S01.E09: AKA Sin Bin

[JessePinkman]

Man, this show is exhausting. It's like the longest TV movie in existence.

Why is Kilgrave still alive? To pay for his crimes? Bullshit. I don't buy that based on the story so far or any of the characterizations. They're twisting the characters to extend the plot. Why is the entire show so Kilgrave focused? It's really too much.

Honestly I got to the end of this episode and said to my "There are FOUR MORE?? How the fuck..."

[Danny Franks]

Man, this show is exhausting. It's like the longest TV movie in existence.

Why is Kilgrave still alive? To pay for his crimes? Bullshit. I don't buy that based on the story so far or any of the characterizations. They're twisting the characters to extend the plot. Why is the entire show so Kilgrave focused? It's really too much.

Honestly I got to the end of this episode and said to my "There are FOUR MORE?? How the fuck..."

 

He's alive so that Jessica can get Hope out of prison. That's the crime she wants him to pay for. The innocent young woman who is awaiting trial for the murder of both her parents. The girl who only got caught up any of this because Kilgrave wanted to get Jessica's attention. It's about guilt, something that I think it's been made abundantly clear that Jessica has a huge amount of.

 

No character twisting that I can see, at this point.

[JessePinkman]

He's alive so that Jessica can get Hope out of prison. That's the crime she wants him to pay for. The innocent young woman who is awaiting trial for the murder of both her parents. The girl who only got caught up any of this because Kilgrave wanted to get Jessica's attention. It's about guilt, something that I think it's been made abundantly clear that Jessica has a huge amount of.

No character twisting that I can see, at this point.

Hope's life < the dozens of people he's gotten killed and the people he will get killed. None of it makes any sense to me. I find it all very frustrating.

But yeah I guess it fits characterization? I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of this extended TV movie.

Edited November 29, 2015 by JessePinkman

[Danny Franks]

Hope's life < the dozens of people he's gotten killed and the people he will get killed. None of it makes any sense to me. I find it all very frustrating.

 

But Jessica is exactly the type of driven, obsessive personality who would get fixated on the one 'good' thing she can do, to make up for the bad things she feels guilty for. "Save one person and you save the world entire" stuff. I don't think it's really possible for her to say, 'well I'm sorry Hope, but you'll have to give up your life for a crime you didn't commit, because I can't balance helping you against the other people Kilgrave is hurting'. 

[Primetimer]

And if they didn't, he would tell them to, and then they would. Angela Hamilton discusses the big moves of S01E09!

Read the story

[that one guy]

Why did they have to make all three lesbian characters on the show so unlikeable and unsympathetic. Representation fail.

Oh, I am so sympathetic to Dr. Calamity Jane (Wendy?). To some extent I have been in her shoes and she is taking this remarkably well. . .

Dating someone who is in a relationship is hardly uncommon, and it doesn't make someone a bad person.

 

My mileage definitely varies.

If we're going down that road, the entire series* is a quagmire of moral relativism.

 

Which is what makes it so much fun. When the questions are easy, the story is trite. When none of the choices are great, or when both sides in a conflict have valid points to make, that's much better drama.

 

There's a case to be made that the deaths here and any subsequent deaths could have been avoided by letting Simpson blow up the house with Kilgrave in it. Just because the guy's

totally psycho

doesn't mean he's automatically wrong about everything.

[Danny Franks]

My mileage definitely varies.

 

I never said it was a good thing to do, but I'm sure that decent people all over the place find themselves involved in relationships that are unwise and potentially unhealthy. But I don't think that merely dating someone who is already in another relationship makes a person bad. That sort of moral surety is problematic and far too judgemental for me.

 

If I had a friend who was in such a relationship, I'd tell them to get out of it as soon as possible, because it will only end in heartbreak for someone, but I wouldn't tell them they were a bad person.

 

There's a case to be made that the deaths here and any subsequent deaths could have been avoided by letting Simpson blow up the house with Kilgrave in it. Just because the guy's  Spoiler doesn't mean he's automatically wrong about everything.

