Comic TV With Dan: Welcome Back, Jessica

Comic book TV is everywhere these days, and it’s happening all year. So I’ll hand out awards and rankings in June, but in the meantime, we’ll be reviewing shows one by one as they wrap up.

This instalment: Jessica’s back! Two and a half years after Jessica Jones’ first season arguably set the high bar for the Marvel Netflix franchise (only Daredevil’s first season can compete), was the best comic book show of the season according to highly credible sources, and after being one of the highlights of last year’s slightly disappointing team-up, Jessica Jones finally gets her follow-up season.

Man. It’s good that Netflix has started cranking these things out faster, because that was too long a wait.

So how’d it turn out? Marvel Netflix hasn’t been doing that well since. Is Jessica Jones season two a return to form, or another Iron Fist?

Short version: It’s okay. Not as good as it was, not as bad as it could have been.

Premise

We rejoin Jessica and pals… ex-child star-turned-radio-host Trish Walker; Jessica’s assistant, ex-junkie Malcolm; and high-powered attorney Jeri Hogarth… a year after season one, and some unspecified and unknowable amount of time since The Defenders. This is the first show starring a Defenders lead to drop post-crossover, but if you’re hoping to see how the big team-up has changed life at Alias Investigations, you’re gonna be disappointed. The events of The Defenders and her temporary super-powered cohorts are never mentioned, even in passing. Other than cameo appearances by Foggy Nelson (mostly to acknowledge that he still works with Hogarth and would care about her plotline) and Manhattan’s most persistent black market gun salesman Turk Barrett, the other Defenders shows are utterly ignored. There’s not even a visit from Marvel Netflix’s number one utility player, Claire Temple.

And you know what, that’s basically okay. First off, Jessica was so annoyed to be involved in Hand-based shenanigans that I utterly believe her not even wanting to mention them now. I can picture a few annoyed “I don’t even want to talk about its” getting thrown at Malcolm and Trish the week after it all happened, and then everyone moving on. Second, there’s not much call for guest appearances. Daredevil’s still off the board until his third season (maybe later this year?); this show has enough hand-wringing over the ethics of killing as is that an appearance by Claire would have just been redundant; and no circumstance exists where Jessica would even consider calling Danny Rand for help. Or conversation. So really, it’s just Luke Cage that’s conspicuous in his absence, given what a key part of season one he was, but it’s still fine. There was only one point, in episode 12, when I thought “You know what Jess, maybe this is the moment you call your super-strong, bulletproof pal in Harlem,” but given everything that had just happened in episode 11, Jessica was in no headspace to trust other people or ask for help. So I’ll allow it.

Weirdly this is the most that any Marvel Netflix show to date has referenced the Marvel movies. Captain America gets referred to by name, not simply as “the flag-waver,” and a threat hanging over the season is the Raft, the superhuman prison introduced in Captain America: Civil War. This isn’t enough to get me to rethink my position on whether the films and TV shows actually co-exist. There are still far too many ways they don’t, and accepting that they’re separate just makes things easier. But hey, kudos for the effort.

That was a bigger diversion than I expected. Where was I. Right.

Premise (For Reals)

One year after season one (two and half years ago for us, Marvel timelines are messy), Jessica is still haunted by having killed Kilgrave with her bare hands–hand. That people consider her a “vigilante superhero” potentially willing to kill people for money isn’t helping. She’s as lost in booze and anger as ever, causing a rival to exclaim “Super? You’re the weakest person I’ve ever seen.” Malcolm, her ex-junkie neighbour, is now working as her assistant/apprentice. Jeri Hogarth comes back into Jessica’s orbit when some bad health news requires some drastic actions. And most notably, Trish, Jessica’s adoptive sister/best friend, feels that the solution to Jessica’s rage issues is to look into how she got her powers in the first place.

It turns out some people don’t like Trish asking questions about the company behind Jess’ powers. When bodies begin piling up, Jessica starts chasing her own past, confronting the death of her family… and digs up some things she hadn’t expected.

