So, barring some issues (race whatnot and a related lack of intersectionality, an overall sense of 101-ness, etc.) I think many people would agree that the first season of Jessica Jones is definitely among the best seasons of Marvel television. The performances are strong, the story stays true to if not the beats or the tie-ins with the rest of Marvel canon at least the essence of the Alias comics, the revolutionary spirit of it feels perpetually relevant. (Though I’m going to say a bold thing: I’m glad it actually predates the #MeToo movement. I think #MeToo is absolutely important, necessary, and worth promoting, but given the way the rest of the series went, I can almost guarantee it would have gotten over-the-top to the point of being bad representation.)
I also personally really enjoyed The Defenders. It’s largely goofy as hell, sure, but I had a grand time (largely because of the competent and significant handling of my girl Colleen Wing [Jessica Henwick — and as always, #justiceforjessicahenwick]). At the end of this series, it seemed pretty clear where the next season of Jessica Jones would go: Jessica (Krysten Ritter) would continue to he emotionally and take cases, many undoubtedly involving D-list comics antagonists, she’d reconnect with Luke (Mike Colter) at least platonically (he we still dating Claire [Rosario Dawson] at the time, which I liked a lot, but Jess and Luke are a thing in the comics and that’s important), Trish (Rachael Taylor) would become Hellcat and get to be the hero she deserved to be. Maybe we’d tie in more frequently with other shows, too.
Oh, how wrong I was.
I should clarify two things before I continue. One, I only got halfway through season two and didn’t even bother watching season three, for a slew of reasons but many of them connected to: two, I am actually a Hellcat stan.
I loved Trish in season one, because… well, honestly, because I relate to most girls who are a little neurotic and want to be good (and to be able to Do Good in an active sense) despite doubting that they are, plus drift partner had already dibsed Jess. Then I saw the trade of Marvel Divas in the wild and picked it up out of curiosity about her comics counterpart. Then I was at my comic shop browsing right around the time the first issue of Kate Leth’s Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat came out and decided why not I like supporting lady comics. (That series is incidentally great and that iteration of the character is #relatable for me in a different way. One of my favorites of recent years, not that I’ve read all that many comics.) I then deep-dove into the whole history of Hellcat via Wikipedia. I give a lot of fucks about Hellcat, and therefore it should come as no surprise when I say:
Netflix Marvel did Hellcat so damn dirty.
But she’s far from the only one. So instead of critiquing every single thing that I hated about the second and third seasons of Jessica Jones, I’m going to take you through an outline of what I personally would have done instead.
Full story here.