Episode Title: I’ve Got The Blues
Original Air Date: 11/20/2015
Jessica searches the morgues for clues. Trish goes all out to keep Simpson from getting in Jessica’s way. Malcolm has an epiphany.
The main strength in this episode comes through the friendship between Jessica and Trish. We see the first time they meet, with Trish being forced to stay with Jessica for good publicity in her time as a child star and the tension that there was when they were first getting to know each other. We also see that Trish was the first one to find out about Jessica’s powers after Jessica. The most interesting stuff comes with the relationship between Trish and her mum, played brilliantly by Rebecca De Mornay, showing that Trish was abused by her mum due to her mum’s desire for Trish to become famous, hitting her with awards when she doesn’t cooperate and forces her to vomit up any excess food she eats in order to maintain Trish’s weight. It is pretty horrible what Trish’s mum does to Trish and it is so satisfying when Jessica intervenes and throws Trish’s mum away, letting her know not to harm Trish again. We also get more interesting stuff regarding how Jessica got her powers, namely that it happened after the car crash, but we still don’t have any knowledge over how it happened.
Some other interesting stuff comes into play regarding Jessica’s obsession with Kilgrave which, combined with her exhaustion, causes her to see Kilgrave everywhere, even leading to her being hit by a truck following someone she thinks is Kilgrave. This adds to the brilliant paranoia filled atmosphere of the show and shows how much Jessica has been messed up by Kilgrave. The episode also shows how far ahead of the game Kilgrave is, ending with him finding Luke Cage and forcing him to blow up his bar, showing both the love that Jessica has for Luke, along with a great show of Luke’s powers since he survived the explosion with little external damage.
There’s also more stuff regarding Simpson and the pills he’s taking, showing the extra strength and the adrenaline boost they give him, allowing him to take on Jessica in a hand to hand fight, with Simpson even saying that if he didn’t have the pills Jessica would have wiped the floor with him. We also see the effects on people who don’t have the training as Trish takes one to save Jessica and it nearly kills her as it temporarily shuts down the functions of her brain telling her to breath and this raises a lot of questions regarding how Simpson was able to survive taking the pills in the first place, even with the blue ones calming him down. However, in terms of mysteries, this is the weakest one in the show. I’m just not invested in finding out how the pills work and why they were created, knowing the MCU they’ll probably be another attempt to create more Super Soldiers like Captain America.
Speaking of problems with the episode I really hated Robyn here. She’s been one of the most annoying characters throughout the show and she reaches her peak here, not seeming to care about the other people nearly dying around her at the end of the previous episode, along with the death of Hope, and her incredibly cynical attitude of the world infuriated me. Thankfully, this is somewhat made up for with the development for Malcolm, him wanting to see the good in people and wanting to help them, along with a sense of fear in the character, mainly when he doesn’t call Jessica to tell her that the military is in her office. Still, this aspect of the episode was the weakest for me.
Overall, AKA I’ve Got The Blues is probably the weakest episode of Jessica Jones I’ve seen so far. The stuff related to Jessica and Trish is handled really well, particularly the flashbacks, but this episode focuses on one of the weakest parts of the show and the absence of Kilgrave, despite his presence being felt, is incredibly noticeable here, showing that one of the most important elements for the success of the show is the dynamic between Jessica and Kilgrave.
Channel: Superhero 