 

 

That just raises the question of what Simpson would move onto after that. If he identified Kilgrave as a threat and ended it, but he's still amped up on those pills that he was doubling his dose of. What happens when he decides someone else is a threat? What if he decided that Jessica was a threat to Trish, or that the security guy in her building isn't trustworthy? I don't see him as suddenly feeling happy and relaxed, because Kilgrave was out of the picture.

[supposebly]

This show has such good writing! If the scene with Jeri and Kilgrave had been at the beginning of the show, I would never have doubted she would ignore him. I would have thought she is way too smart and knows manipulations when they stare her in the face. 9 episodes in and I was extremely worried that she deal with him. She still knew that she was being manipulated but she (and Pam) are used to getting what they want and she is in a very tight spot. And I am still wondering about that dead fetus she has tucked away somewhere. I wonder if she will be the antagonist next season. There will be another, I hope.

And I'm not entirely sure she didn't do anything to that wiring. She was about to get into that cage and she might have wanted to make sure she wouldn't get zapped if Jessica got back. And possibly in the heat of it all, she forgot (or didn't want to draw attention to) the wiring. Her reaction to when Jessica told her Kilgrave lied about his parents was a very subtle mixture of how stupid was I, relief, and what have I done! Have I mentioned I love Carrie-Anne Moss?

 

I'm not a fan of Pam all that much but I think she and Jeri deserve each other. They both take what they want, no matter the consequences.

 

Simpson is a controlling dick and his condescending protectiveness is all about him and his loss of control. And he does remind me of Captain America who I never liked.

 

Loved the line: was murder corpse already taken?

Couldn't help giggling a bit when Kevin's parents talked about his tantrums while he was yelling away about them leaving. He really never grew up.

Edited December 6, 2015 by supposebly

[shrewd.buddha]

Man, this show is exhausting. It's like the longest TV movie in existence.

...

Honestly I got to the end of this episode and said to my "There are FOUR MORE?? How the fuck..."

I have to admit that after this episode I felt the series could have been called "Killgrave", because it feels as if it centers around him as much as Jessica Jones. I would have preferred more breaks to see other aspects of Jessica's life. The sort-of side story where Jessica tracks down the pot-growing kid for Luke Cage was nice because it showed some of Jessica's savvy PI skills  - even tho it tied back into the main story.

 

The series is engaging .. I continue to want to see what happens next .. But this catch and release (or, screw-up) plot line with Killgrave is starting to wear thin. Yes, the character is interesting and the actor playing him is doing a great job .. but it seems as if the writers are more interested in making Killgrave appear fascinating and depraved than making Jessica seem competent and smart. 

 

Now when watching we are asking questions like "How are things going to go wrong this time?" "Would Jessica have better results if she wasn't drunk most of the time?" "When will she start checking people for weapons?" "How can a middle-aged man take down a person with super strength?"

 

And now with only four episodes to go, it's fairly obvious they will all be centered around Killgrave. We have begun the chant "Just. Kill. Him.", which is a sign (for us) that the villain has worn out his welcome. How many people have died since Jessica's first opportunity to just kill him (or turn him into the authorities, with precautions, and let them discover that he has abilities) ? 

 

I am also not sure how I feel about Netflix's full-dump release strategy of their new series. It can be nice to binge, but it also makes discussing the show problematic. And with the Netflix site, you can see upcoming episode descriptions and a picture, which can sort of be  spoilers in themselves. 

Edited December 12, 2015 by shrewd.buddha

[LeGrandElephant]

I like the show, but the thing that is putting a damper on the whole season is the same thing I keep thinking after every episode: Jessica is stupid and wrong to not kill him. Maybe she can't emotionally handle killing him herself, but she won't even let Simpson kill him. And I think she's wrong. She's so focused on saving Hope from a prison sentence, but what about all the other people Killgrave has tortured and killed since Jessica first saved his life? What about saving them? This might be a real life example of that trolley ethical problem, but I think it has an even better solution: kill Killgrave and just break Hope out of jail. Jessica can totally do it and can also set her up with a fake identity in another country. There's no undoing what Killgrave has done, but Jessica has it in her power to kill him and prevent much future harm.

