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.  

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/22429890
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero