A very different sort of episode, but I really like it. The tone and tension deftly rise and fall in what amounts to a near two-hander for Jessica and Kilgrave. While other characters do make appearances, the main action all boils down to our hero and her superpowered stalker.
Jessica faces down the prospect of her most extreme plan yet, one that takes her into the belly of the beast with Kilgrave. Locked in an incredibly precarious situation in which other people’s lives are in her hands, she gets up close and personal with Kilgrave and tries to figure out how she can navigate it.
It’s interesting to see Jessica’s actions and reasoning here. Given that the risks she takes in this episode dwarf her extremely ill-advised plan last time, it’s easy to see her friends’ perspective: that she’s sacrificing herself because she thinks she deserves punishment for what happened in her past. And certainly, Jessica’s intense guilt can’t be factored out, but it’s not as simple as that. Jessica is a hero, but she’s not a martyr. Even when she’s put herself in the worst possible position, it’s because she has a plan. A desperate one, one that could go wrong in dozens of ways, but it’s still a plan. She still hopes she can make it out of this alive and uncontrolled, even if she’s not banking on it.
Because she dives in headfirst into danger. Confronting everything she fears, her every revulsion, trying to stay ahead as Kilgrave repeatedly changes the game on her. Through it all, she fights to maintain her own drive and dignity, not giving into the despair of her situation. Even beyond the constant threat of him using his powers against her, she also wants to make this hard for him, continually managing small digs to rankle him.
Obviously, this is another strong episode for David Tennant. Episode 7 sort of marks the shift where Kilgrave stops being a boogeyman and becomes a character, and for me, the shift is highly effective. I don’t think anything in this episode matches the outright eeriness of his earliest appearances on the show, but he’s still incredibly creepy, and he’s just sick. In this particular encounter with Jessica, we’re shown over and over how his “love” for Jessica really comes down to obsession and his sense of entitlement/ownership. He demonstrates his scary-obsessive level of detail when it comes to knowing everything about her, and yet, for all of his “this is all for you, Jessica” claims, he’ll move toward manipulation/control at the drop of a hat. As Jessica remains defiant, that rage that simmers beneath Kilgrave’s show of supposed good will is just so palpable.
One of the creepiest things about Kilgrave in this episode is the way he tries to act as though any of this is normal. And I’m not talking about Jessica’s super strength or his mind control. I mean the way he seems to think Jessica will fall into his arms if he just pampers her enough. His view is very transactional (which is interesting, since his powers mean he’s never really had to pay for/earn everything,) but as he and Jessica clash, it comes up again and again. You can’t hate me when I’ll provide everything you could ever want. It wasn’t rape if I brainwashed you and we did it in five-star hotels. If I’m not controlling you, why does it matter if I control other people? How many good deeds would it take to balance the scales of my crimes?
It’s all BS, of course. Even as Jessica and Kilgrave tangle with each other, as she thinks about the good that could be accomplished with Kilgrave’s abilities by someone with a conscience or as he shares the terrible origins of his powers with her, treating someone well doesn’t mean you can violate them and saving someone doesn’t negate the fact that you killed someone else. Things about Kilgrave can be explained, but they can’t be explained away. I think Tennant and the show do a nice job of showing us Kilgrave’s perspective on all this while still keeping the proper framing of it. Kilgrave is complex in that he has a lot going on psychologically, but he’s not “complex” in any suggestion that his actions are justified/excusable. That’s a trap shows sometimes fall into with compelling villains. In learning more about them and their motivations, the shows can sometimes start buying into those motivations, acting like a bad childhood translates to forgiveness for evil behavior or that mass murder doesn’t matter as long as they’re really sorry about it. With Kilgrave, he can be both fascinating and unambiguously awful, and I appreciate that.
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