Viewer Log: Jessica Jones ep 18

Oh no, Jessica is in jail. Again.

Last time on Jessica Jones, it was good news, bad new sort of day for Jessica and her crew. For good news, Jessica is able to get her Super to drop his vendetta against her, and they’re able to track down a former nurse that worked for IGH. For the bad, Pryce Cheng hired a guy to steal all her research in a hope to find dirt on her. And to make things worse, Not-Hansen attacked the thief, rips him to pieces, steals the research, and leaves the scene for Jessica to take the blame. So yeah, not a great situation.

We open to Jessica in lock up. She’s cooling her heels and trying to mentally prep herself on her next move. She reasons that Not-Hansen probably didn’t internally plan on killing someone and framing Jessica, it was just an unintentional benefit to the situation. While Jessica is musing, Not-Hansen burns the IGN files and her blood covered clothes. Back at the prison, Jeri is brought in to consult. At the moment their only real option is to play ball and let the cops know what they know. Why? Because if they find anything and that she’d kept it from them, she goes right to jail for 18 months. Parole is a pain, no? Jessica tries to pressure Jeri into getting her out of jail, but Jeri leaves in a huff.

Back with Trish, she’d gotten bailed out by her harpy. I mean her mother. Yes, mother. Anyway, she seems to be crashing after Simpson’s super strength inhaler starts wearing off. Dorothy Walker does her best to distract her daughter from worrying about her best friend by letting her know a network wants to interview her. Trish, who is uncharacteristically unsuspicious of her mother, goes along with it. Considering all Trish does for Jessica, I think we can let her indulge in some selfishness just once.

It's like watching that tigress with the piglets that replaced her cubs.
I don't THINK there will be an issue, but if one occurs there's
nothing you can do about it.

We’re shown a day at Not-Hansen’s house. She seems to have a rather nice house in suburbia, complete with a baby grand piano. She begins to play, but is interrupted by a neighbor stopping by. Said neighbor compliments her on her playing, and asks to sit and listen as it’s the only thing that’s been able to calm her infant son in days. Not-Hansen gets to hold the baby for a moment, which feels really tense, before trying to play again. Something about their presence causes Not-Hansen to start messing up, which causes the baby to start freaking out. The neighbor leaves, and in her fury Not-Hansen shatters her piano.

Jessica uses her phone call to call Malcolm and get the low down. All of their research is gone, but they still have Inez. So, it’s not all bad. She tells Malcolm to keep an eye on her until this gets sorted out. A short time later Jessica is interviewed by the cops. She decides to play ball and let the cops know all about what happened to her with IGH. She even gives them a picture of Not-Hansen and tells them that she also has powers.

Think they realize those handcuffs may as well be made of
rubber bands in terms of their effectiveness to slow her down?

Back with Malcolm, he starts quizzing Inez about what happened at IGH. He’d found a picture of the other nurse that Not-Hansen killed the night Inez’s back was nearly broken. Apparently, the other nurse, Luanne McClure, had her death covered up and pinned on a janitor, David Kawecki.

The cops come back in. After Jessica’s testimony, they found security cam footage of a woman landing hard in front of her building. The woman is clearly Not-Hansen, so they decide to let her go. While one of the cops is hesitant to believe Jessica, the other offers his support. The detective, Costa, gives her his card and offers his help. Apparently, he was at the station when Kilgrave came in last season and forced them all to put their guns to their heads to get Jessica out. Since she but Kilgrave down, he believes she’s on the up and up. Jessica leaves the station, and ask Jeri’s help in hiding Inez. Before they can get the details worked out, Pryce Cheng storms over and starts berating Jessica. Wait… so you believe that she murdered your buddy, and your plan is to scream at her to prove she’s a murder? I’m starting to think Pryce is dumb.

At Jessica’s apartment, she is filled in on what Malcolm found out about Luanne’s murder and the frame up. Apparently, David Kawecki is a simpleton. Literally, like he has the mental capacity of a ten-year-old. Kind of hard to believe he intentionally killed anyone. Jessica wants to interview him, but he’s being held in a maximum-security mental health prison. No one goes in without the proper security pass. Jessica is going to figure that out, and sends Malcolm to drop off Inez with Jeri. After stopping Inez from stealing his computer, by threatening to use her as bait for Not-Hansen if Inez runs, Malcolm gets her to Jeri’s.

