Marvel's Jessica Jones


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atheral wrote:
Sadly it seems only the series currently on Netflix will continue to be on Netflix. Rumor has it that there was a "Full Stop" order from Disney that forbids all sale or lease of properties not already contracted to non Disney owned entities.

I'd wager that once Disney gets it's streaming service going (or converts Hulu into it's streaming service...as Disney will be the majority owner with 60% once the FOX deal is finalized), not only will there not be any NEW Netflix shows, but there will not be any new seasons of the existing Netflix shows. Which is sad, because the quality of the MCU Netflix shows absolutely blows away the MCU theatrical offerings.

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DeathQuaker wrote:
Well, that's probably because Disney's wanting to start its own streaming service. Which I hope just means that Daughters of the Dragon WILL be a thing (since they've been setting it up pretty well in the Defenders) but not until the new Disney streaming platform comes online. (I also have my full wishful thinking cap on for a new Agent Carter series once that happens, since the issue seemed to be entirely with ABC.)

As far as I understand it, the problem is that for the specific Netflix MCU shows, Netflix has partial ownership. Which means that Disney literally can't take those versions of the characters to somewhere else (at least not without Netflix's permission, which seems unlikely).

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Set wrote:
DeathQuaker wrote:
For JJ I am especially interested in them getting into her past and how she got her powers.
Since the company involved also is tied into Daredevil's powers, and *might* be easily enough tied into the experiments that gave Luke Cage his powers, or even the pills that Nuke/Officer Will Simpson used to have powers, it could make for a neat villain option for a second season of Defenders, tying all sorts of threads together, and also allowing the 'Netflix Defenders' to potentially face foes with similar abilities to their own (someone with Jessica's strength, someone with Cage's bulletproof skin, perhaps even someone with Matt's super-senses).

That's actually where I had kind of assumed that The Defenders was gonna be going, before any real information came out about it. They definitely seem to have been giving hints that they are building in that direction.


I think I prefer it when the villain is not just a copy of the good guy. I think that is one of the reason I liked JJ so much.


season 2 good not season 1 good but it really sets the way for season 3 to be excellent.


I disagree, in a lot of ways season 2 is better than season 1. For example, I love the subtle humour, such as when the kid is collecting pokeman and oblivious to the motor home


Like I said I liked it but Season 1 is still my favorite. I don't think I can properly articulate why. I guess I liked kilgrave as the main villain better. Their wasn't really a true villain in this one. Her mom the body guard guy the scientist kind of all contributed to the drama but without taking center.


About half way in and I'm liking this season much more than the first, primarily because of the difference in villains. Kilgrave lost all menace and impression of competence when he got on screen. The rest of the season I just powered through and was annoyed at every one. Still not a big fan of Jessica as a character but I'm enjoying the detectiving.


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See I absolutely love kilgrave as the villain. Probably most of the reason I liked season 1 better. He wasn't just some mustache twirling cartoony villain he made sense. Plus I am a big fan of David's acting.


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Yeah David's Kilgrave is pretty much my standard/default setting for the Purple man.


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Yeah I think Kilgrave is by far one of the best MCU villains, both movie and Netflix. This season has been okay, but a bit slow in my opinion. I feel like part of it is that this season feels more like set up for a season 3

Also I really wish that "format your text" button was working, so I could just copy and paste the spoiler code. I can never remember that :(

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

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I've seen all but the last episode (which I'll watch hopefully later today). It seems to suffer from Netflix Marvel show syndrome, where it's front loaded with awesome, the latter half episodes start to drag and get predictable, and then the endgame gets decent-to-good again.

I thought Kilgrave was an amazing villain, but also intense and terrifying in a way that I personally don't need to experience all too often. I liked very much that they did something very different in this season with the villain (yet with many familiar themes) that affects Jessica just as personally but also in a very different way (which also keeps the show being a cookie cutter of itself). I think they did exactly the right thing with the villain in this season, and any issues I have are mainly with pacing and plotting falling apart in the second half (and again that's a continued problem with the Netflix shows).

I loved Trish in the first season and got super sick of her in the second. As of episode 12, she has had negative character growth or development in this season. (And I love her comics counterpart so it's especially disappointing.)

I observed with my friend I was bingewatching this with that the really scary thing about the world of Jessica Jones is that she is actually the sanest and most morally upright person in it, and that's f+%@ing scary.

MMCJawa, it's just "spoiler" in brackets, and then /spoiler when you're done.

Scarab Sages

The wife and I have been enjoying this season so far. I do miss David Tennant, though. He helped make that first season really enjoyable.

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One issue I have with it, is that the people involved are so damaged that I tend to feel like the 'bad guys' are more sympathetic by comparison. I know that's a design choice, and not a flaw, but I find myself not at all rooting against even the kind of pettily adversarial folk like Pryce Chang, since the protagonist he is up against isn't terribly sympathetic.

