A Major Character From 'Jessica Jones' Season 1 Returns & Fans Are Rethinking Everything
Jessica Jones Season 2 is the rare Netflix Marvel series that seems to improve as it goes on. The first few episodes drag as the show spins its wheels waiting to reveal Janet McTeer's character. But once she's allowed to be her full character, things pick up steadily. The series peaks in episode 11 with the return of Kilgrave to the show. Is Kilgrave really dead? How on earth is he able to be in Season 2 if Jessica offed him in Season 1? And how do the fans feel about his return? Warning: This post contains spoilers for Jessica Jones Season 2.
In the (sort of) words of Charles Dickens, let me quite clear about this:
Kilgrave was Dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Jessica Jones signed it: and Jessica's name was good upon 'Change, for anything she chose to put her hand to. Old Kilgrave was as dead as a door-nail.
When Kilgrave returns in Jessica Jones Season 2, it is, as one might say, the Ultimate Brainweasel. He is the voice of doubt, anger, and pain inside the deepest recesses of Jessica's mind. He is the voice when you wakes up at three in the morning and starts playing the memories of that time in third grade when the teacher made fun of you in front of the whole class, or that time at your first job when you got fired. He is the embodiment of impostor syndrome and all the worst self-criticisms one can think of, wrapped up in a helluva suit with an accent to die for.
In short, Kilgrave is every insecure women's worst nightmare and Jessica's best foe.
Fans were over the moon at his return. Partly because seeing Jessica fighting the ghost of Kilgrave (and sometimes multiple ghosts of Kilgrave) inside her own mind was the best thing we'd witnessed all season. Fans were also hyped because if this is how the show wants to bring Kilgrave back, it opens the door for Kilgrave to appear every season.
Moreover, it plays with the supposedly comforting trope "no one is ever really dead, as long as we keep them in our hearts and minds." Kilgrave may be evil. Jessica may have taken him down and prevented him from ever playing mind games with anyone else again. But as long as he is taking up space in her head, rent free, Kilgrave will never really be gone.
Fans hope the show can't stay away from Kilgrave either because any reason to bring back David Tennant is a good one in our books.
Oh, and because this is David Tennant, and Doctor Who jokes can't be far behind....
(During David Tennant's run as the Tenth Doctor, he continually wished that upon his next regeneration he would be a ginger. Sadly, he's now regenerated three times since then, and it still hasn't happened.)
Of course, those who are more into the comics had to come along and point out why keeping a bad man down is such a problem for the Netflix Marvel show. The Jessica Jones on the page does not have these problems plaguing her. On the page, Jessica has better friends.
Yeah, yeah, I know, Trish catches iPhones on her shoes now. I think throwing people into the sun is a way neater trick, don't you?
Maybe Jessica can get some new friends for when Season 3 rolls around. Considering how Season 2 ended, without them, it's just going to be her talking to the Kilgrave in her head for 13 episodes.
Actually, that doesn't sound so bad, does it?
