Viewer Log: Jessica Jones ep 16

Can't decide if threats on one's life or one's New York apartment feels scarier.

Trish: Remember when we could hangout without committing
felonies?"
Jessica: ... No, not really.

Last time on Jessica Jones the team gets desperate to find a lead on IGH and its mysterious killer. Jessica investigates Dr. Kozlov, only to find he’s incredibly dead. Meanwhile, Trish’s attempt to use a former pervy director of hers to get more IGH’s information. Guy donates heavily to the hospital that Jessica was sent to, she was trying to use his clout there for info. Things don’t go so well and she runs off to reclaim her composure. She get’s tracked by former lover and other IGH test subject Will Simpson. She captures Simpson before Jessica joins them. Simpson reveals he’d been stalking her to protect from IGH’s wetworks agent, just before said agent arrives. He offers to protect the women to help them escape, but is killed in the confrontation. Turns out, the creature was hunting him, not Trish.

We open to Jessica and Trish standing on a beach. Jessica explains that it’s a small beach that she and her family used to visit when on vacation. It’s private enough that Jessica considered killing herself there after the rest of the Jones’ died. They dumped Simpson’s body there, since Jessica would be in all kinds of trouble if she was caught with yet another body. Which really says something about her decision-making skills, now doesn’t it? They ditch Simpson’s truck, but Trish takes Simpson’s bag of weaponry, including his inhaler of superhero steroid.

Trish takes Jessica to a hypnotherapist in an attempt to clear up her memories regarding IGH that she’s blocked. Jessica tries for a minute, maybe two, but quickly says screw it. She leaves and takes Trish’s files on IGH with her to read over herself. She leaves Trish with a very angry Griffin that stopped by. Oo, would not want to be Trish right now.

Jeri has a private meeting with the other partners at her firm. They’ve found out that Jeri has ALS and are attempting to forcibly buy her out. Jeri isn’t interested, and tells them to screw off. Both partners leave, but they do have a clause in their contract that lets them remove Jeri for medical reasons. They tell her to go quietly or they’ll force her out. FYI the assumption is that they’re forcing the issue to hopefully end the lawsuit that Jeri’s former assistant filed against her and the firm. A short time later Foggy Nelson comes in and offers to help Jeri with her case against the other partners, but she screams at him to leave her alone. How dare you, Jeri Hogarth, shout at the nicest character from Daredevil?

Malcolm meets Jessica as she gets home, revealing that she’s being evicted. Apparently, it’s illegal to run a business out of residential building. I’m wondering why this didn’t come up in the time that Jessica was living here… Anyway, Jessica goes to confront her Super, Oscar Arocho, about him forcing her out. Jessica is her usual “charming” self, which doesn’t sway Oscar. Oscar tells her she’s got 30 days.

Back at Trish’s apartment, she and Griffin are having a heated argument about her questionable decisions of the last few days. Griffin reveals that, as he is a famous warzone reported, his last girlfriend left him because she was tired of constantly worrying. And that him staying at home worrying about Trish must be karmic retribution. She admits that she’s worried that IGH might target him to get to her, and asks him to stay away while they deal with IGH. He needs time to think things out.

Jessica starts going through the files Trish found. She finds at least four other people issued Death Certificates in connection to IGH. She sets up a crime board thing with all the info she’s gathered but doesn’t seem to make heads or tails of the info once arranged. She heads to bed, where she promptly has a nightmare. She’s hooked up to a Whiskey intravenous drip and brother-ashes are falling from the sky. And when she gets up, she’s attacked by the “Meat Monster” from her memories of IGH. She wakes up as Malcolm shouts for her. He reveals that he found dirt on Super Oscar. Turns out, he did time for forgery. Malcolm also reveals the old super was a super guy and that firing him and replacing him seems odd. She sends Malcolm to talk to the Landlord and see if they can work something out.

Sorry Trinity, I still can't bring myself to feel sorry for ya.

