it's always going, so he's hard to catch off-guard.
posted by mordax at 11:06 AM on November 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think it speaks to Kilgrave's perspective, actually: people are just *things* to him. The children are small annoyances he doesn't even want to look at. The parents are just meal dispensers. This seems like a reasonable - horribly evil - way for him to act, given his powers: he never has to consider what anybody else wants or thinks, just what they can or cannot do for him.
It also gives us subtle clues about how things will go when the two of them do interact: Kilgrave doesn't have to concentrate on his mojo. Seems like it's always going, so he's hard to catch off-guard.
posted by mordax at 11:06 AM on November 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I rewatched the first two episodes last night with some other people and I think that introduction to Kilgrave was extremely well done. I agree that it makes him so villainous that it's almost absurd, but that seems appropriate to me. I think our perspective on Kilgrave is different than that of Fisk in Daredevil -- Fisk was evolving, but Kilgrave is already basically a full-blown supervillain. But, regardless, I feel like that scene worked extremely well in the context of the whole episode and series in terms of being a partial pay-off of all they'd foreshadowed about Kilgrave via Jessica's flashbacks.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:08 PM on November 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:08 PM on November 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm assuming Jeri doesn't know about Jessica's past with Kilgrave (hence the whole exposition dropping by Hope there at the end). And if that's the case, that's a great little character note that Jessica would rather go way out of her way hunting scrap leads for another victim to talk about Kilgrave then just talk about Kilgrave herself.
posted by john-a-dreams at 4:54 PM on November 21, 2015
posted by john-a-dreams at 4:54 PM on November 21, 2015
:D I like this episode, and I no longer hate Jessica Jones(character)!
I guess they were just getting used to things the first episode and trying to get in enough exposition.
*begins to binge watch*
posted by FallowKing at 5:40 PM on November 21, 2015
I guess they were just getting used to things the first episode and trying to get in enough exposition.
*begins to binge watch*
posted by FallowKing at 5:40 PM on November 21, 2015
I'm liking the show but I'm not sure that it's very suited to binge watching. I watched the first two in a row and feel like I need a day or two before I feel up to watching any more.
posted by octothorpe at 7:10 PM on November 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 7:10 PM on November 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm liking it so far. I like that the episodes are continuing and that not everything is laid out and explained. I have never heard of the character before so I don't know where this is going, if David Tennant will be the villain of the series and then vanquished... are these guys ever killed off permanently? because I find unkillable supervillains a bit of a bore. Also the relationship between her and the bar owner is more intriguing but since he's getting his own series, he won't be around for long.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:20 PM on November 21, 2015
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:20 PM on November 21, 2015
Bravo for finding an incredibly hot, funny, and capable Luke Cage! Can't wait to see more of him.
Mike Colter played such a soft-spoken, sweet, genial, and incredibly menacing drug dealer Lemond Bishop on The Good Wife, and was consistently fantastic, but...I dunno, I wasn't quite sure I would like him as Luke Cage. Luke (IMO) needs a different kind of intensity than what he brought to the Lemond Bishop role. But Colter's definitely won me over. He's a toned-down, restrained Luke Cage, but that fits with the feel and tone of this whole show (and presumably will for his show, as well). The fact that he is able to deliver "Sweet Christmas!" and make it feel like just a natural, slightly quirky thing he says and not a cheesy Marvel Superhero Catchphrase (tm)? Yep, he's good.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:26 AM on November 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Mike Colter played such a soft-spoken, sweet, genial, and incredibly menacing drug dealer Lemond Bishop on The Good Wife, and was consistently fantastic, but...I dunno, I wasn't quite sure I would like him as Luke Cage. Luke (IMO) needs a different kind of intensity than what he brought to the Lemond Bishop role. But Colter's definitely won me over. He's a toned-down, restrained Luke Cage, but that fits with the feel and tone of this whole show (and presumably will for his show, as well). The fact that he is able to deliver "Sweet Christmas!" and make it feel like just a natural, slightly quirky thing he says and not a cheesy Marvel Superhero Catchphrase (tm)? Yep, he's good.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:26 AM on November 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
After those flashes of Kilgrave, which were presumably just PTSD, I keep looking for clues of his presence in the environment; he could be in any scene.