Jessica goes to see Oscar. It’s a good thing that the two have worked out their issues, as Jessica needs a favor. Remember, the Super just got out of jail for forgery and he was Really good. He agrees to help, he just needs three hours and a photo. As she leaves her apartment complex, Jessica gets a call from Griffin, telling her to get to Trish ASAP as she’s in trouble. Oh no.

Trish and her mother make it to her interview just before Jessica. Thankfully, this isn’t a ‘someone is going to die’ emergency, it’s a ‘be here for a special moment’ emergency. Yeah, there is no interview, Griffin is just surprise proposing to Trish. Things are awkward between Jessica and Trish initially, but Jessica does congratulate her friend before leaving. A moment later, Trish pulls Griffin aside as they need to talk.

Jessica returns to Oscar’s place to get the ID. His son, Vido, and his mother try to convince Jessica to stay for dinner, but our intrepid PI is on a time crunch.

Not-Hansen burns the wreckage of her piano. Given the suburb she lives in, I’m shocked no one has asked about the bonfires she keeps having. Just saying. And, at the same time, Jeri and Inez have a conversation. The jaded form nurse refuses to believe that Jeri is doing this out of the kindness in her heart. Which is true. Jeri wants to know about IGH, specifically it’s experiments. Oh dear, it’s Kilgrave all over again.

Wow, she really just looks like a rando in a lab coat.
Oscar deserves an award for his forgeries.

 Jessica is able to break into the prison psych ward to see David. As soon as she sees him… hey, it’s the world’s heaviest man from The Greatest Showman. What? I like musicals and Hugh Jackman, so sue me. Anyway, David spends his days sitting in his cell drawing pictures. Jessica interviews him. It’s clear that his confession had been rehearsed. She starts poking holes in his story until he shuts down and tells her to leave. Jessica, noticing his drawing, asks about Octopuses, the subject of his drawings. The dude is a cephalo-fan, telling her all kinds of fun facts about the sea creatures. He learned all this stuff from Dr. Karl, who used to take him to the aquarium to watch the octopuses during his lunch break. How interesting.

Back with Trish, we learn that she broke it off with Griffin. Dorothy, being the lackluster parent that she is, starts berating Trish for calling off the engagement. Trish explains that she couldn’t marry Griffin as she was more interested in being Griffin, the world-famous reporter and globe trotter, then being with Griffin. Dorothy keeps yelling, claiming that she gave Max sexual favors to get her story. This causes Trish to snap, slapping her mother. Dorothy storms off in a huff. Good riddance. But then Trish takes another hit on the super-strength inhaler. Shoot.

Jessica, at the aquarium, calls Detective Costa and gives him the 411 on what she’d learned thus far. She spends the next two days staking out the aquarium looking for doctor Karl. She finds the good doctor, as he meets Not-Hansen. The two kiss and enjoy the attractions for a minute before seeing Jessica. Not-Hansen shatters the aquarium tank glass to help them escape. The episode ends as the glass shatters. Crap.

Well, that was a rough couple of days. Considering the two smooched, I think it’s safe to say that Karl and Not-Hansen are in cahoots. Curious if Karl is using her to hide his old project, or keep his current research hidden. I’m calling it right now, not having read any spoilers or summaries, Jeri is going to try to use IGH’s Gene editing research to cure her ALS. And, like using Kilgrave to try to get her ex-wife to finalize their divorce, this is going to blow up in her, and Jessica’s, face. I hope that Trish doesn’t start spiraling back into substance abuse. This season has established that she’d abused a lot of drugs in the past, and I think few could compare to a drug that makes you super strong. I’d be more concerned about her mother leaving, if Dorothy had a single good characteristic to her. Abusive parents are terrible, just terrible. I’m curious to see where this goes.  

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: Jessica Jones ep 17

It's a hair-raising endeavor.

Last time on Jessica Jones, it seems like Miss Jones has come upon her greatest challenge yet. After searching for a lead on IGH for several days, Jessica found a Dr. Hansen, who might have answers. Or so she thought. Turns out that the woman she’d met was not Dr. Hansen, as a skull they’d found was identified as the good doctor. The mystery woman and Jessica throw down, with the woman proving stronger then Jessica but the mysterious woman ends up running.