Jessica returns to the IGH building. She looks through the building, finding a creepy hallway she’d been thinking about. She opens the door, but just finds a pretty much empty room. There are a few old tables and chairs but nothing important. She double checks the door and finds a name that had been engraved on it. Dr. Leslie Hansen. She meets up with Trish, and the two go to find Hansen. They were able to track Hansen down using her student loan payment info. She sends her bills to a rent-controlled apartment, which Jessica is adamant that no one would ever give up. The ladies make it up to the apartment to find it clean. As in, it's empty of anything other then the furniture. They get the explanation from an ex Machina… I mean a random noisy neighbor that tells them the old tenant moved out last week and that he recalled her bringing boxes down to the basement. They rush down to the basement to find that the building’s incinerator had recently been fired. Apparently, those things retain heat for days. Jessica sticks her head in, hoping to find a lead, but instead finds a head… another head. Obviously a little freaked out, they nab the head and take it to a coroner they know. Maury Tuttlebomb is bribed by Trish with the promises of fine cuisine to fast track the mystery head file, which Jessica created really fast while Maury was spacing out in the next room. Go team.

They return to their respective abodes. Jessica tries to focus and pick up more memories from IGH, but just can’t get there. It especially doesn’t help when Malcolm comes back. He’s rather peeved that Jessica sent him to be man-candy for their very gay landlord to try and get her way. Which, ya know, is fair. He mentions that it didn’t work because the Oscar had did ‘good work’ for the Landlord and that the LL’s Cambodian boyfriend finally got his green card and is on his way to the states. This tips off Jessica, who forces a pluming issue and calls Oscar to come fix it. While the Super-intendant works, the Super-hero breaks into his apartment… she openly admits she’s not the best person. She’s momentarily distracted by Oscar’s son, but distracts the kid long enough to find something. Oscar comes in and is rather upset that she broke into his house. She drops the bomb that she knows what he did for the Landlord. Pretty simple train of logic, Oscar when to jail for Forgery, the Landlord’s boyfriend finally got a green card after a long wait, and now the Landlord won’t hear a word against Oscar; Oscar forged the papers for Landlord’s boyfriend and got the Super job as payment. Oscar says screw off, and Jessica storms out. She really is her own worst enemy.

Around the same time, Trish is watching Robert’s video where he offered to come onto her show. She’s so absorbed that she nearly kills Griffin when he arrives unexpectantly. The two make up, which is good, but Griffin ends up downloading a copy of the video while Trish isn’t paying attention, which is a little suspicious.

 Later on, Jeri stops by Jessica’s place. She admits that she’d hired Pryce Cheng to try and get her to work with Jeri again, and that she’s now repping Cheng on his personal lawsuit against Jessica. Why? Because she’s desperate to get Jessica to help. She explains about her ALS and that her partners are using that to force her out because of that embarrassing lawsuit with her former office hoe. Sorry, sorry, that is harsh, but a not inaccurate statement. Anyway, while the severance pay would be substantial, Jeri is quite adamite that the work is all that’s keeping her sane, so she’d rather not lose it. Jessica tells her that everyone has dirt, it’s just a matter of knowing where to look.

On Trish Talk, Trish tries something a little nutty. She creates a fake segment ‘honoring unsung heroes’ or some such, and asks her fans to tell her about one such individual, Leslie Hansen. She wants to hear any personal stories or anecdotes people have on the former ER doctor. Shockingly, one of the first calls she gets is from Hansen herself. Later, she tries to convince Jessica that her going to meet Hansen alone (one of the doctor’s demands) is not the stupid idea it sounds. Jessica, who’s too sober to deal with this, fakes a tip to the local paparazzi about Trish and Griffin being on the outs. Can’t very well have a clandestined meeting when a bunch of noisy pricks following you, now can ya? She calls Malcolm in to keep an eye of Trish and goes to the meeting herself.