Spoiler:
And wow, that seemed like a real hatchet job on Trish! I felt bad for Malcolm, who I didn't much sympathize with in the first season. The show is a real roller coaster, at times, with me liking characters I didn't like, and not liking characters I liked, as if everyone is on a see-saw, and there's a finite amount of sympathy for the same characters, so that one character has to be dragged down for another one to be raised up, at least by comparison.

I also totally found myself supporting Jeri Hogarth's cold and calculated vengeance at the end, even if it was probably the most deliberately evil act in the entire season.


Up to episode 10 and it's started to drag. Like the Punisher, this season seems rather bloated.

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Okay, final episode didn't change my mind... it started great and ended a drag. Jessica was building up to having some real agency... only in the last few episodes to waffle back and forth constantly about what to do with the antagonist and never make a decision. The finale was entirely her being a passenger along for the ride, literally and figuratively, while everyone else took action. Maybe that's reflective of some sort of hyper reality verisimilitude, but when the show is called "Jessica Jones" you expect Jessica Jones to be the hero of the piece, and she basically did nothing through the whole endgame. Compare to season 1 where the whole thing was building up to her definitively and decisively taking agency and taking control of the situation. Both the character as established in season 1 and the Defenders (which was weirdly barely referenced) was basically left behind for no reason.

More specifics on the ending and my frustration with it:

And yes, I get Jessica had a tough decision and it was very hard to figure out what to do given the villain was her mom, of sorts. I get that this was a lot about her search for family and trying to find belonging. But the whole thing was handled very clumsily and again, basically she lost all agency through the A-plot (her denouement scenes were good, with her seeking out connection with the nice family upstairs, but beside the point).

I lost my mom when I was 20 years old, and I miss her every day. But if my mom were resurrected as a brain damaged uncontrollable murderer, I would do everything in my power to stop her, whether to end her or capture her, because I know SHE, in her most alive and well and "herself" state, would hate to be responsible for hurting let alone killing others, even if she couldn't immediately control her actions--and moreover was the kind of person who would take responsibility for whatever she did (or didn't do). (And "take responsibility for your stuff" is one of the best lessons she taught me by example.)

I realize that's a really weird and personal way to approach this, but what I'm getting that I think a huge problem with how they set this up is we have no idea what Jess and her mom's relationship was like pre-accident, apart from some stuff said between them (where Jess and her mom remember things very differently, which doesn't help). We don't know what her mom was like and if she was a decent human being and would want to be like she was post resurrected state. Without this information, all we know is Jess is clinging to a ghost who may or may not resemble the villain of the piece, and that Jess never fully faces this--in a show where she has otherwise come far to battle her personal demons and own her s~*& and understand seemingly that "she's enough" (or knows her own value as another Marvel heroine would say)--is damned frustrating and unsatisfying. It might be realistic--if we knew more about her mom--but narrative-wise it's just annoying.

As an aside, it's awful one of the characters I was consistently rooting for is Jeri. Like Set, I know what she did was AWFUL and yet this was a story that felt completely amazing--precisely because it was a plotline where the protagonist lost herself, lost sight of her priorities, and then took charge, owned her s~@#, banished her demons, and moved on with her life in a decisive and satisfying way.

As a further aside, I kind of want Jeri to be my sugar mama, but I'm not her type. And I'd probably eventually be disturbed by the utter lack of morality. And of course she's fictional.

I like how Trish ended at the very end, but I'm still deeply unsatisfied with the negative character growth she experienced to get there, and while I adored her in season 1, after season 2 I really don't care if I ever see her again. (I am also speaking as someone who ADORES comics Patsy Walker, and all the more so am disappointed.)

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DeathQuaker wrote:
The finale was entirely her being a passenger along for the ride, literally and figuratively, while everyone else took action.

That's something that bugged me in the first season as well. She's all 'I must save Hope' for a half-dozen episodes and it's finally Hope herself who recognizes that she's treading water and takes the initiative and moves the plot along for her.

Jessica seems to get no agency in her own shows, and has once again, as you say, seemed like a passenger, putting off making any decisions until the choice is taken from her by someone else.

There's a certain noir quality to that, in that the protagonist ends up in as crappy a place as the one they started in, with no real sense of having 'won' anything, but it's frustrating that it's not just circumstances ending up bleak for Jessica, it's her own inertia and depression (and alcoholism) weighing her down.

Realistic (in that we all know people, or *are* people, who can be there own worst enemies in sitting around and not doing anything about the challenges before us, until they pile up and become unmanageable)? Yes. Interesting to watch? Not as much.

And so I end up 'liking' characters like Pryce and Jeri and Malcolm, who may not be making the morally *right* choices, but at least they are moving forward and not rotting where they sit.

