Marvel's Jessica Jones: Episode 8

An uneasy episode to watch 'AKA WWJD', but nonetheless this show plays off the unsettling atmosphere in great fashion with both our Heroin and Villain living in the same house together.

Throughout the episode we learnt much of Jessica's past before her families car crash and about the tormented childhood of Kilgrave. It was weird to feel slightly sorry for Kilgrave after he showed Jessica the clip of his parents extracting Cerebral Spinal Fluid from him as a child. As unsettling as it was to watch this you actually believe in Jessica's attempt to redeem Kilgrave and make him use his powers for good. The fact is if Jessica could turn Kilgrave's intentions to help people rather than himself is quite extraordinary and would probably physically and mentally drain Jessica, energy that could be better used to help other people.

Fortunately Jessica's plan was not to help Kilgrave but to trap him, gaining his trust enough so he

would eat food she bought for him. Poisoning the food of his servants but not his was a clever tactic that Jessica used so she could knock him unconscious herself and get Kilgrave to eat the food. I was a little relieved to see Jessica had already planned the capture and was not attempting to make him a hero. As Jessica noted that his horrible childhood does not excuse his actions it would have seemed like Jessica had a different approach to the problem of Kilgrave.

The appearance of Simpson was in a way quite relieving, showing that even though he doesn't like Jessica he still came to her rescue. That was only after he set the bomb though, which didn't even go off and instead was returned to him by one of the neighbours in a bag. Surely he must have known that Kilgrave was going to retaliate after the discovery of the bomb.

This episode was mainly focused on Kilgrave and Jessica, leaving little room for anything else to make it's way into the mix. David Tennant has probably seen the most amount of screen time in this episode, showing some dark moments, like when he ordered his servants to "remove the skin from each others faces." It was comments like this that continued to distance Kilgrave from the audience. Both David Tennant and Kristen Ritter played their parts exceptionally well in this episode, showing how different the two characters are yet oddly similar in their harsh tones and aggressive actions.


Jessica still intends to expose Kilgrave as the killer of Hope's parents and have her cleared of all charges, and I wonder how she intends to do this in episode nine!