You know, after fighting a Ninja Cult and a mind controlling
Brit, you'd think she'd stop being surprised by things like a
middle aged woman scaling a tall building in thirty seconds.

Jessica meets Dr. Hansen at her favorite bar and almost instantly starts putting the squeeze on her. Jessica claims the good doctor used her position as an ER doctor to funnel hopeless cases to IGH to use in their (probably) highly illegal experiments. Hansen get’s defensive, claiming IGH were the good guys but, shockingly, Jessica isn’t buying it.

Malcolm stops by Trish’s place. Trish intitially tries to shoo him away, as her apartment is quite secure, but gets a call from Maury before she can. Turns out, the head they found was positively IDed as Dr. Leslie Hansen. Realizing that Jessica is probably in trouble, what with being in a meeting with the not-doc, she get’s Malcolm to help her evade the paparazzi and meet up with Jessica. He basically walked out with a camera and told them to go to Griffin’s place. Well, that was easy.

At the bar, Not-Hansen explained that the IGH experiments were about using gene editing to help combat diseases. And explains superpowers were an… unusual side effect that happened to a few folks that were brought in for the treatment. She insists Jessica be grateful, as the then teenager died on the table and was only revived via the treatment. When Jessica tries to use her strength to scare Not-Hansen, Not-Hansen shows off super human strength of her own. The two get into a fight as Not-Hansen tries to escape. The super gets away, but Jessica was able to get a few pics of her. How? The one paparazzi that followed Trish and Malcolm to the bar hoping to get a scoop. Who knew those little parasites could be useful?

Well, that escalated quickly. This Not-Hansen that was introduced raises a fair number of questions. Well, maybe not raises but makes me want to reiterate a few. Why is IGH cleaning house? Is Not-Hansen killing traitorous staff? Or has someone pointed her at people like Kozlov and Hansen for another reason? I suppose a new one is why a minion that was just praising IGH’s good works killing their people in the first place? Seems very odd. Given the strength, speed and jumping capability Not-Hansen showed off, I’m now wondering if physical enhancement type powers were IGH’s main focus of research (Not-Hansen’s comments being taken with a pound of salt) or it’s a coincidence that just two of their physical enhancement type experiments crossed paths like this. Regardless, the plot thickens. I was a little disappointed that Simpson got an off-camera deep sea burial and recap rather then an actual funeral of some kind. Sure, the dude made a lot of bad choices last season, but he was still their friend once and died trying to protect them. Least they could have done was have the actor on for a little cameo appearance before they dumped the body, all I’m saying. I’m not sure how I feel about the super-human racism subplot going on between Jessica and Oscar. It just feels weird to see a white woman accusing a Hispanic man of prejudice. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that’s happened at least once in the course of human history, but it still feels weird. That being said, I still prefer this subplot to the creepy twins from last season. <Shudder>. I hope that the rest of the season can keep this tension up. It’d be a shame if things started to flounder now that it's getting good.  

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: Jessica Jones ep 15

Who killed Robert "The Whizzer" Frank?

Last time on Jessica Jones, things haven’t been going well for our superpowered detective. As her best friend and adoptive sister Trish Walker looks into the mysterious IGH that gave Jessica her powers, she was approached by a crazy man looking for protection. Said crazy guy, Robert Frank aka The Whizzer, claims to be a speedster created by IGH and was looking for Jessica’s help to protect him. It’s revealed that Whizzer is if fact a speedster, and that someone was after him, as he was killed by collapsing scaffolding. Not a great way to start a week, is it Jessica?

We open on Jessica drowning her sorrows in a bottle of whiskey. Apparently seeing the facility and remembering some of the IGH experiments messed her up bad. After a few more shots, a failed call to talk with Trish, and a less then satisfying rendezvous with a random drunk, Jessica tries to get back to work. She calls Malcolm, who’d been on research duty. The recovered druggy had discovered that the building was leased to Dr. Kozlov, which comes as a shock to nobody. He’s given the new task of finding Kozlov’s home address. While he does that, he’s texted by someone named Annette. How odd.