Huh, and now I'm noticing that McTier's character filled a similar role to 'Hope' in season one, externalizing Jessica's own sense of hope (always talking about the great life she could have in the future, with her boyfriend, or with Jessica). At the end, with Oscar and Vito, it feels like Jessica has again externalized even this sort-of happy ending, in that it's tied to other people (who can leave / die / be taken from her), and not something she can generate on her own.

Meh. I need less bleak and 'nothing you do matters.'

Time to go rewatch The Incredibles, and get re-hyped for Incredibles 2! :)


In part Jessica is a Greek tragedy. She tells us she is doomed, and then other characters try to convince her (and the audience) that she isn't doomed, but in the end she is doomed. Jessica is a reliable narrator in the story, she never lies to you, and what she says comes to pass (specifically the VOs).

Unless they do a drastic rewrite of JJ, she's going to stay this way as well. She's a classic American anti-hero. She's not an analog of Dean Moriarty, but there are a lot of similarities, and she carries similar themes. Lack of self-awareness, in ability to foresee consequences of her actions, and a self-abusive nature.

Not saying you have to like it, but this is a fairly well established literary path that the writers are drawing from, and have done so consistently for 2 seasons. I'd say it is pretty intentional, and will continue for the length of the show. It does actually end on a hopeful note, specifically with Jessica embracing her ability to help others, and even being willing to let herself feel good about it (when she tells the story to Vido). Though I suspect this is just a lead up to more soul crushing in season 3.

In contrast I though Jessica had incredible agency in the last episode. Her path was thrust upon her, but she quickly embraced it, and she put in effort to advance it. Combined with her rejection of Walker, and acceptance of Oscar, she is clearly choosing who she does and doesn't want in her life.

Set, you're right with the externalization. This is part of what makes good "show", instead of "tell". If Jessica just told us these things, it would be lame and boring. A good story "shows" it to us though, and that is what Jessica and these characters did. Think back to Star Wars EP 2 and 3, Obi-Wan and Annakin reference multiple situations in an attempt to "tell" us how good of friends they are, but none of their actions during the movies "show" it to us (just an off the top of my head example of the opposite).

Also, I'd like a season of JJ where she doesn't live with the villain for 2-3 episodes.

It is definitely a bleak show, and contains a lot of negative themes. It is not a story of heroic triumph. It is a story of tragedy.

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Comedy or tragedy, a protagonist needs to be an agent in the ending to their own story--or else they're not actually the protagonist, they're an NPC. Hamlet doesn't just sit around and watch while everyone else kills each other or themselves. (Not that I think Jessica should have killed herself, I'm just saying that inactivity is not a means to a good narrative ending, regardless of dramatic tone or structure.) My issue isn't her character--she is what she is in all her bitter, angry glory and is unlikely to change a great deal--it's s&%+ty narrative construction because the writers wrote themselves into a hole and didn't know how to get themselves out of it.

I disagree that she was embracing anything in the finale, Irontruth, because she kept changing her mind every five minutes. To me, she seemed profoundly uncertain most of the time (even when she was saying clearly what she wanted to do, it was because she didn't see another way out). Her increasing inconsistency and inability to make up her mind I think is the core of what frustrated me, because wishy washy is not a trait I associate with Jessica.

I do agree with you that she embraces her ability to help others and, as I said earlier, the denouement works for me where the climax doesn't.

Set, I thought in the first season, it at least ended with her taking charge--after learning from her mistake with what happened with Hope. The whole point of that being in the middle of the story was that she learned from it and then figured out how to take action. The opposite happened in season 2 -- she has some early on revelations that she then seems to totally forget and then she's just spinning wheels.

I think the key problem with this show is it should have been about 6-8 45 minute episodes. I think a lot of the "spinning wheels" was because the writers were trying to stretch things out across 13 hours when they didn't have enough plot for that period of time. (Also, they couldn't commit to Jessica either killing the villain or running away and as I said above they wrote themselves into a hole and didn't know how to get out of it.) This story as 7 episodes and a lot less dicking around would have been waaaaaaay better. Then the last 6 could have been a second story (perhaps more on what's going on with Trish, or JJ at odds with Chang).

Ironically, I actually came here to post what I liked about JJS2 because I realized _I_ was being too negative:
- The first five-six episodes are great. The pacing's great, the characters are fun to watch, the tension is built very well, there's some good action.
- I like that the show had her use her powers more than in the 1st season, but we also see her use her detective skills regularly and that what gives her the edge in conflict ARE often her skills, not her powers. That we see more detective work in the first half of the season is also why they were great.
- Jeri was awesome in all of her deeply, disturbingly real ways. She is by far the best monster on this show, and all the more so for her relatable humanity.
- While I tired of him at times, I ultimately really dug Malcolm's arc
- I do like that we resolved mostly the mystery of IGH (but there's still some questions there that can be used to fuel other Defenders-level plotlines), and moreover of Jessica's origins
- Her flashbacks were very well done
- I hate Trish's mom, but the actress who plays her is brilliant
- I really got annoyed with Trish, but again this was NOT a flaw with performance; the actress did a great job. (She also did a good job with flashback-Trish, making it clear this was the same woman in a VERY different part of her life.)
- I liked the super and his kid a lot.
- I liked evil mad scientist's t-shirts
- Inez was a good low-level ordinary lady sort of villain
- I loved Foggy's cameo (and wish we'd seen more of him)
- Again all the detective stuff was awesome.
- I liked Jessica's character development in the first half of the season, and in the second half, her episode with *cough* the devil on her shoulder was brilliant for those moments.
- The anger management class was beautiful.
- Should go without saying, but Krysten Ritter herself is brilliant.