I could criticize this season for ensuring that their sophomore outing has all of the tired tropes of a first season, those being origin stories and reluctant heroes, but… the fact is, Jessica’s origin hasn’t fully happened yet. It might never fully happen. She’s a reluctant hero because she hasn’t decided to be one yet. Maybe she never will. That’s Jessica, folks. Love her or watch Legends of Tomorrow. Or both. Yes, both. That one.

The Killer, as they’re referred to… damn. “The Killer.” That is seriously the only codename they think up. Marvel Television needs a Cisco Ramon to think up better villain names in just the worst way. The Killer becomes Jessica’s dark reflection: not only created by the same company, The Killer is also possessed of incredible strength, also isolated from society, and also driven by rage they can’t always control, only more so in all cases. The Killer is what Jessica is afraid she herself might become, especially with Kilgrave’s death on her hands.

How does it work? Well… there are good points and bad points.

Strengths

Ripping off the bandaid, “They’ve finally fixed their habitual pacing problems” is not on the list of strengths. It took the film branch nearly a decade to finally start writing decent villains, who knows how long it will take the Netflix branch to learn about pacing or episodic television?

That said, there is one improvement. In the back half, where Daredevil‘s second season and Luke Cage fell apart, Jessica Jones season two actually picks up speed. Instead of collapsing into Hand or Diamondback related nonsense in episode nine, they actually find their footing in episode seven. Sure it’s not all smooth sailing from there, but we’ll cover that below. This right here is the good stuff. And the first and most obvious strength of the show should go without saying, but here it is anyway…

Krysten Ritter is goddamn phenomenal.

She was always good with the anger and the one-liners, but she gets some heart-wrenching material this season and she absolutely crushes it. Even when her material was weak or inconsistent, her performance never was. Someone give her an Oscar movie while we’re waiting for season three, because she is an incredible talent.

Also on that level this year? Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth. The early episodes drop some heavy stuff on her, and damned if she doesn’t rise to the occasion. And a good thing, too, because if not, her entire story would be under “weaknesses,” on account of it being only slightly connected to anything else that happens. Jessica is off dealing with mad science and the monsters it creates (and whether she might be one of said monsters), Jeri is confronting mortality and deciding who, exactly, gets to take anything else away from her (spoiler: it ain’t a long list), and sure the two stories share some common characters but they’re basically in their own worlds. Fortunately, thanks to Moss, Hogarth’s story is consistently one of the best parts of the show, connected to the main story or not.

Other strengths… Trish Walker isn’t her best self this season, but Rachael Taylor is still nailing it playing her. Jessica’s new love interest ultimately works as an arc, even if it starts with that old chestnut of “They dislike each other immediately, and we all know where that goes in the long run.” (Paraphrased quote courtesy of the late, legendary Terry Pratchett)

Good news: This is the first Marvel Netflix show to have Asian characters who aren’t part of or connected to a ninja death cult! Bad news: they are both still assholes. So… not a huge win for Asian representation.

I won’t tell you much about The Killer here, ’cause you should let the show tell you if that’s something you care about, but… they made some really interesting choices, and they pay off in Jessica’s arc. Also the “mad scientist” is an interesting ethical grey area. He’s not exactly doing ethical science, but he’s not a bad person. He’s authentically trying to do good, there are just a few shortcuts he really shouldn’t be taking but is anyway.

And seriously, I can’t remember the last time I ended episode nine of a Marvel Netflix show and didn’t think “Jesus, four more hours?” So good job putting all the bad pacing up front.

On that note.

Weaknesses

There is so much goddamn padding on this show. I want to say “If you can’t fill 13 episodes, don’t write 13 episodes,” but Defenders was only eight episodes and it was still badly paced, so honestly I don’t know what it would take at this point. Let’s take a quick tour of pointless subplots they stuffed this season full of in order to fill 13 hour-long episodes.