We open to Jessica taking part in her court appointed anger management. She’s obviously testy, but isn’t allowed to leave until the fella in charge signs a form. When Jessica is forced to share, she verbally describes her rather messed up history up to this point, visibly getting angrier until she shatters the bouncy ball she was forced to use while sharing. She storms off after getting her formed signed.

Jessica returns to her apartment, berates Malcolm for letting Trish out of her apartment the previous day, and starts looking over the one good picture they got of Not-Hansen. Despite a rather… vocal argument she can hear from Super Oscar’s apartment, Jessica is able notice Not-Hansen is wearing a wig. She calls up Trish, who is putting out the fire that Jessica created when she claimed Trish and her boyfriend had broken up, and asks if she’d noticed. Trish hadn’t, which makes her believe it was made of natural human hair. Which is good, because there are only three shops in town that sell the stuff. She had to wear a human hair wig when she was basically Hana Montana, FYI, that’s why she knew. The pseudo-sisters agree to meet at the first store.

Apparently, all you need to do to get someone to stop hating you
is to save their kid. Who knew?

While that was going on, Oscar’s son Vido comes over. The kid clearly didn’t want to stick around while his parents screamed at each other. He does the little kid thing, quizzing Jessica about her powers and the like, you know, being annoying. Jessica goes to tell his parents where he is. While her back is turned, Vido climbs onto the window sill and jokes about Jessica saving him. He slips out, Jessica runs over and grabs him. The parents come in, misunderstand what happened, storm off in a huff, and Oscar rather angrily announces Jessica is out in 25 days. Oh fun.

Meanwhile, Jeri is interrupted in her search for alternative treatments to her ALS by Pryce Cheng. He’s angry that Jeri is trying to get him to drop his case against Jessica. Jeri tries to warn him that nothing good comes from messing with Jessica, but the jack hole isn’t listening. He tells her he’s hiring a new firm and storms out.

Jessica and Trish find the wig store, and actually found the store the Not-Hansen frequents on their first stop. Woo. After bribing the owner, they learn that the mystery woman pays in cash and the owner thinks its due to chemo. So… kind of a dead end. Or is it? The new train of thought is that if Not-Hansen has cancer, IGH was probably paying her medical bills. Jessica and Trish agree that they need her MetroGeneral file. Trish reveals the video Malcolm took of her and Max, and her plan to use the director’s pull at the hospital to get the file. The two women put the squeeze on Max, which involves Jessica literally punching through the hood of his car, and get the files.

While going through the files, Jessica gets a call from Jeri. She’s pressuring Jessica to find dirt on her partners, Chao and Benowitz, to get them to back off on forcing Jeri out. Unfortunately, anything remotely like dirt she can find can be explained away as client gifts. Jeri to tells her to keep digging. Jessica hangs up, but is interrupted in her searching by Oscar dropping in. The Super tells her that Vido explained what happened. Wanting to apologize for being a dick the last few days, he brought her some whiskey and tells her that he’d torn up her eviction notice.

Back at Trish’s, after having some intimate time with Griffin, Trish leaves to take a shower. Griffin gets a mystery call. He tells the caller “she doesn’t know anything. Let’s keep it that way.” Considering that this is coming after Trish claimed Griffin was the first not crappy guy she’d dated, that’s real dark.

How dare you ask a former Red Ranger to spy for you Pryce
Cheng? How dare you?!?

Oscar and Jessica boned over whiskey. He admits he doesn’t have issues with enhanced Humans, per say. In actuality, since he’d just gotten out of prison, he was just really skittish about being around anyone that might even have a chance at screwing up his post-prison life. The two outcasts start making out, damn Jessica works fast, but Oscar backs down and leaves. Apparently going from hating someone to sucking face was a bit too drastic of a turn for him.

The next day, Malcolm confronts Jessica as she leaves. He lets her know that Pryce Cheng had offered him a job in exchange for dirt on her. Jessica tries to blow him off, but Malcolm has had enough. He Get’s in Gear (Power Rangers Reference) and demands that Jessica start treating him like an actual assistant (think Watson to Holmes more then guy who gets coffee) and 25% of her case income. She agrees to 20% before leaving.

Jeri meanwhile attempts to force her doctor into getting her some… less then legal drugs for her ALS treatment. The doctor is hesitant, so Jeri storms off.  