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DeathQuaker wrote:

Ironically, I actually came here to post what I liked about JJS2 because I realized _I_ was being too negative:

- The first five-six episodes are great. The pacing's great, the characters are fun to watch, the tension is built very well, there's some good action.
- I like that the show had her use her powers more than in the 1st season, but we also see her use her detective skills regularly and that what gives her the edge in conflict ARE often her skills, not her powers. That we see more detective work in the first half of the season is also why they were great.
- Jeri was awesome in all of her deeply, disturbingly real ways. She is by far the best monster on this show, and all the more so for her relatable humanity.
- While I tired of him at times, I ultimately really dug Malcolm's arc
- I do like that we resolved mostly the mystery of IGH (but there's still some questions there that can be used to fuel other Defenders-level plotlines), and moreover of Jessica's origins
- Her flashbacks were very well done
- I hate Trish's mom, but the actress who plays her is brilliant
- I really got annoyed with Trish, but again this was NOT a flaw with performance; the actress did a great job. (She also did a good job with flashback-Trish, making it clear this was the same woman in a VERY different part of her life.)
- I liked the super and his kid a lot.
- I liked evil mad scientist's t-shirts
- Inez was a good low-level ordinary lady sort of villain
- I loved Foggy's cameo (and wish we'd seen more of him)
- Again all the detective stuff was awesome.
- I liked Jessica's character development in the first half of the season, and in the second half, her episode with *cough* the devil on her shoulder was brilliant for those moments.
- The anger management class was beautiful.
- Should go without saying, but Krysten Ritter herself is brilliant.

Yes to just about all of this!

I loved the Whizzer, and that she didn't take him seriously at first, because he really did come across as a nutjob. I also loved that he had a mongoose (and Jessica's line 'give them hell, Emil!' when she unleashes him on the cops).

Loved Malcolm and Jeri, for all their flaws. (And the wig-selling lady, and Oscar, and Pryce Chang, and even Dorothy, the mom-you-love-to-hate.) I even liked Dr. Malus and McTier's character, despite their position on the show.

And yeah, while I did not like Trish at all, the actress sold the whole thing really well, coming across as strung-out and 'junkie' ish.

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Yes! I would have liked to have seen more of Whizzer. And "give'em hell Emil" was brilliant.

Chang was too smug for my tastes, but he played an interesting role certainly and I really liked the idea of a mundane rival for Jessica.

I would watch a show about wig-selling lady, co-starring her rival, bald pawn-shop lady.


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Can I just say? I am proud to be only the second-most evil Dorothy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Dottie wrote:
Can I just say? I am proud to be only the second-most evil Dorothy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Oh, Red Room Dottie will always be my favorite.

Huh, I just remembered that Bucky dated a girl named Dorothy, that he called 'Dot,' back in the pre-WW2 days (it was mentioned in Cap 3: Civil War, as they are arriving in Siberia, IIRC).

Dorothy sure seems like a popular name in the Marvel-verse. They've got almost as many Dorothy's as blond guys named Chris... :)


Martha!?!

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According to Steve, the girl at Coney Island was a "redhead named Delores" whom Bucky called Dot. So not a Dorothy. :( There is fan speculation that the reference was to Dottie, though as, bearing in mind the writers of the Cap movies have written for Agent Carter, why else would they have bothered naming a random lady we never see from 70 years ago "Dot"? Perhaps on an early training mission (in a red wig), and that's why she took on Dottie as an alias later on. (And since they don't seem to be moving toward BuckyNat in the MCU, they could still say he dated a Black Widow.) Maybe she's the one who found him half-dead and armless from the fall and dragged him back to Leviathan, because she felt bad about his spending all his bus fare on her. ;)

No Marthas, but Cap and Iron Man basically fought each other on behalf of the Jameses in their life (Bucky and Rhodey), just as Supes and Batman fought for Martha.

I'd like to see Dottie on the Netflix shows. (Yes, I know she'd be 92. Black Widow serum, people!) And not just because I'm stupidly still obsessed with this character in a deeply unhealthy way. But also just because SOMEONE needs to sass these brooding antiheroes to the end of days. :) "Oh, sweetie, you wanna talk about horrible childhoods?"

