Marvel's Jessica Jones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3UYWK2jeX0

pretty sure Tennant is going to ruin this

Based on my brief glimpses of his Dr. Whoa, he's the part I'm most worried about.

The comics did a slow build to Kilgrave, first letting us watch Jessica work cases so we could get a sense of her self-destructive behavior — as well as the innate heroism she refuses to admit is still there — before getting at the root cause of it. The TV show heads there very quickly and only makes token attempts at showing Jessica doing her day job.

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-netflixs-jessica-jones-is-marvels-darkest-and-best-series-so-far

I'm a little worried about making it All Kilgrave All The Time. Like, I get it, we need a villain and you can't wait until the final few episodes to introduce the Big Bad.

But it feels like a loss. ALIAS got so much of its force from the gradual unfolding, the slow reveal that changed our understanding of everything we had seen over the first, I dunno, year?

Still, maintaining optimism for something that will be v good on its own terms...

But it feels like a loss. ALIAS got so much of its force from the gradual unfolding, the slow reveal that changed our understanding of everything we had seen over the first, I dunno, year?

super-OTM

I didn't make it past the scene where Jessica and Luke Cage met in the bar in Alias so I have little to know investment in how the comic book unveiled itself, which honestly sounds like one-trick Bendis before everyone realized he only had one trick

Basically I feel like dude writes like Lobdell, only instead of casting everything as a not-so-secret telenovela that thrives on goofy reveals, it's all self-consciously DEEP and super impressed with wholly unearned character insights that unveil too slowly for me to care even a little bit about.

eh, imo it's a good trick. i'm still waiting to see how POWERS (the books not the terrible show) plays out lol.

tbf tho if there's a place to get of the bus in ALIAS that would be it

the goodwill earned from daredevil means i'm willing to give this three episodes regardless of quality

Positive review from Slant, not particularly spoilery: http://www.slantmagazine.com/tv/review/marvels-jessica-jones-season-one

so this show is v good

please assure me it gets better after the first episode

once kilgrave is less apparitional and more present it really accelerates, so yeah. I liked the first ep though

i guess maybe i'm having trouble accepting this brittle, gothy JJ vs the checked-out drunk fuckup JJ I know and love.

i dunno i don't usually have trouble with "that was the book this is the movie" and until now i didn't know Alias was particularly important to me. first ep just felt very... broad, i guess? appreciated the office door tho :)

I'm 4 episodes in, digging it so far. I agree that TV Jess and Book Jess don't match up exactly – the spoonfed "it's PTSD do u see" is unfortunate. I don't think the phrase was ever used in Alias. I'm cutting it a quantity of slack; there's still plenty of storytelling enjoyment. Was this shot in NYC?

I can't tell, one of the exterior shots is definitely queens, but the subways look all wrong

anyway I'm almost at the end of this and 1) the character of kilgrave is a really three dimensional depiction of a sociopath/abuser and it's really stunning and horrifying 2) this is an incredible survivor narrative

I should clarify I have never read the comic. the shoehorned ptsd line was a low point, as are all the clumsy avengers references

Parts are def shot in NYC but just assume nowhere is where it says it is. Except this one cafe that actually IS at 16th St and USW.

can't wait to check this out

this is pretty fuckin good

first episode is pretty fuckin' bad

The bar they're in is 7B in the East Village, the whole show looks like it was filmed in New York for the most part.

nice to see that Lester Freamon is now a character in the MCU

and Calamity Jane!

yeah, but she wasn't a doctor on deadwood. still good for her on blackmailing matrix lady.

lol @ fake MTA logo

I'm in the tension-building downward spiral that makes me stop watching shows. You know, the part where characters start making really poor choices to move the plot forward? Currently on pause and not sure I want to know what happens next.

halfway through. still wondering what I'm missing given the massively positive reception. the show i'm watching is plodding, stagey, and set in an oddly empty new york. only seems to come alive when kilgrave's around, which is a bit concerning even if it turns out to be very meta...

I'm always a little puzzled when people feel let down by the praise for this sort of thing. Speaking as someone who's basically the target audience, it's very good (so far) as a Marvel product, but I don't have any expectation of it exceeding its bounds as a Marvel product. If it does, fantastic, but it's still a show about superheroes at the end of the day, so I'm able to temper my expectations accordingly and enjoy it on its own terms.

I like that Jessica has an Acer

I kinda don't!

i'm kinda sick of marvel brand darkness and pain. i liked daredevil okay, but it was such a painful show. don't know if i can take a superhero survival narrative! (to quote brad above) think i will stick to antmen and guardians of galaxies.

i guess i want kid stuff. been meaning to watch The Flash...