Huh, searching a dead man's house during his funeral, I
wonder if this is a career low for JJ?

Jessica takes a taxi out to the burbs. Using her superstrength to leap Kozlov’s fence, she slowly approaches the house. Her guard is up because there are guys in black everywhere. Turns out, there’s a reason for that, other than the obvious “hired muscle” scenario. No, turns out, Kozlov died in a car accident and the men in black are mourners. Well… crap. The funeral itself causes Trish to flashback to her family’s funeral, and the crappy advice Dorothy Walker gave to her to at least act sad. She also hears an amputee vet singing Kozlov’s praises. Apparently, when he’s not kidnapping people to perform unethical performance enhancing experiments on them, Doc Kozlov was a real swell guy, checking up on patients and the like.

Trish meanwhile is meeting up with her soul sucking mother. Ms. Dorothy Walker is pretty much your former starlet’s mother stereotype, in case that wasn’t clear. All bad advice, judgmental snide comments about being a failure in acting, that sort of thing. After getting through some niceties, Trish cuts to the quick and asks for the home address of someone named Max.  Her mom makes it sound like he’s a guy that she had a small falling out with, keep that in mind. Dorothy tries to deflect Trish’s intrest, but she isn’t deterred. Trish demands mama Walker give it up. Dorothy relents, giving her daughter the address and the ‘advice’ to get her boyfriend Griffin to put a ring on it before her talk show hits the crapper. Got to love supportive mothers. When the mother and daughter part ways, we’re shown that Simpson is in fact following her. He takes a hit on an inhaler, which seems to clear up his bloody sclera… for some reason.

Jessica snoops through Kozlov’s office while the funeral is going on. She only sees a picture of Kozlov with an old acquaintance of hers, Will Simpson and his old squad. (I mistakenly called him Frank earlier, that’s the character he’s loosely based off of.)  The amputee soldier from earlier, Isaiah, rolls in and attacks her with a retractable baton. He didn’t bye her story about knowing the doc. Jessica, being a bruiser, brushes it off and flips him onto the ground. She wants to know what he knows about Kozlov. He keeps singing Kozlov’s praises and claims that his killer was the traitor, Will Simpson. Well isn’t that convenient?

After getting cleaned up back at her place, Jessica starts doing some research of her own. She can’t seem to find a connection between Will Simpson and Robert Frank, shocking the former solider and conspiracy nutter didn’t cross paths very often. She gives up on an internet search, and instead digs Frank’s keys from his bag and goes to check out his house. She’s stopped by a pair of cops, who are looking into Robert Frank’s death. Jessica claims she didn’t see anything, but the cops don’t seem convinced. She takes them to see her Super, who’d seen the whole thing, but he pleads ignorance. Dick. She moves onto Frank’s apartment. It looks like he was prepping for the fricking apocalypse. Other then Frank’s precious mongoose, the place is deserted. She find’s Frank’s tablet, and plays a video on it. He left a video message to somebody. In it, he explains that he’d broken his back after a stupid stunt when he was eighteen. After a stay with IGH, he was suddenly superfast. The crappy thing is that his powers are physically painful, and parodies Spider-Man’s catchphrase. With great powers comes great mental illness… Where would he have heard that? Anyway, Jessica legs it with Frank’s tablet as the cops show up.

Meanwhile, Trish tries to recruit Malcolm to help her with a secret project. He’d been enjoying an evening with, I assume, Annette, but because he’s a good guy he agrees to help. She disguises him as a production assistant before going to confront Max. Turns out, Max is the director. The two have a meeting in his trailer. He initially thinks she’s looking to get back into movies, but instead she asks for his help. She wants to use his clout with the hospital he donates to get a look at Jessica’s files and anything else pertaining to IGH. Max refuses. When he does, Trish gives him the ultimatum of “Help me, or I’ll reveal the fact you’re a predator.” He tries to turn it around on her, ‘oh you came onto me’ type bs. Hey, Maxhole, it doesn’t matter if she went full on Varsity Blues (1999) on you, (ya’ll know what scene I’m talking about) IF an underage girl hits on you, you say nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Sorry, that got really real for a second. She gives him some time to think it over. Unbeknownst to Max, Malcolm was recording the whole thing from his bathroom.