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I'm sorry I was getting obsessive yesterday.

On JJ, was reading a discussion on Reddit (yes I survived) and someone pointed out a very interesting comparison regarding the main "monster" of the story...

Spoilers for the 2nd season of Jessica Jones:

Someone pointed out that basically Alisa Jones is more or less the same character as Calvin Zabo on Agents of Shield, though she needs her shots to be calmed down rather than the opposite.

Though I'd actually believe that Zabo loved his daughter genuinely more than Alisa loved Jessica. He did eventually have some self-realization and in a sense "sacrificed" himself for Daisy, whereas Alisa was clearly using Jessica as a path to freedom and was willing to risk Jessica's life, job, and credibility for her own gain--and never wavered from that path.

OTOH I'd love to see a battle royale between the two.

In fact a lot of plot elements seem to have already been explored in other Marvel series. I honestly think this is truly coincidence because, after reading an interview with the show runner, she doesn't seem to pay attention to much of the rest of the MCU... but it's still odd, and it may pay into why many folks felt like this season was lackluster--they'd already seen these plots play out before (and sometimes) to a much more satisfactory ending. Alisa's plot is Zabo's plot. Jeri's plot is the same as Alexandra's in the Defenders (except in this case, Jeri's version is much more satisfying and it's kind of hilarious Jeri bounces back from being duped and owns the situation like a boss more than the leader of the Hand, which just proves that the Hand are the lousiest villains). IIRC there was a brief storyline of people doing stupid s@!~ for superpowers in Agents of Shield too. Less identical, but a lot of the themes of scientists doing horrible things "for science!" comes up a lot.

And Trish's plot is in part Nuke's from season 1.

Someone else posited the theory that Trish is the actual villain of Season 2 and to an extent that actually makes a lot of sense.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something too.


DeathQuaker wrote:

Comedy or tragedy, a protagonist needs to be an agent in the ending to their own story--or else they're not actually the protagonist, they're an NPC. Hamlet doesn't just sit around and watch while everyone else kills each other or themselves. (Not that I think Jessica should have killed herself, I'm just saying that inactivity is not a means to a good narrative ending, regardless of dramatic tone or structure.) My issue isn't her character--she is what she is in all her bitter, angry glory and is unlikely to change a great deal--it's s+~~ty narrative construction because the writers wrote themselves into a hole and didn't know how to get themselves out of it.

I disagree that she was embracing anything in the finale, Irontruth, because she kept changing her mind every five minutes. To me, she seemed profoundly uncertain most of the time (even when she was saying clearly what she wanted to do, it was because she didn't see another way out). Her increasing inconsistency and inability to make up her mind I think is the core of what frustrated me, because wishy washy is not a trait I associate with Jessica.

I want to make a distinction, I disagree with you on the analysis of the structure of the story. That doesn't mean I think you need to like it, or that debating with you on the analysis of the story means I'm disagreeing with your liking or not liking an aspect of it.

I think Jessica had tons of agency. She was there, and kept coming back of her own volition. She set that situation up, and essentially caused it to happen. Trish also had agency and made her own choice, it just turned out that the finality of her choice trumped Jessica's.


I had to finish the last comment quickly, so a little more.

Jessica made all sorts of choices, and those choices had consequences. If Jessica hadn't tried to embrace her mother, would her mother have allowed Trish to live, or helped save that family? Seems unlikely. But other character's decisions also had consequences, including her mother, and Trish.

Jessica's motives didn't flip flop. Her tactics and strategy changed depending on the situation, but her goals were always the same: save her mother.

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Irontruth wrote:
That doesn't mean I think you need to like it, or that debating with you on the analysis of the story means I'm disagreeing with your liking or not liking an aspect of it.

I don't think you're debating liking the thing, but I appreciate your making the distinction.

I expect it's largely up to interpretation. I sensed wishy-washyness on the part of both character and writers. You see adaptiveness where I see a girl who can't figure out her priorities (and mostly less because of the nature of the character and more because I think the writers couldn't figure out how else to end things). (She also kept vacillating about who she considered her family to be. Which I think also speaks to the fact that it should have been several episodes shorter.)

Was she REALLY also trying to save MAJOR EFFING SPOILER DUDE? (Seriously I doubt everyone's seen the whole thing yet so would you mind editing your post?) Or was she trying to save a ghost, her memories of something she once had? Especially since the person is clearly far more invested in using Jessica to save themselves than actually doing what would be best for Jessica. (Unless I'm misunderstanding motives during the final scene.)

I will eventually be rewatching this (showing the series to some friends of mine) and I expect there are aspects I will pick up on rewatch (and with some distance in between) and I may well see it differently then.

I agree on Trish--and actually I have no complaints about what she did at the end, I just generally found her development over the course of the season to be very poorly handled (and also dragged out too long).


