IN PARTNERSHIP WITh netflix
WRITTEN BY BRIDGET ARSENAULT
Jessica Jones is flawed, but that never detracts from her magnetism. Portrayed by Krysten Ritter in the new 13-part Netflix original series Marvel’s Jessica Jones, she is a credible character unlike anything we’ve seen on screen before. Like the world around us, in Jessica’s universe there’s sex, there’s violence and there are no excuses. As if to say life is messy, deal with it. And Jessica does. Jessica is a private investigator with her own firm, Alias Investigations. The offices are scant, the stench of whiskey is pervasive and the front door flounders on its hinges after an unfortunate “incident” with a client.
Learning to balance her extraordinary abilities with her very human anxieties and failings, Jessica flexes her cynicism daily. “A big part of the job is looking for the worst in people; it turns out I excel at that,” says Jessica.
“A big part of the job is looking for the worst in people.”
Jessica Jones
“A big part of the job is looking for the worst in people.”
Jessica Jones
“You don’t get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.”
Jessica Jones
“You don't get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.”
Jessica Jones
Through flashbacks and disjointed narratives, the show explores real problems and issues that dominate our daily headlines. As a young woman Jessica meets Kilgrave (David Tennant). With floppy brown hair, a British accent and a crooked smile, Kilgrave’s malice is unrelenting. Exercising mind control, for Kilgrave, viciousness and cruelty are like a Pavlovian response. As Jessica tries to distance herself from this villain, he seeks to suction them closer together. Kilgrave has no shades of humanity. Of him, Jessica says, “God didn’t do this, the devil did.”
Jessica’s childhood was not a happy one. Adopted by the pushy mother of the world’s highest-paid child star (whose daughter thankfully matures to be Jessica’s closest adult friend and confidante, Trish), Jessica is weighed down by a growing sense of alienation. “You don’t get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons,” Jessica shouts at her adoptive mother.
“I don't want to come home and find you bludgeoned to death with the vacuum cleaner.”
Jessica Jones
“I don't want to come home and find you bludgeoned to death with the vacuum cleaner.”
Jessica Jones
But who is Jessica Jones now?
With a curtain of black hair, a slash of red lipstick and kohl-lined almond eyes, she is a complex woman in control. Adjectival constructions like kick-ass and bad-ass might as well have been coined for Jessica Jones. Her style is subdued: low-slung light-wash jeans and a scuffed leather jacket. She’s the type of girl whose best friend is her only friend—Trish.
Jessica worries for Trish. Tougher than her pert, blonde demeanour immediately suggests, she is still no match for Kilgrave. Jessica says to Trish, “I don’t want to come home and find you bludgeoned to death with the vacuum cleaner.”
Trish doesn’t miss a beat. “We both know you don’t own a vacuum cleaner.”
“I don't want to come home and find you bludgeoned to death with the vacuum cleaner.”
Jessica Jones
But who is Jessica Jones now?
With a curtain of black hair, a slash of red lipstick and kohl-lined almond eyes, she is a complex woman in control. Adjectival constructions like kick-ass and bad-ass might as well have been coined for Jessica Jones. Her style is subdued: low-slung light-wash jeans and a scuffed leather jacket. She’s the type of girl whose best friend is her only friend—Trish.
Jessica worries for Trish. Tougher than her pert, blonde demeanour immediately suggests, she is still no match for Kilgrave. Jessica says to Trish, “I don’t want to come home and find you bludgeoned to death with the vacuum cleaner.”
Trish doesn’t miss a beat. “We both know you don’t own a vacuum cleaner.”
It’s true: there’s nothing Stepford here. Jessica doesn’t dwell on attributes like domesticity. And she doesn’t apologize for her late-night lifestyle. Hell’s Kitchen, New York is a world we recognize: seedy bars; nicotine-coloured streets and nocturnal subway rides; the sounds of breaking glass and emptied shot glasses slammed down on bar tops. When Jessica’s alarm blares—at 3:00 in the afternoon (her room a well-lit trail of booze bottles and discarded clothing), she turns towards it and crushes the device like a digestive biscuit.
She is truculent and tough-natured. Her past is a constant echo. Despite having experienced more trauma and malice than most people ever dream of, Jessica remains consistently calm; her face rarely reflects her interior.
“You have no idea what I’ve done. What he made me do,” says Jessica.
“Kilgrave leaves a trail of broken people behind him,” says Trish with a shudder.
But despite everything, Jessica’s driven to do something greater. “Look, I am not going to talk about my shitty story because there is always someone that has had it worse, someone's life that was ruined worse,” she yells.
Pervy Guys
Alias Investigations
Going Out
Neighbours
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Pervy Guys
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Alias Investigations
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Going Out
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Neighbours
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Character Insights
Trish Walker
Jessica’s anchor. Raised like sisters,Trish and Jessica have been friends since childhood; Trish’s family took Jessica in after she was orphaned. A former child star, model and now the host of a successful New York radio show, Trish Talk, she’s the all-American girl. But Trish is more than her slight frame and blond tresses—savvy, fearless and unrelenting—she’s not a sidekick but a partner.
She refuses to wallow or even reflect on her suffering. Instead, she deflects the sting with humour. When fired from a stultifying day job, she announces: “I need to update my resumé. Would you put day drinking under experiences or special skills?”
An accidental hero by her own admission, Jessica can both command a room and achieve total anonymity. Her demeanour is curt. Her conversation is without insulation. When Jessica first meets Luke Cage, the unassuming superhero cum bartender with unbreakable skin and an inky backstory, he scoffs at her “You’re a PI?”
“I’m just trying to make a living; you know booze costs money.” That’s the kind of caustic response Jessica excels at. Confident but self-critical, she is ambivalent towards prestige and recognition. Can she punch through a wall? Fly through the sky? Stop a moving car?
“A slow-moving car,” she quips.
“I need to update my resumé. Would you put day drinking under experiences or special skills?”
Jessica Jones
“God didn’t do this, the devil did.”
Jessica Jones
Through her work as a PI, Jessica’s world intersects with a cross-section of humanity. The likes of Jeri Hogarth, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, a fierce law attorney with a wardrobe full of power suits, sky-high stilettos and the ruthlessness to match.
And in a way, Jessica owes her strength to characters like The Hunger Games’s Katniss Everdeen, The Killing’s Sarah Linden and Captain America’s Peggy Carter—all among the growing host of female characters taking centre stage without reservation, without fear.
Peggy Carter was once quoted saying: “The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes, the best that we can do, is to start over,” an admission that has definite parallels to Jessica Jones’s outlook. And speaking of new beginnings, it seems without question that Marvel’s Jessica Jones marks something great, and the positive ripples from this strong, courageous and unapologetic woman are only just starting to form.
Women Of Influence
Peggy Carter
Clever and uncompromising Peggy Carter was an agent with the Strategic Scientific Reserve during the Second World War, serving alongside Captain America. She is both smart and stealthy. Her training ground was the British Secret Intelligence Service and there is little—from fighting Nazis to Soviet winters—that she is ill-equipped to handle.
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