In Episode 3 of Marvel’s Jessica Jones – AKA It’s Called Whiskey, Jessica and Kilgrave continue their dangerous game of cat and mouse, Jessica discovers she has another superpowered ally and Hope’s innocence is publically called into question by someone she thought was on her side.
As always, this review will include spoilers so please be
cautious if you have not yet watched the episode.
Marvel’s Jessica Jones is presented as a superhero adventure
series but at its core it is a psychological drama that focuses on the nature
of abuse; it just so happens that some of the protagonists have superpowers. To
be abused in any situation – be it sexually, mentally, physically – is a
terrifying and isolating experience and the effects can be exacerbated hugely
if the victim is not taken seriously by those supposed to offer protection. Showrunner
Melissa Rosenberg has taken themes that are familiar motifs - coercion, uninvited sexual advances, sexual and sexist language,
guilt-tripping and threats – and woven them through this noir thriller to add
another layer to the story which separates the series from any other Marvel
production. Therefore Hope’s predicament is a metaphor for the experiences of
thousands, millions of people worldwide, mainly, but not exclusively women, who
experience horrible experiences at the hands of others. Rape, psychological torture and physical abuse
are considered terrible, repugnant acts, but it’s a sad fact that reports of
these crimes seem to trigger a sort of mental block and victims can be subjected
to disbelief or questions of who really was to blame.
Hope murdered her parents. That is an undisputed fact. Now
her defence that she was under the mind control of a powerful individual is the subject of public ridicule.
She is being vilified by the media who cannot accept that a being with Kilgrave’s
powers can exist; this is presumably the same media who accepted that their
city was recently saved from aliens by an extraterrestrial god and a green
monster. People with superpowers are out there in this universe, yet Hope’s
claims cannot be granted even the tiniest credence. Hope, and Jessica before
her, like so many experiencing abuse within a relationship, experienced the
duality of both needing to flee and being scared to leave Kilgrave’s
control. She was aware that she was being controlled, but she couldn’t break
away. Her own words were there in the back of her head, but when Kilgrave spoke
to her, all she could think of was what he wanted her to do. As her claims are picked apart live on Trish’s
radio talk show – by her own lawyer Hogarth, no less –she is very publically thrown
to the media and other doubters who are waiting for an opportunity to rip her
to shreds like a shoal of hungry piranha. She is tried and found guilty by
media before her trial has even begun. Her only hope is for others with powers
to come forward, or for Jessica to tell her story, but at the moment she’s not
willing to do that. It’s clear that Hope’s tearful account of her time with
Kilgrave have stirred up unpleasant memories for Jessica – will her own fragile
state of mind hold out?
Jessica, meanwhile, has discovered that she’s not the only
superhero in the neighbourhood as she and Luke Cage, he of the unbreakable
skin, compare notes. The general consensus seems to be that being a superhero
is not all that it’s cracked up to be and both of them, for their own reasons,
want to keep their powers under cover. Their origins remain a mystery too,
though we can be pretty certain that we’ll find out more about Jessica’s
accident soon. However the ‘experiment’ that Luke teases is likely to be kept
under wraps until his own Netflix series launches next year. What is divulged
though is that Reva Collins was Luke’s wife, and Jessica’s guilt at being her
killer is more than she can bear, and she tries to distance herself from him.
Again largely in the shadows in this episode, Kilgrave is
very much manipulating the game and he ups the stakes by targeting someone very
close to Jessica. The nature of Jessica and Trish’s relationship isn’t made
clear yet, but there is definitely a long history there and in spite of their
recent differences Jessica still regards Trish as someone she can trust.
Fortunately Trish has Jessica in her life too, because her martial arts fail
her when she faces death at the hands of Officer Will Simpson of the NYPD who Kilgrave has sent to kill her following her on air taunting of him. Jessica uses the situation to locate Kilgrave,
tricking Simpson into thinking he has succeeded in his mission and then
following him as he returns to report. Finally Kilgrave is revealed as he washes his hands of Simpson. Believing that his assassination mission is complete, he orders the cop, with
casual brutality, to walk off a building, barely shifting
his gaze from his rugby match. When he and Jessica come face to face, he
actually looks quite pleased with himself. As far as he is concerned, the
abuser has control of the situation again, even if he does not yet control
Jessica.
But Jessica has a bigger shock to come when she discovers
evidence of Kilgrave’s overbearing preoccupation with her: he has been having
her photographed all around the city. Stalking, of course, is another tool of
the creepy and obsessed, intended to watch and intimidate, to locate and
control. In this digital age, Kilgrave could quite easily keep tabs on Jessica,
yet he chooses to have her photographed and has amassed a huge collection. As
he has chosen to plaster his walls with them, they’re probably as much for his
own pleasure as they are for surveillance. It’s not clear whether Jessica was
intended to find this and how she was supposed to react. Her priority now is to
uncover the person acting as photographer on Kilgrave’s behalf. From the
locations of some of the pictures she suspects that it’s someone close by. The worst
is that she knows that Kilgrave is just toying with her. He’s barely got started
yet, Fortunately Jessica has a plan, she just has to create the right situation
to bring it to fruition, but she’ll have to act quickly before Kilgrave gains
more ground against her.
Cast
Jessica Jones – Krysten Ritter
Kilgrave – David Tennant
Jeri Hogarth – Carrie-Anne Moss
Hope Schlottman – Erin Moriarty
Trish Walker – Rachael Taylor
Will Simpson – Wil Traval
Malcolm – Eka Darville
Ruben – Kieran Mulcare
Wendy Ross-Hogarth – Robin Weigert
Marvel’s Jessica Jones is now available to stream on
Netflix.
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