Jessica Jones 1x08 Review: Jedi Mind Tricks

“AKA WWJD?”
Written by Scott Reynolds
Directed by Simon Cellan Jones
 
The Story
Kilgrave shows Jessica around the house, which he’s had decorated exactly the same way it was when she lived there as a kid. We get flashbacks of her home life, concluding with the car crash that killed her parents and her brother all at once. Kilgrave is determined to let Jessica have her own way, because he believes she’ll eventually choose him willingly because they’re meant to be. Gross. She mostly drinks all the alcohol in the house and tries to stop him from doing horrible things to the cooks he’s hired for them. Simpson tries to bomb the house and liberate Jessica, but she kicks him out and tells Kilgrave about the bomb. He has it removed. We also find out Kilgrave’s backstory, or a bit of it. His parents were scientists who did experiments on him until he gained his powers, and then they ran away in terror. Kilgrave and Jessica see a news report about a man holding his family hostage, and Jessica decides to take Kilgrave for a field trip. They sneak in the back, and Kilgrave tells the man to let his family go. Then he starts to tell him to blow his own head off, but Jessica stops him and explains that he doesn’t get to decide who lives or dies. Jessica goes to visit Trish to discuss whether or not it’s worth it to use Kilgrave for good. We don’t see what she decides until she brings takeout home for everyone. Drugged takeout! She knocks Kilgrave out. She decided she’s not going to use him. She escapes with him, but Kilgrave didn’t just get rid of that bomb. He has Jessica’s obnoxious former neighbor carrying it around, waiting to set it off on Simpson. He gets out of the way in time, but she gets blown to bits.
 
This one is definitely dealing with the effect of one’s upbringing, and whether that excuses one’s actions as an adult. Kilgrave has clearly accepted his childhood as carte blanche for him to do whatever he wants without feeling any remorse at all. Jessica knows no amount of tragic backstory is an excuse for being a horrible human being, and she can talk because she lost her whole family in one swoop.
 
Things I Liked

• Jessica ripping the purple dress Kilgrave got her in pieces
• Jessica trying to get Kilgrave to help people, and feeling sick about the tiny morsel of pity she feels for him
• Jessica making a Star Wars reference
• “Saving someone doesn’t mean un-killing someone else.”
• Jessica pulling a fast one on Kilgrave right after you start expecting her to really make a go of being his conscience

 
Things I Didn’t

• Kilgrave’s attitude, like, all the time, but especially when he starts arguing that he can only be a good person with her acting as his conscience
• Kilgrave blowing up the neighbor lady

 
The Characters
I love how much Jessica abhors the idea of using Kilgrave to do good. No matter how much actual good she could get him to accomplish, he revolts her, and he clearly has no intention of developing an actual sense of morality and ethics.
 
Kilgrave is pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for anything, which is just about the worst quality someone with mind control can have. He is literally responsible for everything that happens around him. He feels like the deaths he’s ordered aren’t on his tab since he didn’t physically end any lives. And yet he actually manages to get an ego boost from the gratitude of that woman he saved.
 
Whoa, Wendy is like a Jessica who fell for Kilgrave’s “I’m a bastard to everyone but you, romantic, right?” act. The parallel between Hogarth and Kilgrave gets stronger!
 
Warning sign number two about Simpson: planting a bomb in the house! Totally his idea, and he didn’t consult anyone else about it. How did this guy end up a cop?
 
Overall Rating
5/5