I also wonder about the heavy-handed EXIT motif, which started even before Jessica made her choice at the end of the pilot to head back and face the consequences. Probably just a reminder that Jessica is ignoring her instinct to run and that things will end badly. It might alternatively be about finding a way out of mental control, if Jessica starts out in thrall.
posted by Tobu at 4:25 PM on November 22, 2015
I also wonder about the heavy-handed EXIT motif, which started even before Jessica made her choice at the end of the pilot to head back and face the consequences. Probably just a reminder that Jessica is ignoring her instinct to run and that things will end badly. It might alternatively be about finding a way out of mental control, if Jessica starts out in thrall.
posted by Tobu at 4:25 PM on November 22, 2015
Also, I'M SO HERE FOR LUKE AND JJ SEX SCENES.
Sweet Christmas, I think a club is forming!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sweet Christmas, I think a club is forming!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
The show ramped up a few notches with the fight scene, particularly with how Luke Cage physically dismissed the rugby team members. The moment when the broken glass doesn't cut him simply made me giddy. I was slightly underwhelmed by Jessica's own fighting, though as Cage pointed out, "You threw a man halfway across the room with one hand," was impressive. I think it was her effortlessness that undersold her own abilities.
As much as this was Cage's coming out, so was it Kilgrave's. Gah, the scene at the end, I found simply terrifying because he holds so little respect for the family as human beings. As pointed out above, they are nothing to him, simply either means to an end or nuisances to be cast aside. He's got the sociopath's disregard for human life, and obviously, in the manner he handled Hope, just plain evil.
Favorite Jessica moment - simply tugging the combination locks off the lockers as if they were made of paper. I love the lack of focus and importance on her strength. It's a part of her and her world, it's not something she's constantly discovering or becoming amazed at finding.
And....I'm speculating now, without seeing farther head, that somehow Hope's case is going to end up in the hands of another New York lawfirm. Probably one with a much smaller staff and operating budget.
posted by Atreides at 7:11 AM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
As much as this was Cage's coming out, so was it Kilgrave's. Gah, the scene at the end, I found simply terrifying because he holds so little respect for the family as human beings. As pointed out above, they are nothing to him, simply either means to an end or nuisances to be cast aside. He's got the sociopath's disregard for human life, and obviously, in the manner he handled Hope, just plain evil.
Favorite Jessica moment - simply tugging the combination locks off the lockers as if they were made of paper. I love the lack of focus and importance on her strength. It's a part of her and her world, it's not something she's constantly discovering or becoming amazed at finding.
And....I'm speculating now, without seeing farther head, that somehow Hope's case is going to end up in the hands of another New York lawfirm. Probably one with a much smaller staff and operating budget.
posted by Atreides at 7:11 AM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
There was a great contrast in the way Cage handled the rugby players without destroying his bar, while Jessica was trashing the place a bit. For a moment I thought she might throw someone through the window; she did destroy more glassware and furniture, as well as the payphone (what year is it now?).
posted by kokaku at 1:12 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by kokaku at 1:12 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I loved seeing Lester Freamon (or rather Clarke Peters) in this one and hope it's not going to be a one-off cameo.
Clearly, what this case needs is some natural police...
posted by bigendian at 4:25 PM on November 23, 2015 [6 favorites]
Clearly, what this case needs is some natural police...
posted by bigendian at 4:25 PM on November 23, 2015 [6 favorites]
I think Lestor left Baltimore, changed his name and started over.
The JJ writers were clearly trolling when the character started talking about antiques.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:55 PM on November 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
The JJ writers were clearly trolling when the character started talking about antiques.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:55 PM on November 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I thought that was pretty great.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:25 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:25 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Lester moved to New Orleans, became Big Chief, and then relocated to NYC for the weather.
posted by kokaku at 11:09 AM on November 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by kokaku at 11:09 AM on November 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Don't forget about his stint as a preacher down in the New Orleans bayou. Some young punks nailed a cat to his church's door!