(sometimes i really do feel like frank miller was the WORST thing to happen to comix...)

The Flash has its share of darkness. But it's certainly lighter than the Marvel Netflix shows.

I appreciate that Marvel has multiple levels of stuff going on and that abstaining from their darker material doesn't affect a viewer's ability to indulge in their lighter fare.

After 1.5 episodes (and having dropped Daredevil halfwayish), I think I'd love these series in a 'monster of the week' style rather than building everything in service to the Boss Villain face-off.

Marvel seems to be moving away from that approach. SHIELD is pretty much 100% a serial at this point. The DC shows are very '___ of the week'-y, though.

spooling out the first season as background worked reasonably well. kind of worried they'll stick with this format and either the next season or the Luke Cage show will be completely about tracking down the company creating drugs for super powers for a whole season

I also was kind of hoping they were going for a Moon Knight background for the cop instead of the direction they went

I guess I successfully avoided spoilers, because I didn't realize Simpson was going to become that character until he said that line in the hospital.

Finished this today in a 5-episode binge. I think it's good – definitely not criticism-proof, but better than Daredevil, better than most of the MCU films. Ritter's good, Colter's good, Ritter and Colter together are great. Tennant's better than I thought he'd be. Most of the secondary characters have strongly plotted arcs, though howler dialogue is still a problem in this wacky universe.

I'll hold off talking about particulars for a while because they're too spoilery. Really looking forward to Luke Cage.

sweet christmas!

So, got around to this today and really enjoyed it. Everybody was great, even Tennant, and if Luke Cage builds on this we have a treat waiting.

I think actually my favourite bit was the way super-strength was handled. Opening doors, chains etc seemed completely natural which is how I always imagined it should be rather than RAAAR STRONG.

Hadn't thought about Moon Knight, and they probably should push that as a later series.

I liked this ok even though it was a little didactic for my tastes and even though about halfway through i started thinking way too literally about how ridiculous the villain's superpower is and why don't they just put in ear plugs and punch him out etc. etc. etc. also too many characters making dubious and conveniently plot-extending decisions. still: not bad!

Because his power is about pheromones (in the comics) and some kind of 'bacteria' cloud (in the series) so just not hearing him won't necessarily stop him affecting you.

if you can't hear what he's say will you still do what he says? how much does intentionality play into this? why am I thinking about this so much?

Seems to be open to debate. In Avengers Academy, for instance, just seeing him say the words and unintentionally 'hearing' them is enough but in the most recent Daredevil blotting out the words with loud music can protect people.

In the series I thought intentionality was played well - I thought there was at least a suggestion that Jessica wasn't under his control when they were together.

yeah that was an interesting ambiguity

i wonder if they cast the guy who played simpson specifically because he looks like an off-brand steve rogers

I would bet $10 on yes. How many beefed up Marvel characters are attempts to create more Cap-style super soldiers?

'Of note' is debatable, but I still really enjoy his Superman reboot (minus maybe like the whole gross Big Barda mind control sex tape thing).

the superman reboot def of note in that it set the tone for at least a decade of superman stories, as well as mostly being a fun read in itself, and established important worldbuilding stuff like businessman luthor and maggie sawyer

Byrne reboot into the triangle-era is possibly my favorite run of straight-up superheroin' DC comics.

yeah, me too. up to death of superman or thereabouts was a lot of fun. post-crisis dc was largely really good for a fairly long period, which makes the seemingly inexhaustible supply of garbage they've been pumping out since the mid-2000s even more lamentable :(

I liked some of the stuff he brought to FF, but

he's certainly spent the last 25 years or so doing everything he can to destroy any remaining goodwill comics fans might have for him

is OTM.

I heard that Byrne made faces at Marv Wolfman in court.

Erik Larsen is a fan of early Byrne but they've had quite a lot of feuds, mostly online. In Savage Dragon there's a character called Johnny Redbeard who creates ripoffs like She Dragon (Byrne had a popular run of She Hulk) and The Nixed Men (Byrne created Next Men). Johnny Redbeard starts off looking tall, impressive and commanding but eventually ends up looking just like Modok with a huge head and his creations become increasingly absurd. I'm amazed people haven't made more of this and I think Larsen ended up trying to play it down (I might be misremembering)

i love u guys but i keep opening this bookmark & it keeps not being abt jessica jones & it's kind of a bummer <3

*kicks dirt*

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WuBsM3rB4ko/VmXjayZvypI/AAAAAAAADHs/DnknGoSDNfQ/s1600/jessica-jones.gif

:D

March 8! /finally

yay

Hope you dont have to have watched Defenders to follow the plot.

i’d doubt it

Considering you could've followed the plot of the Defenders without having watched the Defenders, I wouldn't worry.