Sidenote, this is the guy that Trish’s mother acted like they’d just had a falling out. The man that abused her daughter. And she seems to know about it. If your immediate reaction in that situation isn’t “Castrate the SOB with a pair of rusty sheers” you fail as a parent.

Oh thank God, he hasn't gotten the face tattoo.
That would NOT translate well to live action.

At her apartment complex, Jessica runs into and confronts her Super about him lying about what he saw at Whizzer’s accident. He claims that he wants to stay out of it as it might affect an ongoing custody battle he’s having with his ex. Jessica thinks he’s just a powersist. You know, someone who is prejudiced against people with superpowers. In her apartment, she goes over Whizzer’s tablet. She’s finds what you might expect; comic book sites, Trish Talk, conspiracy sites… wait what was that second one? Yeah, turns out he was reach out to Trish and was willing to talk to her about IGH. Jessica realizes that if Whizzer was killed for reaching out to Trish, then Trish is probably also on the hit list.

She first goes to Trish’s apartment, but only finds a frantic Griffin. He’d started going through Trish’s research, found she was looking into highly illegal experiments conducted by shady corporate types, and since she’s not picking up her phone he’d starting to freak out. Jessica tells him to head back home, not before he mention’s Trish’s meeting with her mom, and let her search for Trish. She thumbs through Trish’s research. She finds a bunch of disturbing stuff, chief of which being a Death Certificate issued to Jessica Jones. Well that is probably one of the weirder things to find on a case. She dials up Dorothy, who basically tells Jessica to screw off. Well, her exact words were she’s “living in the present, you should try it.” Which is funny because she’s sitting in a room surrounded by memorabilia from her daughter’s TV show. From (minimum) 14 years ago.

Back at the lot, Malcolm goes to confront Max. The little prick actually thinks Malcolm is trying to rob him. He, instead, demands that Max admit to what he did to Trish. Max-hole tries to brush it off, the old “oh you just heard her side of the story” method. Malcolm, who is not a flipping idiot, get’s sick of the sleaze-ball’s sleaze-ball-ness and breaks the heifer’s nose before running off. Nice. Though I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s up for a little vigilante justice, I mean, he works for Jessica and is a former Power Ranger. Seriously, look up Eka Darville, Red Ranger for Power Rangers RPM. Trish, who’d been hiding in the backlot to regain her composure, hears a noise and goes to investigate. She find’s Simpson. She pulls a gun and shoots him when he tries to get near her, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Superhero steroids are a hell of a drug.

Huh, not how I was expecting this to turn out.

Jessica busts down Dorothy’s door, threatens her, and then get’s Trish’s location. But not before Dorothy proves once again to be an awful parent by saying she trusted her daughter’s former abuser over Jessica. Like, seriously, Dorothy sit down and shut up.  Jessica makes it to studio lot, and finds Trish… holding Simpson hostage. Well, that took a turn. Will claims that he had nothing to do with the murders, and that he’d been stalking Trish to protect her from IGH’s wetworks specialist. (wetwork = assassinations) He claims that he’d been drying out in an IGH facility for the last year, when he heard from some of the scientists that they’re going to ‘handle’ Trish. He broke out, stole an inhaler version of his old super pills, and started following her. Its at this exact moment that the IGH wetworker cut the lights to the building they were in. Simpson, once freed, takes Trish’s gun and says he’ll make sure they escape.

They hear several shots fire as they run, and then someone ran through and leaped over them to make for the exit. Realizing that the IGH assassin was after Simpson, not Trish, they go back to check on him. This thing was able to twist Simpson’s head a full 180 degrees. Not a pleasant way to go. Jessica muses that Simpson was right, it takes a monster to fight a monster, he just wasn’t the right one.

