Jessica Jones-- Marvel/Netflix

[tomalak301]

I watched episode 9 last night and holy crap that might be the best episode so far. Tennant and Ritter are giving some great performances and even the drama with Hogarth's situation isn't hogging the screen time. So glad I started watching this series and I can't wait to see how it ends.

 

[FPAlpha]

Just finished it by binge watching what felt like the entire Sunday. Seen the first 3 episodesearlier and then started again and just couldn't stop (i should be in bed for 2 hours and i'm gonna pay today in the office )

Another awesome Netflix show in the same vein and quality we got from Daredevil and while i like the flashy, CGI driven mainstream movies (and some of them are really brilliant like Cap 2) this here is a very different animal and it's equally brilliant just from the other side of the spectrum.

While i'm not a huge fan of the Noir filmstyle it worked well for Jessica Jones and gave the show its own style. I loved the supporting actors and to me they seemed a bit more fleshed out than in Daredevil which is just a small nitpick.

While Daredevil had the the more "flashy" martial arts influenced fight styles this show was just a down to earth brawl whenever some fighting happened which was also a nice change compared to Daredevil.

What really set it apart and made it its own show was Tennant as Kilgrave.. that dude was creepy as fuck and the things he did throughout the show was just sick and i loved it because the show didn't shy away from anything and tried to show what a psycho with his powers would be able to do.

I won't go into details because the show is too fresh for spoilers but enjoy it.. i have and can't wait now to see the other shows coming up at Netflix (it's wrong to think of them as spin offs i think) and am even more pumped for Daredevil season 2.

 

[JD]

I think, like I had with Daredevil, its the slightly extra running time of 50+ minutes that causes it. Rather than your usual 40-45 or so a lot of shows have

As someone who first started watching TV in the '70s, when it was normal for shows to run 50-plus minutes, and has had to watch commercials steadily erode away nearly another 20 percent of that content over the ensuing decades, I can't express how refreshing it is to see Netflix returning the "hourlong" television episode to something closer to an hour again. I loved how Daredevil allowed its scenes to breathe and made room for long, thoughtful conversations, instead of having to cram everything into five or six segments of only a few minutes each.

Netflix actually lets their shows go over an hour. Some of their episodes of Longmire are as long as 69 minutes.

 

[gblews]

Just finished it last night. Great. Kristen Ritter, David Tennant, Racheal Taylor, Mike Colter, just wonderful performances. Compliments also to Melissa Rosenberg and the rest of the production staff. This is a far cry from Twilight and Birds of Prey, proving that sometimes people are capable of writing some great stuff and some...not so great stuff.

 

[tomalak301]

Finished the season tonight and I really liked that. Loved Ritter as the main character and while I felt the series kinda got away from the Noir aspects of the first few episodes (the Jazz music really made for quite an atmosphere), it was tense and enjoyable throughout. Loved Tennant as Kilgrave and the supporting cast was pretty good too. There were some contrivences and some of the stories felt like they needed to tack on 13 episodes, but I enjoyed this series a whole lot more than Master of None.

I'm really interested in watching Daredevil now. I wasn't back when it came out but after seeing JJ, it's next on my list for Netflix.

 

[kirk55555]

I just finished the show, so I figured I'd put in an ending comment. To avoid a huge complaint fest, I'll just say that David Tennant was awesome as Kilgrave, Luke Cage's actor was decent and Cage's show could be good if the showrunner is actually competent, and while a few other elements were ok overall most of the show was a slow, boring slough through mediocrity with Purple Man sometimes popping up and being awesome. Unfortunately

Spoiler: Jessica Jones

The best character in the show was killed

so if there is a season 2, I won't be watching it. I am definitely interested in Luke Cage's show, though. Hopefully it won't be made by anyone from JJ, and it won't have her be more than a possible cameo. Overall, I'd say its the second big failure of the MCU, although its still 100 times better than Agent Carter. Hopefully Marvel will actually produce a good female lead superhero thing when Captain Marvel is made in a few years.

 

[Christopher]

My new computer's up and running, so I've finally started watching this. Up to episode 3, and it's pretty good so far. Even if it is kind of predictable that every time Jessica feels satisfied about something, it means something really awful is about to happen.

I liked the bit in episode 1 with Hope's father fussing over the door -- at first it seemed like a silly comedy beat, but then it turned out to be an expression of sincere concern for a stranger's safety, and that won a bit of respect/liking from Jessica so she took the case. And then, of course, something really awful happened to the whole family.