The fact that she just won't doesn't really make sense to me - it makes it feel like a Disney movie where the villain has to fall of a cliff because the hero can't be a killer. Or it feels like a plot device to keep the conflict going.

Loved the "dude, you lost a jacket" line.

[LeGrandElephant]

Now having read the thread, I wanted to say that I am sympathetic to Wendy, but I thought it was a nice touch that she pretty much admitted she knew Jeri was awful to most people but she was ok with it because Jeri was nice to *her*. Well, now she sees what it's like to be anyone else around Jeri. It reminded me of the old dating advice: never go on a second date with a guy who's nice to you but mean to the waitress.

Is Simpson going to be the star of another one of these Netflix shows? I'm watching this one in isolation and don't read comics and so I don't notice when things are tying in elsewhere until I see if discuss here.

[Danny Franks]

I like the show, but the thing that is putting a damper on the whole season is the same thing I keep thinking after every episode: Jessica is stupid and wrong to not kill him. Maybe she can't emotionally handle killing him herself, but she won't even let Simpson kill him. And I think she's wrong. She's so focused on saving Hope from a prison sentence, but what about all the other people Killgrave has tortured and killed since Jessica first saved his life? What about saving them? This might be a real life example of that trolley ethical problem, but I think it has an even better solution: kill Killgrave and just break Hope out of jail. Jessica can totally do it and can also set her up with a fake identity in another country. There's no undoing what Killgrave has done, but Jessica has it in her power to kill him and prevent much future harm.

 

I don't think Jessica could make the decision to prioritise other people over Hope. She's a good person, and she knows Hope is a good person, so she's doing all she can to make sure that Hope doesn't spend her life paying for something she didn't do. Something, indeed, that only happened to her because Kilgrave wanted Jessica's attention. It is an ethical dilemma, a real one. She promised Hope that she'd help her, and it would take a special kind of asshole to go back and say, 'look, I know you're innocent and I said I'd prove it, but he's killing people so... take one for the team, huh?'

 

I don't really think breaking Hope out of prison and setting her up a fake ID is a suitable solution either. Because that means Hope is still paying for what Kilgrave did. She can never see her brother again, never clear her name or live her own life. That's not something to wish on anyone, and if it occurred to Jessica, I think she'd rebel over the idea of letting someone go into hiding forever because of Kilgrave. Jessica herself doing that? Yeah, she was going to run away when she learned he was back. But asking anyone else to do it? No, I don't think she'd be up for that.

[Kel Varnsen]

Even if Jessica could break Hope out of prison (which i doubt since she is not immune to bullets or even tazers), how would she go about setting Hope up with a fake identity? If a murderer breaks out of jail, people look for them, and it is not like Jessica can call Nick Fury and get Hope a new identity.

[LeGrandElephant]

Actually, I think the idea of getting all these people to testify to Kilgrave's mind control would be plan A, before any possibilities of breaking her out. But in any case, Jessica didn't even know Kilgrave was alive when he was torturing Hope, she isn't responsible. She IS arguably responsible for the people he's been torturing and killing since she stopped Simpson from killing him. None of her plans to get evidence have made any sense or would result in any evidence more compelling than the testimony of the numerous victims she's found. If you show a video in court of a guy telling someone to do something and the person doing it, that doesn't prove anything at all. The only way to convince judges or jurors would be to have Kilgrave show up and control and torture them directly.

It's just not believeable to me that keeping Kilgrave around helps Hope at all, but it is definitely hurting and killing tons of other people.

Edited December 18, 2015 by LeGrandElephant

[Danny Franks]

Actually, I think the idea of getting all these people to testify to Kilgrave's mind control would be plan A, before any possibilities of breaking her out. But in any case, Jessica didn't even know Kilgrave was alive when he was torturing Hope, she isn't responsible. She IS arguably responsible for the people he's been torturing and killing since she stopped Simpson from killing him. None of her plans to get evidence have made any sense or would result in any evidence more compelling than the testimony of the numerous victims she's found. If you show a video in court of a guy telling someone to do something and the person doing it, that doesn't prove anything at all. The only way to convince judges or jurors would be to have Kilgrave show up and control and torture them directly.

