Jessica Jones, Post Binge

Well, apparently I liked it, because now I've finished season one of Jessica Jones, the second of Marvel's Netflix shows, which will form the kind of "street level Avengers" group, the Defenders. Much like the preceding Daredevil, Jessica Jones is very much about the rough, more grounded and gritty world of superheroes. It's a lot darker, certainly more violent, and less gee-whiz-fun than the movies tend to be. In fact, there are clear lines of distinction drawn between the movies and these shows that almost feels like a class division. The Avengers are the 1% - they have a massive battle in New York City with tons of explosions and bark witty one-liners at each other while fighting aliens. But Daredevil and Jessica Jones don't have the fame or the resources that the Avengers do. Their fights are not to save the world, but are more about cleaning things up in their immediate areas.

Spoilers are going to come after a cut, but for now I'm going to keep things broad.

Daredevil's story was a much more classic superhero story - Wilson Fisk is Lex Luthor writ small - he's another bald crime boss, but while he has a lot of power in his neighborhood, he's definitely not going to be taking over the whole world any time soon. While Fisk is certainly strong, it's not really a superpower - he's ultimately just a charismatic gangster who runs a tight ship.

Jessica Jones spends the entire season in a struggle to stop someone who absolutely has a superpower. Kilgrave, the "Purple Man" is utterly horrifying thanks to his ability to force people to do things simply by asking or telling them to, combined with an utter megalomania and lack of empathy.

David Tennant is of course beloved for his portrayal of the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who, and what makes that prior casting so interesting is that in many ways, Kilgrave is sort of a villainous take on that character. (Just for the record, that isn't my original idea - I read it in some AV Club comment and was fascinated by it.) Tennant's Doctor often masterfully talked his way out of problems, averting disaster through sheer force of charisma. In the Waters of Mars, the Doctor begins to wonder if he should just embrace how powerful a person he is and use it to simply get what he wants - to become the "Time Lord Victorious." We never really got to see him fall into that on that show, but in a sense, we see that in the Purple Man.

Ok, let's make this officially spoilers:

Jessica Jones somehow manages to use Kilgrave's mental violation both allegorical for rape, and also the method by which Kilgrave literally raped her. There's no shying away from this, and Hope, the college student kidnapped by him in the first episode, has to get an abortion to avoid having his child. Jessica is a survivor of this herself, and the show is largely about her dealing with the trauma of her experience under his control.

But there are some interesting questions here about how abuse can make the abuser question their own consent. The moment that breaks Jessica away from Kilgrave in the first place is when she kills a woman who had discovered a secret of his. She punches her with her full super-strength, presumably stopping her heart and maybe caving in the woman's chest - she believes under his command, though Kilgrave points out that he never told her to do that, instead simply saying "take care of her. After this happens, Jessica walks away from Kilgrave as he calls after her to stop.

The entire series, the threat seems to be that Kilgrave could command her to be with him again if he wanted to. He claims that he wants to have her of her own free will, but the truth is that he doesn't have control of her, and can't.

Jessica believes that killing Reva (who, as it turns out, was her love interest Luke Cage's wife) was what snapped her out of Kilgrave's control, but I think we are meant to question this. Plenty of people kill - either others or themselves - thanks to Kilgrave's suggestions, but they don't become immune to him afterward.

The thing is, I think that Kilgrave's mind-control power is only one part of the equation. After all, there are plenty of abusive people who exist in the real world who are fully capable of manipulating people without having some sort of mind-control super-virus. After so long under his thrall, she might have acquired some immunity in some other way, but she was still trapped in a mental state where she felt forced to do what he said.

While he's such a horrific monster that you're pretty happy to see him dead at the end of the season (though remember that this guy survived getting hit by a bus, so, grain of salt,) there remain a lot of unanswered questions surrounding how Jessica became immune. It's also a shame that we won't have David Tennant on the show anymore.

But in a way, I almost wonder if those unanswered questions will actually be fuel for season two. Season one revolved around her hunt for Kilgrave, practically defining the arc of the show. Jessica will need to find a way to accept the lack of answers and move on to find new definition - very much like someone who has escaped an abuser.