Trish’s storyline is about a recovering addict’s desperate need to feel as powerful as her adopted sister, and how it drove a relapse into addiction. So why did we spend so much of the first five episodes with her boyfriend, the impossibly noble journalist Griffin, only for him to be wished away to the fucking cornfield just as her story is hitting its stride? Did they think we needed to see her lose a boyfriend to understand her life was spiralling out of control due to addiction? Because we didn’t. Trish’s life had plenty going on to lose to addiction without creating and almost immediately tossing out a love interest. He was such a big deal and then he was just gone in an instant with no payoff whatsoever. Waste of time.
Also introduced this year is Pryce Cheng, a rival PI trying to push Jessica out of business. He eventually creates two inconveniences, one of which convinces Jessica she should work with the police, and the other of which is the third of at least four times that Jessica thinks “You know what, I take it back, The Killer does belong in jail,” and that is it. That’s not enough plot to require four episodes of building up a character and his go-nowhere conflict. He’s a main-credits regular, by the way, while the scientist who gave Jessica her powers is a “Special Guest Star,” despite being in exactly as many episodes and being far more important to the story. Which might be mostly about Callum Keith Rennie’s agent figuring “Special Guest Star” gives more status than being, at best, fourth-billed as a regular, but it suggests they plan to bring Pryce back next season, which… BOO. Pryce Cheng would lift right out of this season and nobody would miss him. He is dead air. Only worse.
There is a major reveal just before the halfway point but in order to ensure that it was at the halfway point… of a 13 episode season… they make getting there so convoluted. They reveal that Trish was sexually abused by a director so that they could threaten him into pressuring a hospital he donates to into giving them some information (what?) that points them towards a homeless ex-nurse that directs them to a mentally handicapped convict who gives them a name that leads to an encounter which points them to a university which sends them to a lawyer that can be pressured into sending Jessica to a house that finally leads to the reveal… what the hell. That journey takes six episodes. That is the very definition of padding. And every single thing that happens along the way (save for the homeless ex-nurse being tossed into Jeri’s arc) is basically meaningless to the back half of the show. I’m not saying that giving Trish a “Me too” story about an abusive director from her child star days was a bad idea, if they’d stuck with it then maybe it could have informed her need to feel powerful, but only including him to be one rung in a convoluted ladder then dropping it immediately is a weird choice.
A flashback episode at the midway point introduces an old boyfriend of Jessica’s who was apparently a pivotal figure in her early 20s, yet was never mentioned before that episode. And only once since. Kind of tacked on, there. (I will give the flashback episode this… for a spot-on satire of empty, insipid, top 40 pop music, Trish’s big hit “I Want Your Cray-Cray” is kind of a jam.)

Now, besides all of that, there are a few things beyond the padding that just don’t really work. To wit:

There’s a whole thing about prejudice against powered people. It doesn’t really work. Do you know why it doesn’t work, Marvel Television? Because you’re not the X-Men. Do not try to be the X-Men. The Gifted is kind of cornering the market on being hated and feared by the common people, don’t try to steal their bit. The Inhumans aren’t replacement X-Men and neither is Jessica.
Also, every person who’s prejudiced against the powered is a POC. Every single one of them. I don’t love that. There aren’t a ton of major POC characters on this show as it is, do they need to be the only bigots? Does the only black woman on the show for more than one scene need to use the phrase “you people?”
Jessica flip-flops back and forth over what’s to be done with The Killer (what I would not give for a better codename) constantly. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing if they’d handled it well, because she should be conflicted over this person, she should be torn as to what they deserve, but it doesn’t play out as being conflicted. It plays out as swapping back and forth as to which side she over-commits to. I should turn you in, I should help you escape, you need prison, you need help, you’re going to the Raft and that’s good, you’re going to the Raft and I’ll help you escape, nothing can redeem you, only I can redeem you… never grey area. Either she’s willing to do whatever it takes to bring The Killer to justice or she’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect The Killer from the police, and the change happens on a dime. One noble act changes Jessica’s mind instantly and utterly, even though last season Kilgrave proved that one noble act doesn’t change who a person is. It doesn’t play as Jessica being conflicted, it plays as Jessica being inconsistently written.
How is it that addiction and substance abuse are such a key element for two characters on this show, yet Jessica’s obvious alcoholism never comes up. Save for one moment where she admits she’s not the best person to be around when you’re an addict who’s fallen off the wagon.

