Jessica Jones Season 2 – A decent follow-up but not quite as thrilling

Posted on 29 March 2018
By Roisin Gordon
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When the first season of Jessica Jones exploded onto Netflix in 2015, it gave us a thrilling and refreshing take on the superhero genre.

It explored dark subject matters such as rape and PTSD, as well as treating us to a number of exciting and interesting characters.

Since then, we have been eagerly anticipating season two and whilst it did deliver on an equally dark and intriguing storyline, it didn’t quite reach the same standard as the first season.

Season two sees Jessica (Krysten Ritter) trying to return to normal life (normal for her at least) after murdering Kilgrave in the season one finale, as she carries on her work as a private investigator.

Her new case involves Jessica digging for answers on a company called IGH, who had paid for her medical bills after her childhood car accident, and played a part in Jessica gaining powers. We see Jessica exploring who she really is, as well as uncovering some painful truths about her past.

After watching Jessica take down Kilgrave in season one, we were excited to see what was next in store for the badass private eye. The idea of delving further into Jessica’s past and learning more about her childhood and how she got her powers, was an interesting storyline to explore.

It really helped to get to know more about Jessica, and how it shaped her to become the person we know and love today, as well as seeing different sides to her character.

However the development of the main storyline felt painfully slow, especially in the first few episodes. Whilst it did deliver on some badass and exciting moments, the payoff to some of the buildups felt underwhelming and just paled in comparison to season one’s storyline.

Krysten Ritter once again shined as Jessica Jones, retaining the sarcastic and badass fighter that we’ve come to know and love. She also did a fantastic job of displaying a more broken and vulnerable side to her character, especially when she is forced to confront her past.

Although, the show did not solely focus on Jessica, as they managed to give a good amount of attention to the supporting characters.

A subplot involving Trish’s past demons resurfacing, as well as her growing desire to help people and take down IGH, was both well developed and interesting.

For her whole life, Trish has been living up to other people’s expectations and is tiring of the lifestyle topics on her famed talk show. Yet she wishes that she could have powers like Jessica, so that she could make a difference and pushes Jessica to take down IGH for good.

Despite it being a well developed story arc, there were times where her character felt unbearable to watch.

In addition to bringing back the characters we love, we also got to meet a number of new characters. Some managed to fit with the story well enough, whereas there were others you wished you saw less of.

This includes Pryce Cheung, a rival PI who works for Jeri Hogarth, who could have worked if his rivalry with Jessica was entertaining. However the character just wasn’t likeable enough to make it work.

Jessica’s relationship with Oscar, the new superintendent in her building was not really that interesting. You could argue that the intention was to give her a love interest who would provide her with some stability, but there just wasn’t enough there to keep you invested.

Given that Kilgrave was such a fantastic villain and one of the main highlights of season one, it was always going to be a challenge for them to give us a villain to match his greatness.

It never really made it clear who the main villain was, and whether they were always intended to be a villain in the first place or just a misunderstood character. To make matters worse, they didn’t come anywhere close to being as good as Kilgrave.

Whilst season two has some great moments and well developed relationships between the characters, it just didn’t quite capture the thrills as season one did.

Purple Revolver Rating: 3.5/5- A bit of a let down

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