At Trish’s, the sort-of sisters learn that IGH only payed for three people’s medical bills at MetroGeneral; hers, Whizzer’s, and Inez Green. Considering the fact Whizzer is dead and Jessica is Jessica, they assume Inez is Not-Hansen. They look her up, and discover that the woman is currently homeless and the general area she frequents. They head out, Trish bringing a high powered taser she nabbed from Will Simpson’s stuff to knock Not-Hansen out, and his super-power inhaler.

They find Inez’s hangout, but not Inez. They split up, with Jessica getting jumped when alone. Jessica knocks her down, discovering that Inez is in fact not Not-Hansen. Trish, who missed that part, takes a hit from Simpson’s inhaler, runs over and tasers the woman. Well, crap.

Back at Jessica’s apartment, somebody breaks in and nabs all over her info on her IGH case. Malcolm, who brought his latest Lady of the Evening over to look for booze, interrupt the thief but the dude slips out before Malcolm spots him.

Back with Jessica, they revive Inez and get her story. Turns out, the now homeless woman worked for IGH as a nurse. Not-Hansen, interestingly, is a former patient of that groups’ procedure. The mystery woman had a hell of a tempter and strength to match, as she really screwed up Inez’s back during an incident and murdered another nurse. Jessica and Trish agree to that they need to look after her, in case Not-Hansen wants her dead too.

On no, Jessica is getting arrested again. Who'd have believed that?

We learn that the thief is a friend of Pryce Cheng. Cheng had paid him to steal Jessica’s stuff in an attempt to find dirt on her. Not sure how stealing her active case files would result in anything other then Jessica screwing up his other shoulder, but hey, that’s just me. Unfortunately for Pryce’s buddy, Not-Hansen attacks him and all but rips him to pieces while Pryce listens impotently.  Jessica, Trish and Inez arrive a short time later. The police, finding a dead man outside a known super-human with anger issues’ address and I’m sure ‘testimony’ from Cheng, assume the worst and arrest Jessica. They arrest Trish too as she comes at them irate. Turns out superhero steroids can give ya anger issues. Who knew?

Hm… Is this the second or third murder Jessica is being falsely accused of? Third, I think. Shame that. I wonder if that was Not-Hansen’s intention, or if she’d simply killed Cheng’s friend because he had the IGH stuff and the frame up was a coincidence. Either way, Jessica’s situation just got more complicated. I glossed over it in this episode, but Malcolm is seen with several different women in this episode, presumably from dating apps he’s frequented. Not sure if he’s trying to make up for the time he’d lost while being Kilgrave’s coked up spy or if he’s replacing drugs with sex, but either way isn’t super good for Malcolm. Over doing any vice is dangerous. The bit with Griffin is interesting. Odds are he’s either connected to IGH or is cheating on Trish. Since this is a superhero show, it’s probably both. What? Writers like doubling up on betrayals. I’m interested to see how Jessica is going to square off against Not-Hansen, and what the mysterious woman’s deal is. Does she work for IGH, or is she killing people sniffing them out for her own ends? Hopefully I’ll find out more soon.

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Comic Super Star: Stan Lee

On November 12^th, 2018, we lost a storyteller. When you get right down to it, that’s what Stan Lee was. A storyteller of grand and flamboyant proportions. I considered him to be one of my personal heroes, and his passing is saddening. Granted, the man was in his mid-90s and a widower to his wife of 70 years, so I had assumed this was coming, but it still hurts. An individual as vibrant, as charismatic, as timeless as Stan Lee… you just kind of assume he’ll keep going on forever. In order to process… no, celebrate his well lived life, I feel like I should gush a little about him. And the moment that changed how the world viewed superheroes.  

He finished his Cameo on Earth...

 In case you are curious, I’m using Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir by Stan Lee, Peter David and Colleen Doran as my source. I suggest checking it out if you have any interest in the life story of a comic book icon. My personal favorite anecdote in it being the stressful plane ride Stan took from New York to Reno. See, his soon-to-be wife, Joan, was in Reno to finalize her divorce from her first husband. Suffering from an irrational fear that someone might swoop in and take the love of his life the moment she became available, Stan booked a flight to Reno in order to marry her as soon as possible. Unfortunately, he asked for the fastest route to Reno, not the most direct. After several layovers, he arrived in Reno and got his girl. Considering they were together from 1947 until her death in 2017, I say he was right to rush to her.