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:40 PM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:40 PM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I finally watched episode two!
Luke has a first name but not a last name.
Trish has a last name.
Lots of exposed cheaters today.
We still don't know why Jessica was spying on Luke. It's implied that she did not know he was super, otherwise why worry about rugby bullies?
Weird twins are weird.
Roach closeup are unnecessary.
Hope tells Jessica she should have stayed to finish Kilgrave/ambulance driver asks her to kill him parallel
My theory is that Luke carries power saws around with him to impress women. Or it could have been left behind by the repairman. Whatever.
posted by bq at 8:49 AM on November 25, 2015
Luke has a first name but not a last name.
Trish has a last name.
Lots of exposed cheaters today.
We still don't know why Jessica was spying on Luke. It's implied that she did not know he was super, otherwise why worry about rugby bullies?
Weird twins are weird.
Roach closeup are unnecessary.
Hope tells Jessica she should have stayed to finish Kilgrave/ambulance driver asks her to kill him parallel
My theory is that Luke carries power saws around with him to impress women. Or it could have been left behind by the repairman. Whatever.
posted by bq at 8:49 AM on November 25, 2015
I think Jessica's photos of Luke were simply a product of her romantic interests in him. She's a loner and the only way she could engage with him was through her camera.
posted by Atreides at 9:01 AM on November 25, 2015
posted by Atreides at 9:01 AM on November 25, 2015
I was slightly underwhelmed by Jessica's own fighting, though as Cage pointed out, "You threw a man halfway across the room with one hand," was impressive. I think it was her effortlessness that undersold her own abilities.
I actually thought that was played for comedy...they were maintaining eye contact while going through the motions of fighting like they were folding laundry or something.
posted by Hoopo at 1:56 PM on November 25, 2015
I actually thought that was played for comedy...they were maintaining eye contact while going through the motions of fighting like they were folding laundry or something.
posted by Hoopo at 1:56 PM on November 25, 2015
The kids in the closet... abuse of children will mean me noping out, so hopefully the closet is as bad as it gets for them.
I really liked how she tracked down the doctor and convinced the lawyer to talk to Hope. I also found the pause by the lawyer when Hope said "Not just Jessica?" means the lawyer was unaware of it before. Interesting.
posted by jillithd at 6:18 PM on November 25, 2015
I really liked how she tracked down the doctor and convinced the lawyer to talk to Hope. I also found the pause by the lawyer when Hope said "Not just Jessica?" means the lawyer was unaware of it before. Interesting.
posted by jillithd at 6:18 PM on November 25, 2015
Just rewatched it. After the observation in the premiere that Luke takes care of his bar, I like very much that when Jessica throws a rugby player across a table (breaking both table and lamp), Luke shoots her a pained expression. A dumber show would had him complain or sigh or something to put a button in it, but a single dirty look did so much more.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:47 AM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:47 AM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
Meeting Kilgrave in person was a little underwhelming compared to how scary his power has been shown to be. But, I'm not really sure how anything he does directly could be scarier than what we've already seen he can make other people do.
(Also, I've only seen David Tennant as the Doctor; I think it'll take a bit to break the association. Sorry, David Tennant.)
posted by esker at 9:21 AM on December 11, 2015
(Also, I've only seen David Tennant as the Doctor; I think it'll take a bit to break the association. Sorry, David Tennant.)
posted by esker at 9:21 AM on December 11, 2015
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She really does want to help people and I suspect use her powers for good. But that history with Kilgrave has seriously messed her up, understandably. But now, she has a mission: get Kilgrave, fix the lives he's messed and get some of that unbreakable handsome guy. Not a bad way to crawl your back life after insane trauma.
Also, is it just me or is there some sexy chemistry between Luke and Jessica because they're both strong and can really go at it without fear of hurting the other.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:34 PM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]