It's just not believeable to me that keeping Kilgrave around helps Hope at all, but it is definitely hurting and killing tons of other people.

 

Try telling her that. That's the crux of the whole story, for Jessica. She feels responsible for everything Kilgrave does, because she could have made sure he was dead, could have done something to stop him. Taking Hope was a direct move to get Jessica back in the game, so she could have prevented it if she'd dealt with Kilgrave, or if she'd never had the temerity to leave him. Of course she feels responsible, whether it makes logical sense or not.

[LeGrandElephant]

I'm just saying that if she feels responsible for Hope, she also ought to feel responsible for all the people Kilgrave has been torturing and killing since she actively stopped Simpson from killing him. 

 

Normally, in the US these days, we have the luxury of having a reasonably functional criminal justice and prison system - obviously it has tons and tons of problems when it comes to things like low level drug offenses, but if we catch a serial killer, we actually do have a place to lock them up and keep other people safe from them. So in this world, it would be morally wrong to kill a serial killer if you had the option instead of sending him to prison. But, here in the show they have set up a world where there really is no system in place that even has a chance of handling Kilgrave, and they've also clearly set up that he is definitely dangerous and irredeemable enough that they don't really have any other options. So I would have no moral problem with them just killing him, and it seems like an unrealistic plot device to have Jessica so insistent on it that instead we have 3-4 episodes of catch and release. The whole idea of proving Hope's innocence made sense at first, but now they have TONS of people who can testify to Kilgrave's mind control, and they also live in a world where the general public is aware of super hero powers. So that gives them a reasonable shot at getting Hope acquitted, much more reasonable than this whole idea that they can somehow prove Kilgrave can mind control people without him mind controlling his way out of the situation. 

[Kel Varnsen]

Considering how messed up and damaged Jessica is (and how well Ritter plays that) i am totally ok with her making poor/illogical decisions when it comes to killing Killgrave.

[Chicago Redshirt]

I have so many questions:

 

1. Why didn't Jessica have someone bring the videos of the experiments and take the parents to the precinct, their statement with the video could have provided compelling evidence, yes?

2. Since Kilgrave can't control Jessica anymore, her plan to have him try to stop her from kicking his ass on video would have flopped anyway. So what was her backup plan?

3. Why would Lester Freamon not bring back up (I'm sorry, I keep forgetting his JJ character's name and I'm a Wire fan)? He's supposed to good police.

3a. Why has Clarke Peters been so criminally underused in this show?

4. Was Jeri going to release Kilgrave or did she just want to convince him to work for her so she can get this divorce settled? And why wasn't she concerned about getting hurt herself? Whose side is she actually on?

5. How does Jessica's hair stay so shiny after the hell she keeps going through?

6. Is Simpson a superhero too--I mean, "gifted"? What's up with the pills? Is this another Captain America kind of situation? I guess I just need to be patient and see how this unfolds. Also: I don't like the actor who plays him. He's so...milquetoast. 

 

OK, that about covers all of my questions. Usually I can suspend disbelief but some of the decisions these characters made were just stupefying. Other observations: Trish had an accent slip-up in the hospital scene. Kind of like an Irish lilt. I'm digging the subtle red, white, and blue motif that keeps popping up. Trish is almost always wearing some combination. Jessica is usually in black and grey, and Jeri is pretty much exclusively in tan and black. Just really digging the palette.

 

One more thing: Malcolm is so cute and one of the most genuinely kind characters in this show; he provides a bit of light in what is obviously the darkest timeline. 

I really hope he doesn't get killed off. One thing that really pissed me off about Daredevil is that it the two out of three lead characters of color were killed off, just leaving Rosario Dawson. It's like, what is the point of having brown folks on a show just to make them the sacrificial lambs so the white heroes have more motivation to stop the Big Bad. It's a disturbing trope and I'm kind of sick of it. Yes, I know Luke Cage will have his own show next and I'm very intrigued to see where it goes, but it still bugs.

 

1. I think Jeri pointed it out: there is no concrete connection between the various kids who were experimented on and Kilgrave.

2. Jessica didn't know he couldn't control her at the time she came up with Plan A, and is generally not that good with plans.

