Monday, November 30, 2015

10 Things You Need to Know About the "Jessica Jones" Pilot [Contributor: Lynnie Purcell]


Jessica Jones is exactly the hero the Marvel franchise was missing. The show’s tribute to 1930-40s film noir is matched only by Krysten Ritter’s deadpan delivery, masterful sincerity when dealing with Jessica’s trauma, and the subtle funny moments that linger in the spaces between crumbling marriages, hunts for missing people, and Jessica dealing with the consequences of the past.

Here are ten things you absolutely need to know about the pilot (if you haven't binge-watched the entire series already):


Picking up a sports car is totally no big deal and should be attempted by everyone. 

... No one should really attempt this.

Jessica Jones doesn’t care about your cause or your failing marriage.

She just really wants to get paid.

Ask her front door.


PTSD is treated with respect and consideration to the fact that it doesn’t just magically float away. 

Jessica’s strength isn't lessened because of this serious mental illness. She is allowed –– shocker! –– to be damaged, to be recovering, to be an alcoholic, and a hero.

David Tennant only kind-of makes an appearance.

Though David Tennant only appears in traumatic flashbacks in this episode, Kilgrave is creepy, mysterious... and a licker, apparently.

Sniffing shoes is gross and should be undertaken with the utmost respect to never doing it ever.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.


The hotel scene, where Jessica goes to the rescue, is probably the creepiest, saddest, complex mixture of genuine feelings that you will have all year. 

From the moment the emergency lights go off, it was perfectly shot, allowing for the horror to build, and wonderfully acted. It was the definition of a superhero moment.

Lawyers are cheaters. 

I know this because Jessica Jones told me so. Carrie-Anne Moss is also perfect as Hogarth. All hail Queen Dragon Lawyer.

Jessica Jones has demons. 

In fact, she has all the demons. Catholic priests salivate at the amount of demons she has carrying around with her. Matt Murdock goes to his priest just to say how jealous he is of her demons.

She is also not your typical superhero at all. Her action scenes are not grandiose, her heroic moments do not include grand ta-da scenes or lines of dialogue. Everything about the way the directors shot the scenes in the pilot is subtle, realistic, and sarcastic. Jessica Jones is different from other types of heroes in modern media, and it resonates.

Jessica is really bad at flirting. But Luke Cage more than makes up for it with his charm and appeal. If you aren’t in love with Mike Colter by the end of the episode you’re doing it wrong.

(Jessica certainly was.)


Hope is lost in this episode.

(The fact that I could turn that into a pun makes me way too happy.)

Hope, and Kilgrave’s control of her, is the catalyst Jessica needs to stop running from the past and start fighting back against it. There is also a really great moment where Jessica tries to help Hope via a technique her therapist taught her. This is the kind of female interaction I like to see on my TV.

Go watch Jessica Jones; all episodes are streaming now on Netflix!

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