 Also, while the names might not be accurate to the time period, I’m going to be referring DC and Marvel by their modern names. It’s easier on the noodle.

In the late fifties and early sixties, comic book superheroes were on the rise again. After nearly being shelved forever due to the complex and bizarre rules of the Comic Code Authority, new life had been breathed into the genre with the revival of The Flash, and the birth of the first iteration of the Justice League. Impressed by the dollar figures that DC comics was pulling in, Marvel Comics Founder Martin Goodman tasked Stan Lee with producing a Superhero team that could rake in the fans, and cash, like the Flash and other DC characters. But, and here’s the thing that made me do a double take the first time reading it, Stan Lee wasn’t sure he WANTED to do it.

According to his Memoirs, Stan had burnt out on what he felt were the simplistic stories and the completely unrelatable characters of superheroes. He was worried that if he went along with Goodman’s plan, he’d basically be churning out the same repetitive generic stories that he had been forced to do since the inception of the CCA. The story goes that he’d been complaining about this to his wife and expressed a desire to quit and try something new, when she offered a different solution. Basically, she told him to just write the kind of stories and characters that he wanted to. You think DC heroes are unrelatable? Then write some heroes with actual personal problems. You think the stories are too simplistic, and don’t deal with real world issues? Then write a few stories that do. Her argument was, if his new ideas sell well, great, keep doing it. And if they completely tank, then Stan might be fired but at least he tried to do something new rather then just giving up.

If I ever get access to a time machine, I’m going back to the 1960s and shake Joan Lee’s hand and thank her.

Spurred on by his wife and with the help of fellow Comic Legend, Jack Kirby, Stan created that first team. Using an old school Marvel Hero, The Human Torch, as a bit of scaffolding, Lee and Kirby created an entirely new Human Torch, and a team of very human heroes to work along side him. Boom, Fantastic Four. From there, Stan Lee spear headed the creation of the original Marvel Universe. And, unlike the larger then life heroes of DC, there were characters that were designed to be all too human. Even the one that’s literally a Norse God. Stan’s heroes not only saved the day, but also dealt with issues that plague most people in one form or another. They battled things like inner demons (Iron Man’s alcoholism, Bruce Banner’s inner monster), prejudice (The Thing, The X-Men), and all the hardships of just growing up (Spider-Man). And the rest, as they say, is history.

The only way Stan Lee could tell his story
right was as a comic.

I believe the first time I ever came across the name Stan Lee was during the series finale of Spider-Man (1994). In that final episode, after helping to save the multiverse from an insane Spider-Carnage hellbent on destroying all of creation, Spider-Man makes a few stops on his way back to his own reality. One stop is to the home dimension of a powerless Spider-Man, whom was just an actor picked up by accident while Spider-Man’s allies Madame Web and The Beyonder formed their original team of Web Warriors. Once there, Peter pops in on Stan’s office, and takes the silver fox web-swinging as thanks for creating a version of him. Considering I was only eight or nine at the time, you can forgive me for not completely understanding who it was Spider-Man was swinging around with. Not the most interesting discovery of one’s idol, but hey, what can you do? It’s from that early show, and with some encouragement from my Marvel fan of an older brother, that I came to love the characters of Marvel and DC.

I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to say that we, especially I, myself, do owe a great deal of to Stan Lee. Without him, and the incredibly talented but underrated artists and other writers of Marvel like Jack Kirby and Steven Ditko, Superheroes would probably have remained something only young children enjoy. Instead, we live in an age where many a superhero is a household name, with major films and tv shows backing them. While the stories remain fantastic and implausible, the men and women who live the adventures described are about as real as fictional characters can be, with virtues and faults like anyone else. All of which can be traced back to one writer deciding to do something different. I never had the pleasure of meeting Stan Lee. That’s something that I regret, but there’s no use crying over spilt milk. I can do my best to honor the late, great Stan Lee as best I can. To Stan, wherever you are, thank you for all of the stories. Thank you for all of the heroes. Thank you for all of the laughs and tears, the smiles and frowns, the highs and the lows. Thank you for living such an Amazing, Fantastic, and Incredible life.