Oh, and while this is going on, Jeri Hogarth is spiraling a little after finding out she’s dying. She spends a lot of money on drugs and hookers before Pryce Chang shows up and forces her to refocus. Again, not shedding a tear.

Well, that was a jarring turn. I totally expected Will “Nuke” Simpson to be a recurring antagonist throughout this season. Was not expecting him to perform a heel face turn and then get killed in the second episode. That’s a bit of wrestling terminology I picked up over the years. A Face Wrestler is a good guy, A Heel is a bad guy, and a turn is when they shift between the two. Classic example being the Rock going from good to bad and back again. Sorry, bit of a tangent there. Simpson’s death was shocking. But, might be fitting. If he was on much longer, folks might expect him to get that American Flag Tattoo on his face that Nuke sports. I imagine that would have fallen under “looked good in comics, looks bizarrely silly in live action.” This IGH conspiracy plot is thickening. If they’re killing those likely to expose them, seems odd that they’d taken out one of their best scientists. I wonder if Kozlov was killed because he was going to expose something or because he reactivated and lost Simpson. With an evil organization, I could believe both. That all being said, having IGH’s Hound kill Simpson, one of the physically toughest guys that Jessica has come up against seemingly easily is a good way to up the ante. I’m intrigued to see how this thing connects to IGH and how soon Jessica or Trish end up on it’s hitlist. So yeah, a very good continuation.

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: Jessica Jones ep 14

She's back and in serious need of counseling.

Wow, it feels like it’s been while since we’ve caught up with ol JJ. Last time I remember seeing her, she’d been sharing a drink with Luke Cage after the Defender’s fiasco. She and he were in an okay place and admit that they both handled their post-relationship pretty poorly. To give them both credit, there's a lot of baggage there, so the fact they can talk at all is a bit of a win. From the look of things in this episode, things haven’t been SUPER great since then. Looks like our super PI is hitting the booze hard again. But’s I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get to it, shall we?

We open to Jessica Jones latest job, proving a pizza guy is diddling one of his customers. Apparently, his boss is clingy. The owner, upon finding this out, offers to pay Jessica to kill him. Not being super into the idea of contract killing, Jessica scares the delivery guy off, threatens her client, chucks a pizza tray into a wall and walks off with a pizza. Never, ever call her a vigilante superhero. You know the worst part? She still didn’t get paid. Shucks.

Oh Robert, what have they done to you?

Trish, meanwhile, is debasing herself in the most humiliating way possible… dressing up in her old Patsy costume and singing the theme song for her Disney style sitcom at a kid’s party. Shutter, she’s taking one for the team. Why did she do something so humiliating? To get a file about Jessica Jones’ car accident. Trish incredibly lucky that one of the security guards was a fan of hers. She’s incredibly annoyed that the file feels rather thin, but something is better then nothing. She walks to meet Jessica, and is clearly being tailed by a black SUV. Why is it always a black SUV? Try a blue minivan or something potential villains, change it up. On the roof of a building, Jessica is watching a movie being projected on the side of a building and enjoy booze and pizza. Oh joy. She’s really angry that the superhero vigilante thing and the killing Kilgrave thing keep coming up on her cases. Trish tries to talk her adoptive sister into investigating the company that may have augmented her, IGH. The file she’d gotten showed that Jessica was missing for twenty days following the car accident. She’s tries to use the fact that IGH is still experimenting on people, like Dr. Kozlov’s performance enhancing drugs and Will Simpson, to entice Jessica. Jessica though, chooses to continue to self-medicate and ditches Trish.