While I liked JJ2 overall, I do agree it dragged. I remember watching episode 10 and thinking..why are there still 3 more episodes left? The end really felt like it could have been wrapped up an episode or two quicker.


Overall I think pretty much every netflix marvel season could be 2-3 episodes shorter, something about the format is proving challenging for writers. I see the same thing in most series that tell one story per season (Altered Carbon is better if you end it 3 episodes sooner). In shows where you have stand alone episodes, like Travelers, you get better pacing for the shows.

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This is one issue I REALLY hope Netflix and the show runners seriously address. First, I think every episode should be 45 minutes rather than 50. They are too long and there is always a point in almost every episode where something feels unnecessarily padded out.

Either Netflix needs to shorten the seasons, or the showrunners need to create shorter story arcs, and put in two arcs (which could be related) rather than one. Their writers are just not capable of producing a compelling single story arc that uses 13 50 minute chapters effectively (and honestly, I am not sure if anyone is. It's just too much room for fluff).

I've been doing my JJ rewatch with friends of mine who are visually impaired, so I have to narrate the action. We are just on Season 1. There are several points in the episode where I find myself saying, "Jessica is sitting and staring out the window. She's still staring out the window. The camera's panning out but she's still staring out the window." Or, "Jessica's walking down the street. She's still walking down the street at night. A car goes by. She turns the corner. She's still walking down the street." This happens often enough that it's more than setting a mood--they seem to not know what to do with the time they are given so are padding the episodes with long sequences of basically nothing. AND this is in a season that is largely well regarded with some really great dialogue and event sequences as well. (It still also started to really drag through the middle.) One scene where Jessica is staring out a window to establish her solitude works. Several is filler, and not even very good filler.

I've narrated a LOT of TV shows for my friends and it's extremely rare that I actually have to fill space with description because literally nothing, visually or sound-wise is happening (if the key component in a scene is sound-based I'll shut up so they can hear it). I've taken my film studies 101, I know to look at mood and lighting and mise-en-scene and be sure I try to pick up on details that are visually important, and yet so often it's still "she's looking out the window. We don't see anything but her reflection. It is a window with glass and no screen. She looks a little sad. She is still looking out the window...." (Bear in mind if I have time to say all this, it's a LOOOONG time in TV time.)

Compare to: the last show I narrated before them was Agent Carter (I know, huge shock). The first season was 8 45-minute episodes. Several times so much STUFF was happening in a given scene I had to pause the show to get everything I was trying to describe in. Even in the quiet scenes I had to pause for dialogue and then describe 16 facial expressions, let alone when the action scenes I had to pause for breath... I think part of why that show, especially in its first season, was so good was because it was only 8 episodes and it's something these other shows really really really need to learn to take an example from.

Short arcs are OKAY, writers. Even the occasional bit of episodic action is alright--I don't mind the occasional case-of-the-week, especially if the point is to see the hero doing what they do best. Not everything needs to be an epic story arc, and the Netflix shows are undercutting a lot of their strengths by clinging blindly to this notion.

Because YEAH actually, as much as I've been complaining... this show was pretty good. I want to watch the season again. I like Jessica for all her many, many flaws. I like a lot of what we learned and where we're going, and I adore the MCU at its street level the best. Not to mention this show is just great for cinematography (too long window staring sequences aside) and sound design.


They're not fitting the show into an hour slot with commercials. They don't have to sell a specific number of episodes to the networks every year.
All the episodes don't have to be the same length. The "seasons" don't need to be a set number of episodes.
There's more freedom in this format. Use it.

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I think the second half of the season really dragged pretty bad. One reason is that with the revelation at the midpoint of the season, the show didn't really have a central antagonist anymore. It really just became the characters vs bad situations after that. And the bad situations continually won.

I fully agree with thejeff...I think this season suffered a bit from Netflix forcing the 13 one hour episode formula onto it. I think this seasons could have been much better if it had been compressed to about 9 episodes, with almost all the cuts coming from the episodes after the "flashback" episode.


Black Dougal wrote:
I disagree, in a lot of ways season 2 is better than season 1. For example, I love the subtle humour, such as when the kid is collecting pokeman and oblivious to the motor home

Did you notice the stickers on his tablet?

One is that Spider-man character that hangs out in Queens. But who is the orange rock-like guy in the blue shorts?

So the climax of this season has two Powered Individuals on the run in Westchester, New York. In the 616, this is the home to a school of powered people, and where I suspect the Avengers Compound is in the MCU. I found it odd, that with a threat too powerful for ordinary cops, no one thought about asking for Stark. Obviously, he couldn't appear on the show. But it would have been a nice continuity nod if the cops mentioned they called, and the Avengers were busy in another country/dimension/whatever.

As of the end there, I wonder where Foggy, and his once and current(?) girlfriend are going to land.

