Dude, you need more stamina. Not only does DD get juicier and juicier, but JJ has a few more tricks up its sleeve even in just the last few episodes.
Great points, Desslock. It’s weird; I can (and do) agree with all your issues, but they just didn’t bother me that much. JJ was executed well enough that it kept me in the moment and not annoyed by any of the issues though they undoubtedly exist. Definitely agree that the JJ+Luke stuff was the strongest part of the show, but I also like that they kept the focus relentlessly on Jessica and her issues where a heavier commitment to the JJ/Luke relationship would have conceivably changed the nature of the show.
Well, I actually really liked Trish as well. Thought the actress played her well, liked her arc and decisions, her obvious love and patience for Jessica that felt organic and earned, all that stuff. Also really like that she is absolutely gorgeous, but not played up as eye candy at all (in the production of the show, I mean. Obviously it plays into her character/history). Her beauty feels almost incidental, and not a transparent reason to get the guys to watch this chick show or whatever.
Daredevil definitely had even better moments later on - the shocks really paid off in DD. And Kingpin gets better than better.
Yeah, agree with all that. I didn’t really think it made sense to have her involved in Jessica’s final plan, but it allowed for a good payoff for her relationship with Jessica – their relationship was really quite interesting and refreshing for the reasons you stated. They were also played as equals - not in the same contexts, but overall.
and lastly
She’ll be back as Hellcat, presumably, in the Defenders
I finished the season! So it definitely has a pull to it, this show. It keeps you coming back, which is the best thing I can say about it. I didn’t like the stuff that happened with Simpson in Episode 10 onward, and introduction of IGH. Just confusing, and unresolved, and didn’t add to the story in any meaningful way. Obviously it’s just there to either lead to next season or some other Marvel show, since they seem to be making so many. But that stuff took away from the 13 episode season I watched.
Overall I’m trying to decide if I just wasted my time. I certainly felt myself pulled in and cared about the characters after episode 9. But I just feel like they could have told a similar story in about a standard British season instead. 4 or 6 hours instead of 13.
That seems to be the general hive-mind consensus here, and I should think it’s probably going to be the consensus with the general viewing public too, Netflix are going to have to address it somehow. They either need more plot and more stuff to fill out 13 episodes, or they need to trim down the stories to 8 or 9 episodes.
It seems like they’re stuck between a rock (has to be 13 episodes for the money guys) and a hard place (not enough budget to really fill out 13 episodes interestingly given its a superhero thing and needs some CGI).
Just finished it, and, yeah, it was good overall, but it really dragged on in the second half. I’m practically rolling my eyes each time they corner/capture Kilgrave and he slips away yet again. This story could easily have been done in 10 episodes or fewer. There was just waaaaay too much filler.
We gave up at episode ten. It was just way to slow, depressing and not-moving-anywhere. It was kinda interesting in the first few episodes, but went rapidly downhill from there. Of course, it doesn’t help that the subject matter is not at all super hero related. While its an interesting choice, its kinda misleading, no matter what the original comic was about. I expected Daredevil, but got Oldboy instead.
Uhhh ok. Odd bits of reasoning but… okay.
— Alan
Ive been thinking about whether I should elaborate on this, and after your comment, I think I will. What I have thought about, is that we don’t watch series or shows in a vacuum. The circumstances in which you watch something, has a big influence on your opinion and thoughts on the show. For instance - The GF and I usually watch a show while eating dinner. That means, we talk a bit during, and enjoy a great meal, and as such, shows like Jessica Jones, are incredibly heavy , ponderous, and a show where, if you look down at your meat at the wrong time, you miss a glance or something else significant. That doesn’t mean JJ is a bad show, but merely that the circumstances in which I saw it, didn’t conform to my expectations.
On top of that, Christmas time, or rather, all of December is rarely the most festive of times, due to expectations, family obligations and the choice of where to have Christmas, thereby inevitably disappointing someone - So, again, somber, moody shows arent’ really what I want to watch at these times.
I hope, that in light of the above elucidation, my thoughts on the show makes more sense.
It’s a bit peculiar having gone so far into the show, and leaving around its darkest time and 3 episodes before the resolution.
