Remove ads

Jessica Jones

Tempera said:
Jessica wasn't looking to stop Kilgrave's threat up through then. She was looking to get justice, to get freedom for Hope- to be able to have someone to point to and say "he made me do the despicable things I did".

Killing Kilgrave wouldn't have solved any problems back then. It'd remove him as a threat, but that'd still leave Jessica cloying in her own guilt and Hope wasting away in prison.

It eventually did, yes, but that's because Kilgrave's power grew so powerful that people were no longer able to deny its existence. And even then, people were still trying, even when they had literally dozens of people testifying that Kilgrave made them want to kill each other.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's at the same level as taking The Joker/Davros alive because they would make convening a trial impossible and would cause a lot more devastation in the process as opposed to outright killing them. Had Jessica let Simpson blow up Purple Man and kill him there and then (or hell hunted him down and snapped his neck from the start, there would be a lot less corpses.
 
Mithras said:
It's at the same level as taking The Joker/Davros alive because they would make convening a trial impossible and would cause a lot more devastation in the process as opposed to outright killing them. Had Jessica let Simpson blow up Purple Man and kill him there and then (or hell hunted him down and snapped his neck from the start, there would be a lot less corpses.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, and you'd leave Jessica stewing in her guilt and Hope rotting away in prison. Not to mention the fact they'd be murdering people, although that ended up happening anyway.

That doesn't mean it was necessarily the right decision, although I'll note that unilaterally taking the law into someone's own hands and murdering another person is also not the right decision. But it's one that very much makes sense; she needs to take Kilgrave alive because she's heading down a self-destructive path due to self-recrimination and being able to point to someone and show the world that she wasn't to blame will help to take the edge off her guilt.

I mean, Jessica Jones making imperfect decisions that end up with the situation becoming worse than it was when she first looked at it in an attempt to assuage her own guilt over her actions?

Who'da thunk it?
 
Mithras said:
It's at the same level as taking The Joker/Davros alive because they would make convening a trial impossible and would cause a lot more devastation in the process as opposed to outright killing them. Had Jessica let Simpson blow up Purple Man and kill him there and then (or hell hunted him down and snapped his neck from the start, there would be a lot less corpses.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yes, and the show made it pretty clear by the end that Jessica was wrong in doing this (the one person she wanted to save, Hope, ended up worse off because of it rather than better). Simpson was right in wanting to just kill Purpleman, even if he had the wrong motivations.

Which I'm fine with. From the very first episode, the show made it clear that Jessica is a flawed hero who makes mistakes.


(personally, I'd have initially tried to take him alive like Jessica did, but I'd switch to lethal force after his first successful escape and subsequent murder spree, not his third)
 
Last edited:
Apparently I learned from Comic Pop that Bendis did a What if book where Jessica became the Shield Liaison with the Avengers.


Yeah, Jessica does not make very good choices.
 
Arcman said:
He doesn't have regen here, otherwise what'd be the point of the stuff in episode 2?

S2 might deal with Kilgrave's children, perhaps. The ass must have fathered a number of bastards in Britain and the U.S unkowningly, some of whom might be interested in the person who sired them.

Or maybe they'll be found and taken by other parties for various reasons.

But in any case S2 will likely deal with the origin of Jessica's powers.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Or his death will be retconed somehow and he'll be back to make sure people watch the show. You know like comic books.

As for not killing him, I think on some level Jessica needed to prove that he was real and that he could do these things. Not just for Hope but for herself and everyone else he hurt, so that innocent people didn't pay for his crimes. Even if they got away with killing a man that as far as the world knew was an innocent man there'd be all those people he hurt who'd still have no place to go to get their lives back.
 
Arcman said:
MCU hasn't done it so far and I doubt Kilgrave would be their first.

Jessica has move on, S2 will be different.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah they have:

Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Plus Kilgrave made the show for me. He was so awful, but in a compelling way. The more the show went on the more I really only started to care what new insanity he'd think up. I can't help but feel any one new would be a step down.
 
Heck, despite the fact they planned it Bucky was basically retconned back to life. Heck, they retconned Loki back to life in the same movie. Same with Groot.

I'm not saying they will, but MCU has not exactly been strict with the 'no resurrections' rule like it was an Exalted campaign.
 
Hell it wouldn't even be hard to justify. Just say the stem cells from the treatment his dad gave him created a regeneration power.
 
Doctor Who jokes aside, I think bringing Kilgrave back would be a bad idea even with a good in-universe justification. His story is told. I don't think he has another good one in him, and bringing him back would just stall (or worse, undo) Jessica's character development.

One of my favorite authors said that the biggest favor you can do for a great character is retiring them when they've served their purpose. The Purple Man has served his purpose.
 
Blake Hannon said:
Doctor Who jokes aside, I think bringing Kilgrave back would be a bad idea even with a good in-universe justification. His story is told. I don't think he has another good one in him, and bringing him back would just stall (or worse, undo) Jessica's character development.

One of my favorite authors said that the biggest favor you can do for a great character is retiring them when they've served their purpose. The Purple Man has served his purpose.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
But the mark of a truly great Supervillain is their ability to menace the hero over and over again. Like I assume they're not about to bring him back but he was such a good villain I don't want to see anyone else vs Jessica Jones. I just want to see her and the Purple Man have fights over and over again.
 
