written by Brandon Moore
It’s a miracle! Trish’s mom is actually being nice and sincere…oh, no, no wait, there she goes. She’s being awful again. Par for the course here in Episode 12.
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Alisa is wandering the streets in a fog. All she knows is that her love is dead and Trish Walker is to blame. Luckily, she sees Trish’s mother on television letting the whole world know exactly which hospital she’s in. Alisa climbs in the window just in time to face off with Jessica and a pair of detectives. Despite Alisa’s blind rage driving her, Jessica’s pleas for mercy snap her out of it. Surprised and desperate, Alisa throws herself out of the window, dragging one of the detectives with her in what might me one of the more disturbing deaths I’ve seen on this show.
After all the excitement, Trish decides it’s time to wake up. Unfortunately, it’s not a great reunion as she and Jessica immediately start arguing. Trish is adamant that Alisa needs to be killed and accuses her sister of wasting her powers. Jessica is tired of being the center of Trish’s insecurity about her self-worth. If that wasn’t bad enough, Trish decides to up and die after a genuinely touching moment with her mother. At least until she starts convulsing wildly. Uh-oh.
Meanwhile, Jeri is doing what she does best: making those who have wronged her suffer. Phone calls, seedy pawn shops, and bribery get her the location of Inez and Ryback. She buys a gun from my favorite recurring medium-level criminal, Turk, and has a heart-to-heart with Inez. See, it seems Ryback has been conning them both. Not only did they get one over on Jeri, but Jeri has proof that Ryback has been stashing away money with plans to eventually drop Inez like a bad habit. Jeri gives Inez the gun to protect herself and urges her to confront him. After the inevitable gunshot, Jeri calls the cops and takes a moment to look over her “proof”, showing us that it’s all fake. It’s all a lie. In the span of a few minutes she manages to convince Inez to murder someone she loves using nothing but a bluff. To paraphrase Boromir, one does not simply screw with Jeri Hogarth.
Jessica confronts Alisa, gun in hand. Alisa stresses how amazing it is that Jessica managed to stop her berserker barrage. Maybe if they work together she can actually be well-adjusted! Daughter dearest isn’t having it because, ya know, murderer. Alisa reasons that she had to kill that detective because they were never going to let her live. Jessica basically responds with “cool motive, still murder.” However, someone reminded Jessica that we have one final episode left, so she hesitates just long enough to get knocked out and kidnapped. It’s a dark and mysterious road into the finale.
The finale will clearly belong to Jessica and Alisa, so this episode without a doubt belongs to Trish and Jeri. It is cathartic to hear Trish lay all her hard feelings bare as she argues with Jessica, and waiting to see what insanity the experiment will inflict on her has me on the edge of my seat. Jeri demonstrates that she is still the cold, self-serving, cruel shark that she always was in glorious, awful fashion. I can’t tell if I love her or I love to hate her. She is played pitch-perfect as hurt and vengeful. Clearly spite is a strong motivator. As the dominoes begin falling, every performance is rock-solid and I know I am not prepared for next week.
Jessica Jones is available now on Netflix. Brandon can be reached on Twitter @BluThundur.