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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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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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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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 25

It all comes down to this, an explosive rage-aholic vs. the king of cold. Who will triumph?

Last time on My Hero Academia, the final round of the Sports festival was set. Shoto Todoroki is going to take on Katsuki Bakugo. Tenya Iida was knocked out of the running after facing off with Shoto. Unfortunately, that isn’t the worst thing to happen to the Iida family today. Iida’s brother, Tensei aka Ingenium, was viciously attacked by a villain and serial killer, Stain the Hero Killer. He’s alive, but in critical condition. And, unbeknownst to anyone, Stain has been approached by the League of Villains, the baddies think he could be a major asset.

Shoto doesn't look SUPER invested in this fight.

We get a quick flashback of all the times that Shoto and Bakugo have been combative over the last season and a half. It’s mostly to set up that both of these young men are incredibly powerful, and probably have a few issues that they need to work on. Seriously, these young men could use therapy. We then cut to Shoto waiting in the prep room. Despite the, literal, fire he showed off while fighting Izuku earlier, he’s clearly still troubled about using his flames and conflicted about what Izuku told him. “Are his flames really his, or his fathers,” that sort of thing. Before he can delve too deeply into what he’s feeling, Bakugo kicks the door in. He mixed up the waiting rooms, despite this he tries to still act tough and demands that Shoto come at him with everything he’s got.  Shoto ignores the barbs and asks Bakugo if Izuku was always so… Izuku. This obviously infuriates Bakugo, and he angrily demands Shoto forget that stuff and come at him.

Shortly thereafter, the match begins, Shoto Todoroki vs. Katsuki Bakugo. Bakugo opens like he always does, with a massive Icewave. I’d say he was getting predictable, but it’s hard to mess with perfection. And a colossal glacier of ice expand out from your boot is a pretty perfect opening move. Bakugo takes the hit, but ends up using repeated focused explosions to burrow through the ice like some kind of mole man. He rushes Shoto, who dodges around and slides on an ice bridge. Bakugo grabs him on the left side, but Shoto can’t bring up his flames to protect himself. He breaks free, but is clearly rattled. Which just pisses off Bakugo even more. He knows that he can’t rightfully claim being the best unless Shoto hits him with the same force that he did Izuku, and demands that Shoto go all out. He charges at Shoto again. Shoto is about to give up, as he can’t find that clarity of focus to use his flames again, that is until he hears Izuku telling him not to give up. He is able to ignite himself enough to take care of the frost on his body, which gives Bakugo hope that he’ll get a real fight. Bakugo leaps into the air and hit’s Shoto with his Howitzer blast. Shoto nearly gets his hand up, but loses his resolve once more. He’s knocked out of the ring and of consciousness.

I'm legitimately concerned that a school had all that stuff on hand/

Bakugo refuses to accept this win. He goes over to Shoto’s limp form, shaking him and demanding they keep fighting. He’s only stopped by Midnight’s knockout pheromone. After Bakugo had been stopped, he’s named the winner. At the award ceremony, we’re treated to the sight of Shoto and Tokoyami standing on podium’s looking regal… and Bakugo continually flipping out despite being bound and muzzled. I’m concerned that the school had such equipment ready… Moving on, Midnight mentions Iida also got third place, but had to leave due to a family emergency. Izuku and Uraraka were told by their friend about what happened to Iida’s brother, and are obviously worried about him. All Might leaps in to hand out the medals. He gives each of the three young men a medal and a piece of advice. Tokoyami is told to train hard and learn to fight without his Quirk. Shoto is told to find whatever balance he needs and to keep moving forward. And Bakugo is told to just take the medal and treat it like a scar if he has to. With the muzzle off, he keeps screaming that this isn’t a real win and he doesn’t want the damn medal, but All Might forces him to take it in his teeth. Hell of an award ceremony.

After the festival, the students are given a few days off to decompress. Izuku mentions, using his seldom used Narrator Powers, that this was the first time he felt a subtle shift in the atmosphere at the school. Something had changed, and not for the better.

In Hosu City, Iida makes it to the hospital. He’s shown in to his brother, but it’s not looking good. Tensei Iida is covered in slices and stitches. He’s hooked up to oxygen, and it looks like he can barely move. Despite this, he’s conscious enough to know his family is there. He apologizes to Tenya, telling his little brother that he’s sorry he couldn’t live up to Tenya’s hopes and expectations about him. Tenya just sobs.

