written by Kiara Williams
Well, I guess we can’t “get the bad guy” just yet.
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Episode 3×02, which is Episode 3×01 from Trish’s perspective, starts off with Trish training to hone her new superpowers, which is…odd. Jessica never had to do that. It was just, ta-da! She’s strong now! And Jessica isn’t exactly bursting out of her jacket with muscle, so why is Trish having to do hardcore parkour to use her new powers? It felt like unnecessary time filler, and in an episode that follows a cliffhanger involving our main character getting stabbed, it’s admittedly a bit of a drag.
Trish decides to patrol the city. She listens in on the police scanner, trying to be on the scene if and when any crimes go down, trying to be the hero she’s always wanted to be. But holy crap is she bad at it. She chases after bad guys and attacks them with no regard for any potential consequences. Trish is so focused on “separating good from bad”, on being a hero, on being a moral compass, that she can only see in black and white and misses all the little shades of gray in between. She’s a good person doing good things, which means only good things can happen due to her goodness, right? Why can’t people just see that she’s making everything better?
Trish and Jessica are such opposites. Trish wants credit as a hero, when Jess just wants a credit in her bank account. Trish claims to be full of morality, when she really just wants the glory that comes with being an Avenger-lite. Jessica wants no part of that kind of glory, and only helps people because her heart genuinely won’t let her do otherwise. Hell, she even came around on the idea of finding the person who killed her mother. Meanwhile, Trish is being stubborn about doing the greater good, and not wanting to understand the feelings of the people who were affected by her decision. She is insistent that she is in the right, and it is turning her into The Absolute Worst.
To make matters worse for her, Trish gets sued by a thief whom she assaulted earlier in the episode. The thief sprained his neck and recognized Trish, because while she is smart enough to hack a police scanner, she’s smart enough to cover her face. So she has to ask Hogarth to help her get out of the situation as cleanly as possible, leading her back to Malcolm, Hogarth’s investigator/fixer. Trish tells him that she shot Jess’ mom, and Malcolm finds this more than unsettling. Trish deflects by pointing out all the people he’s letting get away by working for Hogarth. I admit, neither is wrong here, but at least Malcolm knows he’s in the wrong.
After finally taking the time to find a reasonable disguise (though the Hellcat reference in the fitting room was appreciated), Trish sets out to find one of Hogarth’s clients who Malcolm’s been helping to exonerate. He is a serial rapist who’s been drugging his victims. It’s nice that Trish stops it, of course, but this whole scene is just a lot of cheese. I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not, but Trish’s lines here are so cheesy, and it feels like Trish is acting like a caricature of the hero she’s trying to be. It’s very cringe-inducing.
Malcolm is able to do his best Olivia Pope impression and blackmails the thief into settling his lawsuit for $50,000, which is way less than expected. He also hints that Trish should get a job to act as a cover for her vigilante side hustle, so now Trish sells sweaters on TV.
And that brings us back to when Trish was stalking Andrew Brandt. I won’t recap the details we’ve already seen, but we found out that Trish missed work twice in order to do her little stakeout and put her career at risk doing so. Trish almost gets a pick-me-up because after Jessica was stabbed and hospitalized, she asked for Trish to come see her. But! Jess’ injury didn’t give her a change of heart. She just wanted the name of the guy Trish stalked in order to get a lead on who may have stabbed her. Jess stops speaking to Trish again as soon as she get that info, turning away from her in her hospital bed, leaving Trish alone to storm out of the hospital.
Being the world’s moral compass sure is lonely, huh, Trish?
Jessica Jones Seasons 1-3 are available now on Netflix. Kiara can be reached on Twitter @DJPrincessK.