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Jessica Jones [AKA This Thread Has Spoilers]


RedEyedGhost

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Great first season. I loved that Killgrave wasn't let off the hook, and the lawyering to get Jessica off the murder charge was great. He was a great villain, and it would have been nice to keep him lurking around in the background, but he was so motivated by his desire to control Jessica that I'm not sure he would have worked as well a second time around (or against another hero). I really liked the Night Nurse's cameo at the end - it made me squee a little bit - I'm really looking forward to The Defenders now.

In my opinion the start of the show was Like Cage. That man has a presence, so I'm confident his show will be fantastic (especially with Netflix now being two for two on these). He's also the only character that I had even a paying familiarity with, so that my have colored my experience.

Even without having any familiarity with the other characters I loved nearly every minute of it. I did think it dragged a little in the middle, and I wasn't a big fan of Simpson. I'm not sure if it was the actor or the character I didn't like... The character's arc was good, he was just so skivvy and I'm not confident that it was the actor playing it well because I can't remember seeing him in anything else.

More thoughts after I've let it style a bit more. But I can now confidently say that I prefer the Netflix part of the MCU to the cinematic part.

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Oh, nice, a spoiler thread.  I posted this in the other one but it's probably more appropriate here.

Kilgrave getting away so often when they had him captured / could have killed him got to be a bit much. There was a small part of me hoping that he would take the 60/40 drug at the end and just drop dead. I realize that that would not work thematically ... or on any level really, but I would have laughed and laughed. I thought Luke Cage vs. Jessica was a good setpiece that was unfortunately drained of any tension or emotion since everyone knows he's starring in his own series. The climax was pretty good, her act at the end was super obvious, but they had set Kilgrave up to be the type of person who would fall for that. One of the good things about Kilgrave's character seeming so human is that I don't feel any need for the series to have a 'bigger' big bad next time out, just someone who is different in an interesting way. Series that constantly try to explain how this season's big bad is even more invincible than last season's can be really annoying.

The highlight of the season for me was '1,000 cuts', that episode was brutal. This whole series was even darker than Daredevil, and it was good to see Marvel not pulling its punches. Watching the girl you're trying to protect cut her own throat so you are free to kill the bad guy is a pretty harsh way of learning your lesson though. My other favorite scenes were the elevator shooting and smile at the very beginning, and Jessica walking out of the holding cell to see all the cops frozen with guns on each other. If Marvel Netflix can maintain this kind of quality I'll be looking forward to the TV shows more than the movies.

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Still on episode 1, I love it! Trinity is fun on the screen, and I totally shouted 'That's Luke Cage!' when they were fucking. It's a bit funky and clunky in places (not a fan of the way it's shot sometimes), but I'm engaged to the point that I put down my book. Way to go, Marvel, you evil fucking puppet masters.

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Great series, though there were places where it felt a little bit slow, clunky and boring even. The darkness was balanced greatly with warmth of the characters. The Trish/Jessica relationship was well handled. Moss was good in her role. Luke Cage impressed me more than he should have damn it ! :D  And of course Tennant  stole the show.

Will Jessica be there in Luke Cage as well ? I hope so. Ritter has a great way the with role, and hers and Colter's scenes together were great.

There were things that didn't work for me here of course. Nuke, that girl Robyn, and other few things. That was balanced with the creepy scenes of Purple man showing his powers of course : the hangings, the police station, the crowd control etc.

Overall great. My new ranking of top 5 of all things MCU now goes  DD > JJ > IM 1 > Cap 2  > GotG

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Can I just say how much I love the classic 'fall into bed' shot? I don't claim to be a film expert or anything, but for me it's like the Wilhelm scream. A total classic that's super cheesy, but I see what you did there and it's cool at this point. We get the knowledge that they just boned without having to sit through it, and it's a total wink-wink if executed properly.

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I thought it was excellent, though not sure about the climax -- did Trish expect to get lose her headphones and be controlled by Kilgrave to deliberate put herself at risk for what now? If not, then what was her part of the plan, if any?

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 One thing that I forgot to mention was that Luke Cage's eyes are not invulnerable too? Is that  comic canon because that seems pretty fucking stupid; the cornea and conjunctiva are not that different from skin.  And if his powers are that limited there's no way he would have recovered from that shotgun blast so quickly and likely never because of the extreme trauma his brain would have taken as it bounced around inside of his skull.  Does he have enhanced healing too?

