written by Brandon Moore

Remember when I said I hope the separate storylines come back together? Well, they do and everything is awful and you get to enjoy my pain as we tackle Episode 10.

SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT

Alisa is in police custody, shackled with super-cuffs and surrounded by several armed guards. The guards are led by Officer Dale Holiday, who pledged an oath to serve and protect and be a total douchebag. Jessica has brought in Jeri to negotiate a deal allowing Alisa to serve a life sentence where she would be able to see Jessica. Otherwise, Alisa would waste away in solitary on the Raft, the super-prison that once held such formidable foes as…Hawkeye. All Alisa has to do is give up her husband, the good Dr. Karl Malus.

It seems Malus has become the center around which everyone is orbiting. Alisa doesn’t want to take the deal because she wants Malus to be safe. Jessica wants to help Malus flee the country (with a fake passport from Oscar) so Alisa can take the deal and still know Malus is safe. The freshly-healed Jeri wants to turn Malus in to the government rather than the authorities, so he can continue to create miracles like the one she experienced. Trish, having just bombed her big opportunity at CCN, wants to expose Malus so the juicy story will revive her career. Finally, Malcolm – returned from wherever he ran to in the night – wants to be sure Malus sees justice for his amoral experiments.

The doc is one popular dude.

With some coded messages from Alisa, Jessica tracks down Malus to a delightfully tacky motel and convinces him that it’s best for everyone if he gets out of the country. (And also never experiment on anyone again, by the way.) While waiting on Oscar to create a fake passport, she takes a side quest investigating Officer Dale Holiday. It becomes very apparent that he is grievously mistreating Alisa behind bars, even torturing her. It doesn’t take much digging to find out he has a less than stellar work history. She heads to his home to find some evidence.

While talking with Malus, Jessica asks him about Ryback and his healing powers. Always the cynic, she is immediately suspicious of Inez and Ryback upon meeting them and hearing about Jeri’s miraculous recovery. She points out how much Jeri is taking them at their word, that Jeri can’t possibly know she’s been cured just because she’s had a couple of days without symptoms. Despite Jessica warning her to be careful, Jeri hand-waves it all away. She felt something, she felt a change, and she believes that what Ryback did was amazing, wonderful, and life-saving.

She continues to believe that right up until she returns to her ransacked apartment to find both Inez and Ryback gone, along with her most expensive belongings. It’s time to ugly cry in the fetal position WOOOOO!!!

Trish and Malcolm quit knocking boots long enough to start knocking heads. Trish plays on Malcolm’s sense of justice and they team up to find Malus on their own, believing him too dangerous to go free. After snooping into Jessica’s computer, they head down the tacky motel and spot Malus. Just as they’re about to go in together, Trish pistol-whips Malcolm out cold WTF AAHHHHHH!!!

Finally, inside the home of Dale Holiday, Jessica confirms that he’s not only a bad dude, but he has even kept trophies from previous inmates he’s killed. Clearly this guy needs to be turned into the proper authorities so that the justice system can handle him in a civil and legal matter. Oh no, wait, Jessica caves his face in when he comes home early and attacks her. Great. Just great.

This episode feels like a pressure cooker. We’re dealing with the fallout of the mid-season storylines. All the threads have seamlessly woven back together so that every character has the same focal point, but wildly different goals. Everyone is closing in and beginning to crash into one another in deliciously dramatic ways. At the risk of damning with faint praise, the past few episodes were only “good” with some great highlights. This episode has me absolutely hooked again. I am 100% on board as we barrel toward the end.

Jessica Jones is available now on Netflix. Brandon can be reached on Twitter @BluThundur.