I was hoping in the later hospital scenes that Jessica might call in an expert Night Nurse to take a look. Though the episode before that she was clearly dealing with a Doctor who didn't want to go.

I really felt like this could have been condensed to 10 episodes. There wasn't a lot of drag, but the last two episodes it was clear: this isn't going to end well. But they just kept dragging it out to fill run time.
And like others said, its the second half - from AKA I Want your Cray Cray* - seems too padded. Usually, its the first 1/2 to 2/3s that is padded. Like someone said above, its like the writers were sure how to end something that clearly was not going to be a happy ending.

* which, how long ago did they start using that slang term in NYC? Because Ten Years prior to the aftermath of Captain America:Civil War (whatever current year is in the MCU) seems awfully long. I've only heard the term in the last few years. Which would put its first use concurrent with MCU present.


Hmm yeah shouldn't their of been something about the registration act too? I'm not sure on the timing of JJ maybe it was before civil war. otherwise Wouldn't she have to register? or is it only masked vigilantes I forget the details.

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Vidmaster7 wrote:
Hmm yeah shouldn't their of been something about the registration act too? I'm not sure on the timing of JJ maybe it was before civil war. otherwise Wouldn't she have to register? or is it only masked vigilantes I forget the details.

It's possible that the MCU USA has a new President who is choosing to ignore enforcement of the Sokovia Accords, since it's UN internationalist stuff and not US law. :)


GreenDragon1133 wrote:
* which, how long ago did they start using that slang term in NYC? Because Ten Years prior to the aftermath of Captain America:Civil War (whatever current year is in the MCU) seems awfully long. I've only heard the term in the last few years. Which would put its first use concurrent with MCU present.

Cray Cray is AT LEAST 10 years old. I remember hearing it as a thing when our old office was located right upstairs from a high school in midtown Manhattan. I know that I've heard it on one of Kanye West's tracks as far back as 2007- 08 or so. So that term isnt exactly new or new-ish.

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Vidmaster7 wrote:
Hmm yeah shouldn't their of been something about the registration act too? I'm not sure on the timing of JJ maybe it was before civil war. otherwise Wouldn't she have to register? or is it only masked vigilantes I forget the details.

In Civil War, the Sokovia Accords seemed to be specifically about getting the Avengers to agree to work with the oversight of the United Nations. The signature page only features the names of the Avengers. (As a total tangent, I find it interesting that only Tony is written as "Anthony" but Falcon, Hawkeye, and Cap all have their shortened given names (e.g., Sam and Clint rather than Samuel and Clinton), and Nat's name is Anglicized(Romanoff vs Romanova) when they should probably be using their names as on their legal IDs from their home countries.)

I don't recall anything about a registration act in the movies. It's possible that the U.S. enacted such a law on Agents of SHIELD, which I only watch off and on.

If there IS such a thing as registration, it's possible JJ is registered--the local law enforcement knows about her capabilities and doesn't have an issue with her on that front, and she probably couldn't keep her PI license (displayed in her office) if she weren't.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
Hmm yeah shouldn't their of been something about the registration act too? I'm not sure on the timing of JJ maybe it was before civil war. otherwise Wouldn't she have to register? or is it only masked vigilantes I forget the details.

They reference the Raft, and that Powered Individuals do not have basic human rights.

The act also applied to Quake, Yo-yo, and the other Inhumans with SHIELD.

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DeathQuaker wrote:
If there IS such a thing as registration, it's possible JJ is registered--the local law enforcement knows about her capabilities and doesn't have an issue with her on that front, and she probably couldn't keep her PI license (displayed in her office) if she weren't.

Yeah, while Jessica doesn't exactly wear a t-shirt that says "I'm a superhero...ask me how!", she also doesn't really make any effort to conceal her powers.


Or it could just be s%~*ty writing.
It wouldn't be the first time.


I'm on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to padding and having 13 episodes. I don't love all of the characters or acting on some of the Marvel Netflix shows, but I love everything about the performances on JJ. Not everything about the writing, but I would have watched a whole season of JJ and Mom on the run, living the A-Team life.

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Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Or it could just be s!!~ty writing.

It wouldn't be the first time.

I'm not sure if it's that per se at least for the writers for the show itself and more that what has actually been established in the MCU is vague. (You could even take the claim that supers don't have rights of due process as a bigoted assumption as opposed to being reflective of actual law.) By which it's not so much that these writers aren't following the continuity it's that someone upstairs isn't laying it out across the MCU well enough.

A lot of the TV shows are also reluctant to make too many explicit references to other shows and movies for fear of alienating viewers who haven't seen everything. And that's not the show's fault either, it's an inherent problem with the MCU--cater to the uberfans who've seen everything and pay attention to these little details, or cater to the broader masses who may not care so much and frustrate the uberfans. And here's the thing--all of the franchise will veer toward the latter because they know no matter how frustrated the uberfans are, they'll keep watching even if they complain about lack of interconnectivity. Whereas doing it the other way DOES risk real loss of viewership and ergo, money.