Yeah, that was awesome.

Tennant was, for me, the star. Just fantastic. Incredibly sinister and, despite the absurdity of such a character, utterly credible. 

I also liked Luke Cage...strangely, I did think something was off about his delivery when he forgave Jessica - turned out he was under control.

I called the addict kid out as the spy almost straight away, but I generally really liked this character. Honestly, quite convincing as an addict and rational, sober person. But damn, I really hated that annoying woman from the flat above. Ruben was the better twin.

Ritter completely owned the role, and I found her really compelling throughout. I thought her relationship with Trish was really well done to.

I found Simpson kind of awkward too, but I spoiled myself on that he turns bad fairly early on which was annoying.

 

Generally, I thought the show was really good. I thought a few episodes were a bit slow in the late middle section, but somehow that evolved into a finale that wasn't over the top and somehow back to the personal level it had been on from the beginning. The wrap up was fairly well done. 

Seeing Temple was great, I had kind of hoped to see Daredevil too, but I thought Jessica's rationale for not inviting him was fairly solid. Looking forward to Defenders!

Tennant was great, but I was expecting that. I wasn't expecting Colter to be so damn good, so that's why he stole the show for me.

After I hit post, I immediately thought that I should have mentioned how good the guy playing Malcolm was.  And it wasn't just his performance, but also the work of the makeup department and wardrobe - just a great transformation from an addict in pain because his mind is being raped to the victim as he heals to his efforts to help other victims. I really enjoyed his story. Robin really was the words though, her thinking he took to the river to try and seduce her was freaking hilarious.

Great, great point about the finale being set on a personal level. I think that's why I liked it so much more than the movies' finales.  The movies just have to be so "epic" that it has gotten stale. I, too, liked that she turned down help from Daredevil, it so fit her character. As did her deleting of all of the new potential clients calls, and Malcolm stepping up to get her out of her own way.

 

Oh, nice, a spoiler thread.  I posted this in the other one but it's probably more appropriate here.

Kilgrave getting away so often when they had him captured / could have killed him got to be a bit much. There was a small part of me hoping that he would take the 60/40 drug at the end and just drop dead. I realize that that would not work thematically ... or on any level really, but I would have laughed and laughed. I thought Luke Cage vs. Jessica was a good setpiece that was unfortunately drained of any tension or emotion since everyone knows he's starring in his own series. The climax was pretty good, her act at the end was super obvious, but they had set Kilgrave up to be the type of person who would fall for that. One of the good things about Kilgrave's character seeming so human is that I don't feel any need for the series to have a 'bigger' big bad next time out, just someone who is different in an interesting way. Series that constantly try to explain how this season's big bad is even more invincible than last season's can be really annoying.

The highlight of the season for me was '1,000 cuts', that episode was brutal. This whole series was even darker than Daredevil, and it was good to see Marvel not pulling its punches. Watching the girl you're trying to protect cut her own throat so you are free to kill the bad guy is a pretty harsh way of learning your lesson though. My other favorite scenes were the elevator shooting and smile at the very beginning, and Jessica walking out of the holding cell to see all the cops frozen with guns on each other. If Marvel Netflix can maintain this kind of quality I'll be looking forward to the TV shows more than the movies.

I liked the episodes where they humanized Killgrave, and then they ripped that away when they reunited him with his parents :lol:

The scene in the police station was amazing one of the best I've seen in a long while.

I cannot wait for season 2 of Daredevil and season 1 of Luke Cage  (it sounds like it will be released in the summer!). Oh and what was the deal with this show's older black guy getting killed too (Cool Lester Smooth wouldn't go out like that)? I'm kind of hoping they flip that around on Luke Cage.

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I have to admit that I stood up and cheered when Killgrave screamed "Let go Jessica!" and she didn't. 

I really wasn't sure if she was under his control at the finale. At first I thought she might be faking it, but then Kristyn Ritter did such a creepy smile that I thought she actually had succumbed. 

And that's why I loved that she hadn't. 

Tennant's character was just charming to seem almost human at some points, which made him all the more disgusting and terrifying as a villain.

The flawed portrayal of Jones really worked for me. Honestly, you cut out the weird-as-shit-totally-unnecessary-incesto-twin-neighbors, and the show would have been almost flawless. Simpson's stuff was a bit out there too, but I wonder if they were trying to set that up for Daredevil or another show. 