On a slightly happier note, the next day, Shoto goes to visit his mother. He’s advised by his older sister, Fuyumi, that this probably isn’t a good idea and that he should at least tell their dad, but Shoto is still in his “screw you” dad mode. He makes it inside to see her, despite his own reservations about the meeting. He’s decided that healing whatever wounds may lie between them, and seeing her safely removed from the hospital is the next step he needs to take to figure out himself and his powers. That’s a good goal, Shoto.

The credits roll from here, but stick around as we have a few more scenes to cover. I honestly don’t know why they rolled the credits despite having several more minutes of content, but there you go.

I haven't mentioned them much, but I love the fact that
Present Mic and Aizawa are either Besties or just two dudes
forever stuck together.

During the break, Ochako Uraraka is visited by her parents. This is rather shocking to her, as it’s implied that the Uraraka’s don’t take much time off and live a fair distance from UA high. Yeah, in Japan, high school is important enough that it’s not unheard of for families to get apartments for their teenagers to attend schools outside their home city. I personally don’t think I could let a hypothetical fifteen-year-old daughter of mine out of my sight that long for any reason, but there you go. They came to celebrate, and the Uraraka’s have a grand old time.

Izuku has dinner with his mother, who admits that she passed out seven times during and after the cavalry battle. But, two of them might have been from dehydration… I’m not sure that makes that better, but she seems too. While his mother praises and worries about him, Izuku mentally goes over everything that happened today. He has a better understanding about what he wants, and resolves to get a better understanding and control over his powers.

Finally, we have Bakugo. He’s taking out his pent-up aggression on his mortal enemy… plaque! Yeah, in a final gag scene we’re shown Bakugo violently brushing his teeth while shouting “DIE PLAQUE!” and hearing his mother off screen shouting “KATSUKI, YOU CAN’T SLEEP UNTIL NOON AND THEN START YELLING!” I feel like the entire Bakugo family might be a tad… explosive. I am not sorry.

Compared to fighting his classmates in obstacle courses and
arena matches... yeah, this is exponentially harder.

And with that we bid farewell to the Sport’s Festival Arc. Overall, it was a good arc. We got to see Izuku and some of his classmates grow, got a number of good action scenes, and also saw the start of a few personal arcs to boot. Izuku’s determination to keep going despite not winning the tournament, and the potential permanent damage he could suffer is a damn fine sight to see. While he didn’t win the tournament, I think he reaffirmed in All Might’s, and by extension we the audience, that the Symbol of Peace chose the right successor. The Mystery of One For All is also expanded slightly, with that weird vision Izuku had while fighting Shinso, and with the added information about how the power itself works. The fact that it not only boosts one’s physical strength but one’s natural Quirk does make that power just a bit more tantalizing, now doesn’t it? I liked the character growth with Shoto Todoroki in this arc. Up until this point he’s been a visually interesting character, but we didn’t get many details about him. We just knew he was a quite kid with a penchant for cold. Now, we’re quite aware that he’s a surprisingly well-adjusted individual despite a LOT of baggage delivered early on in life. He’s getting promoted from ensemble cast to a secondary protagonist after this point, i.e. he’ll be up there with Iida, Uraraka and Bakugo in terms of screen time, we’re going to see a lot of his growth from now on. Iida’s brother’s attack and the anger he feels towards Stain will be a driving force for the second half of this season. The Hero killer cut him, metaphorically, deep when he nearly killed Tensei and he’s going out for payback. And Stain has had a nice intro as well. The Hero Killer is our next major baddy. His desire to ‘cleanse’ the world of heroes so only someone as perfect as All Might can be a hero is about to shift into high gear. But, I’ll save the details on that for when we get back to this.

I think this is the natural stopping point. While I’d love to keep going with My Hero Academia, if I keep ignoring the Netflix Marvel Heroes I don’t think I’ll ever be able to catch up. The way I see it, I’m going to try to knock out Jessica Jones season 2 over October and November, covering the various movies that crop up, and do a few more episodes of My Hero Academia over December. It’s not set in stone, but that’s the general plan going forward. I’m still going to try to post a few more things by the end of the month, so stay tuned. 

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