Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) had retired from the superhero business to become a drunken private detective, though her main focus is personal: stop Kilgrave (David Tennant), a mind-controlling super villain who had kidnapped her and held her for months. Her plans are altered when Kilgrave forces his latest victim, Hope (Erin Moriarty) to kill her parents. Jones feels the need to prove Hope’s innocence which means capturing Kilgrave alive. She is aided by radio personality Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) and by Will Simpson (Wil Traval), a police officer with rage issues.
Where in the other series, theme is the most important factor, in Jessica Jones it buries everything else. This is a thirteen hour examination of abuse. Mainly it is sexual and domestic abuse. With only the slightest of exceptions, everyone is either an abuser or abused, and most are both. Jones is a rape survivor, both literally and metaphorically. Her rapist, Kilgrave, was a child-abuse victim. So was Jessica’s best friend, Trish, who also is assaulted during the series. The guy who attacks her, Will Simpson, is a metaphoric rape victim and was abused by his doctors as well as suffering from PTSD. Jessica’s lawyer (Carrie-Anne Moss) is the abuser of two domestic partners. And that’s not nearly the end. This is a parade of suffering people.
But the show isn’t about the abuse. It is about the effects of abuse. It is about recovery, or the lack there of. It is about how people deal with abuse. It’s about their fear. How they hide. How they become alcoholics and drug addicts. How it stays with them forever even if they can move on. And it is very emotional stuff. I don’t think it has been done better.
Unfortunately, the plot is less interesting. It’s not that it is bad, perhaps being the best of the Netflix MCU stories; it is just slight. The basic plot could have been covered in two episodes. Kilgrave just wants to have a good time and desires for Jessica to be at his side. Jessica want to stop Kilgrave and free a girl whose been accused of one of his crimes. That’s it. Adding in the soldier with rage issues and Luke Cage should have required another hour. There’s not nearly enough story for thirteen episodes. Even slowing things down for mood and in-depth character examinations, Jessica Jones should have been six episodes, eight if they were pushing it. But never thirteen.
Like in Daredevil, the series is extended by having Jessica and company make stupid decisions, and they do. Very stupid. It is more excusable here than in the other series because all of the people are broken and making horrible decisions in general. But it isn’t excusable enough. It gets annoying. We, as viewers, are so far ahead of the characters.
So Jessica Jones is far too slow for multiple reasons. The dialog is OK, but nothing special. The plot is simplistic and it is hard to like these folks (sympathize with—yes, but not like). But the ever-present theme distracts from the many problems. And that theme is important, so I can let the show slide here and there. But that makes this a series to respect, not enjoy.