Out of all of the TV shows currently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jessica Jones has been in production the longest. I remember being immensely excited for it, loving every detail I could uncover about the series beforehand. Alas, at the end of November 20th, 2015, I was left utterly disappointed.
Look, I’m not the guy to lose his mind over every creative liberty or comic discrepancy. The Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3? Loved it, and he’s one of my favorite villains. Aunt May’s significantly younger age? Surprisingly cool. Bucky and Steve being the same age? Necessary. I even grew to like the bizarre Secret Warriors lineup on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and that show is very unfaithful to the books, lol). Some things work and some things don’t. The difference between, say, Daredevil and Jessica Jones is I felt Daredevil embraced and respected it’s comic book roots, while Jessica Jones dropped the occasional Easter egg and changed whatever it could.
But I’m not here to talk about that, not really. I’m currently rewatching the show for the third time, and I’m warming up to it more and more each time. It’s certainly not a bad show, I just don’t think it deserves all the praise it’s gotten because it had so much potential to be better. Nevertheless, it dared to go where no other superhero show has gone, and broke God only knows how many stereotypes. If you like it, if you love it, I’m happy for you. I’m only here to express some of things I would have liked to see.
Back when I still fuming from the first time I watched it, I detailed why I feel the showrunners misunderstood Jessica Jones’ origin. That bears no repeating, and I’ve warmed up to it a bit anyway. What I do want to address is a few of the subplots in the show; some we should have seen less of, and some we should have seen more. Again, these are just my opinions, so feel free to disagree.
First off, let’s start with the twins that lived above Jessica’s apartment, Ruben and Robyn. One was an admirer of Jessica who always obeyed his sibling, the other a cranky and obnoxious young lady who always had something to bitch about. I couldn’t help but feel annoyed every time they were on screen, especially Robyn. While they were both used in a way that moved the plot along, they surely weren’t essential to the story, and didn’t affect Jessica in any significant way. Between the three lesbians, Robyn, and Jessica herself, it seemed there was always complaint and spite going around. Robyn was one irrelevant character too many.
That reminds me, the lesbians! Now I’m certainly not against the LGBT community being represented in television, so put those pitchforks down--and I even think the twisted love triangle could have worked for the show. They just didn’t handle it right. In the very first episode, when we’re still learning about who the hell Jessica Jones is in the first place, we are also introduced to this love affair that her lawyer, Jeri Hogarth, is caught in the midst of. Though this will eventually come to a head later down the line with Kilgrave, it has nothing to do with Jessica to begin with, and feels very shoehorned in because they couldn’t find another appropriate spot for it. We’ve barely had time to become invested in Jessica, and now we’re supposed to care about this irrelevant love affair? Come on now, that could have been way better handled.
All in all, these subplots were distracting, and we should have spent last time with them and more time with characters that would have been interesting to explore. The two characters that live in Hope Shlottman’s old apartment were likeable enough, and could have helped the story in less annoying ways than the twins or the love triangle. One of these characters was Mei, an Asian girl who was Hope’s best friend. You would think Hope’s best friend would listen to her story about Kilgrave, or at least be there for her throughout the process. Nope. She’s introduced in the first episode along with her new roommate Raj, and neither are ever seen again. Jessica might have found Raj—the kid who was recording an entire year of his life—annoying, but I personally found him funny and likeable. He was a character who could have provided some much-needed comic relief in this dark TV series, and Mei’s relationship with Hope could have been a nice parallel to Jessica’s relationship with Trish Walker. Sadly, they were left unexplored.
This brings me to “AKA 99 Friends,” the fourth episode and my personal favorite. In it a woman named Audrey Eastman betrays Jessica and attempts to kill her, showing her hatred and fear of super-powered individuals in the process. What’s interesting is this hatred began when her mother died during the Battle of New York, and she shifted the blame of that happening on Jessica, even though she wasn’t even there. While superheroes have often been inexplicably absent in each other’s movies in the MCU, I think in Jessica’s case this could have made for rich storytelling had it been explored further.
In the show, Jessica is more or less portrayed as the reluctant hero type, both before and after Kilgrave. While this might’ve been one way of showing that Jessica didn’t fully snap under Kilgrave’s pressure, I think the story suffered for it. Jessica once tried to be a fully-fledged superhero because she wanted to, not just because Trish wanted her to. I would have kept this particular sub-plot going—or at least make it a recurring theme—and at some point, perhaps in the finale, we find out that she actually was in Manhattan during the events of The Avengers. In a flashback, we would see her watching the Chitauri arrive and attack the city. Jessica would try to leave and help the Avengers, but Kilgrave wouldn’t let her. In this we would see that he not only stopped her from being a hero, he essentially also stopped her from becoming an Avenger.
I feel a seen like this would have stayed true to the character we loved from the books, while also adding a layer to her anxiety, depression and even the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole for us fans.
At the end of the day, I can admit that what we got wasn’t so bad. I’m very excited to see Jessica Jones again, whenever that will be. Also, I got like 3 hours of sleep last night, so if this article is bad... it's probably because I'm a bad writer.
That's all I've got, citizens of CBMville. Let me know what you think in the usual place!