So in short (too late, I know…), while there is a lot of good stuff in there, the first half is mostly filler and the second half forces Jessica’s arc to go in circles in order to fill enough time.

Stop doing 13 episode seasons. You don’t know how to fill 13 episodes.

High Point

AKA Three Lives and Counting. Jessica begins to unravel as her friends screw up, the line between her and The Killer begins to dissolve, and a familiar face is all too willing to push her over the edge. Absolutely their best hour.

Low Point

AKA Pork Chop. “So we need Jessica to cross a line on behalf of The Killer. Let’s introduce someone unambiguously evil so that her crossing the line isn’t so bad.”

“But we’re playing it as being super bad–”

“Yeah, sure, fine, but the audience should think he had it coming. We have all this cake, we just need to eat it, too.”

MVP

Krysten Ritter. She even makes Jessica’s third trip through the “You’re irredeemable, no wait maybe not” loop-de-loop mostly work.

Though props to Carrie-Anne Moss for selling Jeri’s arc so hard that it didn’t end up on the list of filler arcs that served nothing. That it was the most consistent and well-written arc of the season helped, but a lot of it was her.

Tips For Next Season

Look… are you married to this whole skeevy, power-hating-rival Pryce Cheng thing? ‘Cause I’m not loving it. Could he just shuffle off to whatever island for discarded supporting characters you sent Trish’s boyfriend to? Please? And maybe, in general, avoid having characters and plotlines with no payoffs. Write as many episodes as you need, but use them wisely.

Aside from that… I think Jessica hit rock bottom where “pushing away the people in her life” is concerned, only to end the season by reaching out and trying not to be isolated anymore. You need to build on that next season, not just regress. I wouldn’t normally think that was an issue, but you just did a second origin story for Punisher, so who knows.

And maybe in addition to repairing her relationships with her core cast, she could also try being willing to consult with Luke Cage or Matt Murdock or… nope, can’t think of a third person for that list.

Overall Grade: B

I thought it would be higher, but the season just takes so long to get out of first gear, and Jessica’s flip-flopping bugs me enough that it kind of blew the ending.

Next time: I’m probably finishing at least one of The Gifted, The Tick, and Runaways this week.

Photo: Netflix

The Defenders: Comic TV With Dan

Five shows about four heroes led to this. Was it worth the ride?

As we know, every summer I review the season of comic book TV, and look at who did what best. When there were only seven shows I was looking at, it was fun and easy. Then it was eleven. Then thirteen. And they just keep coming.

So instead of reviewing like 20 shows next June, we’ll tackle them one by one over the next 11 months, as they end. Then hand out virtual trophies in June, as per usual. Fun!

Fun for me, anyway, but let’s drag y’all along for the ride.

To begin with…

The Defenders

It feels like it’s been longer than two and a half years since the Marvel Netflix universe kicked off. Two seasons of Daredevil and one each of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist have finally led to this: the Avengers of Marvel Netflix, The Defenders.

Well… they sort of all led to this. Instead of all four shows blending together against a greater menace led by the franchise’s best villain, like in Avengers, what we have here is Jessica Jones and Luke Cage being dragged (kicking and screaming, in Jessica’s case) into a mash-up of Iron Fist and the worst part of Daredevil. Which doesn’t seem like the best starting point, but, well… how shall I put this.

It’s okay.

It ain’t Invasion!, but it’ll do.

Premise

We open with a check-in on where the four leads are since last we saw them. Matt Murdock is doing his best to give up being Daredevil and focus on law; Jessica Jones is avoiding being a hero or taking cases and getting drunk; Luke Cage is fresh out of prison thanks to Foggy Nelson (probably used that whole “illegal fight club/human experimentation” thing to get some sentences commuted); and Danny Rand has been roaming the Earth with Colleen Wing hunting The Hand.

The Hand, inconsistent villains of Iron Fist and worst part of Daredevil, take center stage as the main villains. Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver), the previously unseen true leader of The Hand, has been alive for centuries, but is now dying of an unspecified but incurable illness, and has blown the last of their immortality serum on resurrecting Elektra to be their ultimate weapon, the Black Sky.

