"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Other Doctor Lives: Jessica Jones: Season 1, Episode 13 – “AKA Smile” (2015)

*Guest star spoiler.*

Season 1 finale, and it’s a good ‘un. If you watch superhero shows, you know the finale is the time for the big showdown between the hero and the villain—after watching Jessica and Kilgrave all season, their ultimate clash doesn’t disappoint.

Although Kilgrave has of course been making Jessica’s life a living hell all season, there have been certain things keeping her physically, comparatively safe from him herself, not least of which being the fact that he’s obsessively in love with her. Instead, to borrow from The Princess Bride, Kilgrave has been fighting “to the pain,” psychologically torturing Jessica and hurting/killing those around her to torment her. But as she becomes more determined to do whatever it takes to stop him, he starts to strip away the few safeguards that have been in place, preferring to own her but willing to see her killed if it comes to that. Jessica gears up for one final battle with Kilgrave, not sure if she can beat him but knowing that no one else really stands a chance.

First off, the friendship scenes in this episode are on point. As usual, Trish gets the more heartfelt/explicit moments while Malcolm’s support is quieter and more understated, and although I definitely wish for more for Malcolm, I do really love both. With Trish, we see hints of the personal issues that will bubble up later, and her insistence on sticking by Jessica and helping her despite no powers of her own are, in part, about her latent desire to be a hero. But they’re also about wanting to back Jessica up no matter what, not letting her go it alone. Their secret signal to one another is utterly sweet. Meanwhile, Malcolm’s scenes with Jessica herself are relatively subdued, but he gets a really nice scene with a Defendersverse character who pops up unexpectedly in the episode—Claire! (Yeah, the first time I watched this, I squeed when I saw her.) Claire is terrific throughout the episode and also has some excellent scenes with Jessica, just wearily getting shit done, but I really like her and Malcolm connecting as nonpowered people trying to support heroes amid their messy lives.

Jessica is great. She’s just great. She’s determined and self-loathing, terrified and angry, clever and overwhelmed, desperate and brave. Krysten Ritter kills it throughout. It saddens me that she continues to beat herself up over the things Kilgrave does to people in order to get to her, even as it’s a shining example of her being the hero she doesn’t think she is. She and Kilgrave have an indirect encounter early in the episode that’s really good, and the final confrontation is awesome.

I think in general, this show does a good job building up to the final battle without really feeling like it’s stalling. Jessica hasn’t just been circling around Kilgrave all season, holding back from wholeheartedly going after him. They’ve had a number of clashes involving a variety of plans on both their parts, and the twists and turns that have disrupted those plans have felt pretty organic. I’m sure it helps that the season is only 13 episodes, as opposed to, say, an Arrowverse show with a full-season order, but I still appreciate it.

David Tennant is, unsurprisingly, excellent. In addition to doing a great job throughout the final battle—so creepy and so awful, but still throwing a tiny bit of surprise humor in there—Kilgrave also gets a few good scenes with other characters as well. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I like the dichotomy of Kilgrave being this odd mix of carefully controlled while also being a walking id and simmering with barely contained rage just below the surface. It’s fascinating to watch, and he’s a top-notch villain for Jessica to face: a formidable foe just from the perspective of his powers and his intelligence/deviousness, as well as one whose clash with Jessica is deeply personal. Kilgrave is reprehensible right to the end.

Kilgrave is the main baddie in season 1 only, so this marks the end of Tennant’s role as a major character on the show, but we’re not quite finished with the character yet. Tennant appears in a couple more episodes. Until next week!

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