Jessica Jones Season 2
Created by: Melissa Rosenberg
Director: Anna Foerster, Minkie Spiro, Mairzee Almas, Deborah Chow, Millicent Shelton
Writer: Melissa Rosenberg, Aida Mashaka Croal, Lisa Randolph, Jack Kenny, Jamie King
Starring: Krysten Ritter, Rachael Taylor, Eka Darville
Review by Jason Payne
Our favorite alcoholic, foul mouthed private eye returns this Friday. Jessica Jones will be the first of Netflix’s Marvel shows to loosely deal with the events of The Defenders and a post Civil War MCU. I say loosely because they don’t seem to address it directly in the first five episodes, but its quite evident that super powered vigilantes seem. But there is even a reference to the conclusion of Civil War that you might miss if you’re not paying attention.
The first season of Jessica Jones is one of the best written first seasons on Netflix, and that trend continues with it’s sophomore season. They play with the typical Marvel pacing which usually consists of front loading the first two to three episodes with heavy action with some slowdown and villain exposition by the halfway point. Instead we get a progressive build of tension for the first two episodes with a shot in the arm in the last 5 min of the second episode; followed by varying fluctuations in tempo. The story this season primarily focuses on unravelling pieces of Jessica’s past. Even though the scripts were mostly written in 2016, some of the subjects they handle are quite timely. They even touch on the kind of discrimination that’s unique to comic books. But none of these nods get in the way of the grander story, only enhance it.
The performances are pretty much what you’d expect from Marvel’s Netflix properties at this point. And this is the third or fourth time for some of the actors in their respective roles. There’s characterization consistency across all the shows at this point. Jessica is a different space mentally post Defenders, showing a new level of maturity and restraint. Rachel Taylor naturally takes Trish down the path she was headed in season one, taking even more risk this early in this season. There are no strong signs if we’ll actually see Hellcat this season, but it’s lost opportunity if we don’t see her in a future season of Defenders/Heroes For Hire. Malcolm Duccase portrayed by Eka Darville went through one of the roughest times in the first season of the show, seems to be taking his new lease on life seriously. And he’s arguably the most evolved character at this point, taking a more prominent role in the life of Jessica and Trish.
Watch It. The show messes with the pacing this time around but your patience will be rewarded sooner than it was with Iron Fist, but with better writing and action. She actually gets to cut loose this season which is something comic book fans have been waiting for. You would expect a show with a different creative team each episode to be a bit jarring, but that’s not the case with Jessica Jones.
Jessica Jones hits Netflix on March 8th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL4Fo6dJ3o8