The next day, Jessica is awakened with Redbull by Malcolm. Seems like he’s taking the job as her assistant very seriously. He keeps her supplied with Redbull as she interviews potential patients, they range from sob stories to conspiracy theorists to a weird guy claiming to have superpowers and being stalked by killers. That last one is clearly the most insane, what person would willingly go by the Whizzer? After Whizzer was led out, Malcolm tries to convince her to take on at least one pro bono case. They’re conversation is interrupted when Jessica’s next appointment arrives, Pryce Chang of Chang Consulting Management. The guy rather smugly offers Jessica a job. CCM is looking to hire superhumans, for obvious reasons. The best kind of muscle is superpowered muscle, if it isn’t that obvious. Jessica, oh so eloquently, tells him to piss off. He makes a crack about facing problems head on, and Jessica counters by saying she takes threats heads on, meaning she “punch them in the head until they’re unconscious.” God, I love this woman. Chang leaves in a huff, and Jessica decides on a pro bono case. On the way out, she meets her new superintendent and shows off her strength. I’m sure that that’s the last we’ll see of them. <Sarcasm>

Next, we have… oh god, more Jeri Hogarth. The high-powered lawyer is giving a speech at an award ceremony honoring women in Law. Oh joy. At her table, we find that she’s being advised by the partners at her firm to settle the harassment case her former office bimbo… er secretary has filed against her. Jeri refuses, claiming that the secretary (no I didn’t bother looking up or remembering her name) was asking for it. Wow, that always sounds horrible, regardless of who says it or the truth of the statement. So yeah, Jeri Hogarth, still horrible despite being played by Trinity.

On Trish’s talk show, she’s talking PTSD in superhuman vigilantes… how topical. After cutting to break, she meets with her producer… or director, I don’t know who her immediate superior is. I’m going to call him a producer for now. Her producer wants to take things in a new direction. Or more like an old direction. He feels like the ratings are starting to dip after the Defender’s fiasco and a lack of new material. Basically, he tells her either to get some actual superhumans on, or go back to the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous format. Oh joy.

Somebody take that bottle away from her.

Turns out, Jessica’s pro bono gig was spying on Chang. I suppose you can’t get more pro bono then doing a job for yourself. She tries to dig up any sort of dirt on the guy, but only sees him notice her and wave. Creepy. Back at her place, Malcolm is working on some home improvements while Trish waits around. Why did she stop by? To show Jessica a box she’d found in her storage unit. Said box, disturbingly, contains Jessica’s parent’s and brother’s ashes… Apparently, she never did anything with them. That feels wrong on a number of levels. Trish once again tries to pressure Jessica into looking into IGH, but Jessica is not interested. When Trish tries to take the box back, though, Jessica refuses to let it go. Trish leaves and is observed out on the street by a hooded fellow that looks suspiciously like Frank Simpson taking a hit on a high-tech inhaler. Oh, that can’t possibly be good. Later that night, Jessica tries to look up info on Chang’s clients, looking for a nerve to push on. She eventually gives up, pulls out the three urns of ashes, and pours herself a drink. She toasts them, saying “To not missing you someday.”

She has nightmares about the accident, only waking when Malcolm comes in the next morning. He informs her that one of their clients dropped them for another agency and a package from Chang. He sent over a pile of documents chronicling his life story and a note saying “I have nothing to hide.” Dude was willing to pay a fair bit of money for what amounts to a very minor burn. Just saying. Oh, and the Whizzer stops by again, asking for protection from whatever is after it. She slams the door in his face. She gets an idea on how to poke back at Cheng by looking at one of his clients.

So, the client in question was looking for his dog, which had been stolen by his spiteful ex-wife. While Cheng Consulting had been perfectly content with taking things the slow, legal, and expensive way, Jessica is more… results oriented. She broke in and stole the damn thing. Alias Investigations, we’re willing to break any law to get you what you paid for. Jessica returns the dog and gives his owner her card. Cheng, clearly pissed, starts saying all of the wrong things to Jessica. Mentioning the vigilante superhero thing, talking about her rather poor life choices, snapping Kilgrave’s neck. You know, all the things you shouldn’t say to someone with SUPER STRENGTH and a well-documented ANGER PROBLEM. Jessica throws him through some glass doors and beats the ever lovin’ hell out of him. She stops just shy of breaking his face in.