But you didn’t sign a contract promising to watch it all, no matter what. :)
Still, might be worth considering giving the end a chance on a weekend evening or something. I appreciated getting some closure on the story, personally.
Wendelius
Well I found the last 3 episodes a real slog, I can understand some people not bothering.
Man, y’all are crazy. That show got better and better over time! I was really having to work not to binge it toward the end, since I was sorta watching during breaks from studying for my Calc final. . .
I’ve always wondered how much of the pleasure of episodic shows comes from the delayed viewing, and anticipation. And how much pleasure is lost, especially for shows that require attention like Jessica Jones, when they’re binge watched.
Personally, I wouldn’t change Jessica Jones. Of course I do not like the lead actress, and find her terrible in any serious role, but that’s not a reason to dislike a show. Daredevil, I’d burn the masters. For all the complaints about how long and boring and slow Jessica Jones was, Daredevil was twice as bad. And the story there was, for me was pretty shallow.
I think people just want a movie or something. I don’t get it at all.
They don’t want a movie, they just don’t want a 13 episode show that has 3 or 4 episodes of filler. This is certainly more noticeable when you watch them all back to back or over a much shorter space of time.
Jessica Jones was so mediocre that I realized today that I never bothered watching the last few episodes over my two week break.
I had literally just forgotten I was even watching this show.
Just dragged my way to the finish line. God, Jessica annoyed the crap out of me in the last 1/3rd of the season. So many unbelievable mistakes and decisions on her parts. She constantly and consistently let Killgrave go, despite knowing what he could do. Saving Hope wasn’t enough of a reason to be that stupid. Also, that last plan of hers? Idiotic. Send Trish into danger so that you can brilliantly fail to sneak up to Killgrave from the balcony that is way too far away.
Jessica’s greatest power seems to be stubborn stupidity.
Daredevil was just plain better. Besides having less stupidity, the action in Daredevil is miles beyond what JJ had (I get that wasn’t one of the aims of the show).
Binge watched episodes 4 - 13 over the holidays. All-in-all, I enjoyed the show, but I agree it should have been 10 episodes. Pull out some of that filler, or at least fill it with non-Kilgrave related stuff. Looking forward to the next season and the Luke et all series that are coming up.
Things that bugged me
- Having the sister of the dead guy show up at the Kilgrave support group and overhear the convenient confession by the ex-addict was stupid. VERY stupid. I felt like they wanted to have that character involved somehow and just threw together some dumb way to make it happen
- Having Jessica unwilling to kill Kilgrave made sense in a twisted way, but was still annoying. Yes, when a super hero is fighting a villain that she is immune to, you have to have some other reason to have the hero lose. To have it happen 3 times though? That was silly. When the guards save him, I think that was the perfect “this is why Kilgrave is hard to capture” moment. Never should have has another after that. Having Hope (ugh) be the reason Jessica keeps Kilgrave alive rang hollow for me. Why not just have her not willing to kill people in general? She killed one woman and it has haunted her since then. She doesn’t want to kill again, even if it’s her worst enemy. There, much better reason than the hope of getting a random confession from a sociopath
- Kilgrave expanding his power felt too clunky. But damn, it led to some of the best scenes in the show. “Shut up all your wankers”
- What was the point of the whole Kilgrave virus talk? Was it just a way to explain how he was able to do the things he does? Give some false hope the the good guys? Again, felt like filler to get us an extra episode.
A lot of my friends were very upset about the how the whole thing would have been resolved more simply if the hero had just killed the villain at the first opportunity with a long range rifle. End of problem right?
I personally don’t buy that, because the core struggle in the show wasn’t a violent contest between hero and villain. That was a secondary, if still important aspect. The core conflict was internal to the hero and the stuggle with the shattered post-abuse self and the journey to redemption and sanity. Defeating the villain was part of both conflicts, but a cold dispassionate murder doesn’t resolve that internal conflict with a win. I thought the show acknowledged that very well compared to a lot of other works in this genre that have heroes maddeningly unwilling to take a life even when it’s the straight up sensible thing to do.