3. He didn't know what sort of situation he was getting himself into, fully, He did know on some level it was crazy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, and thus one he didn't want to drag McNulty, Bunk or any more cops into because it might ruin their careers.

3a. I thought he was used just right.

4. Jeri is obviously on Jeri's side. She probably thought that Kilgrave's jedi mind tricks only worked on the weak-minded and that she would have been immune. 

5. It's one of her lesser-known super powers

6. Other people have already handled this. 

 

That part when Jeri said they needed someone like a cop to testify against Kilgrave, I was scratching my head at Jessica involving Detective Clemmons. You already know a cop who can testify against Kilgrave, Jessica! Okay, he tried to kill Kilgrave the last time you saw him, but, well, you brought Kilgrave to the sealed room Simpson set up for you, so you’re obviously not hiding from Simpson. And you didn’t know that he got blown up. You have talked him out of killing Kilgrave before (when he wanted to use an actual gun on Kilgrave instead of a dart gun on your first op together), so what the hell?

 

Jessica didn't particularly like or trust Simpson from the start, and that had only grown as the series progressed. Simpson has made it clear that he is not up for trying to deal with Kilgrave through the justice system. Which..Simpson is not wrong about. 

 

Even accepting for discussion's sake that Simpson could be convinced to be a witness, who would make a better one, him or Clemmons.

 

 

Actually, I think the idea of getting all these people to testify to Kilgrave's mind control would be plan A, before any possibilities of breaking her out. But in any case, Jessica didn't even know Kilgrave was alive when he was torturing Hope, she isn't responsible. She IS arguably responsible for the people he's been torturing and killing since she stopped Simpson from killing him. None of her plans to get evidence have made any sense or would result in any evidence more compelling than the testimony of the numerous victims she's found. If you show a video in court of a guy telling someone to do something and the person doing it, that doesn't prove anything at all. The only way to convince judges or jurors would be to have Kilgrave show up and control and torture them directly.

It's just not believeable to me that keeping Kilgrave around helps Hope at all, but it is definitely hurting and killing tons of other people.

 

Jessica knows that Kilgrave mind-and-body raped Hope over and over to get at Jessica, culminating in the murder of her parents. Jessica would have to be seriously coldblooded for that to not have affected her.Despite her hardboiled exterior, Jessica is soft. She thinks that if she can get Hope her normal life back, it will be a triumph for her both actual and symbolic.

 

Having people say "Kilgrave made me drive him around for a week" or "Killgrave made me smile a lot for him" isn't necessarily going to be convincing testimony. A video of people doing crazy things at his apparent command might have a stronger effect.

[Dobian]

The logical common sense thing for Jessica to do would have been for her to bring Kilgrave's parents to Hogarth's office to make a full statement, not stick them in a sealed room with their son.  They also had the video evidence, so plenty enough to at least get Hope's charges dropped.  But this fits in with Jessica's vigilante persona and her obsession with nailing Kilgrave for the whole mind control thing, never mind the mortal risk she was placing his parents in.  But that's okay, she could just electrocute the three of them if things got out of hand...until that didn't work.

I do like Hogarth, she's a bitch without making you hate the character.  You want to see what she is going to do next.  How Simpson survived that bomb blast is a real stretch.  He must have taken two steps before it went off so he was still at point blank range.  Great to see Lester Freamon on this show.  Good thing Trish emptied her rounds.

So Kilgrave can't control Jessica's mind anymore, so why did she let him go?  I find it interesting how he controls her in other ways that don't involve invading her thoughts.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

DAMN IT, TRISH! Although I totally get that her intention was to shoot Kilgrave in the hopes of saving his father, that hermetically sealed room was the only way for them to contain him. Not only did she destroy that facility but she also gave Kilgrave the means to escape as well as the means to tell her to blow her brains out and to get Lester under his control. Think, Trish!

Once again a tiny part of me felt bad for Kilgrave. Not only did his parents abandon him as a child but then his mother betrayed him. Don't get me wrong. I don't like Kilgrave because he has done terrible things, but damn. Every time he thinks he can trust someone who walked away from him (Jessica, his parents), it turns out to be a lie.