From what I've read (an unscientific sampling) Jessica Jones in particular attracts a lot of viewers who are otherwise disinterested in the rest of the MCU, particularly noir and crime drama fans (and also some die-hard MCU fans don't like to watch JJ because it's so much darker than a lot of the rest of the universe). So the writers are in this case caught dancing a highwire between showing just enough connectivity with the world so they can be a Marvel show, while not overladening the audience with unnecessary exposition about world events.

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GM SuperTumbler wrote:
I'm on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to padding and having 13 episodes. I don't love all of the characters or acting on some of the Marvel Netflix shows, but I love everything about the performances on JJ. Not everything about the writing, but I would have watched a whole season of JJ and Mom on the run, living the A-Team life.

Absolutely no argument that the performances are excellent--and indeed watching every minute is a pleasure in that regard. For overall enjoyment, I for one need tighter plotting, however. I don't like watching character development spin wheels in particular, and that happened a lot this season.

I would really be down with watching JJ on a superhero road trip, but not with a woman who is exploiting the memory of someone she used to be before dying and being resurrected as a monster who appears to have none of her former redeeming qualities, so she can clearly manipulate Jessica and risk Jessica's entire life and career for her own personal gain, while absolutely taking zero responsibility for her own, hideously evil actions. (See also: Whizzer and Sunday did not deserve to die, and certainly not in that way, and those were calculated murders, not accidental rages.) That would just be endlessly frustrating to me.

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I think the second half of the season would have vastly benefited from having an antagonist. I personally would have loved for IGH to have been merely a small portion of a larger organization...as it is, it seems that IGH consisted on 3 scientists, two nurses, and a few security people. I was hoping that IGH would actually tie the Defenders together closer, with it (or at least a larger organization behind it) also responsible for Luke Cage's experiments and the chemical that gave Daredevil his powers. My ideal Netflix road forward would have had a second season of the Defenders where they were pitted against that organization.


DeathQuaker wrote:
GM SuperTumbler wrote:
I'm on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to padding and having 13 episodes. I don't love all of the characters or acting on some of the Marvel Netflix shows, but I love everything about the performances on JJ. Not everything about the writing, but I would have watched a whole season of JJ and Mom on the run, living the A-Team life.

Absolutely no argument that the performances are excellent--and indeed watching every minute is a pleasure in that regard. For overall enjoyment, I for one need tighter plotting, however. I don't like watching character development spin wheels in particular, and that happened a lot this season.

I would really be down with watching JJ on a superhero road trip, but not with a woman who is exploiting the memory of someone she used to be before dying and being resurrected as a monster who appears to have none of her former redeeming qualities, so she can clearly manipulate Jessica and risk Jessica's entire life and career for her own personal gain, while absolutely taking zero responsibility for her own, hideously evil actions. (See also: Whizzer and Sunday did not deserve to die, and certainly not in that way, and those were calculated murders, not accidental rages.) That would just be endlessly frustrating to me.

That was a major plot failure of the season. There is absolutely no logic in Whizzers death. It was simply a plot device to heighten the tension early in the show, but when the big reveal comes out it makes no sense whatsoever.

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Black Dougal wrote:
That was a major plot failure of the season. There is absolutely no logic in Whizzers death. It was simply a plot device to heighten the tension early in the show, but when the big reveal comes out it makes no sense whatsoever.

Yeah, it's almost as if the first half of the show was written independently of the second half, and the people writing the first half weren't in on the big reveal.

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Shadow Kosh wrote:
I think the second half of the season would have vastly benefited from having an antagonist.

It did. The problem is it was Trish.

Quote:
I personally would have loved for IGH to have been merely a small portion of a larger organization...as it is, it seems that IGH consisted on 3 scientists, two nurses, and a few security people. I was hoping that IGH would actually tie the Defenders together closer, with it (or at least a larger organization behind it) also responsible for Luke Cage's experiments and the chemical that gave Daredevil his powers.

Completely agree with you. Especially with all the buildup about IGH between JJ and DD, having it basically be one hippie mad scientist with a classic rock fixation was rather a letdown. And indeed, how they got their supplies and funding and were doing what they were doing HAS to have more of a story behind it, but they seemed to have lost sight of the potential there. (Unless that does get brought up later elsewhere in the Defendersverse.)

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DeathQuaker wrote:
And indeed, how they got their supplies and funding and were doing what they were doing HAS to have more of a story behind it, but they seemed to have lost sight of the potential there. (Unless that does get brought up later elsewhere in the Defendersverse.)

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the Defendersverse is living on borrowed time. As far as I know, Disney is still planning to do their own streaming service. And I don't really see them continuing to support Netflix after it goes live. Worse, they can't even move the Defenders shows to that service, because Netflix has partial ownership of them.

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