Sidebar: They actually do a decent job selling Elektra as an ultimate weapon, especially once we see that they don’t really need to conquer the world or anything. They already have global influence, they just need her to keep rival ninja death cults, K’un Lun warrior monks, or slightly enhanced crime fighters from getting up in their business. And she’s pretty good at that. Sure, when they flashed back to Alexandra acquiring Elektra, and her compatriot Sowande asked if she was still committed to this Black Sky plan, it would have been great if he’d added in “I’m just saying, turns out the Norse gods are real, one of them hangs out downtown, should we be adapting the plan?” But we’re very clearly past that. The movies and Marvel Netflix do not co-exist, let’s all just move on.

More of a sidebar than I meant it to be… where was I… yes. Short on time, Alexandra speeds up The Hand’s work to acquire more of The Substance, the key to their immortality. The trick is, doing so will level Manhattan. Jessica Jones goes looking for an architect they dragged into their plans, Matt Murdock tries to keep her out of trouble, Luke Cage tries to help Harlem youths dragged into Hand grunt work that keeps getting them killed, and Danny Rand hunts Hand operatives, and that puts all of them on course for a big joint throwdown at Hand HQ.

At the end of episode three.

Having five fewer episodes than most Marvel Netflix shows does not push them to move at a more rapid pace.

Because that’s the thing about Marvel Netflix, you see, as well as some other Netflix dramas. Their devotion to the streaming model means that they view the show as one eight-hour movie, rather than eight individual episodes. They have One Big Thing happen at the end of the hour to compel you to keep going, but then not much happens the other 40 minutes.

Well, not much in terms of action beats. There are plenty of character moments, chats between the leads (the four main heroes, Colleen, and Claire), intrigues among Hand leadership. If you’re hoping for a whole bunch of superhero action, this isn’t the place.

But if you want to watch four reluctant heroes from very different lives learn to work as a team and bond as people, you could do a lot worse. Actually maybe you couldn’t, because that was a very specific description I just gave, I’m not sure there’s more than one… well, it could be a lot worse.

Put another way, it’s talky. It’s very talky, short on action beats, and languidly paced, but the talky bits turned out to be largely worthwhile.

Strengths

Good team: The leads actually work well together. Watching them bounce off each other is interesting and engaging enough that you almost don’t notice how very, very talky the show is. Luke Cage and Danny Rand are actually a good enough duo that they come close to being the classic partnership they were in the comics. Matt and Jessica play off each other well enough I’m mad we’ll probably have to wait until a second Defenders season comes along to see them do it again.

Closing some holes: We do get some answers to nagging questions about the shared Defenders-verse. Why didn’t Daredevil show up to help Luke Cage or Iron Fist? Because after the friendship-ruining shitstorm of season two he’s been retired. What was up with the rival Hand factions in Iron Fist? The Hand has five ethnically diverse leaders, they work independently more often than not, and they do not tend to get along. What the hell was up with that giant hole from Daredevil season two? Seventeen months later they finally explain.

The Improving Iron Fist: Danny Rand is still a tool with a short fuse, no getting around that, and he surely does still like walking into a room filled with bad guys and saying “Hi, I’m Danny Rand, the Iron Fist, here to oppose you.” But having Luke and Jessica calling him out on his nonsense actually moves him towards being a better character. Hell, he even landed a couple of decent jokes and learned about privilege.

Jessica Jones: I have missed you, you delightfully abrasive drunk.

Daredevil fights good: The fight scenes might not be shot or edited as well as they could be, but at least the choreo and rehearsal times have improved since Iron Fist. Seeing Daredevil back in action is enough to remind us of when these guys were the best in the business at fight scenes. Not that they have the title back… so far that still belongs to Preacher.

Villains: Sigourney Weaver crushes it as Alexandra, and Gao and company are effective menaces for the foursome (plus Coleen). Even Bakuto.

And I’m pretty sure Matt found a big clue by playing the Daredevil opening theme on a piano.