I think Ritter is doing a good job as Jessica, but I'm really impressed by Mike Colter as Luke Cage. He's very effective and well-cast. And that was perhaps the funniest use of "Sweet Christmas!" ever. Tennant's great too, but that goes without saying. I'm a bit underwhelmed by Rachael Taylor as Trish/Patsy, though.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

kirk55555, I don't mean to be disparaging or make hasty assumptions in saying this, but I'm getting the feeling from your comments that you're not very attuned/sympathetic to the female point of view, as that's the greatest common factor between Jessica Jones and Agent Carter, and an aesthetic central to both. Please note I'm not attempting to reduce this to "if you don't like it you're just sexist" but respectfully I think it might be worth self-reflecting a bit over.

 

[kirk55555]

kirk55555, I don't mean to be disparaging or make hasty assumptions in saying this, but I'm getting the feeling from your comments that you're not very attuned/sympathetic to the female point of view, as that's the greatest common factor between Jessica Jones and Agent Carter, and an aesthetic central to both. Please note I'm not attempting to reduce this to "if you don't like it you're just sexist" but respectfully I think it might be worth self-reflecting a bit over.

Or maybe I just think those two shows are poorly done, and they just happen to be female centered? I've loved several female centered shows (like Buffy, Xena, etc.), and some of my favorite comics of all time are female centered and female written. I just thought that JJ and AC were badly written. I also thought that the Catwoman movie was horribly written, but because people generally agree with me about that no one tries to use it as an example of me hating female-lead stuff

With Agent Carter, its basically just a documentary about the (completely legitimate) crappy working conditions for women in the 50s (and 60s, 70s, etc). I could watch a real documentary about that and it would probably be informative, but I can not stand 8 hours of a superhero show with that as the central theme. I like the character of Peggy Carter a lot. But, like Game of Thrones, the vast majority of the characters are hateful, despicable a-holes. It might be realistic, but it frustrates me too much to have any positive feelings about the show.

Jessica Jones had a bunch of side characters I didn't care about, a main actress I never found convincing, characters completely changed/depowered from the comic versions for strictly plot convenience reasons, and sub plots that were pointless and went nowhere (the female lawyer only existed to do basically two things, but she probably got about an hour of wasted screen time all total).

I like female heroes and I really want a good female superhero movie/show. I just don't think that Agent Carter or Jessica Jones are it, just like the Birds of Prey TV show wasn't it, and the 70s Wonder Woman wasn't it, etc. That said, I'm excited to see Captain Marvel when Marvel gets around to doing it, and Supergirl (while I think it has some big weak points) is a good step towards an awesome female superhero show. I'd love or DC and Marvel to add more female heroes to their movie and TV rosters (where is She-Hulk already?). I just don't happen to like some of Marvel's attempts at female lead shows.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

OK, fair enough.

 

[Christopher]

Up to episode 6 now. I'm disappointed we didn't actually get to see Jessica in the Jewel costume or role, that it was just something Trish pushed for but Jessica rejected. I was hoping the flashbacks would show her actually being a superhero for at least a little while. I mean, the idea in the comics, from what I've seen, was to contrast the bright and colorful fantasy of superheroes with the grittier reality of what Killgrave did to her. It might've been nice if the flashbacks had had some of the character of the Marvel movies, to achieve that same contrast.

But you know, I think "The Sandwich" would be a cool name for a superhero!

On the photo-a-day thing, couldn't Jessica, like, take a bunch of photos ahead of time and set her phone to mail them out once a day? And speaking of phones, it bugs me that her phone screen has a "slide to answer" screen just like mine, but she always taps to answer instead. (She also eats the same brand of organic crackers I do!)

It's startling how much Officer Simpson looks like Steve Rogers.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Nuke is only metaphorically the Captain America of Vietnam, and he isn't even that in Netflix, but yeah, focus, groups, what'chu gonna do?

And now for something completely different...

Captain America from the Spider-Gwen Universe.

In an alt Marvel Universe, an early 20-something African American female nudged ahead of Steve Rogers to become the "first" Captain America, of the 1940s, and helped win World War II.

Her first uniform involved a shin length dress skirt.

 

[Christopher]

Through episode 9 now. Man, there's no shortage of freakish medical experiments in the MCU, is there? I wonder how many of those '80s experiments on kids were backed by Hydra.