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Thematically similar does not mean they were necessary or appropriate for the story. They could have cut both characters and their storyline completely and had a much better, tighter show--with everything happening the exact same way. Seriously, they really should have been left on the cutting room floor. 

They reminded me of the neighbors in the godawful Punisher movie. Whenever they had a scene, especially the lunatic girl twin, I thought to myself "Why am I watching this? Let's get back to the actual story."

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I think the Simpson/IGH stuff is setup for a potential season 2 or The Defenders, but more likely the former now that her name is out there as "saving all those people on the docks." I did like that that explained how Simpson was able to keep up with Jessica in their fight.

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Love that uncut shot to end episode 6 (the house), it's like something out of a standard horror flick but with a lot of effort in the making. Absolutely terrific effort, even if I saw it coming the moment whats-his-name stuck his foot in the door. I'll say this for the show so far. Ups and downs in the general quality, but I can't help myself for adoring the different techniques used in the process of filming. :)

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Really enjoyed the show. Kilgrave was a fantastic villain, and easily the best the MCU has put on-screen so far. Also, I quite liked Luke Cage, and will watch his series when it gets put up.

I didn't like Jessica. I don't mind a flawed hero at all, but they seemed to go too far with her flaws, IMO. Plus, just fucking shoot Kilgrave... Or wear goddamned earplugs.

Anyways,  Netflix does it again with a quality Marvel series.

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I liked it overall. There were definitely some slow parts, especially in the first couple episodes, but I liked the actors and the overall storyline was pretty good. Lots of tension, some darker humor to break things up.

 One thing that I forgot to mention was that Luke Cage's eyes are not invulnerable too? Is that  comic canon because that seems pretty fucking stupid; the cornea and conjunctiva are not that different from skin.  And if his powers are that limited there's no way he would have recovered from that shotgun blast so quickly and likely never because of the extreme trauma his brain would have taken as it bounced around inside of his skull.  Does he have enhanced healing too?

Maybe? The comics background is that his powers come from a cellular regeneration experiment, which ended up giving him "invincible skin" as well as stronger muscle tissue and yes, enhanced healing. Generally his insides aren't as strong IIRC because the powers came largely from laying in a chemical bath, meaning the skin got most of the enhancement -- so if his eyes were closed, it would kind of be consistent. He became even stronger when he later went through the process a second time, able to shrug off higher caliber bullets. How they're playing with that in the Marvel movie-verse/Netflix shows is something we won't really know until we see his own show.

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I put down some general thoughts in the spoiler free thread yesterday, might as well add some specifics here.

 

Both Jessica and Kilgrave were excellent, though if you create a series with this setup you'd better get the title character and her antagonist right, else there's no point to the rest of the show.

 

Most surprising standouts from the rest of the cast were Trish and Malcolm. Trish's relationship with Jessica becoming so strong and central wasn't something I would have predicted early on, and Malcolm's quiet realisation that he wasn't done helping people was possibly the most unambiguous moment of triumph in the entire narrative.

 

Kilgrave's end was also well done. Tennant was great in the role, but this character really needed to die. Not only was he clearly virtually impossible to contain, having him stick around would inevitably lead to the character losing his edge mid- to longterm. Many, many shows make the mistake of keeping good characters around for too long, so good on the showrunners for not falling into this trap here.

Jessica tricking him was a great way to finish it. She turned the tables on him completely, getting him to do what she wanted.

 

The more distracting elements were the annoying/grief-stricken neighbour and Simpson. I thought the neighbour situation ultimately was worth it, even if the character remained fairly unlikeable, but while I liked the idea behind Simpson's arc, him reacting so strongly to the loss of control when compelled by Kilgrave that he essentially went insane trying to reassert control over his life and make sure it could never happen to him again, its pacing was at odds with the Kilgrave plot. By the time he'd gone full psycho and was willing to murder innocents to get at Kilgrave he was just a distraction. He'll be another villain with a personal connection to the heroes next season, but he has obivously destroyed his relationship with Jessica and Trish enought that neither of them will pull any punches if they run into him again, so I really don't think this disruption was worth it even as setup for season 2.

 

Overall an excellent entry in the MCU. I haven't unconditionally loved everything they've put out over the years, but the level of quality of the franchise is still damn impressive.

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