The trailer for the second season of Jessica Jones is out now. If for whatever reason, you haven’t seen it on the millions of websites that posted it before me, here it is.
I have to say though, while J.J. was pretty well received by fans and critics alike, I found watching the episodes a slow, tedious affair. It was ultimately a good show, but I had a terrible time trying to like Jessica as a character. I get it; She’s edgy, she’s traumatized by her past, and she’s just not a very nice person. But we are supposed to like her in spite of her not really having many redeeming qualities. By the end of the first season of Jessica Jones, I always felt like they kept her in a rut on purpose in order to avoid accidentally making her nice. I understand that fans of the comic would probably have cried foul if they made her this way, and in truth, the show probably would’ve been lesser for it. I’m not taking away from what tone the show was going for with her character.
What always bugged me was how they did it. Jessica’s a bitch. She’s always a bitch. That’s who she is. Even when she’s doing something selfless, she’s being bitchy about it, and that just wears on me after a while. How many times can I see the same smirk, or watch her sneer as she takes a sip of whisky? The reason I complain is because the trailer for the second season looks to be more of what we’ve already seen. There are ways to develop that character so that there is a rollercoaster of ups and downs that can show that Jessica wants to be good, but just can’t love herself enough.
Take House, M.D., for example. Hugh Laurie played a despicable character to perfection. We loved House, even though every character on that show had every reason to hate him. He was a brash, asshole of a man that could do good for others but never for himself. Sure, there were times over the course of the eight-season run that things started to drag a little, but Laurie and the writers allowed House to have ups and downs, highs and lows, so that you could actually feel the psychological turmoil he was in.
It’s that kind of struggle that was missing in Jessica Jones Season One. Regardless of her actions, there is still that same vacant stare and monotone expression. Jessica may be feeling emotion, but rarely does she show it (with the exception of finding out she killed Luke’s wife shortly after banging him.) I thought that was a great piece of story, by the way. That’s the kind of baggage Jessica needs to keep her from feeling too good about herself. But the writers need to allow Krysten Ritter to break out of her type-cast persona and explore a wider range of emotion.
Also worth noting is that at the time of Jessica Jones’ first season release, Marvel and Netflix had yet to do a dark, purely adult television show. It was highlighted by f-bombs, a tad more graphic violence, and sex scenes that ran just long enough to make the viewer uncomfortable. So there was a shock value involved. But now we’ve had Luke Cage and a brutally sadistic Punisher. Shock value is the order of the day.
I’m looking forward to Jessica Jones Season Two. But being the edgy adult comic book show isn’t enough anymore. We’ve graduated. Extended sex scenes, cursing, and graphic violence are par for the course now. So now that the elephant is out of the room, it will be interesting to see what’s next.
Hopefully, it’s Trish Walker in a Hellcat outift.