VolantRedX said:
But the mark of a truly great Supervillain is their ability to menace the hero over and over again. Like I assume they're not about to bring him back but he was such a good villain I don't want to see anyone else vs Jessica Jones. I just want to see her and the Purple Man have fights over and over again.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That could have worked. Could HAVE, past tense. There's two reasons I don't think it can now.

1. Jessica's entire arc with Kilgrave is played out. She knows his secrets, she no longer fears him, and she's worked through the survivor's guilt issues that allowed him to give her so much trouble. This arc COULD have been stretched out over multiple seasons (with a larger rogue's gallery to help the pacing), but that ship has sailed now. The things that made Jessica vs. Kilgrave so great in the first season simply won't be there if she fights him again now.

2. A recurring villain should be dynamic, be able to throw a wide range of challenges at the hero(es), and undergo some personal growth themselves. Kilgrave is written as a superpowered manchild whose villainy stems from his INABILITY to grow and change over time; really, he's just a spoiled little kid in a man's body. The writers could have decided to write him a different way, but since they've chosen this one, they can't change Kilgrave without taking away the thing that made him a memorable villain.
 
Last edited:
Blake Hannon said:
1. Jessica's entire arc with Kilgrave is played out. She knows his secrets, she no longer fears him, and she's worked through the survivor's guilt issues that allowed him to give her so much trouble. This arc COULD have been stretched out over multiple seasons, but that ship has sailed now. The things that made Jessica vs. Kilgrave so great in the first season simply won't be there if she fights him again now.

2. A recurring villain should be dynamic, be able to throw a wide range of challenges at the hero(es), and undergo some personal growth themselves. Kilgrave is written as a superpowered manchild whose villainy stems from his INABILITY to grow and change over time; really, he's just a spoiled little kid in a man's body. The writers could have decided to write him a different way, but since they've chosen this one, they can't change Kilgrave without taking away the thing that made him a memorable villain.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Why not do most of season 1 (finding out he's alive, tracking him down, trying to stop him) again, over and over? That seems fun.
 
VolantRedX said:
Why not do most of season 1 (finding out he's alive, tracking him down, trying to stop him) again, over and over? That seems fun.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Because it won't be anything like the first season. It would just be "Oh, this fucker again." *sniper rifle* She has no reservations about going all out against him, and he's no longer a secret from the law.

Which, again, a more flexible and deep villain could work with. But Kilgrave is inflexible and shallow, and those are what make him Kilgrave.
 
Last edited:
Blake Hannon said:
Because it won't be anything like the first season. It would just be "Oh, this fucker again." *sniper rifle* She has no reservations about going all out against him, and he's no longer a secret from the law.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I guess, it just seems like there could be a lot more fun with him than Nuke as the bad guy.
 
VolantRedX said:
I guess, it just seems like there could be a lot more fun with him than Nuke as the bad guy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The whole supersoldier plot with Nuke was the weakest part of the story, imo. If that becomes the new central conflict in season 2, they're going to need to give it a serious overhaul.

I guess...if I had to pick a new direction for the show....

Season one ended with Jessica getting calls for a hero to help people with stuff, which was her original desire before Kilgrave happened. She's much more ambivalent about it now, but letting her rediscover her youthful passions and try to become more like the person she was before she got Purple Man'd could be a good arc for season 2.

What's a good street level enemy for that kind of story? Someone who A) she will have a believable motivation to oppose, and B) must be defeated with idealism. Someone who knows more Marvel lore than me, suggestions?
 
Last edited:
Blake Hannon said:
The whole supersoldier plot with Nuke was the weakest part of the story, imo. If that becomes the new central conflict in season 2, they're going to need to give it a serious overhaul.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The thing is Jessica Jones is the wrong hero for such a story. The show is already so dark that the idea of a secret military program went off the rails and killed lots of people wouldn't seem shocking. It'd be down right typical of her setting. This story needs something like Captain America to make the impact more meaningful.
 
VolantRedX said:
The thing is Jessica Jones is the wrong hero for such a story. The show is already so dark that the idea of a secret military program went off the rails and killed lots of people wouldn't seem shocking. It'd be down right typical of her setting. This story needs something like Captain America to make the impact more meaningful.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Agreed, which is part of the reason I disliked it in S1.

See my edit to the post above.
 
Blake Hannon said:
B) must be defeated with idealism. knows more Marvel lore than me, suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well Kingpin would have worked, but he's tied up with Daredevil. Silvermane maybe without the robot body. You could even have Tombstone and Hammerhead act as his enforcers so Jessica would have to deal with actual physical threats to set the season apart from the more mental and emotional threat Kilgrave posed.
 
I think speculating about season 2 of Jessica Jones before we see what Luke Cage and The Defenders has in store is kind of pointless.
 
Regardless of the merits or demerits of having Kilgrave in a second series (and the character arc is definitely and conclusively ended, the body blatantly and indubitably dead; what makes Kilgrave so good is exactly that he is an obvious one-season character), it won't happen because David Tennant is a star at such level they don't become multi-season regular. That's how the industry works.

Doing the Kilgrave character is a stimulating challenge, Tennant's acting talents is what makes Kilgrave such a captivating villain, but he has piles of proposals from his agent that are more interesting for his career.
 
Last edited:
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top