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Jessica Jones "S1E1- AKA Ladies Night" - Review: This girl's a hit!


Jessica Jones "S1E1- AKA Ladies Night" - Review: This girl's a hit!
8 out of 10

“So why don’t they join up with the Avengers?” - That’s the biggest facing any Marvel TV show when it tries to feature any significantly powered individual; explaining they don’t cross paths with their cinematic kin. It’s why the next character choice of the joint Netflix/Marvel venture could not be more perfect as she has every reason to stay the hell away from them. Many will have reacted to the announcement with one thought, “Who is Jessica Jones?” (with countless YouTube videos and articles carrying that title). She’s a lesser known character with one hell of a good story to tell, drawing form Marvel’s first “adults only” publication, Alias. A story that presents her as former superhero with no interest in returning to that life and couldn’t care less what Iron Man or Captain America are getting themselves up to. Netflix won over confidence with the outstanding Daredevil series, and thus earned the right to take more of a gamble with increased public confidence --a gamble that has certainly paid off, as this debut episode shows.

AKA Ladies Night – Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter – Breaking Bad, Veronica Mars) is a downbeat New York private detective who works primarily to fund her alcoholism but underneath lurks her grim exterior, and some extraordinary abilities like super strength and the echoing trauma of a horrific past ordeal at the hands of man named Kilgrave. When a couple hires her to find their missing daughter, Hope, it becomes abundantly clear that Kilgrave is back, and he’s coming for Jessica once more.

Very quickly, this lady shows she has both class and sass. From the title credits to Jessica’s opening narration about the realities of the private detective game show, runner Melissa Rossenberg (who also wrote over half the episodes, including this one) makes her intentions clear: this is meant to be a stylish series. The early noir tone feels like a take on New York meets Frank Miller’s Sin City, and throughout the episode, the blues/jazz combo soundtrack really elevates the show to having a more classical feel than most of its more modern day visuals would suggest. Throughout the episode, the visuals stay overly bleak to place us directly into Jessica’s mindset as she becomes almost passive and oblivious to the world around her. As you’d expect from a debut episode, much of the focus is on painting a picture of this complex leading lady. A great early scene with regular client, respected attorney Jeri Hogath (Carrie Anne-Moss – The Matrix, Pompeii), spells out her blunt mannerisms and erratic tendencies. Throughout the episode, we see her going several days without showering or changing clothes, meaning that she either gives no regard to her appearance or she’s joining the cast of Scooby Doo. There’s also great teasing about her powers, with nothing spelled out by a token sciency friend. We slowly get the idea that she can do more before a mid-episode confrontation sees her lifting up a car confirming her guns are for more than just show. This also produces one of the episode;s biggest laughs as she lies about having laser vision to scare the guy. Like in Daredevil, there are subtle little hints dropped of the greater MCU. No names or events are mentioned but a few characters show awareness of the world being stranger these days and car-lifting victim even refers to her as “one of them”. Throughout it all, Ritter hugely impresses and already feels like a perfect choice for the character.

Then, there’s the matter of her past trauma  at the hands of Kilgrave. As some would suspect, this is still kept mostly under wraps for a story that will be re-told in flashbacks across the series. The Purple Man himself only appears in shadowy hallucinations with his face hidden but various characters outline the basics of his powers: He doesn’t control your mind, he controls your will. He doesn’t make you do things, he makes you want to do things. This is build-up is shown gently with the waiter believing he was out of his mind for a crazy action before we ultimately meet Hope under the full effects of his control. There’s some incredible tension in the build up to her reveal, and the results all nicely serve to reinforce Killgrave as a cruel and even sadistic character. From the simple idea of making Hope stay in the bed, lying in her own filth, to shocking scenes as she fights Jessica’s attempts to rescue her, clawing onto everything she can find all the way out. The imagery is dark, powerful and highly effective with the episode’s climax nailing that into place. As for Jessica’s own ordeal, we just get a few vague hints from a conversation with her estranged best friend Trish Walker (Hellcat in the comics) played by Rachel Taylor (Transformers, Greys Anatomy). We know a year has passed since she was under his control, and that he made her do some very bad things, “You know what he can do.... you know what he made me do”. At this stage, it doesn’t look like its going as dark as the comic source material (which gets pretty messed up) and will focus more on Kilgrave manipulating Jessica to commit crimes.

Elsewhere, we also get our first introduction in the subject of Netflix’s (currently filming) 3rd Marvel series, Luke Cage (Mike Colter – Salt, The Good Wife) as a local bar owner and love interest for Jessica. There’s no confirmation on whether or not Cage has his abilities (super strength and unbreakable skin), but what is immediately clear is the excellent chemistry between the pair. Their bar side scene of trying to figure each other out is great to watch and he appears that we’ll also be exploring some of his backstory in this series before his own takes off. Like Ritter, Mike Colter feels immediately in place as his character fits extremely well for his series. The other main face introduced is  Jessica’s neighbor, Malcom (Eka Darville – Spartacus, Empire), who appears to be unsuccessfully working through his drug addiction and looks like he’ll be a source of comic relief.

Above all else, the goal of a pilot/debut episode is to give its viewers a reason to go on watching, and Jessica Jones does that without a doubt. She’s still be holding her cards close to her chest but it is still early in the game. The series sets itself with clear style, tone and ambition to tell a story unlike anything the MCU has covered to date. This is Ladies' Night, and the feeling is definitely right.

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