written by Kiara Williams
Sometimes a solid slam into concrete is all you need to wake up.
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Neither Salinger nor his bloody corpse even appear in this episode, because he’s not the point anymore. I think perhaps in another vehicle, preferably one led by a character of color, Salinger being the defeated villain would’ve been a much more cathartic moment. Instead it’s horrific and almost (I said almost) sad, because now we’ve moved from one self-righteous villain who thinks they’re doing good, to another.
So now we start with Jessica leaving the courthouse, clearly processing what Salinger being dead means. Trish has gone off the deep end, and she needs to be taken down for the safety of others in the city. Jeri, being Jeri to the very end, asks if Trish is going to be an issue. She begs Jess to tell Trish that she won’t out her identity. “You’re not her type,” Jess tells her as she leaves.
Afterwards Jess heads to Alias Investigations and finds Luke Cage on her doorstep. He seems…pretty okay, considering where we left him at the end of his last season. Luke was in a pretty mentally exhausted state, to the point where he took over Harlem’s Paradise in order to not do the typical superhero gig anymore. Even if we don’t get another season, it looks like it may have been the right choice for Luke. His calm, almost wise demeanor looks to be a far cry from the wall-punching Luke we saw before. But I digress; this isn’t Luke’s show.
Luke asks Jessica what’s going on, and Jess is reluctant to tell him until he shares the story of the time he sent Willis to the Raft. It was a hard decision for him, and Luke believes that Jess will make the right decision for her own loved one. “If I go too far, I hope someone gives enough of a shit about me to take me down,” Luke says.
With Luke’s encouragement, Jess sits down and tracks Trish’s iPhone to find her. Trish wasn’t exactly hiding; Jess finds her sitting in the darkness of her own apartment. She’s not being sinister or anything. She can just see in the dark, remember? She must save a ton on electric bills. Jessica tells Trish to turn herself in, and Trish is indignant that Jess would even ask her to do so. Trish is unable to look at herself and see how far she’s gone. “I will stop when it’s right,” she says. But she hasn’t been able to yet. Trish didn’t mean to kill either Nussbaumer or Montero, but she got such a high from the power she had that she couldn’t stop herself. Even when a mirror is held up to her in the form of Erik’s power, she makes up excuses as to why there’s blood pouring from his eye. It’s sad at this point.
I can only blame what happens next on Jessica’s love for Trish, because I doubt she would let anybody else get away with something so obvious. Trish asks if she can clean herself up before going to the police, and Jess lets her, only for Trish to escape out of the bathroom window. Jess. Ma’am. You know better.
We cut to Jeri’s place, where there’s a knock on the door. Considering the previous scene, I think it’s gonna be Trish at the door, but instead it’s Kith. She’s seen the news and wants to check on Jeri’s well-being. Jeri’s ALS symptoms show themselves in front of Kith for the first time, and Jeri admits that she’s dying and apologizes for ruining Kith’s marriage with her own selfishness.
Just then, Trish calls Jeri’s phone and wants to know how bad Patseras is. She wants a chance to flex her powers again, so she wants to go after the next name that she knows. Even after everything Jeri just said to Kith, she still lies in order to send Trish after Patseras to help Kith. She doesn’t learn! So poor Patseras gets the crap beat out of him by Trish before Trish discovers that his daughter is in the house. Patseras begs Trish not to hurt his daughter, and Trish freaks out and runs away. Oh, you mean shit’s not always in black and white, and bad people sometimes have connections to innocent people? Who would’ve thunk it?!
Jess finds out about Patseras’ assault via the news and storms into Jeri’s office, knowing that she was the one who fed Trish the info on him. So to make up for it, Jeri becomes part of Jessica’s plan to trap Trish.
We also get an awkward scene at Malcolm’s apartment where Zaya shows up for closure and finds Brianna there, and she gets all emotional that Malcolm came into contact with another girl. She leaves without actually having a conversation. We know Malcolm cheated on her, but Zaya doesn’t. She doesn’t have that context. It’s all melodramatic and unnecessary, and it could’ve been left out, to be honest.