'Dudes and dudettes team up and defeat the Hand'

(sorry 4 spoilers)

The trailer doesn't seem to allude to any of the Defender's idiotic nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSvnepZS26s

Defenders was only slightly better than Iron Fist, in case you're on the fence and looking for someone to tell you that you don't need to bother. Watching Punisher right now (like seriously as I type) and it's soooooo much better. I'm choosing to assume the last two shows were an unfortunate hiccup.

nah Netflix Marvel is mostly crap

I half liked S1 but that trailer looks terrible

No way are they going to come up with another villain as good as Killgrave.

"are you a vigilante superhero?!"

Dropped on a Thursday! Surprising. Watched a few until exhaustion took over. It's alright, nothing earth-shattering, easily clears the low bar of Iron Fist at the very least. Second Netflix Marvel joint in a row featuring a formerly-MIA supporting cast member of The Sopranos in another supporting role.

watched the first episode... they have learned nothing. New York is still an unpopulated wasteland, every scene is still two people talking, and Netflix Jessica is still a two-dimensional waste of a great character.

of course I’ll keep watching.

they have learned nothing

bodes well for iron fist season two

Not sure if I will watch this. Really liked series 1, but a lot of that was the excellent villain.

OTM. It was his show.

bizzaro, the dude from Dexter has been thankfully tossed out on his ear after showrunning Iron Fist season 1 and The Inhumans into the ground.

jesus i'd forgotten the inhumans ever happened

Generally speaking, the MCU has been way too eager about killing off dece villains. Unless my far-fetched theory that Thanos + Death/Hela are going to resurrect them at some point pans out, IDGI.

I watched more than I expected to last night and they seem to, once again, have it set up so that the main arc ends several episodes before the end so there’s a couple hours of lingering subplot. I’m not sure why they keep doing this.

Inhumans and Runaways (why because I'm cheap) are still the only MCU things I haven't watched.

jesus i'd forgotten runaways ever happened

Don't forget, there's an impending Cloak & Dagger series for you to soon forget the existence of.

Do u Scots even get Freeform? How did you watch Secret Life of the American Teenager?

i assume freeform is some kind of american feminine hygiene product, not sure what the relevance is to this conversation tbh

we have to torrent tslotat obv

Seems like a hassle but at least you got to experience the defining cultural product of a generation.

Freeform's expansion into television has been surprisingly successful. I just wish they'd scale back the product placement at least to the point where it made sense (hint: teenage boys do not generally carry around prominently-displayed boxes of pantyliners for even their best lady friends).

i am given to understand freeform's tampon-cannon is very popular at live events such as state fairs, taffy pulls and barn-raisings

You just used three names to describe the same event, you Ameri-dummy (see also: jelly offs, hog rassles).

Re-railing the train: I both identified Whizzer and predicted the alternate employment of his nickname immediately after he mentioned super speed and I noticed the color of his hoodie. Fastest nerd on the couch, that's me.

look i'm doing my best to understand the backward social customs of yr heathen colonial culture, cut me some slack here

well this wasn't very good. lowlight was probably the lesbian whorgy where jeri takes superpoppers.

yeah i’m only half invested in this

6 episodes in, bored and irritated but somehow i'll hatewatch the whole thing which is more than i can say for defenders

the first 6 are the worst, on the bright side.

^^^ summing up the marvel TVverse in one sentence

Second season features the most nightmarish tv proposal ever

finally got around to finishing season two with all the enthusiasm of someone clearing a beehive from their shed six months after it appeared

this season was very, very bad, folks

It was nowhere near as good as the first, I can agree.

Whoever proposed on one of these threads that the Netflix seasons should be cut down to maybe like 6-8 episodes was suuuuuuuper OTM. I mean...why thirteen? They've demonstrated with every outing that they don't have enough material for a solid thirteen-episode season. Every outing winds up feeling threadbare and wheel-spinny at some point. Just tighten it up, folks. Trim the fat.

As I do with most of the world's problems, I blame Loeb.

yeah, it just drrrrraaaaaagged on for so long with so little material

krysten ritter def seemed to have less to work with this season too - any progress jessica seemed to have made as a person in s1 was right out the window

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!