Weaknesses

Underwritten support staff: They make a point of bringing in the key players from all four shows for at least parts of the season. But other than Colleen Wing, Matt’s old trainer Stick, and the omni-present Claire Temple, they do not have a lot to do. I’ll explain.

Foggy Nelson and Karen Page are mostly there to say “Aw gee, Matt, don’t be Daredevil, you don’t gotta be Daredevil,” which is perhaps the least interesting and most frustrating thing they could be asked to do. We want Matt to be Daredevil. Anyone telling him not to be Daredevil is wasting our time.

Jessica’s pals, Malcolm and Trish Walker, are basically just hostages, there to give Jessica skin in the game. Trish almost plays a larger role in the main story, then doesn’t. On three occasions. Waste of what was and probably will be a great character.

And most frustrating is Misty Night. The heads of Marvel Netflix clearly like Misty, and they should, she brims over with potential, but they just do not know what to do with her. She spends most of the season reduced to saying “Tell me what’s going on! You have to, I’m the police, and actually on your side!” only to remain in the dark. They go through more “I can’t tell you the truth for your own safety” moments in eight episodes than The Flash manages in 23, and that is… not positive.

Where the ninjas at? So The Hand turns out to be an international conglomerate with leaders from Japan (the only asshole who can’t be bothered to speak English), China, Africa, South America (I did not miss you, Bakuto), and Europe. That’s fine. That’s okay. But their soldiers not being ninjas anymore? Come on, man, that was the one cool thing about that group…

[spoiler title=’Massive spoiler here, just massive’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’]So we’re still doing the whole “Swap villains in the third act” thing? Even if the first villain was great and the replacement is so-so? Even if having Elektra murder Alexandra and take over The Hand didn’t really add much? I mean I get that it seems like a neat twist, and maybe it would have been if Luke Cage hadn’t beaten you to it.[/spoiler]

Names: Can we be done with “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” now? He’s called Daredevil. Just call him Daredevil. Jesus. Put this next to “The Incredible Green Guy” and “The Blonde Dude with the Hammer” and it seems like Netflix thinks New Yorkers just like using the longest possible names for people. Which is clearly just madness. And it’s only people. World-altering alien invasions get called “the Incident” and everyone’s just okay with that. Double madness.

High Point

Worst Behavior. In the third episode, Defenders actually start meeting each other and having conversations. And it works pretty well. Then in the end, all four finally link up for that aforementioned epic throwdown against the, sadly, non-ninja Hand troops.

Low Point

The H Word. In the first episode, we catch up with all four leads, and not one of them is in an interesting place. Three out of four have basically been in limbo since their last appearance, with Matt and Jessica trying their best not to be superheroes and Luke Cage in prison. And Danny Rand is Danny Rand. It makes for a slow start. Avengers didn’t open by convincing its leads to be heroes again. Okay, fine, except Banner.

MVP

Kristen Ritter as Jessica Jones. Sure, she puts up the biggest fight to be part of the story, but she’s the most reliably fun part of the team. And her friends are trying to talk her into being a hero, not out of it. She also has most of the best lines (Luke Cage runs a decent second, especially his reaction to Danny’s origin), and gets a really satisfying hero moment at the end of episode four.

Tips for Next Season

Look… you have a lot of shows to make, a lot of characters to juggle, but you don’t film them at the same time, the leads aren’t Robert Downey Jr.-busy, there is now no reason that the leads can’t all guest star in each other’s shows. Before Iron Fist, we wanted to see Luke and Danny team-up. Post Defenders, we’re sold on it. And they all still live in the same city. There is no good reason to make us wait two or three years to see these people cross paths again.

[spoiler title=’One more spoiler. One more BIIIIIG spoiler.’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’]Fine. Except Matt. Won’t be seeing him until Daredevil season three, which is… fourth? Fourth in the queue. 2019? Then-ish, unless they start making more of these each year. Man, they are going to sit on that cliffhanger longer than is warranted.[/spoiler]

Grade: B-

Yup. This was the right call. No way trying to do 20 of these in June was going to work.

Until next time, nerds.