Back to the important plot: Jeri jumps on the news and announces that she knows the identity of the masked vigilante. Trish sees the report while eating some pizza. Is the pizza relevant? No. It looks good, though. Later that night, while Jeri’s expecting Trish, Kith shows up in such a fit of joy that she makes out with Jeri in her living room. Patseras dropped the lawsuit after his beatdown, and Kith feels free. It doesn’t last long, because Trish does show up and tries to take Kith hostage in order to get away from Jess. That sure does sound good and heroic, Trish! Poor Kith just attracts trouble. Jeri offers herself in place of Kith and says she has the resources to get Trish out of the city to somewhere safe. She also caps Jessica in the leg to stop her from attacking Trish. I dunno, man; with that accuracy, she probably could’ve gotten Trish with a shot, too.
So with no other resources, and Jeri trying to get Trish out of the country within twenty-four hours, Jessica has no choice but to out Trish herself. She shows the photo online of Trish attacking Salinger in his apartment and asks for help finding her because she has Jeri as a hostage. “Don’t try to be a hero. It’s a shitty job.”
With that new development messing up Trish’s escape plans, Jeri uses one of her more seedy connections to ship Trish in a coffin to Thailand. Look, I’d just turn myself in at that point. I’m not getting shipped in a coffin to anywhere. Trish even refuses to take the drugs that would knock her out for the seventeen-hour flight, which is how I know for sure that she has truly gone off the deep end.
Thanks to the power of Twitter, Jess has already found the airport Trish is at by the time Jeri calls her. Jess knocks on coffins to find the one that’s not hollow, and she and Trish get into a pretty cool fight scene where Trish mentally falls apart at the accusation that she’s become her abusive mother. It concludes with Trish stabbing Jess through the hand, and Jess knocking her out by slamming her into the ground. It’s sad, but necessary and cathartic.
Cut to Trish at the police precinct as Costa reads out her list of crimes. Maybe that hit to the head when Jess slammed her did a lot of good, because Trish finally says “I’m the bad guy.” YES, DEAR. YES, YOU ARE.
Kith shows up to Jeri’s place one last time. She tells Jeri that the situation they were in was one of Jeri’s own making. Even after giving Jeri another chance, Kith’s life just got more screwed up. She’s bad for Kith’s health, truly. “I know you don’t want to die alone. But you’re going to,” Kith says as she walks out. And it’s all entirely Jeri’s own fault.
Jess can’t stay out of the news, but at least this time it’s for a good reason. Erik walks into Alias Investigations with a newspaper that reads “Bona Fide Hero” with a picture of Jessica on the cover. Erik asks if Jess needs any help with the heroing, but Jess turns him down, saying that she doesn’t trust him, which is valid. Erik goes off to try and prove himself worthy, and Jess gives him a nudge in the right direction by giving Detective Costa his contact info. There may be hope for the Douche Detector, after all.
Jess packs up her things and leaves the keys to Alias Investigations with Malcolm. Dorothy’s gone, Trish is gone, home doesn’t feel like home anymore, and it can be all too tempting to just get up and make a new home elsewhere. So Jess sets off to leave, but not before watching Trish get carried off to the Raft with a silent, sad goodbye.
Afterwards, Jess is headed to Mexico, but the closest she can get by train is El Paso. She starts to buy her ticket, but then hears Kilgrave’s voice in her head telling her that being a hero is someone else’s problem now. And that’s as good a reason as any to do the exactly the opposite. Jess smiles and stands at the ticket desk for an awkwardly long time before walking off without her ticket. Home is home. It may be a broken, confusing home right now, but she’ll rebuild it.
A hero’s work is never done, after all.
Thanks again to Dayna for inviting me back for this season of Jessica Jones! Thanks to you all for reading! Much love!
Jessica Jones Seasons 1-3 are available now on Netflix. Kiara can be reached on Twitter @DJPrincessK.