Spoiler: episode 9

And Simpson not only looks like Captain America, it seems he's involved in what sounds like some kind of knockoff supersoldier program, complete with red, white, and blue pills. I wonder, is his obsession with killing Kilgrave just runaway aggression? Because it's starting to feel more like he has something to hide, some secret Kilgrave knows about him that he doesn't want to reveal.

I'm impressed by how well Malcolm has bounced back. Eka Darville's done a great job taking the character from strung-out junkie to strong-willed man of integrity. I also like it that Jessica's more a hero than she realizes, trying so hard to help people and do right by them, even though she's rude and aloof about it.

I like how they're acknowledging Patsy Walker's history as a teen romance-comic star by going with the modern equivalent of being a former Disney Channel-type tween sitcom star. And they've kept a version of her superhero-groupie characterization too, sort of, as well as her potential to become a crimefighter herself. I've been waiting for someone to describe her as "a real hellcat," although I don't know if this show would go for that kind of cute in-joke.

 

[Guy Gardener]

So I'm blocked too? If he can't see me, can I stop being polite?

Simpson is Nuke, from Millers seminal run on Darvedevil "Born Again".

In the comics when he would say "Gimmie a red" or "gimme a blue" it would actually be facepaint they handed him, because he was drawing an American flag on his bananapants face.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

They were pills in the comic, too.

In some future season, I sincerely hope Simpson goes absolutely ****nuts and paints an American flag on his face.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Oh? Well. I can see that that's a pill now.

10 year old me at the time, thought that it was a pastel crayon he was touching up his make up with.

Old memories are stronger than new memories.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

It would be better if he painted his face with crayons and then ate them.

"Gimme a red."

"There's only one red in the box. You ate it, you git!"

"Gimme a blue."

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was so elusive at preschool, ranting during the mid afternoon symposiums, trying to figure out what crayons we had to eat, in what quantities, to crap rainbows.

Trouble is that if you mix even only a couple colours together, it all quicky goes very brown, then gray and then black.

Rainbow shit is funny.

Black shit is a trip to the Doctors office for a colonoscopy.

 

[FPAlpha]

They were pills in the comic, too.

In some future season, I sincerely hope Simpson goes absolutely ****nuts and paints an American flag on his face.

I doubt it.. the Netflix style shows so far have tried to stay well away from the more goofier and flashier style of the MCU and it's what i really like about it.

Yes, they have superpowers but it's not being made centerstage on what makes these people tick, it's just an added bonus (especially in the case if Jessica Jones).

Spoiler: Spoiler for JJs friend Trish

Did anyone notice that when Trish was hospitalized after taking one of Sampsons red pills there was a short shot of her face in the bed where the light fell like streaks on her face? Might just have been me but it looked like an easter egg by trying to emulate Nuke's face flag paint and i thought it was a cool little thing.. or it wasn't and i am imagining too much

 

[Christopher]

Okay, I'm finished.

Spoiler: last few episodes

I guess Simpson/Nuke really was just gung-ho about killing Kilgrave. I could've sworn he was trying to cover up something Kilgrave knew or some connection to his big secret. I mean, otherwise his reason for killing Clemons is kind of vague -- that he didn't want Kilgrave "put in the system." (And what it is it about the Netflix shows setting up older, bearded black men as empathetic authority figures and then killing them off? Really, I should've seen Clemons's fate coming, given how they kept mentioning that he was two years from retirement.)

A bit odd how Claire Temple suddenly showed up in the final episode and played such a major role. It works for those of us who've seen Daredevil, but for those who haven't, it would've been odd to see this stranger suddenly taking over so much of the story in the final episode. But then, maybe they had to, since they'd killed off so many other characters by that point. Really, the body count here was astonishing.

I'm also a bit surprised that Luke just walked out and left things unresolved. Do we know if Jessica's going to be in his series?

What I like about the show is that it's very much a story about recovery, about surviving trauma and coping with its aftermath and moving on with your life in its wake. Most shows focus on the acts of violence and cruelty themselves and don't get as much into the survivors' recovery process. This show was all about PTSD and coping with traumatic memories, and about the good and bad choices made by victimized people in response to their victimization -- whether they use it as an excuse to do more harm to themselves or others, or use it to motivate them to help themselves or others. I appreciated that focus.