Not every friend is willing to pay bail.

So, obviously Jessica get’s arrested.  She’s released on probation, court ordered anger management, and bail provided by Trish. Trish is honestly the best sort-of-sister ever. In a rare moment of vulnerability, Jessica admits she’s still reeling from the whole killing Kilgrave thing. Trish and later her new guy, Griffin St. Claire, try to pep her up, but Jessica slips away. While looking for Jessica, Trish sees Will Simpson stalking her outside. He runs off before she can nab him.

Back with Jeri, sigh, she’s a dick to her assistant and then has a meeting with Cheng. Turns out, she’d hired Cheng to hire Jessica to force Jessica to do some work for her again. Talk about a roundabout plan. Cheng, now, is rightly pissed that Jessica dislocated his shoulder and whooped him in front of his staff. All I can say is, bro, you poked the bear. Don’t poke the bear unless you’re willing to face the consequences. Cheng wants to hire Jeri to sue Jessica, ruin her personal life. Again, I say, when you piss off someone with Super strength, a messed-up shoulder is walking off easy. But Jeri is intrigued… cold hearted witch.

Jessica gets back to her place, before being attacked by Whizzer. Turns out he’s not insane, he actually has super speed. He pulls a gun on JJ and tries to force her to protect him from the thing chasing him. Jessica obviously doesn’t take well to threats and the two of them tussle. In the fight, the ashes of her brother get thrown about and smash against the ceiling. Whoops. Whizzer runs off, but Jessica jumps out of a window to cut him off. Whizzer keeps running and Jessica keeps chasing. That is until Whizzer is crushed by some debris, and impaled on some rebar.

The next day, Malcom finds Jessica sitting on her floor and, shockingly, drinking. He cleans up the ashes as best he can while listening to Jessica. She tells him about Whizzer’s accident and that he claimed he was being chased by a “Monster” that IGH made. They pull out his bag, and find out the dude was on a LOT of drugs. Like on so many anti-psychotics he should have been a drooling vegetable. And, disturbingly, there’s no prescribing doctor or distribution company. Odd. Jessica finds the IGH front building, a clothing distributor, and goes inside. The place is a wreck, and completely deserted. She has flashbacks to when she was brought in by IGH. The people in charge gave her a lot of injections, and she remembers being attacked by something twisted. That’s an ominous note to end on.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Jeri is implied to be dying of something. Pardon me if I don’t shed a tear.

So… this is a good restart. Healing is a process, and obviously personally murdering her former abuser was probably not the healthiest thing to do. Still, wish Trish and Malcolm would try a little harder to keep her away from the booze. I honestly hope that the court appointed therapy helps her somehow. This latest conflict with IGH, her new rivalry with Cheng, and the legal problems I’m sure she’s going to be dealing with soon suggest things are about to get significantly more complicated for her. And I like the shift in focus to IGH and whatever superhuman experiments they were working on. Conspiracies and illegal experiments usually make for good TV viewing. Using Whizzer as another human Guinea pig was an interesting choice. For those who don’t recognize the name, Robert Frank aka the Whizzer is a speedster hero from the Golden Age of comics. He used to work with Captain America during WWII and is usually used as an older retired or semi-retired hero in modern stories. So, portraying him as a potentially crazy person seems like an odd choice. That being said, he’s a minor enough of a character that I doubt anyone is going to flip out because of it. Characters got to take the gigs offered to them. I’m interested to see if they’ll use other lesser known heroes in that capacity in this season. I will say this monster of IGH is implied to be a real BA and I am interested to see where they go with it. I’m also curious on what they’ll be doing with Frank Simpson this season. I thought his superpower brawl with Jessica and Trish was one of the better fights, and his abuse of superpower drugs was an interesting little side story. Yeah, this was a good return for Jessica Jones.

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